parental units

My father's bladder cancer is back. He stopped treatment 5 years ago because...well, because it was painful and he is not logical sometimes. He just didn't want to deal with it. Maybe it would have come back anyway had he completed treatment or maybe it wouldn't have but it seems that ignoring it did not do the trick.

He's depressed and in pain. He's self-medicating and not quite in the present all the time. We're flying into Tampa to visit him this week. Hurricane Isaac and the Republican National Convention are also going to Tampa but that's just a coincidence. A rather shitty coincidence.

My mom seems anxious and stressed. She's normally pretty pragmatic and solid, so it's hard to hear that. She also seems uncharacteristically selfish about my time there. So peculiar. I was such a mama's girl; I would have given anything for her to show that she liked having me around when I was young so it's a bit...unsettling, but warms my heart nevertheless.

I'm concerned...but he is relatively healthy so there is reason to be hopeful.

cartoon world

Today felt like cartoon world. Where I'm the little line drawing figure at a desk working, while steadily the little line drawing inbox fills up with two-dimensional papers speeding up exponentially as I work faster and faster.

Well, not that bad. It wasn't nihilistic or hopeless just daunting and, at times, oddly satisfying.

Every place is the same. Mostly. You work with people, some difficult, most not. If you're lucky, you will be charmed by your peers and subordinates. If you're really lucky, you will answer to a good and decent boss. And if you're super lucky, you get all this and a job where your efforts promote something you believe in.

Even in my exhaustion, I feel super lucky.