Just random in The Crimson Permanent Assurance

I am trying to get myself to bed at a decent hour so that we can cram as much bullshit into tomorrow as possible since its my mom's "last day here". Tuesday morning I am driving her to the airport. I know she has really loved being here and being with the kids and I have enjoyed it too but I gotta be honest, Depressed Gabrielle is ready for her space again. And ready to go back to The Summer Plan of swimming every day and not Being Entertaining. I always love when my mom comes to visit but I also always love when she goes home and life resumes.

I am struggling, however, with what I am going to look forward to after she is gone because especially with this summer, I feel like I have been trying to go from fun thing to fun thing and have something to keep me from being just flat and out of it.

The last few days Tim has been all "is anything wrong?" to me which means I must have serious face lately. The truth is that he always acts so different and distant when my mom is around, not that they don't get along because they actually totally do, but he just acts like because she and I will be doing stuff together that he can completely check out. Which I hate. And he doesn't help out with chores or anything, not that THAT is that unusual anyway. But the sum total is that no, I don't feel like making out with him or indulging his ego by acknowledging the little that he HAS been doing over the past three weeks. He just picks up on my IDGAF mood every now and then. Every time he asks me what is wrong, I just say "Nothing" because I have learned, oh have I learned, that it doesn't matter if anything is wrong with me or not, regardless "nothing" is always the best answer. The other side of all this is that when I am all "whatever", he actually does seem concerned and solicitous, which he isn't any other time. It's a cycle. It happens.

We did have a really good day yesterday (Saturday) where we went to a crazy Krishna Palace out in bumfuck WV. Can I say how crazy it is that these Krishnas talk about all "leaving all your possessions behind" because it is so awesome and freeing and then they build these ridiculously decked out palaces or temples or whatever for their leaders? This Palace of Gold place in WV was supposedly built for this Krishna spiritual leader as his home. The tour guide (a crazy Krishna) said something like the guy said if you build me a home, I will stay there. So a bunch of KIDS (the woman kept talking about how they were 18 yr olds) started building this incredible palace (full on palace) decked out in all this real gold and 37 different types of marble and crystals and teak wood from India and these elaborate stain glass windows and so on. But, uh, maybe I'm missing something, but how can you preach leaving your worldly possessions behind, focusing on the spiritual, etc. while living in a motherfucking PALACE? I was like, uh, maybe y'all should have fed some orphans with all this money instead. Not to mention they built this shit in the middle (or kinda at the top) of the WV mountains.

As a result, the place has kinda fallen into disrepair. Apparently the guru guy died before they finished it, and it's really just a tourist spot now, though there is a full on Krishna community the surrounds it. I think other than the Krishnas (who were almost all exclusively white/Caucasian) ALL of the other tourists there on Saturday were Indian. So, maybe it is an Indian tourist attraction? I don't get it but I don't care either.

They have this AMAZING rose garden that has won all these awards, and they have a lotus pond, and when you just look at the structure as art, it is full on amazing.

I put a few pictures up on Facebook from the rose garden and I have more to edit. Saturday also marked the first time that I have pulled my camera out in literally an entire year. I haven't taken a picture that wasn't with my phone in so long, and that felt really good. I need to do more of that, because when I had the camera up against my face, it felt like the fog lifted for just a little while. That felt good.

Well, it's just past midnight so I should wrap this up. I have another entry regarding my alcohol habit that I need to write but every time I think about it I feel so ashamed and upset about it that I don't want to. But I need to record it so I don't forget.