Tell me what to think, and I'll fix myself a drink

[austin_dern]

I'm not talking to my father right now. This resolve is simplified by his being away overnight, but I expect this to continue when he gets back tomorrow. The current flash point came this morning as I was getting up for another round of Extruded Office Product: it was about 6:30 am and I went to the kitchen to brush my teeth (I keep my toothbrush in the kitchen as one of those little quirks which make me so interesting); and I turned the light on for this. A minute later, my teeth brushed, I turned the light off and went back to my room to get ready for my shower. A minute after that, my father knocked on my door, first softly enough that I thought it was the cat trying to get in. It was my father, who wanted to suggest that perhaps I hadn't read the article he clipped from the newspaper the other day for me about light pollution.

I pointed out, with perhaps some of the frustration I was feeling at a person who's upset when I have any light on in the living room after 10 pm and who turns off the motion-detecting light switch sensor in the laundry room because otherwise it stays on for a whole twenty seconds after someone leaves the room, that it was 6:30 am and I had to get ready for work. He protested that he didn't have to get up so why should he be woken up by the glare of my lights?

I did hear my mother, woken up by this, attempting to argue with him that he needs to be more considerate and that perhaps he was woken up by the growing dawn light (as he sleeps facing several glass windows to the east). I'd also hypothesize he might have been woken up by how he's gotten up between six and seven every morning every day of his life. By the time I left for the day he was sitting on the sofa sulking. I don't think I'm being the unreasonable one, although I suppose I would think that. But I still say it's reasonable to have a light when brushing teeth.

Trivia: Meriwether Lewis only grazed his head with the pistol ball the first time he attempted suicide on 11 October 1809. Source: Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West, Stephen E Ambrose.

Currently Reading: An Outline Of Man's Knowledge Of The Modern World, Editor Lyman Bryson. And wasn't that a great episode of Monty Python?

(Incidentally, bizarre insane movie alert: Turner Classic Movies, United States feed, has 1980's The Apple on at 2 am Eastern today. It's one of those weird-psychedellic musicals like you could make in 1980.)

Comments

[xolo.livejournal.com]

OT, but today at Meijer's, I noticed them selling Charlie Brown Xmas trees. $14.95, and you even get a solitary red ornament.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Oh, cute then. Thanks for the headsup.

[c-eagle.livejournal.com]

wot? wow... I see you as cool azza cucumber... I can't imagine you bein' stuck inna situation like dat... sorry ya are, guy!

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

I am ordinarily an extremely cool person and it does take a great deal to rile me up. This is just the latest round in a series of stupid arguments based on my belief that I need light to see and my father's fear that someone, somewhere, has a light on.

[moxie_man]

I am so glad I no longer rent from my parental units. I love'em, but I love'em a lot more now that I'm no longer under the same roof. I spent a decade dealing with things like this...but mostly from my mother. My father and I got along just fine.

[orv.livejournal.com]

Ditto. Moving out did wonders for my relationship with my parents.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Moving out will certainly do wonders, although a fair part of this is that my father is getting crankier in his old age and that means moving out just means I'll deal with less of him, not that there'll be smaller aggravations.

[orv.livejournal.com]

Sure, but it sounds like a lot of those aggravations are caused by the friction of living with him. You're both adults with fairly set habits and that always leads to conflict.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Having less contact would most likely help in making my life less stressful (my yoga instructor can tell when he's away for the week), admittedly.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

I'd like it very much if I were in a position to move into my own apartment. The major obstacle is a I want an academic post, and that requires getting one, and ... well, it's hard to think of signing a lease when I might be there, ideally, only through December and maybe not past August and might be there a year or more, you know?

[bunny-hugger.livejournal.com]

This is our year, Austin.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

It is. It's the first of our years.

[chefmongoose.livejournal.com]

I think it may be nearing time to consider an apartment, depending on the pay you're getting from said EOP.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

I think it's time to consider moving to my own alternate country, although I don't quite have the finances for that right now.