father of mine
april 1st, 2000

my life has the most peculiar way of totally running in patterns.

first, a little background for those who may be new to the scene. (or at 
least those i've not told the story of my father to.) my father and mother 
got divorced when i was six weeks old, and he completely disappeared from 
my life. when i was about ten, i wrote him a letter asking why he did 
this, and he sent me a really cold one back, saying "just because i sired 
you doesn't make me your father" and all sorts of nonsense like that. i 
never heard from him again...that is, until Aisling was born. and all of 
the sudden he just pops up out of the blue and starts emailing me on a 
semi-regular basis. and sending Aisling stuff. weird.

so i finally flat-out asked him why. why did he totally disappear from my 
life, giving me no explanation, and then suddenly appear again, without 
any explanation that time, either.

i wasn't expecting to be mailed back a five page sob story.

for the most part, i have to confess i agree with him. if he was as 
emotionally messed up as he claims he was (and, in my opinion, you'd have 
to be pretty emotionally messed up to not want to have anything to do with 
your child) he would have, in all likelihood, caused me no end of pain and 
confusion. and had there been a strong father figure in my life at any 
time, it would have been that person who deserved the title of "daddy." 
and even though there wasn't one, i still think i did really pretty 
incredible without it. (and after all, there was always mr. lamb, my high 
school art teacher, who took on the role of surrogate father. mr. lamb 
rocked.)

but the clincher, and the thing that i cannot understand or agree with, 
and really in all honesty just amuses the hell out of me, is the core of 
the reason why he avoided me for so many years - i would have brought back 
too many painful memories. "i was completely devastated when your mother 
left, i didn't want to keep reopening that wound, it would have just 
reminded me of all of the pain and sorrow and hardship i went through 
during that period of my life" etc. number one: how totally immature. by 
that logic i'd have to disown my daughter because every time she made an 
expression that looked like nathaniel i'd be reminded of the two most 
horrible years of my life. and i'm sorry, when she makes those 
expressions, that is *not* the first thing that comes to mind. (honestly, 
at the moment, the first thing that comes to mind is "damn, she *has* to 
be nathaniel's!") number two: if he really loved my mother enough to be 
horribly devastated if she left and to become thrown into this horrible 
depression that would last years and years and because of which he 
couldn't even contact his own daughter because she would remind him of it 
- why did he sleep around on her, then?

see? patterns.

i took some more screenshots of dreamscape last night (just call me 
virtual photographer.) below is vintage "nuala" standing beside a 
scarecrow, with links to all my various heads (yes, believe it or not you 
can wear different heads in this universe...they also pay you for simply 
existing - how cool is that?)