Quick vent: my father is such a piece of shit. He called me to tell me about his cardiology follow-up today after last week’s cardioversion, and after he talked about that for 10 minutes, he actually asked how I was. I told him I have to get carpal tunnel surgery, and I managed to talk about it for maybe 2 minutes (I swear I am not exaggerating the time) and then he interrupted me with “Yeah, when they drew blood from my arm today, it left a bruise on the inside of my elbow.”

There was no conversational lead-in for that. I wasn't talking about me getting blood drawn. He just decided that we had talked about Not Him for too long, and we needed to get back to talking About Him.

My therapist has asked me why I don’t just loudly interrupt on my end and say “WE WERE TALKING ABOUT ME,” but honestly, the less information he has about me and my life, the better. It just still makes me sad that he doesn’t actually give a single shit about me except in terms of what I can do for him. I’m hoping at some point I can unlearn that reaction, and not give a shit on my end that he doesn’t give a shit on his end.

I guess I could go for the nuclear option and tell him he's an abusive piece of shit, but that would commit me to a whole protracted discussion/argument/guilt-trip that I don't want any part of. Keeping contact to a minimum seems to be what works best.

Fuck him. He gets no peanut butter pie.

No pie of any kind for him! I'm sorry he is such a shithead.

And it's sad for him that he doesn't get to have a real relationship with either of his kids, because, frankly, we're awesome. He should be so fucking lucky.

And instead of finishing my editing, I'm rapid-texting my brother to yell about Dad. I have invoked Kingpin (aka, the fictional character who, as a kid, killed his abusive dad with a hammer).

Just to be clear, I have no desire to actually kill my dad, with a hammer or otherwise. I just really appreciate the catharsis (as in ancient Greek theater) of fictional characters whose piece of shit fathers get what's coming to them.

And it's sad for him that he doesn't get to have a real relationship with either of his kids, because, frankly, we're awesome. He should be so fucking lucky.

That's the truth. I'm sorry you are subjected to him and glad you have what sounds like a good therapist. And pie!

The pie is so damn good.

We ate a piece of chocolate cream pie and a piece of apple pie while listening to Kate Bush's song Pi. So that was fun. And only half of each, so there's leftover pie!

I over-indulged in pizza pie. Even so, there are leftovers, so there will be cold pizza pie for breakfast!

Well done, y’all! I am falling down on the job pie-wise, it does me good to see people doing better