Well, Joey decided that he needed to go outside and play in the windstorm, so I�m up again. It�s now 2am. Here I am, listening to my music and requiring myself to finish processing the crap from to� well, yesterday.

I have decided that I�m going to return Michael�s papers to him and suggest that he figure out what he wants to sell, then sell it through adverts and such. If he still wants to have a web page, I�ll suggest he find a professional web designer. I simply don�t want to get embroiled in his life.

I�m also going to tell Dad that he should find someone else to do his Ebay stuff. When he finds someone, I�ll �train� them, giving them the templates and such that I have developed, but I just don�t want to do his stuff anymore. It simply isn�t worth it.

Having lived with Dad for nearly 29 years, I�ve become very familiar with his �style�. When he loves you, he does nice things for the people you love. When he doesn�t love you, he teases, prods, pokes and bitches at/about you. And, he insults and hurts the people you love.

I don�t want to be a part of his cycle anymore. I�ve had enough. I just� *sighs* I don�t want to be his whipping boy anymore. When he�s ticked with Mom, he�s mean to me. When he�s ticked with me, he�s mean to me. When he�s in a good mood, he�s friendly and doesn�t understand why people are leery of him.

I have enough going on in my life, I don�t need to play second fiddle to him.

Of course, if I were making money for him, he would love me.

You think I�m kidding, don�t you? I�m dead serious here, folks. A long, long time ago, between 1974 when Mom and Dad got married, and 1979, they had a good, solid marriage. Dad was a loving Father and did his best to provide for his family. He was involved in what went on and he took time to do Dad things.

After 1979, however, he stopped being connected. I�m not exactly sure when the change took place, or why, for that matter, but I know that he�s different now. At least, I think he�s different. Dunno, maybe he was always a shit and I didn�t recognize it before I was 10.

Suffice it to say, I�m done. I don�t want to kick him out of my life. I don�t want any harm to come to him. I want him to be happy and fulfilled. But I don�t want to fall into his cycle anymore. AND, I don�t ever want to know that he would talk about me the way he talked about the gentleman who operates the gas station I spoke about in my earlier entry.

I suppose that�s what�s bothering me most. I don�t want to find out that he�s slandering me. I know that he has in the past. I just don�t want it to happen again.

Of course, if I tell him that I�m �quitting� as his Ebay person, he�ll be pissed off about that. He won�t have someone in the house to control. He�ll also probably threaten to take away the new computer.

As my Mother told me many, many, many years ago, Sometimes I have to be more mature.

I�ve thought about this quite a bit since Dad�s bitch-fest with Michael and Jodie this late morning. I don�t appreciate what he did. I don�t appreciate what they encouraged in each other. I don�t want to be associated with that kind of life style.

I don�t know if this makes any sense to those of you who are reading this, but� *frowns* Let me summarize what happened yesterday morning since the �nut shell� I attempted to write previously pretty much failed.

Over the course of an hour and a half, my Father, Nephew Michael and Niece-in-law Jodie bonded, laughed, joked and talked in my presence but without actually including me. Atop this, they began slandering someone I respect quite a bit. At the end of it all, my Father closes the morning�s festivities with a spike of greed. This left me feeling cold, hurt, ostracized, humiliated, enraged, empty and resentful.

Throughout the remainder of the day I stewed about it, thinking about the situation and what I could do about it. Since there isn�t anything I can do to combat the slander, humiliation or greed, I have chosen to simply extricate myself from their �group�.

My entire grade-school experience was a lesson in humiliation and exclusion. I choose to end the cycle. I am a firm believer in the idea that if a certain group doesn�t want me to be a part of it, I don�t want to be a part of it either. I have absolutely no interest in forcing someone to accept me into their circle. Atop that, I really, really don�t want to be a part of a circle which slanders, humiliates and belittles others. Nor do I want to be a part of a group which thinks that those who slander and belittle are better than those who choose not to.

I was thinking about some acquaintances of mine who seem to be happy in their life choices. I don�t begrudge them their happiness. The thing which occurred to me, however, was that I personally want more. By extension, I don�t want to be limited by a circle of friends who don�t want more. Does that make any sense?

Let me see if I can clarify that any�

(end part one)