Coherence

This weekend is already shaping up to be interesting.

Last night went to SWILoween--which was much fun; had a good time and met interesting new SWILLies--and ended up staying and half-dozing until about 5 am, at which point I drove Syona Keleste, Rush, Rabidfangurl, and Heidi back to the Mawr because Rhoades Halloween was just too much for us to go back before then.

Got to bed about quarter to six (gah), which I hadn't planned on the night before, and set alarm for 10 am so as to get up and call parents.

Called at 10 am. Made plans with dad for parents to (and Heidi backs me up) "come by at 12:30 so we can go eat something." My dad first wanted me to call at 12:30, and I said, "no, just come by and we can go eat brunch." Everything was settled.

Or so I thought.

12:00 pm comes. I get up. Get dressed. Take shower. Generally take care to make self presentable despite five or so hours of interrupted and poor sleep the night before.
12:30 comes. No parents. Decide to start Japanese Arch reading.
12:40 comes. No parents. Get annoyed and worried--maybe the car died? I call. No answer; cellphone says that the customer "cannot be contacted."
1:00 comes. Still nothing. A little more than worried by now.
At 1:30 I get a call.

Me: "Hello?"
Dad: "Hi."
Me: "Where are you? You were supposed to be here an hour ago!"
Dad: "We're at Erdman."
Me: "Oh, good. Heidi and I can come over and eat brunch with you guys then. Stay there and we'll come over. We're pretty hungry."
Dad: "We just finished eating there."
Me (annoyed): "But--weren't you supposed to come over here, so we could all go eat together?"
Dad: "I told you to call at 12:30."
Me (wondering why they think they listen to what I actually say): "I *did* call at 12:30. The cellphone didn't work."
Dad: "That's not my fault."
Me (pretty mad): "But I shouldn't even have had to call, I'd told you guys to come over here. And you agreed with me that that's what would happen. We've both been waiting for you all this time! And we still haven't eaten!"
Dad: keeps trying to interrupt me to tell me that I'm wrong. Finally, frustrated that he can't interrupt me, HANGS UP ON ME.

Me (incensed, exhausted, annnoyed that I still have work to do between now and lantern night that I am now an hour off schedule for, unhappy that I made Heidi sit here the whole time for nothing, upset that my parents never listen to anything I say, upset that it's my dad who was just inexcusably rude to me, upset that my okay day has already been turned into kind of a pisser, and still hungry): "He fucking hung up on me!"

Five minutes later he calls back (I wasn't going to call him).
Me: "Hello?"
Dad: "Hi, honey." (I hate being called cutesy things when I've just been fighting with you. It makes it sound like you're trying to patronize or placate me, and just doesn't go over well at all.)
Me: "That is the rudest thing that anyone has done to me in the past six months."
Dad: "I was just upset that I couldn't get a word in edgewise. We can take you out to eat. Why don't we come over there?"
Me: "No, we'll come over to Erd and meet you there, okay?"
Dad: "Okay."

We go to Erd, go to the Villanova diner. My mom and dad don't order anything and Heidi and I get gyros (a good thing).

My mom spends the entire time reading the instruction manual for her new camera and trying to focus the viewfinder on the garnish she artfully arranged on my plate while I was trying to eat my food.

My dad gets a trucking magazine from the stand of newsprint magazines you always find in diners and sits reading it a little while; I try and make converstation with him but the most I get out of him about the trip down was "it was okay."

It turns out that they were taking a tour of Valley Forge and were in some kind of underground display room when I was trying to call. This means that at 12:30--when they should have a.) been here already or b.) been expecting my call they were taking a nice historical nature walk.

This after I got up at 10 am after only four hours of sleep expressly to call them so they would be on time, we wouldn't have this kind of scene, and they wouldn't be worried about why I didn't call them. It's scary that after four hours of sleep and a thesis proposal rough draft I was more coherent than them.

My mom tried to make excuses about why my dad caused them to be late leaving Valley Forge, which I partly believed (he's always trying to hurry everyone along and then is late) and partly didn't (she isn't a paragon of punctuality herself).
My dad eventually apologized to me; he said he was frustrated but that he was wrong. That's good, and I'm glad to hear him say that, at least.

I had to describe lantern night to my dad in the car on the way back, as apparently my mom hadn't made it clear to him what it was exactly that they were going to see or why it was at all important.
As I was walking them to the cloisters to show them my archway my mom kept talking about how "if you need to move back in after graduation, maybe we can do or visit..." and when I told her that some particular thing or another would be really expensive, she said, jokingly, "don't worry, you'll be a young professional and won't have anyone else to spend money on except your mother."

I am not moving back, mom, dad. Do you not get this?
Apparently not, since they don't listen.
I hope to eventually have enough money to be able to spend it on other people besides myself and my necessities. That would be really nice. I don't have that now, nor do I appreciate being reminded of it, nor do I appreciate the insinuation that I don't have people I'd like to spend money on now, or that I might not eventually find more such people.

Insecurity is just coming back to bite me bad this weekend, in all the wrong ways and little twinges of thought and word you wish would go away, in every single little aspect of my life.

I really wish this whole parents-visiting thing wouldn't have happened. I thought it would be nice but instead it's just painful.