The shit ends here

I've had a really shit few days. Not that I'd ever claim to have it rougher than anyone else in the world, far from it... but shit is shit all the same, and this is my shit.

First up, I didn't really have a bank holiday weekend, mainly because on Friday I got home from work to a phone call from my Mum, where she informed me (in a slightly less-to-the-point way) that my Gran has cancer and is going to die any day now. She hasn't been particularly well for a few months now, and I knew she was in hospital for some pains that she had, but I wasn't aware it was that serious (neither was anyone else at the time, I'm sure). Shit... I know I'm not as close to my family as I probably should be, but it's my Mum's side of the family I've always been mostly associated with, and I know she's pretty old now (in her late 80s), but she's someone who's been around since the day I was born, y'know? And what makes it worse is, I think the biggest shock I get in these situations comes from the realisation of my own mortality... I went out to see her on Saturday, and I have to say, there's no fucking way I'm going out like that. She's so doped up on painkillers she can hardly stay conscious, and when she's awake she pretty much can't speak... for the first time ever, I heard my Mum speak to her as if she was a child (something you may notice people have a habit of doing around old people, but not my Gran, until this she was one of the sharpest people I've ever known). Didn't help that she had fell out of bed the night before and had a cracker of a black eye... just this withered old corpse doing nothing but waiting to die. My Mum looked absolutely wrecked on Saturday, too... running back and forward to the hospital all the time, organising things, just generally feeling the gravity of the situation... when I go, I want to just go, I don't want people to see me like that, nor do I want them to have to go through what my Mum is just now. And the whole concept of saying goodbye and making peace with someone before they're actually gone... fucksake. I'll have a rock 'n' roll death, please. Preferably before I'm old and useless...

Hmm, writing more about that than I intended to. I think I've seen more than enough people die in front of my eyes in my lifetime for this to be bothering me as much as it does. Hopefully, this will be the last for a while...

Anyway, had my sister stay over with me on Sunday/Monday, to give my Mum a bit of a break. My sister is 14 and a half years younger than me... she's 11, I'm 26. Bit of a jump, eh? Anyway, nothing "shit" about this, my sis is really cool, plus I don't see her nearly often enough, just shit that I let it get to these kind of situations before I offer to have her over. It was pretty cool having her around... Meech is watching his parent's house at the moment so there was plenty of room, had Janette (who from now on shall be referred to as 'Jinty', more on that later) over most of the time too, we had a good time. Played some videogames with my sis, took her out to the cinema to see X-Men 2, ate a whole lot of junk food, took the piss out of Jinty (and she out of me), generally had a silly time. It was braw.

Then I got the shitty flu again. Started to feel really shitty on Sunday night/Monday morning... figured I was just imagining it, that maybe I was tired or something, because there was surely no way I could be sick again. No such luck... turned into a full-blown flufest, totally crippled me for a couple of days. I had a shitload of work I had to do yesterday, but I decided that it wasn't worth making the effort coming in that sick, no-one would thank me for it anyway... so I had a day off. I was feeling shittier than I have since I was a kid... I was in a real state last night, thankfully I'm picking up now. Doesn't help with all this SARS shit and stuff going round at the moment, given how paranoid I am about these things at the best of times... it's put me way behind schedule in work here, and these fucks I work with are totally unforgiving, they have no sympathy if it means they have to wait an extra day for something. Bunch of fucks, bet you they don't think that way when they're sick. Fucks.

It's really starting to freak me out that I'm ill so often these days, though.

Yeah, "Jinty" was around most of the weekend. I asked her to come over, though we didn't really talk much about what's going wrong, probably should have. She's acting as if nothing has happened though, which I'm finding quite frustrating, because I can't just ignore the things that I'm not writing here. I'm really confused about all this at the moment... we're in far too deep to just walk away from it all. Hell, my Dad even has a nickname for her now ("Jinty"...), so turning back could be pretty difficult... not saying that we are, just... I don't know what I'm saying.

"I can't live with you, but I can't live without you... I can't breathe if you stay, but I can't bear you to go away..."

With all the family stuff/illness/girl stuff etc of the past few days, I haven't really had a chance to think straight, never mind do all the fun things I had planned. Not been able to get all the band stuff up to speed, for a start... it's sad to say, Cuff started his new job here in my office yesterday, and I still haven't seen him, so understandably band stuff is a bit behind. Really wanted to get a rehersal going, too... get tightened up a bit, get into the swing of some new material and stuff... pants. Pants, and bra...

I'm fed up of everything going wrong. No more. Y'know, I'm a big believer in the whole "Ying and Yang" thing, for every up there's a down, the balance of power, all that crap. But y'know... who's fucking rule was that, anyway? Why can't each and every person have the good time, all the time? Fuck being balanced. Bad stuff sucks. I don't know how to avoid it, but from this point on, I'm damn well going to try... at least, until the next bad thing happens, anyway. Maybe I won't feel so down about all the bad stuff when all the good stuff's happening if I have that attitude...

Time to be strong. To stand up to yourself is to be strong. It's time to stand up to myself... maybe then, the rest of the world will fall into place.

In less depressing news, my DVD ROM is pretty cool. Watched a few movies on it over the weekend, quality. Even got my hands on the PC version of MGS2: Substance (which you can only get on DVD) just to mess around with it, fun stuff. Good to have around when you're bed-ridden, anyway.

Enough from me. Going to go do something useful now. Probably a poo.