Today I finally got off my lazy butt and put in another rehire form at the call center. Hopefully since this one is being posted after the date their computers think I am eligible for rehire, I'll have no problems and get word back in 2 weeks, exactly like they told me.

B also mentioned something I hadn't considered before: work at the post office. The next time I get a speck of afternoon free time (Thursday), I'll visit them and see about the application process.

Getting a raise at the coffee shop went off without a hitch. The only problem is the difference between $6.67 an hour and $7.50 an hour is not much of a difference at all.

So, yeah, definitely still quitting.

I've been playing a lot of City of Heroes and otherwise doing nothing.

I have the periods so it's okay.

I had a weird memory pop into my head while I was making tinkle today. When I was much younger, in my teens, my brother and I went with Dad to visit our grandparents. Mom wouldn't go because she doesn't have a good relationship with my grandmother, mostly because my grandmother tends to shun those of the family who don't go to church. So for some reason while we were there, I had to do my laundry, and after it was done, my dad mentioned something to me about the size of my underwear. It was a really offhand question that went nowhere and confounded me to no end then, but now I can't even remember what it was about, and what really bothered me then still bothers me now: what the fuck was he doing looking at my underwear?

My dad is an odd character--has been, ever will be. It's the kind of odd that would be harmless if he didn't have the history of being a violent, drunk, criminal, creepy asshole.

When we were much younger, right after my parents were divorced, Dad actually made use of his visitation rights, and ended up being my and my brother's babysitter on the weekends Mom had work. My dad was, then, a self-employed electrician/plumber/carpenter. He still is, but as far as I know, these days he's working under someone. That may've ended.

Anyway, I have snatches of memories about those weekends. They are, like my entire cache of childhood memories, vague and scattered, but in recollection they seem like a college student's art film.

Days were often spent in the sun in people's backyards or under their houses or by their pools. Dad would rattle off the name of a tool and I'd hand it over. Apparently I was an engaging, clever child and his friends all adored me. We'd dine in various places around Athens, GA--my favorites being The Grill and The Bluebird Cafe. I'd wait in the park while he played soccer, and I'd entertain his dog, which was perpetually a collie until recently. Sometimes I slept on the couch in his apartment, sometimes I slept on the bed. For a long time, he was an obsessive collector of in-package mint-condition Spawn action figures. He also had an extensive comic book collection that I was allowed nowhere near, not that I had any interest in it at that age. I have no earthly idea what he did with any of that stuff, but it was probably sold during one of his low periods.

A lot of the memories I have of my dad don't involve my brother. However, all of the worst memories I have of him do involve V in some way.

In preschool, V had a little girlfriend named Hope. Hope invited him to her birthday party, but my mom had to work that weekend and couldn't take him, so she got Dad to do it, and of course I had to go. I tried to have fun with the kids who were younger than me, but the party tapered off and near the end of it, V turned up missing. Someone told me he'd gone to the bathroom, so I wandered off in search of him. I found him in the kitchen at the brink of tears. He couldn't find the bathrooms so he'd just crapped his pants. Par for the course for some four-year-olds, I guess, especially V. He was notorious for having accidents about once a week. The preschool he went to had retarded bathroom procedures, and he wasn't the only kid there who shat or peed his pants on occasion. So I didn't say anything to anyone, but I knew what was coming. We got in Dad's truck and the first thing out of his mouth was, "Did you shit your pants?"

V cried all the way to Dad's apartment, then Dad took V into the room adjacent to where he'd told me to stay and proceeded to scream at V for close to an hour before ending his tirade with one of the most brutal sounding spankings I ever heard.

I was too afraid to tell Mom, and I don't know if V ever did. I don't even know if V still remembers this, but after that day, V would get violently ill at the thought of having to spend time with Dad, so Mom would often just take V to work with her. After a while, Dad didn't care to spend as many weekends with us, so we went through a vast array of babysitters.

In addition to our personal brush with Dad's bouts of excessive force, he hits women, too. Several years ago, my mom got a call from a private investigator who was hired by my dad's then girlfriend's family. She'd cut off all contact with them after they noticed bruises on her. My mom described the nature of her relationship with Dad for the PI, stating he was emotionally abusive, but he'd never hit her. We didn't hear anything else for weeks. Out of the blue, my mom got a call from the girlfriend, now ex-girlfriend. She was looking for solace and answers, and she confirmed all the terrible things we thought about my dad. He was beating her.

Now my dad has a new girlfriend and a baby with that girlfriend. The baby is about a year old now, I think, and adorable as all get out. My dad, ages ago (just after we found out about the ex-girlfriend), when we'd gone to see The Passion of the Christ together, told me he regretted his past and was a changed man. I hope so, for the sake of the new, cute kid and the wonderful, brilliant girlfriend who won't marry him.

A wise thing, I think.

He has been behaving himself lately, but I'll never really trust him. I bear grudges, I guess.

Who doesn't?