Plodding On.

"When it rains, it pours"
- Everyone

I called up some friends tonight to go hang out. It was just going to be an average night. Get together, head somewhere, talk about something, laugh, listen to music, dance, etc. But then, you have those days where lots of not-so-great things happen, and it puts a damper on the night.

I took off from home and started heading into a general "My friends are over here kinda" direction. I made some calls, asked people if they wanted to hang out, and got a loose idea of who might be willing to. Then the phone rings. It's my mom. She usually doesn't call me when I head out. My dad wanted to talk to me.

My dad and I tend to butt heads.

He wants me to be a certain way. The way that he is. The problem is, my dad, more or less, is a miserable person. He has no friends outside of those he made when he was still very young, lacks any social skills, and most importantly, tact.

He wanted to speak to me. I told my mom to put him on the phone. In the background, I could hear him shouting, demanding my presence back home. Oh great. Not again.

I get there and he's sitting at the dinner table. He doesn't look to pleased. He asks me how old I am. It's rhetorical, but I have to answer or it'll piss him off even more. He asks me if I think this is how a responsible person acts. I don't know what to answer. He proceeds to tell me that responsible people don't stay out all night past midnight. People with jobs go to sleep at a decent hour and wake up super early to get things started. I agree with him because, generally, yeah, responsible folks will head off to bed early to get a decent night's sleep. However, I know more people that are responsible enough to go to sleep at odd hours of the night, and still wake up to get to work and get things done. I count myself in the pool of people that can sleep 2 hours and be ready to go and take care of things.

The thing is, my father doesn't know who I am. He never bothers to ask about my day, or what's going on with my life. So he doesn't know how responsible I actually am. I've messed up here and there, and yeah, it's been pretty bad. But I'm not some nutcase who can't hold onto jobs, or screws up his life because he can't get up in the morning.

He asks me to hand him my house key. Okay. He can have it. He tells me to go out with my friends. Then, when I get home, we'll see if he lets me back in. I give him the key and I take off. He's not too happy. I'm not happy either. I'm pretty angry. Who wants to live with that kind of person? I think I'd rather live in a car than with this man. This isn't an isolated incident either. These kind of threats have been made before. This time though, it really did get me past the breaking point. I want out of here! I was ready to get out of here!

When I finally got out of the house, I called back a few people, decided that the best person to hang out with would be James. We'd head out and meet new folks and crack jokes and win over a crowd with our charm. We'd forget about our nonsense and problems for tonight and enjoy a little freedom. Except he wasn't picking up anymore. I head back towards "My friends are over here kinda" and figured he was busy.

I persisted, and I kept on the journey to "over there". He sent me a text saying he was getting ready to take off. He would text me directions. No dice. I waited for almost an hour. Driving around LA County. I called. No answer. I texted. No reply. I suspected he was out with a mutual friend of ours. I called them one by one, nobody knew where he was. When I called our friend Claudette, she said that she had gotten a strange depressing message from him. I started to worry at this point so I started calling and texting the bugger again. He sent me a text requesting that I not go hang out with him, that I wouldn't want to be there. More texts, no replies. I headed to Claudette's place and we agreed to mount a rescue mission. We had a few clues as to his whereabouts, but nothing solid, so we got directions to the last known bar he had been at that night.

As we were heading out, she received a text message from him saying that he didn't want to be bothered. He wouldn't answer my calls, so I figured a girl would have better luck. She did. He was mumbling and slurring his words, letting out details here and there. He had a bad day and ended up hanging out with some friends, who seem to have gotten far too drunk and wanted to give him a ride home. Something was missing though. It wasn't enough to get James down.

He took off walking, 2 miles from home. I figured he'd be okay.

I headed home, our rescue mission not quite successful, but about as good as it would get. I wanted to get home and sleep. He called me when I was about half a mile from my house. He appologized for not giving me details and I convinced him to let me pick him up.

Apparently, he's being laid off because the company he works for is downsizing. They told him right before the work day, so he had to sit there for eight hours, knowing that he'd be let go in a few days. How's that for kinda cruel? When he got out, he called his crazy friend Tiger to go hang out and get drunk. They got drunk. James started talking about his job. Everyone else chimed in with their problems. Before long, three people were crying about their lives, one was near passed out on the floor, and James was going on and on about his failed relationships. One giant pity party, hold the emotional support.

We went for a walk and he let it out. How he's got no future prospects, how he lacks any kind of skill, and how his relationships are more or less screwed up from the start. Of course, it was all residual from the gathering of emotional wrecks that had gotten together an hour before. He slowly realized that he's got quite a few things going for him, and we spent the rest of the night building ourselves up on the good things that are coming up. I hope I put it in perspective for him, but I won't know until we get going with our lives and he does the things he said he will.