Disclaimer-ish

No, don't worry. The last post was not as ominous as I'm sure it seemed.

I'm just frustrated.

Very, VERY frustrated.

The barbarian hordes of Squeakdom have returned, in all their loud and un-perceptive glory, and I am absolutely without hope of a moment of peace, quiet, and/or privacy.

I don't dislike Squeaky, really I don't. I just need my freaking SPACE, and space is the one thing it feels like I can't have.

"Just TELL her when she's getting on your nerves," Tim advises. Okay, easier said than done, for one thing--remember who you're dealing with here? I'm Ms. Nonconfrontational--and more importantly: I've tried. Doesn't work.

Example. As I wrote this post:

She made a phone call to a friend on the house phone. (She did ask before using the phone. This is why I simply can't hate the kid; she's TRYING to be respectful and polite. She asks before she takes food, uses the phone, borrows anything, uses the washer. She clearly wants my good opinion, and she's clearly grateful for the accommodations.) She left a message, and a couple of minutes later the friend called back. She was pacing around the living-room as she talked, making it impossible for me to continue writing, and so I asked her if she could maybe go in Tim's room. Instead, she finished the conversation, handed me back the phone (with a "thank you"), and sat down on the couch to chat with me some more. It was only ten minutes later, when Tim came back downstairs from taking his shower, that she followed him back into the bedroom and they closed the door.

Squeaky doesn't like to be alone. She's said as much several times; for one, with the life she's led, I'm sure she's never learned the art of being good company for herself, and I'm sure she's got plenty of demons in her head that come out when she's left with no one but herself. I can understand that. And I know she's not TRYING to crowd me or piss me off--she's said she thinks of Tim and I as "family" and she's thankful that we're looking out for her best interests. She's not TRYING to step on my toes, but when it comes to the issue of personal space, I'm so fanatical that she simply hasn't got a chance of NOT stepping on them. I recognize this, and it's not her fault--but it doesn't make it any easier when I come home after a long day at work and want nothing more than dinner, a beer, and a chance to un-knot myself. I know it's up to me to be flexible, and to be direct yet gentle when I just can't stand it anymore--but part of this frustration is that at the moments I need my space the MOST, I have the LEAST ability to keep those things in mind. It's a thorny situation, and I realize that some of it, if not most of it, is of my making.

But knowing what the problem is, and owning it, doesn't SOLVE it. And I'm not sure what will do that.

She's looking for housing. And in the manner of bureaucracies everywhere, things are moving at roughly the pace of cold molasses, and no one's returning phone calls. I know she's frustrated too. I feel bad for her, and I'm glad I can help...

...but it does make me tired.

OMGZOICKSBBQWAFFLEPONIES!!!11!!ELEVEN

For the love of all that is good and holy,

CAN SOMEONE PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE MAKE HER SHUT UP AND LEEEEAAAVVVEEE?????????

My hai blood preshurez and tenshun heddakes--let me show u them.

More details to follow. Pray for me. :)

Dear Tim

Message left taped to my roommate's door this morning as I left for work:

Dear Tim...

Now, you know I love you to bits.

BUT.

There are very, VERY few messages which merit calling me after midnight on a work night.

1. "I am in jail"
2. "I have been (shot, stabbed, beaten) and am now hospitalized."

In fact, those are about the only two I can think of. (Please note that whatever-it-was you were attempting to communicate last night? Did not make the list.)

Further: Telling me "I'll call you back" does not help matters; not only am I now awake, but I am also unable to go back to sleep because I am waiting for the next call. Calling me back an hour later and saying "Nevermind"? Also does not work.

Since pretty much everything in this house depends on my ability to keep this job, and my ability to keep this job depends almost entirely on my ability to get enough sleep, I trust you will see the wisdom of NEVER...DOING...THAT....AGAIN.

(Note: I am not mad. I was mad last night. I am not mad now. But I needed to make this point.) Love ya...--G

I am tired.
My head hurts.
I apparently slept the rest of the night with my jaw clenched, judging from the state of my neck muscles.
I feel like crap. (I almost typed "I feel like carp" which would have been no less appropriate. I can't imagine carp are happy fish.)
I want a NAP.
And a truncheon, with which to whack my darling roomie.
Suddenly, a studio apartment--with no phone!--sounds like a verrrrry enticing idea.

--enormous sigh of total relief--

Guys, really.
I'm trying.
I'm trying to be good, trying to be kind here. I know Squeaky's life can't be easy. I'm trying.

But today, after I'd dropped her and Tim off at the baseball game, after which Tim was going to the bar and Squeak was going to her dad's for the rest of the week at least....well, when I walked in the door I pretty much did the Dance of Total Joy.

I cannot stand hearing another off-key pop song.
I cannot stand to have the plot of another Disney-Channel movie related to me in excruciating detail.
I cannot stand to listen to another story about some almost-famous person whom she almost knows, or almost encountered, or whose brother's cousin's daughter's babydaddy's sister-in-law's auntie went to grade-school with.
I cannot stand to watch the same MadTV skit on YouTube again.
I cannot stand to hear her and Tim talking over each other, no one listening, each one getting louder and louder and louder.

I work hard. I come home at the end of a day, or at the end of a week, and I ask for exactly two things. One is a Pepsi. (Don't ever be the person to drink the last Pepsi at my house, friends; bad things happen to people who drink the last Pepsi.)

The other, though, is a reasonable interval of peace and/or quiet, during which I can recompose myself, wind down, unscrew my neck-muscles and relax. That is all. Not much to ask, is it? I mean, I don't THINK it's much to ask....No, really--IS it??

To walk in the front door and find the TV and the computer speakers both going at once, in two totally different sonic assaults--with Squeaky singing and dancing along to the computer while watching Whatever on TV, with Tim going through his music library at intense volume, all while the two of them bicker and the cats fight in the background...

I'm exaggerating, I'm sure.

What I'm NOT exaggerating, though, is that last night, for the first time in absolutely as long as I can remember in my adult life--I snapped. I yelled. Really yelled. (The last time I remember yelling AT someone? 1993. I was with my ex-husband, and I was PISSED.) I was attempting to convey necessary information to them--information I knew they would ask for within minutes, if they didn't hear me this time--and they were bickering on inconsequentially, and all the noise and clutter and sonic chaos of the past week just overwhelmed my filters, and I finally just lifted up my voice and yelled "HEY! STOP! I'M TALKING NOW!" They looked at me, Tim especially, as though I'd just lost my mind entirely. Tim has known me for so long, and has seen me angry so rarely, that he realized immediately the wisdom of shutting the hell up. That's the advantage of not having a noticeable temper; when you finally do lose it, people sit up and take notice.

And so I simply said what I was trying to say, apologized for snapping, and let them continue on with what they were doing. (Which was "bickering extensively", should you wonder.)

I'm trying, really. I've tried to be there, to listen to Squeaky when she needs someone to talk to. I've been less-charitable than I would like, I know...But it doesn't--does it?--make me a bad person, if I'm almost incapacitated with happiness at her departure??