The Vanity of an Ancient King

The brain damage was too great, and the neurologists say there is no coming back from this. We've made the decision to pull her off life support.

I'm on a flight back to London.

Her birthday was going to be in a couple weeks.

I'm sad, yes, but I've made my peace. Now, I'll have closure. I'll also be able to support my father — make sure he eats, sleeps.

This is all the while Bill is home, alone.

[Warning, this is gonna be all over the place]

Tomorrow morning at 9am, Bill's oldest son (second born child) Philip, and his wife Julie come to visit, and help with his estate planning. This will probably change everything in my life. For a hint as to why, let's get some context on why I'm scared and kinda freaking out…

Bill and I have been seeing each other for almost 16 years to the day. I've been living with him for roughly 14 of those years. During those 16 years, I have never met any of his three children. I know all about them. I know their names. I know their rough ages. I was with Bill when both Amy's (Eldest child) children were born. I know personal stories of their childhood. I know fascinating stories about his ex-wife.

They don't know I exist. Well, now Philip knows I exist, but that's literally the extent of it.

Bill isn't out to his kids, and has no intention of doing so, even at my request for the last 16 years. Philip and his family are very religious of the 'born again' variety. Also, Bill's mental faculties have declined in the last couple of years, and significantly so within the last 3 weeks. There are periods where he says things that aren't real, but have some basis in his past (like his career, or other routines). This evening, he was convinced that people were coming over tonight, and that tomorrow morning, 'other patients' will be coming in and out of the house ('people' coming in and out of the house on the regular is a theme. I believe it ties back to his academic career when he was a Dean at Cornell). I tried to convince him otherwise, but this isn't rational, and you simply can't expect rational tactics to work. That's probably the hardest thing for me to come to grips with. I'm a scientist. I hypothesise, and experiment, in hopes that my hypothesis will be correct. That's logic. This has nothing to do with logic — or even emotion. That's hard for me to grok. There are no patterns, only the illusions of patterns.

Yesterday, he didn't recognise me, while I was sleeping next to him. He no longer reliably remembers the story of how we first met (at a Starbucks). I think he's now using the tactic of telling me he remembers things once I explain them to him ("Do you remember that?" "Yes."). I think he does it so I don't worry so much about him.

We don't comingle our finances — we don't even buy each other gifts, but literally everything I own is in the house… the house that my name isn't on. We have no papers together (we're not married, I'm not his tenant, CT has no concept of common-law marriage).

You can see how well this is gonna go.

Sure, it's entirely possible this will all just be cool. I'm pretty sure that possibility is a rounding error.

The reality of the situation is that I can no longer be the only one that takes care of him. He doesn't want to drive anymore (understandable), so I drive us everywhere. It does however, make him homebound for the entire day I am at the office — or, in the case of the other week — the entire time I'm on holiday. I was able to insure that he had a proper dinner, through various delivery apps, and he's historically been able to manage breakfast by himself (cereal, milk, fruit), but lunch is no longer consistent. I call him at the lunch hour to ask if he's had lunch, and even when he says 'yes', I come home to find no evidence. I do however, find evidence of his not eating, as he's more lethargic and less able to track conversations. He needs to be able to go places during the day (the park, stores, etc), and he needs a proper mid-day meal. He also needs to get to various doctor appointments. I'm over my limit in what I can do for him alone. I realise there are services out there that do exactly this sort of thing, but Bill's not interested in having them.

I have no idea what will happen tomorrow, and it scares the shit out of me.

He still holds onto, and keeps coming back to the idea that there are other people in this house. He can't name them, nor describe them, but he insists they are here.

I can't talk him out of it.

It seems my last post wouldn't cross-post because I didn't sign the new EULA, so I just nuked it right then. Most folks I still keep in contact with via other means. I'll lose some friends, but considering I didn't post much here, I wasn't much of a friend to the folks that posted. I feel kinda bad about that. Lately, I just haven't been feeling it.

Hey all

Just popping in. I don't want to bum anyone out, but my Christmas was… not a good one. Various celebrity deaths aside (holy fuck 2016, chill the hell out), the parental situation is reached a point where I'm unwilling to spend more time with them. I'm an adult, and I shouldn't have to be trapped in a situation where I have to swallow fascist rhetoric. So, next year, I'm thinking I'll go on a cruise or something. I'm not a cruise person, but it'll get me out of visiting my folks for a year.

In other, less stressful news, I managed to take a sanity day in NYC, alone. Away from family, away from Bill (another stressful situation — for another post, maybe), and away from friends. It was wonderful. For the first time in longer than I can remember, I felt free. I really needed that.

I wound up having dinner at Ippudo http://www.ippudony.com for some comfort food. I got there about 15 mins before they opened, and queued up. I was probably 70th in the queue. Patrons were seated quickly. Larger parties were already starting to wait for a turnover. As a party of one, I was seated within 5 minutes (yay!). The place is run like a traditional ramen house where you are announced, and greeted by the cooks (and wait staff) in Japanese. Even the American workers knew the drill. I had their 'classic' ramen, which includes some non-traditional dashi (broth). It included ginger. It added a brightness and lightness to the dish that I really enjoyed. Their tare was very good, and fairly complex. They definitely lived up to the hype. I've been trying to go for over a year, without success, and the wait was worth it. I also had their pork buns. They were excellent, although I prefer Momofuku's. I paired the ramen with a special beer made by Brooklyn Brewery, 'Kaedama' (named after the word you shout when you want more noodles for your broth) http://brooklynbrewery.com/blog/news/brooklyn-kaedama-ale-a-taste-of-something-extra-w-your-ramen/ It was pretty amazing, and paired perfectly.

After the meal, I rolled myself out of the restaurant, and caught a showing of Hidden Figures. See the flick. It's good, and deserving of your money. For those not hipped to it, it's based on a book that tells the story of 3 African-American women who played key roles in NASA getting the US into space, and eventually the moon. History has traditionally wiped out the hard work of minorities and women in key roles of pivotal events, and this film shines some light. I'd not read the book, but now it's on my list. I mean, who doesn't love space, and stories about NASA?

My body has no idea what time it is, and I have to go to work in the morning. Good times.

pax

This is great…



Paging jwg

I'm still not over his death.

It's going to be a long while, I think.

Today (Friday) is my last day at IF.

I'm headed out to SF on Saturday morning, staying until Tuesday.

Tuesday, I'm headed to Seattle, where I'll stay until Saturday.

Saturday, I stay overnight in SF, and fly home Sunday.

New job starts Monday.

RENEW! RENEW!

Yes, I'm still alive. Some of you have seen me comment on your journals. I just haven't felt like posting anything particularly personal these last few years. Maybe because I've been unhappy. Maybe there isn't much to say.

I did do something fun today though… I went to see the East Coast Open polo match. It was a lot of fun. I took my camera, and managed to get some pics that didn't totally suck. I am however, woefully out of practice.





Oh, and it looks like Flickr and LJ have made it more difficult to insert an image. Guess I won't be doing much of that here anymore.

Sorry.

Finally, after 50 weeks of waiting, it's here.

And it's beautiful. The crap iPhone pics don't do it justice. Real pics coming when I put the wrap on (the weekend next).