The Policy of Truth PART FOUR

Now of course, moving in with my bro wasn't going to be enough for SIL.  The moment that she could somehow manage it, they were married and she was pregnant with their first. They now have three little darlings by the way. So, suddenly their space above mine was not anywhere near adequate enough for their rapidly growing family. For now, SIL accepted moving out of this space and renting something that was more suitable. In the meantime, their old unit was rented out. There was utterly no problem what so ever trying to get a tenant to fill their empty apt as our house was located in very desirable Old South. In fact, we had a waiting list. Without having to do anything at all for the most part, the tenant more than paid for my bro's share of our mortgage and then some.

You would think that this would be more than enough for SIL, but no, of course not. She viewed this house as tainted. He had lived their with that other woman after all so nothing short of him getting rid of this constant reminder would satisfy her. Now, never mind that by this time, my family had lived in our part of the house for close to seven years. We had put enough of our own money into its upkeep, etc but more than this, this was pretty much the only home that my daughter knew. She grew up here. She was barely four when I took possession of the house. She had only ever gone to the one public school. All of her friends were in this neighborhood, in fact, anything and everything she knew was to be found here.

It so didn't matter. SIL wore away at my bro until he himself was convinced that he absolutely had to sell this house. No amount of logic could change his mind. Why would anyone in this day and age get rid of an income property if you didn't need to? It just didn't or doesn't make sound business sense. Well, like everything else, she ended up prevailing and so the house was sold. It was sold at a loss as we didn't end up regaining all of our initial down payment but she didn't care. They still got money out of the deal and as she wasn't around seven years earlier when my bro and I threw $30 000 towards our down payment, what did she care what the actual amount of money was in the end? She's just one dumb stupid b***ch is all that I can say.

Actually, digging this particular memory up has now angered me so much, I must conclude this entry here rather than where I had initially planned on ending. I now need to do a bit of sulking.

Mainliner

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED 2005 07 29

OK it has been a crazy day at work which kind of sucks for a Friday as I tend to like to ease into my weekend. I apologize in advance to anyone actually reading this entry as my thoughts are all over the place plus combined with the fact that I am also working I suspect that this entry will have absolutely no flow. That being the case,  for some reason there are a few things kind of bothering me today that I need to vent about and this, I guess, is the place that I can do it.

Went to my girlfriend's before work today cause I owed her a little bit of money and I wanted to get that out of the way. Not only is she a good friend but she is also one of my dealers, one that I am ever slowly fazing out because it is getting harder and harder for her to separate work and business and as a result I am now having difficulty also so...Slightly veering off topic now. Told you there would be flow issues. I was a late bloomer so to speak as far as drugs are concerned. I never actually tried any until a few months before my twenty first birthday when I smoked my first joint. Now I am fairly confident that I have made up for lost time. And except for a six year period about a decade and a half ago when I didn't use or abuse anything except for cigarettes and alcohol I have pretty much used some sort of drug every day since my first joint.

This being the case, I also want to state that I think that the reason(s) I still use and abuse and don't seem to have this overwhelming guilt about my usage is that I really haven't had any dignity stealing experiences relating to my use. By this I mean that I have never had to use my body in any shape or form to acquire whatever happened to be my poison du jour. I know alot of female addicts who suffer terrible self-esteem issues because of some of the things that they may have done to get that much needed fix. I am not judging. I know how lucky I am to be in the position that I am in. I was lucky. I have never stolen to feed my addiction - well, I didn't return all of my father's painkillers to the pharmacy after he had passed away but I rationalized that one away. And I did bring back the majority of the stuff that my Mom had given me to return so...

