11.09.2017

MM on Residency - Night 4, Day 5

Holy moly, last night was absolute shitshow. Got home to find the meal had been prepared by kids (w/ help from G & G, who promptly departed upon my arrival): fruit skewers and rice bowls w/ lots of fixings and additions. We finished eating at 5:15 and I had to clean everything up. Kids had both had endless rivers of screen time so we couldn’t pivot to a show. I tried to get them in their pjs and start early bed time all while kind of piecemeal cleaning where I could. F still not feeling well is just roaming the house crying ‘mama, mama’ and N I can feel ramping up. Eventually we are in the bathroom and he’s punching and kicking me and I’m trying every stripe of Buddhist patience and honoring the moment and speaking to him as adult and bargaining and negotiating to no avail and I grab him and put him over my shoulder and tactically attempt a primal papa bear type shriek/howl. This would be my great undoing. Things escalate from there and I am awaiting the police any second b/c no doubt the neighbors can hear the screaming and barking. F comes in and is sitting on my lap crying for mama and N is across from me throwing things at my face. I eventually wait it out and things slowly begin to recede from threat and I am able to put F in her room in bed and N in his. Everyone is hollowed out and fried. I make it downstairs with a glass of wine and sit on the futon and within seconds F has coughs herself awake and starts crying. This pattern would repeat several times. Instead of watching a work of cinematic genius my scattered mind tries multiple things: 5 min of The Trigger Effect, 5 min of Bojack Horseman, 5 min of  Mindhunter. None of them stick. I am fried and hollowed out and drink too much and binge eat some raided Halloween candy and none of it makes me feel better, only worse. The only good of the night is that F’s fever doesn’t return. At 2 am she coughs herself awake and then I am up and I begin catastrophic thinking and get fearful b/c MM has not touched base w/ me all night and I know she must be dead in WY frozen or bear-eaten so I call her at 2am and wake her up and freak her out. But she’s fine.

The next day the kids have a dance party that predictably ends w/ F screaming b/c she hit her head on the doorframe.



I take F to preschool. Me and N go to BiMart for mop and clock and New Seasons for shredded cheese and beers. We go home and play and clean up and then at 11 we go see Lego Ninjago. F takes a nap at preschool for the first time all year and her fever doesn’t come back. At present I am writing while they are being annoying as hell around me, near-fighting and trying my patience in severe way. I cannot wait until they are asleep and feel like an asshole for thinking that. My reserves of patience and energy are severely low.

amount of work I've done on anything related to cinema or myself: zero

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