Whines

[brigdh]

Ughh, I do not want to write about how "the specific world area and language training is related to your academic and career goals". Is this why I have put off doing anything about it until the night before the fellowship application is due? Quite possibly!

At least this is the last of the applications I have to do. Once I send this email in, I'm done.

Anyway, for the moment I'm going to rant instead. I got a card from my grandmother today (although I suppose technically it came yesterday, since there's no mail on Sundays, but since I'm the only one capable of checking our mailbox*, if I don't get around to bringing the mail in, it just sits there till the next day), which makes two in about a week. I loathe getting cards from my grandmother; I resent their false sense of familial tenderness. They inevitably have some archeology article she clipped out of a newspaper- and anything about archeology which gets printed in a newspaper is 1. years out of date, 2. written to be read by the lowest common denominator, and 3. has nothing at all to do with my topics of study, somewhat similar to sending an article about a breakthrough in cancer research to a podiatrist. Of course, she would be aware of these things if she ever bothered to ask, but she doesn't really care. She doesn't send these things for my benefit; it's part of some mental checklist of "being a good person" she has: write cards, visit, ask after people's well-being. Actual feelings of affection or caring are irrelevant. Which annoys me more than anything. I'm not an adornment, none of my accomplishments are hers, and if she doesn't want anything more than something to list when she talks to her friends, she can leave me well the fuck alone.

God. I swear that I am normally a very nice person, but being around my grandmother for any length of time transforms me into a smirking, arrogant mass of malevolence. Like, to the point where other people notice and, apparently, gossip about it, which I know because people who were not even present on particularly bad occassions are very well-informed about them. The most famous of which seems to be the time when she asked my little brother- who was only 13 at the time- whether he'd danced with any "black girls" at the party his school had had a few days before, which was just really the straw that broke the camel's back, because I refused to allow him to answer and screamed at her for several minutes about bringing her fucking insipid racism into my city, my house, my family.

And seriously, when do I scream at anyone? When do I do things like announce, "Please, we're trying not to encourage her" as snarkily as possible when the 'her' is present in the room? When do I do get the point that my father (who for the record, would probably be more concerned if I started wearing dresses than if I got into a fistfight) will actually track how annoyed I get so that I can be safely shuttled into another room before things get bad?

Blah, whatever. I hate her, I hate who I am when I'm around her, and I hate the presence of her "Look What a Wonderful Grandmother I Am!" cards in my mail.


* That's not sarcasm. The mailboxes in our building have locks that require the delicacy of a master spy to open, and I am apparently the only one of the four of us who has the touch. Seriously, not even the people who work at the desk can open the things most of the time.

Comments

[p-zeitgeist.livejournal.com]

My. God. Is there some secret research facility where they clone them?

I don't just sympathize, I identify. As a sampler, I once had an utter meltdown at my grandmother in a hospital room, because she was refusing the assistance of a really wonderful nurse on the grounds that the nurse was too fat to be permitted to touch her. Leaving me to rant and storm about who was she, Cleopatra, Queen of the fucking Nile, only with incontinence issues?? It was not exactly my finest hour. I mean, seriously. Where do these people come from, and why are they related to us?

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Oh, god, that's terrible. I'd love to know where they do come from; I can't picture anyone acting like this at a younger age. How do you live for so many years and yet remain so utterly unconnected to humanity?

[osumbhulk.livejournal.com]

Grandmothers are truly amazing in that respect. Mine is quite possibly cut from the same mold. She will not go to a doctor or nurse if they are of middle eastern descent. She calls them "A-rabs" and "sand n*ggers." Of my graduating cum laude, she asked if that was graduating with a 4.0. When I told her no, that was a 3.5+, she said, "Well, I guess you had a disappointing experience. You could have done better, right?" Then she prodded me into discussing the noble factors of my college days that contributed to me not acing every class I took so that she might defend my name to all her neighborhood friends. I full believe she keeps a checklist of accomplishments in her purse. She hopes that I will someday "find Jesus."

Also, she is known to water the lawn in her underwear.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

See? See! What is up with these people? I just do not understand how they get through life acting like this. Although about watering the lawn in her underwear... ew.

[redshoeson.livejournal.com]

WOAH.

::hides from teh Angry!Brigdh::

I had no idea those cards made you so upset. I thought you /liked/ them. I just remember you showing them to me when you got them. Maybe I was thinking too much about the articles?

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Argh, hate. But occasionally I am amused by the stupidity of them, which might have been why I seemed happy.

[questionable537.livejournal.com]

Hm? You just reminded me to check my mail. I haven't gotten around to doing so in...months. >_<

Eh, my grandparents are all right. For the most part they're in the liberal category, and their only flaw in how they've treated me is in their misbegotten attempt to raise me from one or two thousand miles away. Quite happily, they failed miserably.

...But I don't feel like checking my mail. The box is probably full of expired ads and "join our sorority" memos. And quite possibly my Christmas presents. =/

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Hee. Don't you ever get anything important in the mail? I have to check for orders from the internet and grad applications and such.

[questionable537.livejournal.com]

Important things? Probably...about twice a semester. My campus is entirely online when it comes to spam, and my family is the same. There's little reason to check the mail.

And I have my grad aps sent to a friend's box, since she actually checks her mail. >_<

...Also, I think I procrastinated too late. The post office is closed for the day.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Heh. I think I just like checking the mail. The boxes are in the lobby with the elevator, which the slowest elevator IN THE WORLD, so I've got it down to where I can push the button, go check the mail, and come back in time to get on the elevator. Otherwise I'd just have to stand there and wait.

Which means that I tend to check it several times a day, just 'cause I'm there.

[kessie.livejournal.com]

*shrugs* I liked my grandmother on my mother's side. She was lovely, and she was the only one in the family who encouraged me in my writing (she's also the reason I got addicted to reading and books). Plus, I wasn't allowed to eat sweets when I was a kid, so she used to hide some away for me and I used to have some when I went to visit her (oh, yeah, she lived right next store to me *g*). She died when I was 14, so I think she had a few prejudices (but they were mostly against family members who weren't very nice, not specific groups of people) but I didn't really know about them. I imagine if she's lived longer I would have become aware of them, but I prefer to stay with the rose-tinted memories I have of her. :)

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

That's so nice. I'm fonder of my maternal grandmother, too. Heh, maybe there's something about the grandparents on that side of the family.