I do so enjoy these conversations we have.

I just saw on Time.com that the instance of the shaken baby syndrome is on the rise with the economic downturn.

I wonder if this also applies to the shaken parent syndrome?

I love these chats I have with my father. He is the reason why whenever someone says: "We need to talk." I clam up and shut down emotionally. We're talking hard reset. Seriously. I'm not kidding. It's to the point now I can predict the words that are coming out of his mouth. I may not be able to nail what is going on exactly, but I can get it within a 10% confidence interval. I'm that good. At least when it comes to picking out what is currently screwed up in my father's life. I think the thing that really gets me steamed about that man is his inability to recognize that he is in control of his life. He has an external locus of control, and it is mind-numbingly aggravating to me.

It is no wonder no one wants to date me. I've got the baggage from raising children. Except my children are grown and happen to be the people that gave me life. People who don't already have children have no possible way of comprehending my baggage much less dealing with it.

Brilliant, the only men I'm qualified to date already have one or several bad marriages with crappy divorces and angsty children with grudges. This is obviously my problem. Maybe I should just start standing outside the 2nd floor staircase at the Forsyth County Hall of Justice. I can pluck them when they're ripe for picking.

Or therapy. Maybe I could try therapy.

Or Thorazine. I could always try Thorazine. I keep threatening a Thorazine holiday.

Bah. Whatever. I guess a large part of it is that I let myself get wrapped up in it. So I suppose I'm just as guilty. Although I'm not as bad with my father as with my mother. With her I feel like I have an obligation to deal with her crap. She's my mom, she shat me out of her womb and dealt with me when I was an adolescent. (Believe me, that could not have been fun on any level. I had days when I was seriously on my own damn nerves. That's pretty bad.) While my dad is my dad and does fatherly like things for me, there are days where I really do not like the person he is. I love my dad. I do not love the man my dad is. He's getting better though. I'll give him that. If only he would just listen to me.

I guess we're back to the "I need to run your life because you can't" modus operandi I function under. So I suppose I'll work on letting him run his own life too.

But then what I am going to do when I get bored? A person can only do so much spin class and blog so much. I need things to do when I'm bored and it just so happens that my parents conveniently call me when I happen to be bored (mostly because they call me constantly.)

OMG I just realized that I am Jack Shepard from Lost. Great. I'm the asshole that has to fix things and never actually does. I just fuck it up worse than it already was. Great. I'm off to find a thermonuclear device and plant myself under it. Then I have to find an Iraqi torturer with a canvas backpack to tote said thermonuclear device across the island of my discontent. Then I need to find a rock so I can bang on the bomb with it, so it will explode.

Look at that. A Lost synopsis of the past 5 seasons and a half page psycho-analysis all in one post.

Somedays it is truly difficult to be who I am.