You know when people just blurt out stuff to feel better, so they blurt it all over you? I feel icky with blurtings from my dad. It was something to the effect of laundry. I needed to do my underwear that's been accumulating since January, my uniform hasn't been washed for......well....awhile. Anyway, I go downstairs and there's already some whites in there, soaking. I start the machine with the intent on having them done so I could toss my things in there afterwards. I come upstairs and my dad gets bitchy over me doing the laundry. Most parents would do a double-take when their lazy kids do any housework, but no, my dad decides that this is the perfect opportunity to create a shouting match over whether it was he or mom who put them in there.

Did I hit one of his hot buttons or something? Did I trigger something in him that's extra sensitive that he feels the need to squirt his inner voice at me? I've turned into mom; when I'm alone with her, all she talks about is how much dad frustrates her and now she's in Jamaica [probably complaining to her cousins and siblings about dad] while I shoulder his heavy baggage. I want to do a Marty McFly and go back in time to see what kind of kid my dad was, to see what kind of life he led that created the toxic parent he is today. I sometimes wonder about that though, browsing through family photos. I've been doing that lately, since repairing my parent's wedding photo at Monart. I couldn't take the photo out of the sticky photo album, so I brought the whole thing with me. Most of the photos of both my parents has my mom without a smile or an attempt at one. The guy had to take the smile out of one photo and superimpose it over another one because the sunlight wore away and the original. My parents almost look white, and since my mom is light-skinned anyway, she looks like Michael Jackson, but her mouth is missing. I even spotted some photos of my parents and I, when I was about a few months old with another picture of my mom holding me in her arms. All babies have that bewildered look and I looked like I was saying, "What's that? What's going on? Can I put that in my mouth?" My mom looked so lovely and my dad looked so thin! He has not gut! I forgot what he looked like without one! He looked happy in the wedding photos though. Just because you get married doesn't guarantee happiness, by the looks of their picture. Next week I pick up the photo, along with an old one of my older brother when he was about 3 and one of my mom's cousin. Both have scotch tape and coffee ring marks on them: I still can't believe my dad was about to throw out his old wedding photo! It was all folded[!!!!!!!!!!!!!] and ready for the garbage! I was internally outraged, but civility took over and I horn-swaggled him into the idea of restoring it.