i dwell with a strangely aching heart

Updates

rephemeral — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 16:10:42 GMT

So, I had to order a book from Amazon because it was checked out of the library until May. This is the last book (God willing) that I need to really, finally, finish my thesis. Jesus Christ, it feels like I've said that with every book I've gotten in the last 4 months. -_-;

I've been having some problems with sleep lately. Not that I can't sleep - I've been sleeping way too much. Way more than normal. And I'm still exhausted. I think it's some sort of thyroid thing - luckily, I'm going to get everything checked out tomorrow.

Oh, and this might be TMI, but ever since I've been sort of recovering from my eating disorder a few years ago I've had the worst problems with my stomach ever. Loss of appetite, nausea, and things like that.. But, I've been taking this enzyme stuff and it's all resolved. So, that's awesome.

And, I've gotten myself on another healthy eating kick... starting today. lol. I'm about to hit up Whole Foods for some kombucha and veg and fruits. I found a "diet" plan for flawless skin, so I'm going to try that. And I have a hard time downing most flavors of kombucha - but the synergy kinds, like, mango and guava, are totally awesome. So, I'm stocking up on those! I wish it weren't so expensive, though...
I wonder if I could make my own tasty kombucha...

I've been also contemplating combining those things with the GI diet so that I can manage my blood sugar, which has been all over the place lately. That might be part of my exhaustion issue, too.

I got paid on Friday, and after paying my electric bill, I have enough money for some art supplies... I should put some money in my savings, though. I'm going to need a padded savings account for my summer of unemployment. Assuming I get a school teaching position. They're always hiring, though. All I need is my certification. I think I'll start training for that in May...

Anyway, that's what's been going on here!

Sooo....

rephemeral — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 15:00:09 GMT

Last night was a little bit of a disaster... But still alright.

I'll probably never have another party at my apartment again... Because it's a mess. And although people offered to help clean up, I'm not going to let my guests do that. I'm an old-school hostess.

So, today I'm 26. I've got a hangover, and I have to clean cake up off of my kitchen floor.

Let's see... what happened: 1) my boyfriend bailed about two hours into my party; 2) one of my co-workers thought it would be cool to dangle upside down from my chin up bar; 3) another coworker cut himself on a bottle and bled for, like, 3 hours; 4) some people thought it would be good to have music on at full volume while we were watching TV shows; 5) Volume wars; 6) someone knocked over my book case; 7) there's a salsa stain on my carpet; 8) my crew used up nearly all the glasses in my cupboard; 9) I had a panic attack

That's pretty much what happened...

Things are okay

rephemeral — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 13:21:15 GMT

This is my first week back at work! So far, so good. I really love my coworkers. I don't think I've ever made so many friends at work before! Haha. It's amazing how well we click.

I even had my first tutoring session yesterday with a mechanical engineer who wanted some help with a scholarship essay. It went very smoothly.

I haven't even really touched my thesis this semester.

OMG! I had a library book checked out over the break. As a graduate student, we're allowed to keep books for, like, an entire year, but whoever checked this one out to me just filtered me as undergrad, so I only got 2 months! It was a book I was using for my thesis... And it became overdue during the break - nice. So, I tried to recheck the book, but I've maxed out my rechecks (which I think is totally unfair). I turned it in yesterday, but I'm already up to, like, a $5 fine. :(

My new year's resolution is to limit my sugars, but I did really bad yesterday. Part of my problem is that I work out in the mornings from 6:00 to 7:00, and I have to leave for work at 8:00, and that leaves no time for breakfast. Yesterday it was especially a problem because I didn't have any money on me, so I couldn't buy lunch, and I don't get off of work until 4:00 on Fridays. So, I get home from work, and I'm starving, and I need sugar because I've got *no* energy. So, I splurged when my boyfriend offered to buy a strawberry shortcake for me... and let me have half of his cheesecake. I felt horrible... but very satisfied! Haha.

Oh yeah, and my birthday is tomorrow. I feel so much older than I really am. Maybe it's the fact that I'm still in grad school, am starting to get gray hair, and have to use wrinkle cream (shouldn't we all??). I feel more grown up, I guess, than 26. Not that that's particularly young, or old. I just feel like I should be older - I get along better with older people. My best friends are in their early- to mid- thirties.

P.s. I just found out that my best friend in the whole wide world won't be able to come to my birthday party tonight. I'm a little sad. We'll make it up, tho.

My birthday party is going to consist of jello shots, rock band, and Darkplace.

