boredom

My father too often likes to say that I lack a single drop of diplomacy in my blood. And to that, I may have to agree because I enjoy my voice and my thoughts far too much for me not to let them run my leash. And by now, for now, they have done me just fine with only minor snags in life, and a few snags of my tights. My words are one of the few things I like. Otherwise, I have a distaste for almost everything. I do not like dogs nor do I like flies. I dislike red lipstick on thin lips and I hate coffee. I rarely want to go outside and hate having to do so, especially when it is warm. The sunshine is monotonous, day up, day down. Much like everything, it is boring. I am usually bored.

There are a few things that I do not find boring: spiders, words, the rain, bones, and men. Maybe there is a subconscious resemblance between my little list but I cannot connect it and do not care to. Spiders, I feel like the reasons why I do enjoy them are almost innate to their being and purpose, but they are little artists, sitting, observing, spinning, and eating. God herself must have made them as a warning to those like me, willing to sit and stick only to be beaten with a broom. Sometimes I think I need a good whack with a broom but much like a spider, at this point, it would knock the life and all eight of my eyes out of me.

I have always enjoyed words, spiders, the rain, and bones but I have not always liked men. I was born stern and staring at my mother, unamused at her twelve hours on the brink of herniation. However, my father, my father lit my face up. He is a strange man. He has never left his twenties; he loves women, bar hopping, his college frat, DKE, and poker. He took me regularly to the frat as a child and would drive me to their parties during my senior year of high school with my friends. He tried to get me to dance with the vice president of the frat one day during the college's homecoming weekend. He is a chronic mansplainer. Even if you were explaining a concept he previously did not know, he will always repeat and reiterate it back. Maybe just to understand it himself.

My father is a successful man. He has created a name for himself despite everything he grew up being told about his intellect or work ethic. His business bio defines him as a "Tenacious entrepreneur, business guru, card shark, and lobster." My father calls himself a lobster because a person can only grow in uncomfortable situations.

I used to wait up late to see him every night I could. I'd sneak out of my room after my given bedtime after I was sure my mother had passed out for the night, bring blankets to our mud room, and lay on the bench reading a book until he would open the door at 11, 12, or 1 o'clock and he would walk me to bed. He still sometimes would read me my books up until I was around twelve. He has, and likely, will always call me Princess.

And then, once upon a time, my mother found out he had been seeing his girlfriend from college on the weekends and, despite it all, I could not help but find it to be hilarious. See, he had spent my childhood exhausting himself, and us, to please my mother with thousand-dollar Christmas hauls and emerald "just because" gifts all while entertaining other women as well. I now understand why he was constantly stressed throughout my childhood. He got smashed in the web he wove with such silly irony. Maybe I have a sick sense of humor or maybe my brain has been tunneled out by worms but since that moment men have been nothing but funny.