A Fine Example of Douchebaggery

as of saturday, my dad is in the hospital. he had been in a lot of pain since thursday morning, but he stuck around with us until christmas was over and didn't complain once to any of us. i didn't even know he was in pain on christmas day, but i remember teasingly pointing out to him that i didn't think i had seen him smile once that day, which he answered with a big, cheesy grin. he helped my grandpa move their heavy TV and replace it with another. i didn't know that he was hurting at all until he left for the emergency room saturday morning. his face was red and his voice was strained, but he was still trying his best to hide from me that he was really sick.

after blood tests, x-rays, and a CAT scan, the doctors found a two-inch abnormality on his colon. this could be an infected scratch or hole, or it could be cancer. they're doing a colonoscopy today, and the results should be in around one o'clock. the doctors say that he's really young for cancer, but there's still that chance. and if it is cancer, that's the very thing that killed his father a few years ago. grandpa had throat cancer from chewing tobacco, though, and we got dad to quit chewing so that he won't die a similar way: too early, too painfully.

i'll admit that i really haven't been concerned at all until today. i hadn't cried at all until i started typing this up and after i realized that he really is trying to be strong for all of us even when he's probably pretty scared. i just told evan yesterday that i wasn't too worried about dad because he's a strong guy and i'm not all that close to him, anyway. what a horrible thing to say! i don't know what i was thinking. i love my dad, and i would be devastated if something happened to him. our whole family would. i would have to be the strong one while mom cried and cried. i would have to take over the chores that dad does every day without once being asked. i would end up chopping wood for the fire, endlessly cleaning dirty dishes, cooking, cleaning, all the tedious things that dad has to do for us without any appreciation. i know that he feels that we're not grateful for him, but we are! we would be nowhere without him. i would be nameless if he hadn't adopted me way back when. my older brother would be, too, and that's where the title of this post comes in.

the majority of my readers know that my brother, eric, and i were legally disowned by our biological father, rusty rauscher, when i was nine and eric was thirteen. lyle hannes married our mother and gave up all of his freedom in life to take us in and help raise us, no matter how disgruntled we were about some strange man taking over our lives. we treated him horribly, and we still do, but he's been there for us and hasn't given up. well... he hasn't given up on me, at least, but eric is a lost cause that we've all given up on. rusty didn't want anything to do with us. he didn't want to have to pay child support, and he didn't want to have to spend time with us for just a couple of days a month.

i know for a fact that rusty wouldn't have disowned us if it weren't for me, and i guess i feel kind of guilty for being the cause of eric's abandonment, but it wasn't my fault. maybe you don't believe me. maybe you think i'm being melodramatic, as i am so apt to do, but mom herself told me that eric was rusty's favorite, and when i asked her if rusty would have kept eric if i hadn't been born, she gave me kind of a sad look. but even still, rusty disowned eric! he willingly gave him to lyle, and he just as willingly signed the papers that stated that he would not be in any sort of contact with us until we were eighteen or unless we sought him out. only eric would be careless enough to leave our whole family to go back to the man that didn't want him. it pisses me off, it really does. guess where he's going right now, before knowing dad's test results? that's right; he's going to cedar rapids to be with rusty, and then he's going to fucking mardi gras.

eric lives in a world all to himself now, hitchhiking around with no connections to anybody. he's more selfish and narcissistic now than ever, but if rusty was in the hospital, he would be there. he doesn't give a flying shit about our real dad, and he won't let mom show him the proof that rusty has been lying to him about what happened. our dad could die while eric's away, and he wouldn't come back. when grandpa hannes died, eric stayed away. he never showed any sort of sympathy about it, and he more or less told mom to fuck off whenever she brought up the funeral.