And so I emerge

rephemeral — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 21:43:14 GMT

Jesus Christ, this is dusty. *blows*

I'll just state the obvious: I haven't updated in a while.

For those of you interested, things have settled down considerably between the boyfriend and me. Thank you for all your words of wisdom in my last post. We're still together. We talked through a lot of things, some pretty awesomely embarrassing drama occurred in a public place (he did it, not me), and we went over some ground rules. Things are cool for now.
But I say for now in the sense that, when I do graduate from school, I don't know if I'm going to want to be in a relationship with him.
BUT, if he ever brings up personal issues in a crowded bar in front of my friends again, it's over.

So, here I am, school starts up again on Tuesday. I work Wed-Fri and on Sun as well. I didn't want to work on Sundays, but my boss liked having me there. He said we could work something out if some of the new tutors wanted weekends. I like my weekends. I like going out of town for the weekend. But I can't do that if I have to work!

So, in recent history, the last week, I've been without constant running water! Awesome, right? So, what happened? Apparently, during the weekend something happened to a water main in the complex (they didn't say - they never notify people of this kind of thing). And instead of having an emergency crew come to repair it, they waited until YESTERDAY to have someone come out. They must have temporarily fixed it until then because I did have water on Sunday. It was off for about 3 hours on Monday. And the same on Tuesday. And yesterday - wooo! Yesterday, the water was off for almost 4 hours.
And today it was off again. It happens randomly - like yesterday, I had just started some laundry, and poof! Water off.

When the water came back on today, after about an hour being off (is this an improvement?), there was a rumbling in my bathroom. I investigated, and my toilet was shaking! WTF?? It stopped, but it seemed like it was going to explode!

I'm a relatively calm person, but this whole week, I've been paranoid about my water... and the toilet. I have a great fear of toilets...

Anyway, that's kinda what's going on here. Oh yeah, and I got pulled for jury duty, but I am exempt because I'm enrolled in classes. Yay classes! Keeping me from having to perform my civic duty for 8 years and counting.

Revelation (and I mean that sarcastically)

rephemeral — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 13:31:54 GMT

I'm in a dead-end relationship.

The other day, my boyfriend - out of spite - proposed to me via AIM. We were talking about some things, and he said, "Maybe we should cool things down a little bit."
And I said, "That's not a bad idea. We need to re-evaluate our relationship. (blah blah blah)"

And he goes "I don't think we should spend so much time together."
And I was kind of confused, because up to this point, I've been under the assumption that we're sort of headed for the altar at some point.

So I told him I was confused.

And he got really mad. He said "I'm only doing this for you, you know. (yadda yadda) I even got you an engagement ring for your birthday" (which is a month away, thanks for spoiling it for me).

And I was like "Whoa whoa whoa," and I totally panicked. I felt like a trapped animal.

Then it comes out that it's not even an engagement ring - it's a ring of "intent." Which means that he intends to intend to marry me at some point in the future.

Fuck that shit. I'm happy with the way that things are sans fake pre-engagement - but if you're going to toy with me and my future like this, don't expect me to just take what's handed to me.

Twitter

rephemeral — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 10:53:57 GMT

So, I buckled down and got a Twitter account. If you have one, follow me! therachinator. I'll probably want to follow you, too.

Anyway, I'm still trying to figure out how I can use Twitter for maximum utility.

Reach out and touch science

rephemeral — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 14:36:21 GMT

I was perusing Something Awful and stumbled upon a thread called "What are the 'truths' you've learned about the major you've chosen?"

- "There is a doctor in the house." is not nearly as simple a sentence as you think it is.

- In the process of your education, you will learn all sorts of fascinating things about how the English language is constructed and how it conveys meaning. Of course, when you do your own writing, you will immediately rely on instinct and routine and forget everything you've learned.

- There's nothing that pisses a TA off more than when half the class (or more) shows up without having read the material.

- English classes are the only ones where the bulk of your homework can be done while sitting on a bus or lying in bed.

- Satirists are into some freaky shit.

- Every written assignment (including exams) is not actually a mere test of English analysis, but a test of your knowledge of History, Sociology, Psychology, Urbanology, Linguistics, Philosophy, Fine Arts (Film, Music, Photography, Art), and Bullshit.

- Science majors look down on us but we think they're cool and want to be friends

I am totally in agreement with the last point. The others, too, but pretty much the one no one ever expects from an English major is the amount of respect we have for those in the science fields who look down on us.

