Brothers, Boys, & Buttfaces .... feeling chipper

Alright, so I'll try to make this quick as I haven't posted in over a week, I've gotten some lovely feedback, & I have to be asleep half an hour ago to be up for work in the morning.

On Brothers:
I'm sending him a journal. I love the guy - I can't help it. He's got problems, but he's my only sibling & honestly, he's a pretty smart guy with a great personality when he's not on something. Dumb boy. Anyway, he hasn't written, and though I thought that was going to make me feel bad, it doesn't. I mentioned before how he'd written the last time he was in a program, but I never wrote him back. I had started a response, but when I got more than half way through with it, I got mad and stopped. Mad at him for waiting so long to reconnect & mad at myself for "falling" for it. We talked about it very openly later when he'd been home for awhile so I figured it was water under the bridge.

I'm trying to see things from his point of view though, and I think not getting a response hurt him more than he let on. I'm gonna give him the benefit of the doubt here. When he's clean and we're around each other, we really do get along very well (it's just those times are so few & far between). He's mentioned before about wanting to connect with me but having feelings of guilt, so maybe he just doesn't know how to go about it.

All that to say this: In his letter to my mom this week he said he was ABSOLUTELY not going back to his wife (believe me, he's messed up but she's the poster child of dysfunction). That's always been his problem before when he's gotten into a program or moved out. He does great on his own but then they get back together & it all falls apart. She just isn't willing to change. Anyway, he told my mom it really is over this time (we'll see) & he's signed up for a 3 month program at the facility he's in & possibly may even be staying for a year. It's a local place, and as long as he keeps a part-time job, they make allowances for time out to see family more than in the shorter programs.

Ha. All of that to say this: I'm going to make the first step here. The kid has always been a writer. Poetry, stories, journaling... he's always had spirals and stray notes around full of stuff he's written. So, I got him a journal, a nice one - leather bound, something that he can set aside and really pour his thoughts into. I don't think he's ever really had one - just the spirals. Maybe it won't really matter to him, but I know that it makes a real difference in the quality of what I draw or write when I have a nicer book rather than just stray paper. I put more effort into it. Anyway, I'm going to make the gesture. I'm not going to make a big production of it, just going to drop it off with the lady at the desk & go... let him do with it what he will - All I'm even writing in it is: Love Leah.

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't nervous.

On Boys & Buttfaces.
I'll elaborate on these more later as I took too much time on the Brothers. As usual, I had more to say than I realized. But to summarize:

Boys... don't listen. I move slowly. I tell them up front. They say this is cool, but then they get all crazy. For real man, be calm. New "possible" boy seems to be repeating the pattern, but I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt here also and a little more time to calm down.

Buttfaces... another satisfied customer. My polite helpfulness results in a completely opposite response from belligerent(sp?) angry man. My "attitude" disgusted him so badly that he declared he no longer even wanted the book he had ordered. To which I said (shrugging one shoulder), "Um... ok"
Yeah he... he really didn't like that so much. There was more. It was humorous. It involved my manager.
(Had I not had a ginormous amount of wonderful customers all day to counteract his angry retardedness, I might not feel the same way, but I did - and I am still laughing.)

Ah - life. It is an amusing thing. *sigh*

Peace out