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"...Crawl like ivy up my spine
Through my nerves and into my eyes..."

-Chris Cornell, Sunshower

(no subject)

19 degrees out...with a wind chill of 9.

*headdesk*

Maybe I'll just nap in the office today instead of going home and coming back...

Help me?

Hey folks...who wants to help me with my next tattoo?

I've been looking on and off for several days for a picture of a sunflower off of which to base my next tattoo- I've mentioned it before, it's going to be in memory of Alex, my friend from high school. It's going to be a sunflower because 1. When I first thought about getting a tattoo, I was planning to get a sunflower. and 2. She also wanted to gt a sunflower tattoo (I swear it was NOT an "OMG Best Friends let's get matching tattoos!!!!! thing. We had the idea independently, but at roughly the same time.) I wanted to get it done in September around her birthday but was still waiting on getting the tree finished. So I'm hoping to get this done sometime this month or early next month.

I've been looking for sunflower images and haven't found any that really stand out at me so far. I thought about getting someone up in Lancaster to go and take a picture of her headstone- there's a sunflower engraved on it...I've never been to the cemetery- and use that...but I don't want to do that.

So, my faithful readers...sunflower images. (No lectures on getting the artist to draw one for me, he's going to ask me to have something to base it off of. Went through that with the tree.) I don't care too much about how the leaves and stems look, it will probably be just the sunflower head. I want the typical big, gold sunflower. And not a Van Gogh-style sunflower. Image size doesn't matter, unless it's so ridonkulously small I can't see it or so big it doesn't fit on my screen. otherwise, there's always scaling.

If you're wondering about placement...upper arm

Here's your chance to inspire a piece of permanent art.

Guaranteeing that I will have a completely uneventful trip home tonight...

I had my moment of "WTF Surreal!" for the evening....

So I'm sitting here at my desk, and my cell phone starts ringing. It's a central PA number that looks...vaguely...familiar but I can't place it. I answer it, and the connection is staticky and not so clear. Takes a minute to realize it's my father.

Turns out he heard that I got robbed last week and was calling to see if I'm ok. It got a little old after the eighth time he asked if I was ok...what part of "They never laid a finger on me" isn't computing?

Seriously, I'm ok. Perhaps a little worried walking up Payson street, I've been leaving the house extra-early to make sure it's still light out when I leave (thankfully, it's staying lighter a little longer now) and I'm planning to take the train to Penn station and grab a cab the rest of the way home instead of taking the bus and walking from the bus stop tonight. But it seems like good sense to me.

So anyway...we get that sorted out and he starts going on about never hearing from me. Oh, I knew this was coming. So I give him the "Well, you told me to call you after Chelle's wedding and said you really needed to talk to me and after calling you every other day for two weeks, I gave up."

He tells me I never left a message. I tell him I left a message every time. He says he never got them. WTF ever.

Soooo....he asks me if I can discuss what he wanted to talk about, or at least tell me what it was about. I assume that it's about the divorce and my grandparents and his utter failure as a father. Whatever else on earth could he have need to talk about?

Ding dong, I'm wrong!

So...he starts going on about how he can't believe he's asking this but he's been hearing for a while, and I can answer his question or not, it's okay with him either way, but he heard and had to ask, but don't worry, my answer won't change anything, I'm his daughter, he loves me but he's been hearing things blah blah blah blah....

So immediately I think "Oh, he's heard I'm pagan I guess?"

Ding dong. I'm wrong. Again.

So about ten minutes of the same rambling later, he kinda mumbles that he's heard that I "prefer the company of women to men."

And my first thought is "Where in the hell did he ever hear that????"

For the record...I've never really seen any grand reason to just announce this on LJ (or in general), but given the context...for those who don't know, I'm bi. It's not a hiding thing, it's a "There's no more reason for me to talk about it in most conversations than there would be reason to talk about being straight if I were" thing.

I've never discussed this with anyone in my family...again, had no reason. Were I in a significant relationship with a woman or something like that, yeah I might see fit to let them know. But otherwise...well, I think my mom suspects something. I think she has for a while now. but she wouldn't be discussing it with my father (She avoids talking to him at all costs unless there's a really good reason. She won't talk about the weather to my father, that alone is enough to convince me that my mother is not the culprit.)

I suspect my grandmother, and possibly my sister. It's the sort of thing my grandmother would fabricate, and the sort of thing that my sister has fabricated in the past. ravenshrinkery suggested that there are actually no rumblings coming from anywhere but his own mind...while anything's possible, I highly doubt it. Putting aside the fact that my father just isn't the sharpest crayon in the chandelier, I don't exactly think he's wholly incapable of fabricating such a thing, but for all his faults, he usually is fairly straightforward when it comes to asking serious questions. I'll give him that.

Gawds know why, but I decided to tell him the truth. Not that it's his business or he has any great right to know the goings on in my life, but I have no desire to lie. I could have said something about it not being his business, but..well, I have this minor flaw in that when taken by surprise I tend to forget all the things I would want to say and either go for honesty, or a completely baffled lack of knowing what to say, depending on the situation. It was a fairly uneventful "Yeah, well truth is I'm bi. But I can't for the life of me figure out why anyone would say such a thing, I've given them no reason to." and his response was just "Oh, okay. don't worry I won't discuss it with anyone." and then somethign about people thinking that it was my big reason for moving away and not wanting to come back to Lancaster, so I could hide.

Yah, whatever.

I never thought that my first discussion of anything like this would be with my father. Definitely not while sitting at a desk in my office (Don't worry, the office was practically empty by that point and no one was in earshot. In any case, this is one of the last places on earth I'd expect to have a problem if anyone did overhear.)

Yeah, I definitely have a boring night ahead of me now.

Oddly enough...

I just realized that my father never once mentioned Christmas in our conversation.

And...I guess I asked for this. While i was in PA, I was talking to my mom the one night about him and I was telling her that I was ridiculously curious as to what exactly it was that he had to talk about...

Well, ask a stupid question...

While we're on the topic of odd conversations...

while back in PA one day:

Mom: "So how;s therapy going? Do you like the person you're seeing? What's her name?"
Me: "Fine. Yes. His name's Michael."
Mom: "HIS? You're not seeing a female therapist?"
Me: "Yes. No. Does it really matter?"
Mom: "Uh, no I guess not. But it's surprising."

And of course, I'm thinking now that the last three weeks oughta make for quite the recap on Tuesday night. It might be more efficient to just type up a list. Bahahahaha.

I've decided that I'm choosing to find many recent events amusing.