what did we do to make eric into such a terrible person? mom tried her hardest to raise her all by herself for so many years, and she did alright for a single parent. i'm okay, aren't i? i haven't touched drugs or alcohol. the only times i'm even exposed to such things are in my own house when eric comes back to "visit." evan and i came into the house at ten-thirty last night, only to find eric and his buddy zach matson surrounded by giant bottles, hooting suggestive things at us. mom told me that it would be best if evan left and i went straight to bed so that eric and matson wouldn't mess with us at all. we did as she said, and everything was fine. honestly, though, i have never been around any underage drinking except for in my own house, and that's unacceptable.

eric believes that society is ruining our society. does that make any sense to you? he thinks that we should all question everything that goes on, but then we'd all end up questioning everyone else's questioning. questions would go unanswered forever, and we'd all die unsatisfied. being suspicious doesn't get anything done, it just makes us paranoid and unhappy. if you're part of this society, accept that and get on with your miserable little life.

to put it all bluntly: my brother's a dick and i often want him to die a gruesome death.

i still think that my dad's strong enough to get through this. it won't be cancer, and he'll be fine. i'll post the test results when i've learned them.

Dauntlessness at Six Flags!

did i even have an "Excessive Worrying" post about going to chicago? i don't think i did! that really surprises me. i kept on moaning and groaning to my friends about how when i went to six flags i was going to have my feet severed or that a ride would collapse while i was on it. i went on and on and on about all the horrible ways that i was going to die.

the trip in itself came up quite suddenly. "hey, your cousin sami invited you to go visit her in chicago," mom said, and i immediately started to panic. i very rarely see sami, so i was worried that we would have nothing in common and that we wouldn't speak at all the whole time. i worried about the ride to chicago because i was going with a strange family member whom i have barely spoken fifty words to in my whole life. i honestly just didn't want to go at all. but if you're stuck with something, you should allow yourself to enjoy it. so i shook off my negative thoughts and i climbed into my great uncle john's car.

the ride was somewhere between four and five hours. we did the whole thing in silence. neither of us spoke at all. i flipped through a far side gallery book before i finally just gave up and stared out of the window for the entire ride. the scenery in illinois is no different from the scenery here, in all honesty. they have different stores, but it's essentially the same. trees, buildings, lakes. blah, blah, blah.

after the long car ride, i finally arrived at lake zurich. i was a little confused, since mom had told me that i was going to chicago, but whatever. lake zurich is close. sami wasn't there at first, but her step mom talked to me and quickly discovered that i was very different from sami in that i was wearing thrift store clothes and didn't wish to change that. she was just asking me what i would like to do, and in moments she discovered that i had no interest in manicures, pedicures, getting my hair styled, or shopping for brand-name clothes. i mean, i wasn't sitting there going, "ew, no," but she figured me out. the whole time i was there, though, my answers were mostly, "i don't care," "sure," "whatever you want to do," and "whatever's convenient." i guess i was trying to be helpful by letting them decide, but i just made decisions more difficult.

the first time i really showed that i could get excited about anything was when we picked sami up from work. she got in and said, "that was the most pointless last half hour of work. i just sat on the floor and listened to my coworkers talk about digimon and pokemon." so of course i screamed, "YES!" and made a fool of myself. but i guess it's good to let people know what is staying in their house, and i let them know right then and there that i am kind of a nerd. well... i don't think i'm a nerd. to be a nerd is something truly spectacular, and it takes work. i have not reached the level of nerdiness to be classified as a nerd quite yet. i may never be. nerds are the rulers of the world. they're everywhere! they're everything! they are the truly elite.

one of sami's half-brothers, nathan, was a total car fanatic. he isn't even three, and he was rattling off more car names and brands than i ever plan to know. "can you get poppie his corvette?" "nay-nay, where's the hummer?" he always knew, too. he even talked about his dad's toyota. i don't know the differences between those sorts of things. toyotas, fords, whatever they are, they're all the same to me.

