As for the mother issue... I e-mailed her yesterday after she asked me what I thought about the Thanksgiving plans, as Dad somehow wasn't feeling all that enthused about seeing his family. I told her (a) Dave's feeling hurt that he's not invited, (b) I don't think it was great of you to automatically say no for me, and (c) I REALLY would rather not go to the PITAS (I think I should just officially call D&B the PITAS here, since lord knows I call them that everywhere else.).

She e-mailed back that Dave would be invited if the guest bedroom was cleared out, and since the PITAS are the PITAS and will act accordingly, she was trying to protect him from them. Well, I understand that, and said I'd talk to her about it later.

She called me at home when I was totally not ready to deal yet. She was close to crying when she said again, "I'm not ready to share you yet." Also reiterated that she didn't have time to clean out the guest bedroom and the PITAS are awful. I gave in and said okay, fine, he's not invited. Much to my surprise, Dave was not fazed at all by this and said "Well, it was too early anyway for Thanksgiving." I didn't ask her about Christmas yet- I didn't want to while he was there, and for two, I think I'll get the exact same damn answer anyway.

(Though amusingly enough, Mom now wishes she hadn't said yes to Auntie D, since she said yes for Dad (neither of us girls want to go) and now he doesn't either. However, they throw shit fits if someone cancels on them (hence why Laurie is hated), so we're probably stuck unless we claim Dad needs to go to the emergency room on Thanksgiving Day.)

We had more discussion of the Christmas issue over e-mail today, as she hasn't heard from Aunt Susie yet as to whether or not we can spend Christmas Eve there. She was complaining about the drive, so I suggested that if we can't do Christmas Eve at her place, she and Dad do presents with me at my apartment that night, they get a hotel room and we got to Aunt Susie's in the morning, because it'd at least be a shorter drive. This sounded possible to her, but of course things need to be checked with everyone else.

Then I tried mentioning the idea that say, I have Dave along for this stuff on Christmas Eve, and then we send him home via train Christmas Day and I go to my aunt's (since he's not invited anyway- Mom said she doesn't feel right about asking to have him stay at someone else's house and neither do I), so he could get to see me part of the time, and she'd get me "all to herself" the other half. Course, him going home on the train Christmas Day isn't an ideal situation either, but it seemed compromise-y...

Neither of them like it. Dave is pushing for me to do a Christmas Day breakfast with M&D and then have them leave me at home with him while they go to my aunt's "so they won't have to drive you back." Mom is sounding like she's having a nervous breakdown and says she can't deal with Dave's problems in addition to Dad and the relative switch (she isn't happy about that) and whatall else. She made a snarky remark that maybe I should go to his parents', but I know better than to believe that one.

At the moment, we are at an impasse, and I feel like absolute shit for even asking when she feels like this. I know she gets bad during the holiday season- can't deal with everything else AND work AND Dad wanting her constant attention, and me whining to be with my boyfriend is not helping one bit.

I just can't be mean to my mother. I can't be mean enough to her to tell her to screw off, I pick him over her. Hell, she'll have to deal with it in the future, I can't bear to do it to her now. I feel so guilty and bad for asking, and I've had this voice in my head for days going "YOU CAN'T DO THAT TO YOUR MOTHER!"

I am feeling way too pushed to ask people for stuff these days.

In addition to the hell that is the holiday issue, there's yet another thing Dave's nagging me to ask about. Since jobwise he's shit outta luck till January in his town, he wants to come over here and jobhunt again. Just spend a week here jobhunting and a week at home, off and on until he gets something. (It is bugging him that the job he wanted in Davis is still open.) He wants me to ask Hill's permission to do that.

Only, I don't feel like I can do that. It'll just come up the same damn problem as before: If he finds a job here, he'll have to live here for however many months straight while he saves up enough to get an apartment. Which was her objection in the first place. If I were her, I think I'd say no to this idea. I'm afraid to ask, and don't exactly feel like it's right of me to ask.

But on the other hand, he'd be wasting two months of time in his town, doing nothing, if he didn't. And dammit, money is needed now. So I don't feel I can outright say no to that either.

Crap. I am so sick of having to ask questions that I don't want to ask, cause awkwardness between us at best, and that I already know the answer is no to.

On another topic altogether, you know what I hate? Reading certain bridal sites (okay, this one) and reading posts that go like this. If you'll recall, there's been some debate that I was reading about about this poor girl whose fiance is throwing shit fits and ultimatums if she won't take his name officially. (I think at last checking, he was off having a hissy somewhere.) So they've been debating the whole issue over and over again, thread after thread. Since I have issues with that myself, I keep on reading.

But you know what annoys the crap out of me? Every time I see a post from someone- they usually have the word "bride" in their name, or their guy's name, something like "davesbride2004" or "Hisname4Eva", just one of those names where you're the guy's possesion. And all their posts tend to go like this:

"I was just wondering, for those of you who aren't changing your names: Whose name will the kids get? If you say "my husband's," why are you keeping your name if his is going to get the children? Don't you want to all have the same name? If yours is so important for you to keep, why don't your children get it? Why are you letting it die off then?

Honestly, I think that if you don't want to take his name, you're not ready to be married or deal with the changes of marriage, and you should just live together. And it's just wrong to ask him to take yours and you can't possibly expect that he'd actually do it!

Just wondering- I can't wait to take my Fi's!"

They all throw in the "I can't wait!" at the end, just to make sure you know exactly what their preference is while asking a "supposedly" neutral question. Gag. Me. Now.

I especially loved the "pussy" writer who said "If it were such a respected and/or common occurrence, there wouldn't be nearly so much going on about this." Nice to know it's not respected, biyotch.

(I love this thread.)

The boy and I have been having a happy time, actually. Even though my computer at home has lost its DSL connection or something- anyway, it won't work and I'm dreading calling tech "support." PacBell's tech support is so bad that I know for a fact they don't know anything. I found an article written by a former PB techie a few years ago that verified it. You could call with the same problem three different times and get three different wrong answers because they are talking out of their asses. Sadly, PB is the only game in town- you could pay more for another ISP to go complain at PB for you, but even they have to use PB for access. Argh. So no e-mail for awhile for me at home.

I really don't think I'll be finishing the novel. Ended up having to work on Hill's dress last night for awhile, and I just don't know when or if I'll ever be able to catch up. Wah. Wah. Wah. And I was so excited the other day because I broke 20,000 too. I can't even think about writing now.

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