Stress, Strife and Stupidity

I haven't posted in awhile and since my absence has been noted by at least one person, I figured an explanation was in order (that, and I want to purge my brain a little.)

I don't feel like going into the exact details of everything that's gone on in the last few weeks, so here's the basic info about the big offenders:

My nephew. He's been living with us (me, Harper and my parents) full-time since the day before Thanksgiving. He and his mom had a falling-out due to his behavior so my mom told him he could stay here. Well, his behavior has gotten worse since then and he and I had a scuffle last friday. We're getting along ok now, but his attitude and the things that have happened due to that have caused a great deal of unease in the house. Which leads me to...

My parents. My mom has pretty much had enough of my nephew, but she doesn't quite know what to do about it. She knows that there's only a couple of things she can do to get him to straighten up, but they're the hard choices. She's been put in that position before by other people (including me) and when it came down to it, she was capable of doing the whole 'tough love' bit and it worked each time. But the thing about tough love, is it's just as tough on the person doing the loving as it is on the victim, er, recipient. So for now, she's not doing anything, and her nerves are shot because of it which is making her moody as hell, WHICH in turn, is making everyone around her (except my nephew, of course) miserable.

Add to that, my dad retired right before Christmas and he's kinda got ants in the pants about it. He's not used to not working and being home and being forced to endure all the drama has him pretty fed up. So he and my mom are tense with each other, and I get to listen to her wondering why he's so distant and cranky lately. The mind boggles, mom.

My precious pets. Pepper went in heat 2 weeks ago and last week, she was in full-on whore mode. Patches, my boy, my little sweet baby, couldn't handle it. He whined and sniffed and humped and finally he managed to seal the deal. Repeatedly. So in a few months, I may be the proud owner (briefly-I can't keep them) of even more dogs. On a related note, he has an appointment with the vet on Monday morning...

Then there's Harper. Things are rough for her lately. Her best friend decided her didn't want to be friends with her at all anymore, and he made it known in the snottiest, meanest way possible. Then she had an appointment with her psychiatrist last week and he switched her medication. It hasn't started to fully work yet, and she's gotten marks against her in her school folder every day this week. On top of that, I had to call the school nurse to tell her about the change in meds and I swear to god, a more priggish, condescending woman you will never meet. I think my biggest pet peeve is people telling me shit that I already know and acting like they just laid some capital-K Knowledge on me and in that conversation she did it ten times over.

That's not even half of everything, that's just all I'm willing to talk about here. All I can say about the rest of it, is that the words "Bipolar disorder", "Community Service" and "Homeschooling" are involved. They aren't assigned to just one person, I just say it to give you a general idea of what I refuse to come out and say directly.

So I have to deal with all of this. Everyone else has their own drama going on, so I don't get to talk about it (minus those of you that know the whole story-my friends who live in the internets have been great). Plus, I'm one of those people who other people like to tell their problems to and the thing about people like us, is that we're not supposed to have issues. We're not supposed to have our own drama to deal with. We're not supposed to vent or bitch, we're there to listen to THEM and if we're stressed we're just supposed to suck it up and deal. Fuck that noise, goddammit. I'm tense as hell and I'm ready to climb the water tower across the street and start picking people off. 'Course, I don't have a gun, so I'd probably just end up chucking peanuts at passing cars or something.

So....For those of you wondering why I haven't been posting, now you know.