Juneteenth
Monday, June 19th, 2023 08:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
snoozefestaudio
Well, yesterday began, Ace of Clubs week!.. meaning the solstice happens this week and Astronomical Summer has officially begun!
The first tiger lilly popped open today, as if to make that official.
And despite a poor night's sleep (which I will get into later) I did make it to work on time, and then afterward, stopped at Home Depot to get three more 1X4s, and one more section of fake grass!
Back at home, an Amazon package awaited me on the stoop... some large googly eyes.
And after hanging out in back with the pets for a bit, I got to work on the utility space...
Basically, I expanded it eight more feet to the west, along that fence, in order to make space to dump the wood chips in a pile... because I didn't like the idea of having them in trash cans.
But I did give the turtle new eyes, and hopefully they'll hold up to the weather...
And I got all that rock garden stuff off that blue tarp and over to the utility space... and finally seeded that little zone, and covered it with topsoil.
Grass is already popping up all around, and inside the tree stump, and this area where the blue tarp had been was getting doused by the sprinkler, so I'm glad to have the tarp gone... so I can grow grass here.
Here are the wood chips, and I plan to dump all further wood chips in this space, and then shovel them out from here to use around the property.
The whole hill is looking a hell of a lot better now, with a dedicated space to put firewood, kindling, wood chips, rocks, and lawn furniture... all by that crappy fence... and all free from ground foliage.
The stumps gonna look better once grass has grown in all around it, and that hackberry by the neighbor's shed is looking a lot better too!
After I was all done here, I brought all the 1X4s down into the basement.
So now it's gonna be full steam ahead on the firepit cap project!
After having such a shitty Sunday, I was determined today to; 1) not even think about the recording studio, and 2) Not let the bullshit continue into the new week!
But I didn't lose sleep because of what you read about yesterday. I lost sleep because of what happened after I ended the entry.
At first it wasn't so bad. I called Kevin to wish him a happy Father's Day, and we talked for a while... and then I called Tim and we talked for even longer.
But long about 1AM (11PM for Tim) Brian launched a surprise attack on the group chat.
That sibling group chat's been rolling continuously since Dad was still at Strive, after his hip surgery, last December.
And even after Dad's death... when everybody had returned to the normal lives... we've kept it going, with people posting little things and starting little conversations weekly.
And it's been really nice, because this is the first time in many years that all six of us siblings have been getting along, and staying in touch!
But through the months, Brian's, of course, been problematic.
Like clockwork, every Friday or Saturday night... late!... at or after midnight... he's posted at least a drunken complaint, about how nobody cares about him... if not a full blown rant, twenty texts long.
And for the longest time, everybody's just been keeping their silence... letting it pass... and then pretending it didn't happen, later in the week.
The cause of this, is that, for a couple years now, he's been renting a rehersal space, there in DeKalb, where he's got his drums set up... and every Friday and Saturday night, he goes there, alone, to blast music, and play along on the drums.
He also set up a mike and and amp to sing along, and has set up cameras to record himself, playing and singing with his favorite songs.
Then he uploads the videos to Instagram and Facebook, in the middle of the night, hoping people will praise him for how entertaining he is.
But it's not entertaining, because... he's just super drunk, playing and singing along with songs that already have drums AND vocals on them!
It's just a loud mess, with him singing in that drunken way you only normally hear at back yard parties, or karaoke bars, waaaay after last call!
He's been pushing these videos, and badgering people to come visit him at his remote rehersal space... an hour from civilization... for two years!
At first, people would be nice and give him a few likes, but that would only invite him to spam you, or try and call you after midnight to hear more about why you loved his stuff!
So people learned to just stay offline completely after about 5PM on Friday night, and not show up again until Monday night.
And that caused Brian to get very defensive and angry every weekend, because his genius wasn't being recognized, and people were abandoning him out of spite and jealousy... or something.
So, after Dad broke his hip, and through that whole crisis, after the sibling group chat got going... we all did our best to tip toe around the subject of his drum-karaoke rehersal weekends.
But even when things were looking grim for Dad, and we all began to realize this was probably the end for him... Brian would spam the group chat with links to his rehersal videos.
Like... he couldn't pass up the exposure of this group chat to self promote!
And one night Tim called him out on it, and it was a huge fight that lasted an hour.
Okay, so fast forward to this spring.
As we've all been solidifying the plans for Dad's burial in October, and the reunion... Brian's been slowly pushing for the opportunity to put on a SHOW for everybody!
First he wanted to put on his drum karaoke show at the Round House, right after the funeral, but Colleen and Sheila, who were setting up that gathering, put the kabosh on it.
He was quiet about it for a while, but recently he's been pushing to put on a show in the back yard!
And absolutely nobody wanted that to happen!
We were all talking individually about the need to stop it from happening!
And finally, I guess Colleen must've broken it to him on the phone Saturday night, that we didn't want him to do any kind of show at the reunion.
So on Sunday, he probably slept off his drunk most of the day, but then went at it again later at night... and at 1AM decided to pick a fight about it on the group chat.
He threatened that if he wasn't allowed to put on his drum karaoke show, he'd only go to the funeral and then go straight back home, and disown all of us for the rest of his life!
So... as I said, I was on the phone with Tim, when this bombshell dropped.
And we were both drunk.
And we both had had enough of this bullshit.
So we both agreed to just immediately get out there and let him have it!
We were like attack dogs!
We just tore him up!.. no mercy!
And we were both determined to keep going until he'd been shut completely down for the night... no matter how late it went!
You're a butthurt attention whore, and we're all sick of your emotional blackmail!
That kind of thing.
He tried to quote some song lyrics about love, and I was like, Dad was in and out of the hospital for four years and you never visited him once, so if that's your idea of love, you can shove it up your ass!
Just, no holds barred, rapid fire verbal abuse!
Tim and I are the two youngest... separated from Brian by six years.
Colleen Kevin and Sheila are all older than Brian, but closer to him in age.
So... this was a blitz attack that needed to happen, but Tim and I were the ones for the job... because we were punching up, not punching down.
And it had to be both of us, because Tim has a history of getting into flame wars like this by himself, so I had to not only have his back, but be a lot nastier than Tim!
I was more brutal than he's ever been!
And I'm sure that had a lot more impact, because that's pretty out of character for me, especially over the past 20 years.
But I regret nothing, because he was asking for it!
Still, this did keep me up late, and it did make it difficult to get to sleep... and to stay asleep.
That resulted in me waking up at 12:30PM today... only 20 minutes before I normally leave for work!
But I did manage to take the dog for a quick walk, get the house secured, and make it to work by 1:30... which is exactly on time.
Normally I'm always five minutes early... and this is exactly why.
And then I made myself go to Home Depot right after work to get the lumber I forgot yesterday, along with the third turf rug... and kicked a little but out in back after I got home.
Colleen, Kevin, and Sheila were doing damage control today... speaking words of peace, and I'm sure... talking privately with Brian to help treat the wounds and bruises delivered by Tim and I.
Still... everybody's in agreement that we don't want that drum karaoke show, ruining the reuinion.
So... we've still got four months to go, before Dad's funeral.
That should be enough time for Bri to get over his mania, hopefully.
My personal hope is that, if I can get this recording studio working, and push out a few new songs between now and then... it will trigger Brian to copy cat and do the same thing.
With the money he pays for that rehersal space, he could've bought twenty gaming PCs, and all the software and insturments anybody could want, by now, for a home recording studio.
So he can do it!
And I feel like he needs to, because... this karaoke drum bullshit is just ridiculous, but he's in too deep and can't get out of the spiral, and it's destroying him!
°¦}