Well, I guess I would be wrong if I said that all English majors respect the sciences; but for the most part, recent trends have been to work within the realms of the sciences, especially in terms of environmental criticism... And surprisingly the majority of the resistance comes from the sciences who don't want to dirty their hands with the liberal arts.

My father, a geophysicist, has a really hard time coming to grips with the fact that there is such a thing as Derridean slippage (the idea that one word can have exponential meanings and conjure countless metonymies) in his work.
But it's there.
There would be no need for things like "further research" or "scientific experiments" if there weren't slippage. And ironically, things like "further research" promote even more slippage - one hypothesis cannot be simply erased from memory or existence because another one is more plausible. We will continue to remember them, if we know about them, and they will be called into our frame of reference any time the conditions of the experiment are brought to our attention.

For example, creationism vs evolution. Both postulate on the development or creation of modern humans and are in contention with one another. However, and problematically, creationism is almost always thought of in terms of evolution. It is not just a concept, it's a concept in reaction to another concept. The two have to be simultaneously called to mind at once. Creationism is based on the idea that it is not evolution.
And even evolution itself is a loaded term - there are at least 6 different definitions for it. Plus, there are cultural understandings of evolution that have overtaken the actual scientific and dictionary meanings of the word.

tl;dr: Derridean slippage, indeed.

P.s. I don't like all these video ads on the Internet.

Here's a picture to make up for my science rant:

Randomness

rephemeral — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 05:21:10 GMT

Okay, so I got Rock Band 2 and The Beatles Rock Band. And I am addicted to them. Completely 100% addicted. Especially to the Beatles game. Jesus Christ, I love it! I have tried guitar and drums, but I'm relatively uncoordinated - at least on the controllers. Bass is the easiest for me, and drums are definitely the hardest. But, I've only had it for a couple of days, so I'll keep working at it until I'm better. lol.

So, I'm being a really good Scandinavian girl and baking tons of cookies for the holidays. I made some with my mom over Thanksgiving and brought them to work and I've been commissioned to make more. XD
My special cookies (I kinda patchworked a couple of recipes together) are peanut butter bonbons. Bonbon cookies with sweet peanut butter inside, coated with a chocolate shell. Yumtastic!

I hosted a party with a bunch of friends last night, and drama ensued. lol. Not from me, because I hate that kind of thing. One of my friends brought her friend along - and she was a complete mess! Already drunk (courtesy of margaritas at Taco Cabana, wtf?) and loading up on cranberry vodka cocktails. She told me that she wanted me to hear a song that her ex-boyfriend loved... and then proceeded to spend the rest of the party playing it on repeat and full volume on my computer. While everyone else was playing Rock Band.
She then fell into a funk (it's a wonder, I know), going on about how she hadn't eaten in four days, that she had no friends because she just moved here to be with this guy that dumped her. I felt really sorry for her, but she was making me, as the hostess of the party, feel very awkward.

So, my friend took her home.

And I'm totally addicted to this song and the fan video for it. Hard to believe that it's a fan video, it's so good:

It's like going to heaven. Seriously. I think it's better than the official video.

And watching that video again makes me so happy.

Not Cool.

rephemeral — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 17:23:11 GMT

Here is a list of things that are not cool, all of which have happened to me today:

1. Getting the wrong items shipped to you. Say you get was super-excited because you get a DVD that you've ordered. And then your excitement diminished quite rapidly when instead of the super-awesome DVD you wanted, you get a lame Australian documentary about cycling. WTF?

2. Asthma. You're going steady for the first 20 minutes of an hour long workout when suddenly you get so out of breath that you have to stop, cough for a while, realize you need an inhaler and don't have one, and have to go home instead of finishing up. Totally ruins your morning, but you're willing to overlook it since you don't really have time for breakfast and will be having a light lunch. It will even out somehow.

3. Getting into an AIM-fight with your boyfriend while you're at work and he's at work because text does not convey sarcasm/hyperbole well. Never mind that you guys have been dating for about 5 years and see each other almost every day, and that he knows that you are notoriously sarcastic- no, forget all of that. He decides to get mad at you over AIM over a sarcastic remark that you make about something he did[not do] on facebook.* Brilliant!

4. Realizing too late that you have to walk super-far to work first think in the morning and did not dress for coldish weather. Nice.

*Seriously, this killed me today. And it is sooooo not cool.

