um..

i finally talked to my dad's wife. it's probably a sign of my immaturity to have the word stepmother bounce around my brain so unpleasantly. i actually think i might like her, and it's still weird to hear "my stepmother" in my mind when i think about her.

she called my brother, actually. i just wanted to say hello, and ended up talking to her for like 45 minutes. about my dad mostly. i didn't blog about what he's been going through, but i'll give the cliffs notes here: he ended up in the hospital. one totally dead kidney, and the other about to fail. the dead one's been needing to come out for like 2 years, but he had other shit to do... like sturgis and a "bike" ride to florida and stuff.

and this time, he was like a day from death before he could be convinced to go to the emergency room, at a legit hospital and not the one in his podunk hometown. he needs to lose 40 more lbs, he needs to cooperate with his nephrologist, he needs to get real about his diet. he's doing none of these things, and went so far as to rip out his own fucking foley. doc says he'll be on dialysis in a matter of months unless he shapes up.

i talked to him once when he was in the hospital. he apologized to me for the way he's been behaving towards me since my mom died. for dumping the shit in my lap that he did. i had to let him go (a doc needed to give him a poke somewhere), and it was a good thing. i was too floored to go on.

anyway, he's not getting his shit together. kelly (that would be the sm) called joel to ask him to give dad a call. when she got me on the phone, she asked me to do the same thing. i'm wondering how i'm supposed to accomplish all this without it coming off like i'm telling him what to do. she wants more years out of him than it looks like he's got in him, and i can understand feeling that way about a husband. but the shit she told me about him, and the way he is, is so completely unreal to me. why'd we have to get the years with him we did if to her, he's gonna be all that and a bag of chips?

i got issues. enough to offer subscriptions. i'd like some answers while i still have a parent alive to give them to me. not so i can judge him for those answers, which is the thing i'll never get through to him. the older i get, the simpler the thing that makes things make sense. just knowing why would help immensely.

i'll tell you one thing: when i heard people had been after him for weeks to go to the damn doctor, i wanted to kick him in the balls. my mom did that once, and it almost killed her too - it was a hernia gone extremely bad - he gave her a total ration of shit. but now that she's gone, he gets to be all la-di-da about making my brother and i parentless?

i want to make this call. i'd like to extend his olive branch back to him. what do i say?