we went shopping the second day i was there, at some mall called Gurnee Mills. gurnee is the town that six flags is in, but i couldn't even see the coasters from the mall. the towns are much, much bigger in illinois. anyway, the whole mall was an adventure for me. i hadn't seen the majority of most of the stores before, and all the styles in the popular stores seem so silly to me. we spent way too long in rue 21 while i squeezed between giant masses of neon cloth, laughing at the animal prints and getting way too confused over shirts that looked like skirts. a rainbow must have thrown up in that place. i eventually just started grabbing the most insane things i could find so that i could try them on.

i have a question. aren't big breasts good things? don't men sweat to the thought of big, bouncing, luscious breasts? for some reason i've always thought that. but when i tried on these things, my boobs were hanging out all over the place. the dresses and boob shirts all scolded me for having breasts! what the fuck is wrong with you, rue 21? you're supposed to make my chest look really great, not put a stranglehold on my tits.

i ended up getting a vibrant yellow v-neck shirt. that's all i got. after hours of being there, we had barely even touched a quarter of that giant mall. mostly we had just been trying on the fanciest dresses in the fanciest stores. we didn't accomplish much, and soon sami's step mom was stressed out because of the boys' behavior. we got lost trying to leave, and we found a used, red condom on the steps. that was entertaining.

the day after that was the day i had been both dreading and looking forward to since i arrived. we headed toward six flags, and i was surprised to find that i was not feeling sick to my stomach. i felt strangely calm and determined. i wanted to ride all the roller coasters, just to prove to everyone, including myself, that i wasn't a total wuss. i was especially looking forward to Superman, which is a ridiculously dangerous roller coaster that turns you so that your body is more or less parallel to the ground. you go through flips and drops and everything while like that.

here, i'll give you a list of the rides we went on, in no particular order:
the ragin' cajun
batman, twice
the iron wolf
the dark knight (ridiculously long line for a sucky, sucky ride)
superman (I AM A GODDESS)
american eagle, both sides
the viper
the demon (last roller coaster we went on, made us both very light-headed and dizzy for the rest of the day)
king chaos (NEVER AGAIN NEVER EVER EVER EVER MOST TERRIFYING THING EVER)
roaring rapids
uh... some log ride
a double-decker carousel!

i hope i'm not forgetting anything. it was really a fun trip, and sami and i got along just fine, if we weren't just a little awkward.

i tire of this post. i hope you all are very, very sick of reading my ultra long rants.

Excessive Worrying: Florida

evan's picking me up at five fifty tomorrow morning so that we can head on over to the high school, where we will collect our band uniforms and pack 'em up. we'll choose seats on bus #1 - did you know that charter buses had bathrooms? i didn't know such a thing existed! - and we will prepare for the twenty-four hour ride.
i feel like maybe i should have called everyone in my family and said good-bye. i mean, what if something happens while i'm gone? what if i get kidnapped and they never see me again? what if someone is diagnosed with cancer and somehow manage to die from it in less than a week? what if one of my brothers has some sort of accident: jace (4) climbs up on something that he shouldn't climb up on, he falls and breaks his neck, or teague (1) follows jace up onto some ledge and loses balance, falls, and dies, or maybe eric (19) suddenly decides to get into hardcore drugs and has an overdose? what if grandpa has another stroke? oh, god, what if sebas decides to do something awful to me when i'm not here, and ends up doing it to my family instead? what if he comes over here with a plan to stab me up, but my mom greets him at the door and gets a nice knife in the neck?
OH, GOD!
well, i should probably try to get some sleep... i wake up in about five hours.
g'bye, all!
i hope this isn't the last time i write to you. D:

Don't Take Me Too Seriously.