OMG, this summer!

rephemeral — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 16:37:46 GMT

Sebastien and I are going to Paris this summer! And we're taking a side-trip detour to London!

How cool is that?

Stuffs

rephemeral — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 02:19:24 GMT

Okay, so it's been a while.
I decided to postpone my defense until next semester. It's a long story, but it took for-freaking-ever to get feedback from certain members of my committee. But, the feedback that they did give me was awesome. So awesome that I have to dig a little deeper into my initial research into intersexed/transexed people. Yay!
So, I figured that those sorts of things need to be done properly and to the best of my ability and would take much longer than a week to fix up. Ha! Now I have to enroll in school for an hour of classes next semester... Fun fun. It's okay because I don't have to pay for the full 3 that I would be getting if it were a class. So, it'll be a relatively cheap and short semester for me.

TCC is looking for adjunct English professors, so that's what I'm going to shoot for immediately after graduation. It'd only be a part time job, so I can look for other, better, jobs at the same time!

Christmas is almost here. Which is, wow, so terrifying to me for some reason. I don't know what it is. I guess since my sister is gone it's just going to by my mom, dad, and me. Hanging out. So much pressure on me! lol. I'm hoping that I can get away with only a week of parental time... Then I can do whatever I want (probably fine tune my thesis) for the rest of the month.

So, that's all I've got.

I am kinda in love

rephemeral — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 22:45:47 GMT

Okay, I've been on a britcom spree lately. And I'm totally kinda in love with everything Matt Berry touches. Garth Marenghi's Darkplace is great. The Mighty Boosh is awesome. The IT Crowd is amazing. And I've started watching Snuff Box, and I love it.

Here's what I'm talking about:

I mean, Berry always plays these sort of libertine characters, but that is just amazing, n'est pas?
And his voice is so rich and... velvety.

He's got a couple of albums out, too. I just got Opium, and I'm really really really enjoying it.

Wolfmotherrrrrr

rephemeral — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 20:04:32 GMT

Okay, so the concert was awesome last night. It was *Wolfmother's first stop on their American tour, so they were very lively, and so was the crowd. So, yeah - awesome!

I might have to get their newest album.

Then again, I always feel like buying whoever I see live... [Almost] everyone sounds good live to me.

For those of you that have never heard Wolfmother, you have to check out The Joker and the Thief:

Oh, and thesis progress update: sending first two chapters to the rest of my committee tomorrow! Should get their comments sometime next week... and then get a defense date established. I'm still scared!

Super EDIT: OMG, Halloween on my brain.

Wow

rephemeral — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 14:32:58 GMT

So, my day went from being exceptionally boring to somewhat exciting.

I get to see Wolfmother tonight. Hm. I haven't listened to them in a couple of years... but free tickets, and I don't have to drive! Awesome.

whew.

rephemeral — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 20:44:54 GMT

I just sent my second chapter to my prof. Holy crap, I'm nervous. That was a 31 page chapter. O_O
I hope that it all made sense, but honestly, I only skimmed it before I turned it in, so I'm not 100% on this one.
Like I'm ever 100% sure about any of my writings...

So... Now I can start editing my first chapter and working on my last chapter. Things are taking shape? Kinda?

Oh jeeze, I'm nervous. I wanna be done writing (and get to editing hardcore) by October 31st. Considering that I wrote a seminar paper about what the 3rd chapter is about, it's feasible... I hope!

And then Nov. 3rd can be a real gift to me! Yay! Concert time! And slightly relevant to my topic as well, so.. hopefully I won't be sick of all this stuff by then! lol.

I'm going to go have a nice cold beer.

Almost done

rephemeral — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 12:44:08 GMT

24 pages written on Chapter 2. Two more important topics to talk about... Then a conclusion and I'm done! Should be done with it later today.

Then, I can get started on my VK chapter. I'm almost done I'm almost done I'm almost done!

And then... defense...

That's probably the scariest part... I'm going to have to study really hard for that.

One of my committee members is like "oh, it's more of a celebration of your hard work" or whatever, but I'm still freaking out about it.

rephemeral — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 17:34:24 GMT

I have no more faith left in the future of humanity. Based on what I have seen today at the writing center.

Seriously. Client after client of just. bad. students.

confirmation

rephemeral — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 16:17:13 GMT

Whew! I got a response back on Chapter 1 of my thesis. She said it looks good so far, with just a few additions that I need to make to help establish my historical survey of male androgyny...

