It is Friday, and that means it is the day I get out of bed in the grey of dawn to spend forty-five minutes being berated by my deeply disappointed father. Then I go back to bed, lie there an hour or more, and sometimes fall back into a blissful sleep.
After today's phone call I lied in bed for two hours thinking about my father's statement that I was "not a nice person." I was thinking about how much I hate him about now, how I just don't care anymore and fuck them all.
Apparently when I think about these sorts of things I sound like a four-year-old girl having a tantrum. But this morning I did not afterwards slam any doors.
My father is angry at me for not indulging Brother Number Two's many phantom afflictions, each one a bottomless pit. My father was never angry at (Dead) Brother Number One's neglect, nor Brother Number Four's neglect. My father holds me to a different set of rules entirely and for most things. He doesn't understand why I make art, why I have the job I have so I can make more art, and when am I going to get a "real job?" He doesn't like that I ride a bike and don't have a car. He doesn't like the way I eat, the way I dress, the way I look, the way I live. Also, it's important to him that I wake up early every week so he can reiterate all these disappointments, over and over.
I came down to work and crossed paths with the gentleman who tidies around the building - the garbage area and watering - before going off to his full time job. He greeted me kindly and then apologized and then said, I have to go to work, I have a real job.
I wanted to kill him but instead I walked into work and cried.
chapter 3.