State of the Me

[jtthomas]

Christmas is just about done here. My family being Catholic and holding mostly Quebec customs, the new year tends to be the end of most of the festivities. (And Sherlock Holmes's birthday ends the rest.) So now I can get away with curling up in my room and trying not to scream. 

At least I'm home alone starting tomorrow -- everyone in the family was on vacation and thus in the house all week, so I couldn't even listen to my own music except with headphones on. All I could listen to was country Christmas from Christmas Eve until today. But I could play instruments around other people, provided I was careful not to sing any of the songs that have a single iota of non-Christian energy in them. Let's just say I got quite a bit of instrumental practice. And I got a bodhran from my parents, so that's an upside. My mom tends to go all-out for Christmas, so I have new violin strings and a fife as well. I got Amazon and Barnes and Noble money from the siblings, all of which has now been spent on quite the variety of things (American Gods, blank sheet music notebook, Rise Up Singing, and the NESFA hymnal off BN and their Marketplace, gig bag and guitar stand off Amazon).

Just about ready to scream at the misgendering, of course. My aunt gave me $50 for my birthday and I still haven't touched it, so I'm starting to think I might just buy a binder with some of that. My parents wouldn't take it away or destroy it purposefully, so at least there's that, but still. It was on my Christmas list, right below the bodhran in priorities and significantly higher than the fife or strings. I have almost $30 on my Paypal and I'm considering just using that instead. If I just transferred the $50 there, of course, I could get an extra binder off GC2B. Now that's tempting, provided I can figure out how to use Paypal in the first place.

Already looking forward to the prospect of not being here starting in a couple of weeks, of course. Doesn't look like I'll be able to get to Boskone since it costs so much to get into Boston via the commuter rail, but at least I know it's happening and I can start saving up for future years. And I'll probably spend the weekend writing a bunch of stuff anyway.

(On an unrelated note, is it normal for parents to refuse to allow an adult child to have a lock on their bedroom door? Because it's only just occurred to me how weird it might be that I'm not allowed to have a lock on my bedroom door. They have a lock on theirs.)

Comments

[cmcmck]

You play the Bodhran?

I do diatonic accordeon, mandolin, mandola, Appalachain dulcimer and whistles. :o)

[jtthomas]

Just beginning, yeah. Got three tippers (slope, knob, rattan) and I've been figuring out just the basics, but it's hard when there are too many people in the house.

My brother has a banjo, and my sister played flute for the longest time, so that's somewhere upstairs and I could steal it if I wanted. But I've got a fiddle, keyboard, guitar (and my dad's newly repaired 12-string if I want it) and now a fife and bodhran. I have my eye out for an accordion and mandolin if I can get them, and I wouldn't say no to a lap harp.

What is it about giving a musician a new instrument that makes us go "Ooh, shiny! Gimme a week and I'll be able to play," anyway?

[cmcmck]

It's a bit like that, isn't it?

If it has keys, buttons or strings, or you can blow through it, I'll surely give it a go! :o)

[jtthomas]

Or if you can hit it or shake it. Can't forget percussion!

...and I just laughed for a good thirty seconds.

[ayebydan]

Where I come from it would be weird for anyone to have a lock on their bedroom door.

How likely are they to flip if you just get one put on anyway?

[jtthomas]

Very likely. Plus, my bank account is monitored (which is for the sake of my mom giving me money so I can live with that), so I can't purchase one myself. They have a lock on theirs, my siblings all have locks on "their" rooms (they all moved out really soon after we moved into this house, so I'm not sure if the locks were ever used), but I'm banned. And I have such a specific style of doorknob that they'd know instantly if it changed.

[ayebydan]

That is horrendously behaviour on their part. :(

[kellan_the_tabby]

Yeah, this is WAY beyond the pale. Also there are ways for your mom to put money into your account without her being able to find out what you're doing with it -- the fact that she CAN monitor your account, & apparently DOES so, is VERY VERY uncool.

[jtthomas]

Yeah, that's what I was kind of suspicious might be the case. I knew there were other ways -- I was right there when she rejected any other way out of hand. Thanks for the outsider view.

[kellan_the_tabby]

But of course!

Can you get out on your own enough to start a bank account elsewhere? One they don't know about? That'd be a good start towards being able to get out of there.

If you've got a friend nearby you trust, you might use their address as a mailing address, so you don't have to worry about anything showing up in the mail from the other account. Do your parents open or otherwise monitor your mail, too?

[jtthomas]

Both of my accounts are under my mom's name as well, one of which is a savings account at a local bank which is too far to walk to and I can't drive. That account has by far the most and I'm not allowed to touch it. The other is your run-of-the-mill Bank of America thing. I'll probably set up another account there once I have a campus job either this summer or this fall, however it happens, and just slowly get funds out of the shared one if she doesn't realize.

So far, no opening of mail, but yes to monitoring. And that's more my dad, which makes that iffier.

...okay, brain is saying enough of this for tonight. Gonna have to take a few hours to process that this isn't normal. Thanks again.

[kellan_the_tabby]

*nodnodNODnods* by all means, yeah, this kind of thing you really need to sit with some. Which doesn't make the process pleasant, but well. :P :/ Go do your deep breathing or your flailing or however it is you deal with this sort of thing, & gimme a holler if you'd like someone to talk to.

[librarygeek]

What ayebydan said applies to me, nobody adult, child, or teen ever had a lock on their bedroom door. I'm Jewish, a ton of medical problems run in the family, emergency access is a good thing. Privacy maintains otherwise, and I knock and say something before entering my teen's room.

I'm 46 years old, and the way siblings all had locks installed and you are "banned" from such makes me think scapegoat family dynamics towards you. Either parent with an obvious to you narcissist personality disorder?

Last but not least: I have an agender, asexual, aromantic teen here that I have changed the name I use to what they've requested, and pronouns normally except under major stresses for me. I have been using the new name since summer 2017, and in between I needed open heart surgery to repair heart defects. If I could change under circumstances where anoxia was cutting off my brain functioning, your relatives can BITE ME for not changing themselves.

Puck, we have cousins in Boston who have accepted teen just as well. I can talk to the one who's a little older than I with two just out of BU who's progressive enough to shush her more conservative sister when needed. You need an extension for your escape plan? I would get her information to give to you, and NOT give up what limited information I could get on you. I'm a library science, returning adult college student and privacy matters.

This cousin would most likely HAPPILY extract you from relatives and claim you're an old friend of their kids. ;-)

[jtthomas]

Not so much scapegoat as the fact that my sister got in enough trouble as a teenager (BAD trouble, very bad, illegal stuff and she's lucky she's alive) that I'm just as bad as she was in our parents' minds. Yet she still gets a lock.

[gingicat]

I didn’t realize you were close enough to Boston to consider the Commuter Rail! Happy to help buy you a weekend pass (do they have them for the outer zones?) if you want one.

[jtthomas]

They don't have Commuter Rail weekend passes as far as I can tell; that's the main problem. (Why don't they? I'm legitimately curious) I think it's $20 per day for Commuter Rail, which for me is too expensive to risk it. Again with my mom checking all transactions.

I'm up at UMass Lowell most of the time, and there's a local bus that runs from campus right to the Lowell Commuter Rail station. I've considered it before, but it's just really expensive for how difficult the cost is.

[mindstalk]

Growing up, our doors had keyholes, but no one had keys, so in a sense we all had locks but no one had locks. Not sure what's normal -- I would guess not having locks -- but *asymmetry* among adults is definitely diagnostic of controlling-ness and lack of respect.