Now I know that this seems to be going nowhere but trust me I have a point. OK so I have never had to sell my body or my firstborn or my husband but over the past year I have been loaning my vehicle to my friend to use while I am at work and for the use of it I usually get some sort of tip. Call this a rental charge. Now as we are first and foremost friends she tends to take a lot more liberties with me than I suspect she would with someone else. I know she does. She has become sloppy in what I think her responsibilities should be when she has my truck. Like I will ask it back at a certain time and she will show up three or four hours later or she won't be here to pick me up when I am done work or even better she will end up giving some lowlife creep a ride in it and then suddenly $750 worth of my husband's tools are missing. And she tells me that she only left it unlocked for about five minutes while she ran into her house to get this guy looked after. Yeah well that is all his friend, who was literally waiting in the bushes, needed to grap everything that was in our backseat. Then she says that this could have happened to anyone. Well, no that is not true because scum like him would never have been in my truck so he would have no idea what goodies I had stored there. Plus she doesn't think that she should be held financially responsible for these items yet the outstanding bill of $385 that I have with her has to be paid immediately or else.

Or else what? I won't get any more of your crap dope? I won't be left standing outside for an hour and a half at night in a rainstorm waiting to be picked up by my vehicle? I won't have stuff that my husband, not even me, uses to make a living stolen from my truck while you are looking after it and then don't do crap about it? I won't have to put another $1200 in repairs into the truck a day after you have had it for a three day period in which you towed a trailer that I specifically told you not to tow? I have put $5200 in repairs into the truck since Christmas plus have also paid the $440 a month we have to pay to get the stupid thing insured.

Anyway it is times like this that I end up getting kind of depressed about my habit. I feel dirty or compromised or something that I can not quite articulate. I resent my usage I guess. Like I said I think for the most part I have been really lucky. I have never had to pawn all of my worldly possessions. In fact I have only been to a pawn shop maybe twice in my life and the visits were totally not related to dope. I have never been homeless or even jobless. I have never been really hungry. Like there have been lots of times that I haven't wanted to eat but I pretty much have always been able to eat.  I sometimes shudder when I stop to think about the shear amount of money that I have probably spent over the last twenty years but it is not as if I can take that money with me either so I can usually shake that thought pretty fast.

Again I am not entirely sure what I wanted to really express today. I was just mad and what actually set me off is that when I went to pay part of my debt she of course was out of pills - so, yes I am actually at work having not gotten anything prior which is a minor miracle in its own right - so I said that I would grab a bit of speed instead. I just wanted a quarter so I gave her another $30. She said that she didn't have any broken out that I would have to take a half but that I could use this as a down payment towards the next time she needs the truck. So I look at it just as she is hustling me out the door and I say to her that there is no way that this is a half and she said that I would have to weigh it at home. Now she knew that I was on my way to work and that I did not have any scales at home so I don't know what game she was trying to play. I said no that it was a quarter and that she in no way was going to get the truck and say that she had already given me something. Yuck, feel gross just writing/typing this out. 

The Policy of Truth PART THREE

You know there is one thing that constantly amazes me about people. Why ask a question if you're not going to be happy with the answer? This was kind of the end, if there was really even any beginning, of mine and Jim's relationship with my brother and his new girlfriend. Of course, right after that first night, they had to see each other and immediately set off on a clandestine affair. Initially they attempted to use both Jim and I as their scapegoats as far as their lies, etc went with his current girlfriend, but we put a swift end to being involved with any of their duplicity. It was hard enough encountering  his current livein on a daily basis as it was. She obviously knew that something was up.

So, one day less than a month into all of this mess, my bro approaches me asking for advice. He said that him and SIL were fated, that it was truly love at first sight, blah, blah, blah... I told him that if this was indeed the case then they should wait until he had a chance to explain everything to his current livein and at the very least, allow her to exit the situation with her dignity and self-respect intact. SIL approached Jim with the same question and concerns, and he essentialy answered almost exactly what I had. Now of course neither one of them decided to follow any of our advise and, in fact, ended up resenting us emmensely in the future for not being there with our support when they wanted and needed it.

Goodness gracious. Whatever. What ended up resulting was one disasterously messy breakup for my bro and his current. For almost a solid month, Jim, Sara and I were subjected to all kinds of drama directly above our heads as various pairs continually did some sort of battle. Finally one day, all returned to relative quiet. Out with the old and in with the new.