i've spent the night, and am still spending the night, keeping an eye on my kid brothers, jace (who is four) and teague (one). it wasn't so bad. sure, i nearly puked when i had to change a diaper, but when do i not nearly puke? i mean, even when i'm just sitting in class, i constantly get stomach aches. they're mostly from nerves, so i don't think i could actually be sick from it, but i always want to ask the teacher if i can be excused so that i may go be sick, or i just sit there, planning my escape route for when i begin to hurl. anyway, we're talking about babysitting my kid brothers. i had fun. i spent the first hour or two watching a movie with them and then we had a DANCE PARTY!! at first, i was just singing "there's a hole in the bottom of the sea" or whatever, but of course i started jumping around like a maniac, so teague wanted up. i swept him up and jumped around with him, singing all the while, and then i turned on pandora.com and proceeded to dance. i spun in circles, i turned teague upside down, we danced. it kind of sucked because jace wanted me to dance around like that with him, but he's getting too big, and i can't hold him and teague at the same time. i tried my best to alternate between the two of them, but like i said, jace is too big and i got worn out after a while. i crashed on the couch and jace immediately started jumping all over me and whacking me with anything he could get his hands on. oh, and he seems to really like stomping all over the painful spots on every human being. dad's always crying out in pain as jace steps on his crotch, and i don't appreciate it much when he decides to jump on my chest. ow.
i had a great time, really. i imagined what it would be like if they were my kids, and... i decided... that it wouldn't be so bad to have kids. gasp! really, dani! you've never wanted kids! ever since you were a little girl, you said you wouldn't have kids! but, then again, i also said i wouldn't get married and i'm sure i don't still believe that (yes i do). but really, if i could just hang out with my kids all the time, it wouldn't be so bad. i guess it's the growing up part that's hard on a parent. teague is a sweetie, and jace is just a little bit misguided, but he's still awesome. sadly, they will soon be in school, where they will be corrupted by terrible kids raised by terrible adults who live in terrible homes and smoke weeeeeed for dinner or something. they'll get a negative outlook on life, they'll learn to hate their family, and they'll probably get some girl pregnant eventually. augh, teenagers! who knows teenagers better than a teenager, right? i know what we're like. it's terrible, really. we're so impressionable, so terribly desperate to be accepted by worthless people who are trying just as hard to be liked. we lose our identities, lose our minds. every little thing is full of implications of horror and drama with irreversible consequences. we take out our frustration on our poor parents, who don't know where their babies went. what happened? parents pray for their atheist daughter, their satanic son, what happened, what happened? where did we go wrong? help us, God, help us, we can't do this alone.
geez, i always change my mind when i write blog posts. i got into this thinking, "gee, it would be cool to be a single mother, if i could bring in enough dough," because single parents are always really close to their kids, and kids with one parent are kind of soft, troubled beings that need all the love you can give them, and oh, i've got a lot of love. it's easy to imagine coming home to this gangly kid who has been waiting for me, sitting on the couch and slinging an arm over them to watch afternoon cartoons. who needs a man? i would just get jealous when they spent time with our baby. all it would take is a little trip: "dad took me fishing!" and i would go off on some rant about how i could have done that, i'm better at fishing anyway, i wanted to teach you, your father is stealing you away from me, you love him more, yada yada. but of course i would end up messing up the kid in some way. he got too much attention from his mother, doesn't need a woman, turns gay, mother doesn't like that, gets angry, abandons son. or i would have the kid and give him up right when he was born. the hours of excruciating pain of childbirth would help me to decide that it's really not worth it, that i can't handle it, anyway. i especially wouldn't be able to handle the first few years alone. waking up at all hours of the night to stumble over to baby Cain's cradle, change diapers, fill bottles, freakin' breastfeed! my boobs would get all saggy, augh! i would be some terrible, ugly woman with bags under her eyes and a baby attached to her tit at all hours of the day, like in the grocery store and just about anywhere. do you see how i change my mind in these posts?! i realize things that i don't consider in actual, plain old thought. how would i be a stupid whoreslutskanktrollopbitchtease if i was hideous? and why would my baby ever accept love from an ugly troll woman? he would be embarrassed by me by the time he was five.
anyway, yeah. babysitting jace and teague was fun.