It's been a bad week.

Last friday, the 15th, Dad was picked up on an old warrant that was nullified by our Agreement of Understanding with the State from last year. The following monday I went down to the courthouse with the Agreement of Understanding, to prove the bogus nature of the warrant, and my father was released. Dad was taken back to the retention center so that they could process the release; and when my mother went that evening to pick him up, they told her that he hadn't been released. Since then, my mother & I have received various conflicting bits of information from (a) the prison, (b) the county clerk, (c) the court attorney, and (d) my grandfather, our unofficial court advisor. Various conflicting court dates, and nobody knows why Dad hasn't been released, everyone says that we should call someone else.

You'd think that there would surely be someone to whom I could go, or who I could call, and say, "no, look, this is all a mistake, look at this piece of paper." But there is no one.

A citizen is taxed a certain portion of her agency in exchange for privileges from the State.

That's all I have to say about that.

*

sidenotes:

1. My grandfather is a retired attorney and also a formerly prominent judge. My aunt Debbie asked my mother why she wouldn't ask him for help and mother answered, "We don't have that kind of relationship," which is a line that I'd written only a little while before, in a story where Bobby was saying it about Wolverine.

2. I've had a furry grey spider living in my bathroom for the last few weeks, and he & I sort of eye each other warily and keep a respectful distance. The day of my father's arraignment, I was coming home from the courthouse and I felt something on my neck-- I'm in my car-- and I reached up to brush away some stray strand of hair and my finger pressed against something soft & solid. I brought my hand back and the spider from my bathroom jumped onto one of my textbooks in the passenger seat. When I leaned over him to fetch a piece of paper, with which to escort him outside, he vanished. But he must have been there all morning.

3. The monday of Dad's arraignment I spent the night at Devon's-- Devon, who has been so soothing to my heart, because her presence makes me feel confident & relaxed, despite all my helplessness and failure, and also she makes blue kool-aid. I hadn't told her anything about what had happened, but she said, "Are you sure everything is alright?" because I'd already assured her several times that everything was fine, and I finally answered, "I don't want to talk about it." She said okay, and I think the very next words out of my mouth were, "Everything is bad!" It went on from there. Devon has always known how to talk to me with disbelief.

4. I've been self-medicating this week with gay romantic comedy, which has led to me spending an inexcusable $60 on yaoi manga at the local bookstore. But, oh my god, I love it. It reminds me of when I was little and it was fantasy novels, all the time. I couldn't do school work or athletics or chores, I only wanted to read fantasy novels or else sit staring at the walls or the treeline and think about fantasy. On a related note, I met a new fellow, Ryan-- a Knoxville writer, but not pretentious, not scholarly-- whose fan favorites are X-Men and Angel; I told him my work in those areas was mostly gay romantic comedy but he didn't seem bothered. He admitted to having attended a Hootie & the Blowfish concert, and that takes class. We were at Perkins on friday night, and Brad-- Ryan's friend from way back and my friend from work, who introduced us-- hurt a place behind his ear. I told him to put water on it and handed him my glass. Ryan said, "hey, Dr. Quinn," and I said, "I don't know, I was going for Sully."

5. I mentioned last entry about the heavy blanket of nostalgia, but lately the blanket has taken on bizarre folds. My mind speaks to me almost solely in memories these days. Disconnected images of my father's hurt and my mother's frantic care-taking & despair; I know that the girl in the red sweatshirt is the angel of my parents' imaginations, and I remember all of her fantasies and wistfulness and desperation, which bloomed into the restlessness, that old familiar restlessness, as Disa says, and I compare it to my own fatigue.