Now SIL had quite a few issues that were not first apparent but quickly revealed themselves. For starters, she had my bro paint each and every room new colours because she wanted to erase any memories of his past living situation. Any furniture that he bought with the other one, had to be removed and replaced. Actually, not just inanimate objects, but essentially, she wanted his entire past eradicated so any friends that he had associated with regularly while with her had to go as wel. Unfortunately, Jim and I ended up falling into this catergory also so it wasn't very long until we were both chucked off to the side. 

I mean, it was slow and insideous initially but the end result was the same. It's now been over a decade and this aspect of our relationships have never been repaired. Now, obviously I'd been his sister for three and a half decades and it was hard for me, but for Jim it was particularly crushing. At this point the two of them had been best friends for twenty years. Rarely had you ever not seen one of them without the other. All of their previous girlfriends knew and respected this and learned to adapt. This was the first time ever that something had pulled them apart. To this day, Jim still has a difficult time accepting what happened and what has allowed to continue.

 

introducing...CANADA'S NEXT TOP MODEL!

...well, not really, but I must confess that I do take a certain amount of perverse delight watching her reaction whenever I do start teasing her about sending in her photos to the show and entering her as a contestant! She, for some reason, doesn't seem to find this anywhere near as funny as her Mom, does!...OK doesn't every Mom in the whole wide world think that her child is simply magnificent?

Anyway, here are some recent pics of my daughter that I had fun playing around with today using PSP XI. Enjoy.

The Policy of Truth PART TWO

In 1991, I was four years into what was my first real job after having graduated from university. I had been fortunate enough to have received a couple of promotions and by this time I was working in Marketing with new product development. I worked in what was know as the collectible's industry i.e. limited edition plates, dolls, cars, etc. It was an extremely lucrative market in the late 1980s and early 1990s. As part of my job, I got to do quite a bit of traveling, which was fun, as well as was given a nice healthy expense account, but for the most part, I worked Monday to Friday 9 to 5. As a result, Sara was in daycare. She ended up going to the same daycare for five years, until she started school full time.

I loved that daycare and was actively involved with it. I served on its Board of Directors as Vice President the entire time that she attended. As a result, I got to get to know the teachers there quite well - I had hiring and firing privileges cause of my position on their board, as well as cheque signing privileges. One of Sara's teachers just happened to be my future sister-in-law. By 1994, my brother and I ended up purchasing a house together in Old South. It was an extremely large duplex. Jim, Sara and I lived on the main floor which was a three bedroom while my brother and his then girlfriend lived on the top floor which was an equally spacious two bedroom. We shared a huge backyard which overlooked a park and both of us were fortunate enough to each have a huge porch - ours was in the front while my brother's was in the back off of his kitchen and over top of my family room. It was truly an idyllic arrangement.

By this time, Jim was working afternoons which meant he worked from 4pm until 4am. I still worked 9 to 5 for the most part, but once a week each month, I had to remain in the office until 7pm to take my turn managing the late shift. This kind of sucked but nothing that I could really do about this. Certainly raised a bit of a problem concerning collecting Sara from daycare as they closed at 6pm. On these days, my brother and his girlfriend were kind enough to grab Sara for me.

Whenever he picked her up, SIL (sister-in-law) made a point on commenting on him. She went out of her way to mention how cute he was, how kind, how nice he seemed to be, blah, blah, blah. Now I may have thought this kind of odd but to be honest, way back then I didn't really think too much about it. SIL had also started to do some babysitting for me on the side if I ever happened to need one during the week at night or on the weekend. On these occasions, she always asked if my brother was around and if he was, made a point of engaging him in some sort of conversation. Never did she seem to stop to consider that my bro had a live in girlfriend and perhaps, this wasn't all that appropriate.

Now by this point in time, the fall of 1995, my bro and his gf were actually starting to have relationship issues. Jim and I couldn't help overhear some of their ever increasing fights through the ceiling. We did our best to look the other way and not get involved. We did great until one evening when SIL was downstairs at our house kind of tipsy and decided to invite my equally tipsy bro downstairs. He didn't decline her invite and about three hours later, Jim and I were frantically looking for both of them. We found them huddled together out back and by now, both of them were convinced that it was fate and that they were made for each other. WTF?