JOURNAL

First day back to work since calling out as a result of The Rona for a good number of days and it was a ten hour day. Uffda. Thankfully my job is pretty low impact most days. Certainly so on Sundays. But ten hours is ten hours. And I am not entirely out of The Rona Forest just yet, at least in terms of lingering symptoms. Slept like a champ last night (got really high beforehand, so I'm sure that helped), and woke up on time without worry and feeling pretty damn near right as rain. But, cough and runny nose made themselves at home, again, in relatively short order. It was nothing like the previous days, though. And the lethargy levels are next to none at this point, thank fuck.

My kid is doing even better, as is my brother. My kid was pretty stoked to find out they have sick pay they can use for time missed, first job they've had with sick pay and they're pretty stoked about it. Don't blame 'em. I used all mine up addressing other health stuff. Which is why I pulled a ten hour day today. To make up for lost time due to the damned Covid thing. And today, specifically, because it is the start of a new work week. With my scheduled hours moving forward this week, today will be ten hours of overtime at time-and-a-half pay. Big brain move, on my part, to clock ten hours at time an a half to recoup a decent chunk of my missed hours the week prior, if I don't say so myself. Moms is still gettin' fairly beat up, but she was the last to get it.

I feel like I journal too much about my mom, but that's the type of person she is. And I'm not alone in feeling the way I do. Had a lengthy and ranty heart-to-heart with my brother about her. And both of my kids have expressed similar feelings in relation to her. And recent events in her personal life, as far as friendships go, only further solidify the fact that she's a wreck of a human being. To put it nicely. My brother and I always say she makes it nearly impossible to love her. And that's facts. Anyhow. She has weaponized her catching The Rona to do what she always does whenever there's an upcoming family gathering, and that is to ruin it because of something she is dealing with. I have journaled about this many times, such a fucked up occurance, but it is what is. She, without fail - except for a single solitary time in my entire life - makes any family gathering, which are almost always birthdays or holidays or causes for celebration of one sort or another, all about her. And not in any way other fashion than abhoorently so. It becomes about her and it becomes a cause for all her trauma and baggage to bubble to the surface and rather than address it and deal with it or, at minimum, push it aside for a few hours, she takes out her issues related to said trauma and baggage on whoever is within spitting distance at each and every single such gathering - save for one in my entire time as her child, as mentioned. Those are some pretty shit odds. And here we are again.

It's our fault she caught Covid. As if we almost did it on purpose because we didn't get the most recent booster. The booster that is documented to have no data to prove its efficacy. The booster that she, herself, got who managed to still contract Covid. I mean, do I even need to say more? But yes, it's our fault. So she is now "forced" to isolate for the foreseeable future and will not engage in any group activity in the home with family. But is still planning to return to her wokrplace after she tests negative. What? Even a week out, assuming she tests negative as she should based on the trajectory of recovery shown in the rest of us, she is planning to sit out my kids birthday by herself in supposed forced isolation. Despite going to work, for certain, between now and then. To speak nothing of the grocery store and who knows where else. I feel like a crazy person, but the hypocrisy is real and on full display. I don't fucking even know anymore. I want to journal about her less. I want her bullshit to be my bulsshit even more less.

I want to feel like I don't have to journal about her so much. Or at all, really. But there's truly no way to describe how she is if you're not on our side of the looking glass, how she cannot be talked to as an adult without feeling as though she's attacked and then reacting as such, how she turns each and every situation in her life that doesn't go exactly how she'd like it to into a personal attack against her.

I'd like a day where I could just sit down and journal something like "today was a good day, front to back".

In positive news, though! The new Brutus record dropped this past Friday. I had been looking so forward to it over the last couple months as they released singles and accompanying videos. Each as amazing as the previous, if not moreso. But the bitch that is The Rona had me fucked up to the point that I had forgotten it was coming and somehow managed to ignore my alerts for when it dropped. I listened to it twice between calls of duty at work today and it is - as expected - absofuckinglutely brilliant in every way!

I don't have a Brutus record on my favorite albums list yet, and for good reason. I can't pick just one! And that's saying something. The band hasn't even been around a decade at the time of this journal entry and their first legit album wasn't released until 2017. That's a relatively short career within which to have a total of three albums and a live album out under your belt that are all truly amazing and breathtaking from front to back. But, this is Brutus we are talking about. And "Unison Life", their most recent, just follows suit and shows growth and is a wildly enjoyable and amazing record. I love it so much. It will likely take some time for Brutus to appear on my favorite albums page, but don't hold it against the band. They're just amazing.