Fucking Church Dinners

Dear Hearts

No punctuation, grammar, capitalization, or spelling except what word fixes on its own. On Q a panic attack.

I had a good day today, I think. Although how g-pa has the heat on when it’s like 75 out I have no idea. I saw Martha and then went out with evelyn and her two high school friends. They are all 90 or thereabouts. They have at least 50 years on me. I haven’t even been alive that long. Evelyn said my grandfather is her “adopted” brother.  She and my grandparents essentially grew up together—from young-adulthood on. She married a man who was in the same orphanage as my grandparents. So they also adopted her as an ‘orphan kid.’

I am really getting tired of this fucking shaking.  But without these episodes I’d have to be in the real world full time and I am so not ready for that.

I miss my gram so much. No one will ever replace her. But, I told Evelyn today that she is my adopted grandmother. It felt so good to feel her hand on my back and arm. Comfort.

Tonight was chicken and biscuits night at a local church. I have not problem wth chicken nd biscuits. Actually, I like them. But I so did not wanna go. We walked like two blocks and as soon as I entered the church I started shaking. I downed a milligram of Xanax.

I don’t like eating trough style. I don’t like church dinners. Who the fuck knows what is actually in the food  I know—restaurant horror stories—but church and organization dinners and picnics are a thing for me. I don’t do them.

I think I was pretty stealthy in going up a second time to get something at the buffet table while g-pa was eating. I took that opportunity to shove in the garbage on large chicken and buiscut. Man, there were giblets and dark meet all up in there. And the beans were canned. No fucking way am I eating pasta salad or that other shit that’s been sitting out there for over an hour. I picked—truly picked at my dinner and pushed the food around, using parsley and a napkin to hide what I didn’t throw out. I lied to g-pa about having coffee cake and being full. i had only coffee with evelyn and her friends. Although I do have a piece of chocolate chocolate chip pie for tonight. 

This is a full-fledged panic attack—like I wanted to run and just get out of the building. I did not feel safe. This is a bad one. I am really spasiming . how the fuck do you spell spasaming. That’s the way it sounds.

I stayed with g-pa and did my duty. And I over solicitously thank him for a great dinner. Puke. g-pa got dessert to go and I got a brownie to go—but hell’s bells I ain’t eating that shit. On the way out I almost got into with one old lady was giving me a disproving eye.

Really bitch? you want to go now, with me, here?

Church dinners. I went to a lot as a kid. They conjure up sitting with assholes and being scolded for not eating all my food. A lot of them were fun I guess—but as an adult they strike fear in my core.

g-pa kept regretting that aunt faerie couldn’t be with us because she loved these dinners so much. Jello salad really? she’s the lucky one. if she’d been there I woulda left. She coming home tonight and I’m glad of it. I am no longer the lone designated adult.

Why do people feel the need to eat in large groups from a trough? how is that fun? I don’t know any of these people and mostly don’t want to. It’s not even g-pa’s church. there  Old, dear, sweet church ladies keeping your fucking walmart chicken and buscuits. Fucking eww. I’ll take progresso soup.

Even when I was a teacher and we had group luncheons I never ate the food. Just fucking eat at home. Going out to a restaurant is different. That’s like a luxury—a treat. And you know there are to be some health codes followed. And you’re not gonna get in trouble for not eating all your chicken or looking a certain way. I don’t like eating in large groups. It’s not fun and it’s not socialable.  It’s just a waste of time and a quasi-money maker for the church.

I always feel like I am in a soup kitchen or something. I wonder why anybody goes to these things. And then the ‘old people’—I respect them as per my previous post. But what is it about buffet food that turns them all on? do they really like the mystery salads that much?

At these dinners I feel like no one is himself. They are all putting on some kind of act.

Oh, it’s so good to see you.

You don’t even know my fucking name. you don’t’ care about seeing me and I sure don’t give a shit about seeing you.

Underneath all that ‘good to see ya’ bullshit is judgment. Oh, harry’s limping. Jessica got a tattoo. That girl just threw out half of really good chicken and busciuts. How the fuck is that word spelled? jim’s daughter is with him. He had a stroke. Sarah’s husband isn’t here—he’s home drunk. Do you know that melissa’s kids don’t talk to her anymore? who is that girl in the GOP hat with g-pa? isn’t she catholic? Stuck up easterner. why isn’t peter and june here? BECAUSE THEY FUCKING ATE AT HOME IN FRONT OF THE TV LIKE PEOPLE ARE SUPPOSED TO DO.

I don’t want to sit with strangers and eat very questionable home-made institutional standard food. Who knows? mrs. Ellison’s cat may have made it into the piece.

There is a universal church basement ‘common dinner’ smell. It’s stale and not welcoming. If they knew who I really was, they’d either pity or reject me.

As I write this I realize I must have some pavlonian response to these dinners. I’m not sure what’s at the root…being scolded to eat my chicken, everyone’s eyes on me, being on your best behavior, being fake…germs. I left the protestant church and Christ when I was 14. The manipulative abusive grandmother I grew up with made sure I knew that God was great and scary. He would send me, my parents, or any of my friends to Hell without a second thought. I figured that if I didn’t believe in God, then he couldn’t send me to Hell We went to a lot of church dinners together.

When I was a teacher they had huge breakfasts the first Friday of every month and I was invited always.

Fucking eat at home. I don’t want to eat with you people. I don’t even like a lot of you people. I told them time and time again: I eat at home. No, I’m not bringing a fruit salad (the one time I as on the list as bringing a fruit salad I was like fuck that. I brought a bunch of bananas. Teachers, with food, are like vultures with a carcass. It’s scary and a sight to behold.

God, it’s already dark out. 

The shaking is subsiding. A little over an hour. G pa is happy. He can have my dessert and his. I fucking hate trough feeding.

Don’t do it. stop making others do it. just fucking eat at home. I like sookie Stackhouse way more than I like you.

And yes I have a fucking tattoo! You wanna go? I go Jersey on you if you ask me one more fucking time why I moved here, what I’m doing for work, and how I’m affording a house in new york.

“And I have known the eyes already, known them all— 

The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase, 

And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin, 

When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall, 

Then how should I begin 

To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways? 

               And how should I presume?”            The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, T.S. Eliot

Smoke ‘em if ya’ got ‘em. God Bless

In the name of The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; Mother Mary, Saint Brigid; Saint Jude; Saint Therese Lisieux; Saint Peter; Archangel Michael, and my Guardian Angel.

PS: Yes, Pence served Kaine a beat-down at the debate. Clear winner. I wish he were our candidate.

PPS: I am leaving grammar and spelling as is. It’s a record of my episode. Deal with it. Or do you wanna go? Huh?

PPPS: Cigarette NOW and then shower and dinner. Hell, I only smoked three yesterday.

PPPPS: My 50th post. Wow. That's something. Truly. Thank you Saint Brigid.