And now I'm 8 pages deep into Chapter 2! I hope to be done with it by the end of the week. Anyone know anything about the hikikomori? I'm arguing that it's a new form of masculinity/androgyny-as-masculinity. Does that sound reasonable? Everyone writes about it like a psychological problem, but my angle is that it's developing from a need to express a different kind of masculinity in an otherwise oppressed society (which is strange because Japan has all sorts of weirdly acceptable expressions of masculinity (uh, Kimutaku anyone?)... I guess there always has to be one out though).

And then it's on to Chapter 3. Probably going to be the easiest chapter. I hope so, anyway.

Once Upon a Beginning

rephemeral — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 17:38:57 GMT

Garth Marenghi's Darkplace

If you like British comedies, you'll like this. If you don't like British comedies, try it anyway. Hilarious! This clip is from the first episode. It's a funeral of one of the patients who had "blown up too soon." The content basically reminds me of some of the stuff found on Something Awful forums. Except those people would be serious, and Darkplace is satire.

So, it's campy horror taking place at a hospital.

Episode 1.1 WATCH WATCH WATCH!

LOL

rephemeral — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 14:19:12 GMT

Oh no, the milky lens!

I learned a new trick!

rephemeral — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 17:47:54 GMT

I've always wondered how to color a black and white picture. So, I did a crash course in photoshopping, and figured it out! Hooray!

Behold!

Before:

After:

I didn't do the backgrounds... Because Laurence Olivier is too dreamy, and he distracted me from whatever it is that's behind him.

Wake me when it's over

rephemeral — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 15:50:54 GMT

I've been so tired lately...

Last night, I didn't get to sleep until almost 2:00 - and then Sebastien's computer started beeping at about 5:00, so I had to get up... and I felt pretty awake, so I stayed up.
I did some yoga. Took a shower. Came to work... And here I am. October 1st.

My first chapter is done - almost. There is one more resource that I could not find anywhere. So I ordered it from amazon and got it expedited, so it should be here today. And *then* I'll add some more stuff to it, and my paper will be done.
And I can send it to Dr. Faris for her thumbs up or thumbs down... I'm hoping thumbs up, because if it's thumbs down, I'll probably not be able to make drastic revisions *and* do my other chapters this semester. I'm scared! (I should be alright, though... I kinda know what I'm doing).

So, as if that wasn't enough, I started writing my own stuff on the side... I'm not really that much of a creative writer - but that's from lack of practice. I can come up with some good plot ideas when my brain isn't all short circuited by literary theory/analysis/bullshit.

Hopefully I'll be able to vent some of my frustrations that way, and leave my academic career on a high and happy note.

I've gotten this urge to watch that 5 hour BBC version of Pride & Prejudice again... I don't know if it's nostalgia, or what, but every fall/winter, I have to watch it. At least once.

So, I've decided that for my next couple of chapters, I'm going to write for an hour, and then watch an hour episode of the miniseries. Sounds good, right?

And, unfortunately, because of my weird schedule and lack of money, I will not be able to go to that VK fest thingy... Even though it would be sort of field research for my paper. *sniff* Alas, I'm out of time and money!

The last day that I can schedule a defense is November 16th. So, I have to have all chapters submitted and approved by then... and then the defense, which is scary as shit. But I will do it.

And holy fuck, it looks like I missed the last day to register for December graduation by two days.
I'll be making some phone calls later... Jesus Christ, I'm such a scatter brain...

Bored!

rephemeral — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 12:30:45 GMT

Everything has been boring me lately. I don't know what it is.

I really need to get Ch. 1 of my thesis done this week. I'm almost there! Then the other two chapters... -_-;;

I got called into work this morning, because so many people are sick, so I'm up super-early. I was going to have to go anyway because I didn't fill out my timecard. Oops! Oh well! I get to do that this morning.

And... I'm going to be visiting my parents this weekend. So that'll be fun! I haven't seen them in ages, it seems. They've been all over the place on a month-long vacation. Semi-retirement sounds pretty alright! Too bad I will never be able to do that!

So, Iraq apparently has deemed health care a basic human right/necessity and given all Iraqi citizens universal coverage. The Huffington Post has an article about it. Meanwhile, we've moved on to more important things, like determining what you can and cannot call the president when you are angry at him! Thanks, Joe Wilson!. Has the U.S. government been drinking from lead cups?? Why can't we just come to some sort of resolution about health care and move on? Is it spite? You can't even return a jacket for spite!

