Lazy Funday

My husband does not lay around. At least, not for days a time. He likes to be doing things. For the most part, I'm the same way. Every now and then, I just want to spend a whole weekend in bed. Forgive me for my childless indulgence, but I work hard. I don't get to be a lazy ass very often. I like laying around.

My job requires thinking. Lots of it. All the time. If you combine this with the new ventures that seems to be coming to fruition around me, there isn't a lot of turn-off-and-chill-out time. If there is one thing I am (usually) good at, it's thinking about nothing at all. I can just shut it down and space out. Usually, I end up dozing off. It ties into my never-ending ability to be able to fall asleep during a commercial break.

Anyway, husband tends to make me feel bad about being lazy because, well, I'm being lazy and he's not. He doesn't do it on purpose. It would irritate me if he was sitting around while I was busting my ass.

Not this weekend though.

I guess it's because he was out of the country for a few days and, while they were there for play, he didn't get a lot of time to be lazy. They were exploring and climbing things and doing boy stuff. So this weekend, the first one since he's been home, he has literally been in bed the whole time. He did get up this afternoon to do the lawn, but other than that, it has been a Big Bang Theory marathon and laying around.

It's been a good weekend.

I'm still ready for bed, though.

As always, it's hip to be square (and lazy!), kids.

Somebody That I Never Used To Know

I've talked about my ridiculous affection for "Glee" before. I've also talked about how I sometimes worry about the content (here). 

I got a text at 2 a.m. Sunday morning from my brother that said, "They found Cory Monteith dead in a hotel room."

It was like a punch to the stomach. It was a punch to the stomach followed by abdominal confusion as to why it stung so much.

I didn't know Cory Monteith, obviously, but I knew Finn Hudson. I knew him so well. I knew him because I spent many ugly cry moments sobbing over his relationship with Rachel and how it reminded me very much of my personal teenage heartbreak. The heartbreak is in the past, but the moments of hurt that came with it sometimes pop up. I bonded with those characters over how much I just understood their fiction. 

In some ways though, I knew Cory Monteith. I knew him as formerly bright-eyed kid who had been through more in his short time on this earth than most people in much longer. I knew him from the look of desperation I have seen from people who can't believe how far they've let this go and how many people they've hurt him the process. I knew him from hearing that this is someone's "last chance" because they don't think they'll live through another relapse. I see him walk into my office every day.

I know him. 

But I don't.

We don't know what took Cory Monteith from this earth to wherever he is (or isn't) now. Those answers have not come out yet. While we wait for that information, I wonder if it's any of our business?  In fact, I know it's not. The truth of could leave a now deceased public figure open to the ridicule that comes from people who think they know better. Everyone knows better than addicts. Addicts know better than addicts. If that made an ounce of difference, there would be no addicts in the world. Judging someone's choices that you can't possibly understand is like yelling at someone in Spanish when they only speak Farsi. Will we feel any different about him if we get confirmation that it was an overdose? I can't say that it will hurt more, but it will hurt differently. It will hurt in the way that makes you want to yell, "HOW COULD YOU DO THIS?! HOW COULD YOU HURT THE PEOPLE THAT LOVE YOU SO MUCH?"

But if yelling that made a difference, I would be hoarse from unrelenting attempts to get that across to people who were on the road to a similar fate.

It just doesn't work like that. You can't talk logic to an addict when he or she is behaving like an addict just like you can't poetically coerce a diabetic's body into creating insulin. You have to wait for them to want it as much as you do and hope that it happens before they're dead. 

You have to wait. 

And wait and wait.

And sometimes get a glimmer of hope. Sometimes a whole damn ray of light.

And sometimes, you find yourself waiting again.

We don't know how he went, but we know that we miss him. We don't know what took him, but we know it's still unfair. Life is unfair. Death is too. Just don't spout off about how you know better. It's not relevant. What's relevant is that if this was an overdose, it kills too many people who deserve better than a life of addiction and death at the hands of their illness.

And please, don't stop believing. 

The "P" Word

Lately, there has only been on "P" word rumbling around in my brain. It's pretty much always there, any it will change the rest of my life. It involves little feet and lots of love and late nights and excitement. The thoughts of it tend to be self-centered and rarely branch outside of myself or my husband. They're about what I want and what I need so that I can someday share with some little person. Even though it involves someone else, it's pretty much all about me.

Until today. I met another "P" word. I don't like it very much. It made me cry. In some other ways, it made me relieved. 

Parkinson's.

Doc has Parkinson's Disease. 

Doc, my best friend and dad, the person I work with every day and who has supported me through every single thought that I have ever had, has Parkinson's. 

Well, fuck.

We knew for a while something was up. He was having trouble walking and would seem to forget how to use his legs occasionally. He would sometimes walk with a cane, but he couldn't figure out how to use it. He couldn't get a rhythm going when he was trying to walk with it. A few years ago, he was put on a medication for what they called a "Parkinsonian Shuffle". (I have since found out that this is nothing like the Cupid Shuffle, in case you were wondering.) The medicine didn't help at all and, in fact, just made him very drowsy. They tried it again a few months later, and it made him spontaneously puke. (Beeteedubs, that was gross.) They're now trying it again. I wish they would try something else. but I guess we'll see what happens.

As a family, the diagnosis has not rocked us too terribly. We needed answers as to why he was having so much trouble, and this might be it. Maybe the medicine isn't right, but the diagnosis puts us in the correct direction. It has gotten to the point where I don't like to go out with my dad because everything he does stresses me out. I worry about him getting up or going to the bathroom alone. I worry about what he eats and choking on things. I would have to take complete control of the entire outing to make sure that nothing went wrong or I would be a wreck the whole time. 

Today, I breathed a little. Maybe we will get this figured out, and I won't be responsible for worrying for two, which often feels like 10. 

Maybe things are just going to be okay.

That would just be swell.

As always, it's hip to be square, kids.