17: Passive Aggression
Originally emailed on August 23, 1998
Hey there,
Nothing is happening in mid-Michigan. It's hot and it's humid. I'm actually glad to go to work every day because at work, it's air-conditioned. The boys look forward to day care for the same reason. We all feel becalmed in the Doldrums, like we're not moving at all, like it will be nearly the end of the summer forever but the summer will never end.
Of course, the summer will end very soon. By the calendar, in just under a month. By the weather, not too long after that. And by the most important criterion of all, the start of school, it ends in just two weeks. I'm having very little to do to get the boys ready; their grandparents (Sam's folks) have offered to take them shopping again this year, and they're actually taking the boys away for a couple of days to do it. They're going to go up to the biggest outlet mall in Michigan, at Birch Run, and also take in the sights at Frankenmuth, a pseudo-German tourist-trap village with reproduction covered bridges, the world's largest Christmas store ("open 364 days!") and Zehnder's World Famous Chicken Dinners. No doubt you've heard of it.
I start school a week before the boys do. I'm taking only six credits this fall, and I will graduate in December, but I'm in denial about the need to job-hunt. They'd love for me to stay on full-time at the job I'm doing, and it's tempting if only because inertia makes it appealing, but I haven't suffered through college for the second time in my life only to stay a secretary, however highly prized a secretary I may be (and that's debatable -- I may only look good compared to the time and trouble involved in hiring a replacement who probably can't type as fast as I can and almost certainly doesn't spell as well). I'm trying to see my job as a good place to use the laser printer to make copies of my resume, and not as a good place to stay for another twenty years.
Harriet starts school at Michigan State next week, too. She's frankly terrified, spending her waking hours obsessing about the best way to take notes: individual spiral notebooks, a five-subject spiral notebook, loose leaf paper which can then be stuck into a 3-ring binder with color-coded tabs for each subject, and steno pads are the four finalists -- we've been spending hours at Staples studying the available resources and then additional hours at Denny's drinking coffee and weighing their merits, but she hasn't bought any actual school supplies yet except a Spartan key chain and a five-pack of hi-liters in various colors. When she finally asked me how I take notes, I nearly triggered a panic attack by answering that I don't usually take notes at all because I don't find them useful.
At night, she dreams that it's the last day of classes, she needs to take an exam for a math class she's never been to, and she's wandering the halls naked trying to find the right room while hundreds of clean-faced 18-year-olds with laptop computers and their fathers' Visa cards in their pockets point and laugh. The good news is we have morning classes at the same time so we'll be car-pooling; I sure wouldn't want to miss the joy of Harriet's first day, having been privy to nearly every moment of the build-up. If only she can make up her mind about what kind of notebooks to buy, I'm confident that she'll do fine.
It's a good thing that I'll be able to work more hours this fall than I have for the last couple of years; Sam's August child support check bounced. Fortunately, I'd had some kind of premonition, and, while I had written a bunch of bills against the money, I hadn't mailed them. As I was about to put them into the mailbox, a little voice in my head said, "Why don't you hang onto them for a day or two, until you know the check is good." Sam's never written me a rubber check before, and I felt nasty suspecting him, but there had just been something in his manner when he handed it to me -- in front of Michael, of course -- something a little too cheerful and hearty. I'm glad I listened to the little voice; I had to pay a fine for depositing a bad check (the banking industry is so unfair that way) but I didn't have to pay bounced check fees.
I did a horribly passive-aggressive thing; I'm ashamed of myself. When I got the bank notice that the check had bounced, I made note of it in my checkbook, and then I mailed the notice to Michael. I'm not trying to mess up his relationship with Sam. At least, I don't think I am. But I think Michael is able to hang onto the relationship in exact proportion with how well he's able to hang onto his delusions (or to put it more kindly, his hopes) about Sam. And he has asked me in the past about Sam's child support status.
OK, it's not justifiable. I was just mad as hell. I'd rather get no check at all (and I speak from experience) than get a bad one, especially one that Sam -- I'm almost certain -- knew was bad when he handed it to me. And I resent it that Sam has such a terrific boyfriend when I'm starting to have doubts about mine...but I don't even want to go into that.
Do you get tired of hearing me talk about money? Believe me, I get tired of thinking about it and worrying about it all the time. I'm almost ashamed of how relieved I was when Mrs. Reissinger called to ask if she and the hubby could take the boys shopping for school clothes and supplies. I've been garage-sale shopping all summer with not much success, and the boys are just happier if they get new things, especially Sammy, who so often gets stuck with a combination of garage-sale clothes and Mark's hand-me-downs. Anyway, I'm just praying that the boys are well-behaved, so Mr. and Mrs. Reissinger can get a whole lot of shopping done with them.
And I hope the boys don't feel I can't provide for them. I hope this isn't something they'll have to discuss with their therapists twenty years from now, how they'd never have had a decent thing to wear if it hadn't been for their beneficent and well-to-do grandparents.
Speaking of therapists, my Miss Munn graduated and is now in private practice. She's not covered by my health insurance and I can't afford to pay her out of pocket, so I'm therapy-free for the moment. The student mental health department offered to set me up with another student therapist, but I just couldn't bear the thought of breaking in another one. I'm hoping that for now Al-Anon will meet my mental health needs. I'm down to two meetings a week, having not spoken to any of my family for the past fifteen days (I'm counting because I'm on a "family fast" -- I'm not speaking to any of them for at least 30 days, in the hopes I can regain my perspective and equilibrium. Fortunately, none of them seems to be speaking to me either, so it hasn't been difficult to avoid them).
Hot Rod is circling near the door and whining, and I am mindful that I promised her a walk tonight. I do love a moonlit walk with my dog on a summer evening.
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