Oh yeah. Did y'all see this? link. A kid was beaten up on a bus for his "choice of seat." While the rest of the bus cheered on the assailants! WTF? The kid being beaten up was white, the majority of the kids on the bus were black... Everyone denied the kid a seat, apparently he has no other choice but to sit next to one of the kids that said "you can't sit here," moved his bookbag, and got beaten up for it. So, maybe the fight wasn't racially motivated, maybe it was, I don't know. All I know is that when people laugh at someone being beaten up on a bus... it's just fucked. All of it is fucked.
We're all fucked. I want to get out of here.
I don't think that things are going to get better anytime soon.

Why can't we just all get along?

Dumb people are dumb

rephemeral — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 18:01:38 GMT

Check out these pictures: link

Does anyone understand this? I mean, I get the whole "Obama's a two-headed snake" thing. Kinda. But the "DONT TREAD ON ME" seems... strange?

The level of dumb in this picture set is astounding... And at this point in my life, I really should already know that people are stupid. But I'm optimistic...

Are these signs supposed to work in convincing anyone, or is it more of a ~~masturbatory~~ self-gratification thing?
And I'm not a conservative, and I realize that these are not good representatives of Republicans in general... but damn! It's kinda scary!

This lady was a freaking moron. Okay. Her kid missed his second week of school because he was sick. So she emailed Seb and asked for all the homework that he missed so he could keep up. This school is so freaking scared of parents that they have actually started encouraging teachers not to assign any, so Seb sent her an email that basically said "he doesn't have any homework to catch up on, but I'll get you some of the worksheets we've done in class." He's also put up on his webpage that the students will have a quiz over the rules of the class (which are hung up in the room, so duh, everyone should get a 100%).
The kid comes back to school on the day of the quiz and gets like a 50.

A WEEK LATER, the mom sees the grade her son got and emails Seb again, explaining why he got such a low score. And Seb is sympathetic (again, school policy requires a bit of flexibility when parents get involved). So, he tells her that if the kid can bring him the rules written out in perfect French by classtime on Thursday, he'll round out his score to a 100. Sounds like a pretty sweet deal, and she thanked him for it.

Well, it's Thursday morning, and Seb gets called in to see the administration because apparently, the mom emailed the principal to say that Seb was extremely uncooperative with them. And Seb was like "whoa! Let me show you what we agreed to in the email."
So, he forwards the emails to the principal, and she basically tells him that it doesn't matter what they agreed to, just let the kid retake the quiz.

Because writing the rules out at home was homework.

So, now the kid has to stay after school to retake a freaking classroom rules quiz.

And you know what is the icing on the fucking cake with this?
When he was explaining when they took the quiz, she was like, "Well, couldn't you just postpone the quiz?"
FOR HER SON! He was the only one absent! Whoa!

What are parents thinking?

I don't know if I should laugh at this.

rephemeral — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 03:10:08 GMT

Okay, a couple of years ago, my mom's dad suffered a stroke.
As a result, physically, he lost a lot of mobility on his right side.

We weren't really sure the effects mentally until last year, when he couldn't remember where he was when we were at a family reunion, or when my family got there.
He'll talk to my mom on the phone and repeat himself quite a bit.

Anyway, because of his lack of motor skills, he's not allowed to drive.

My parents went to Montana to visit them a couple of weeks ago, and they were staying at my grandparents' house, helping them with household chores, stuff like that.
And my dad mentioned that he could get my grandpa some additives to clean out the gas tank of his pickup.
He basically told him that if it's not driven regularly the gunk buildup can get pretty bad.
And my grandpa told him, "Oh, I drive this thing almost every day, so there's no need to do that."
And my dad said "Really? I haven't seen you driving this."
And my grandpa goes, "How long have you been here?"
And my dad said "A week."
And grandpa says, "Oh, well, *sometimes* I go a week without driving it."

I thought that was really funny, and my mom thought that was really funny. I don't know if I really should. Grandpa's really fixated on his imaginary driving skills. My mom called him on Monday to make sure that they got home from a visit with my aunt and uncle near Billings (it's about a 6 hour drive to Wolf Point). My uncle Alan had driven them home.
So my mom asked how the trip was, and grandpa says, "Oh, you know, it's a long drive, so I let Alan do quite a bit of the driving."

It seems like this always happens when he's trying to show off. Like he's still a man and he can drive his own car, thank you very much.

Strokes can really mess you up, and I don't think anyone realized how far gone his mind was until recently... It's hard to grow old gracefully.