Swelling Digits & Sour Tidbits

Finally my bumps and cuts from the other day have revealed themselves in the form of two large clusters of sickly-coloured bruises and a very large hill on the 'knuckle' of my toe (exactly what does one call such a thing, anyway?) Why it took two days to show up, I don't know, but I'm glad because I can see that as badly bruised as I am, I'm healing. I like to keep track of that sort of thing.

This road trip idea is getting a little more rocky, as have a lot of things. My dads taxes situation has gone from mildly inconvenient to a slight problem to a midsize dilema to a full-blown nightmare. The ifs and hows and whys are just as boring as you're imagining, so I'll spare you. I've broken every E string on every guitar I own, as well as any replacements, and I'm too broke to buy more. Men continue to spray fuel on the fire of my insecurity. I've lost 3 pounds and I have two pimples side by side on my cheek like conjoined twins. It's 11:50 and I can't sleep.

But it's a free day of school tomorrow, and next week is my last week of classes. After that, two days of exams and then (hopefully) a trip as far away from Manitoba as physically possible.

Oh, also, an old friend (not so much a friend anymore, but you know how that goes) of mine ran away from home last night. I was told his stepfather was abusing him. I felt bad. Horrible, even. Worried sick. Then I hear this morning that this was verbal abuse, not physical. And considering the type of person this friend is, I doubt it even really registered as that. But now he's back home, his stepdad is probably facing huge problems for yelling at his out-of-line stepkid over skipping school or something, and I'm a little disgusted. I know kids whose fathers beat them or emotionally abused them to the point where they abused themselves. This boy is told to smarten up (I'm making an assumption here, yes, but I've known his mom and stepdad for years now and the man is not nearly involved enough to abuse the kids. He more just speaks for his wife when she's too tired to) and calls family services.

It's a pet peeve of mine when people (especially overdramatic teens) make their own problems like this. But at the same time, verbal abuse is probably a very vague term, and there is a sliver of chance that this man slipped out of character long enough to raise his voice and throw some words around. I'm not saying this boy is a liar. I'm just saying, haven't we all felt like our parents were being jerks at one time or another? Being a parent is hard; marrying into the role of a parent when you have no kids yourself is at least twice as hard.