It's amazing how life can so easily twist and turn. Quite a few things are going on in my life, so I'll try to make a quick run-through without too many boring details. First of all my grandfather, the man who raised me from age 3 through high school has moved back to Chicago from NYC. About 4 years back he suffered from aspiration pneumonia. Although he no longer has pneumonia, due to certain complications he is no longer able to feed by mouth since there is a chance anything he swallows can aspirate into his lungs. So now he is mostly bedridden and is fed through a pump into a peg tube connected directly to his stomach. He is also incontinent so he has to wear adult diapers.

Somehow the duty of feeding grandpa has befallen upon me. I suppose it makes sense given that I helped figure out how to operate the feeding pump without any instructions and my connection and affinity towards grandpa. Since his medication coincides with his feeding, I also dispense his medication. My aunt and her family has also moved into one of the units of the building fairly recently and grandpa is now residing on the same floor as them, so she mostly takes care of changing his diapers and her family helps keep grandpa company when she's not there.

Since I'm the one with the most free time I'm supposed to help grandpa with his therapeutic exercises as well. The good part is that he is very eager to regain his strength and somehow he has managed to maintain his humorous wit. Whenever anyone asks his age he responds with a smile "I'm only 90..." I am of course not complaining about any of this because it is my deepest pleasure to serve my grandfather in whatever little capacity I can, but I can honestly say that life has just become less simple.

There are so many other things going on with the family too and it all revolves around finances or the lack thereof. My mom is an absolute bundle of nerves trying to coincide the arrival of grandpa with the moving in of my aunt and her family with the caretaking of grandpa plus all of the financial burdens involved. Without going into all the painful details, there is quite a bit going on with the family. The most major concern is the building in which the majority of the family is now residing is in jeopardy. Hopefully everything will pull through however.

There are things outside my family that are bothering me too. One really major event that is finally creeping up on me is the wedding of my ex which is going to occur this Sunday. One of the toughest parts is that despite our failed relationship she wound up being one of my best friends and after the wedding she is moving out of state with her husband to be, the same guy whom I half-jokingly predicted the demise of the relationship within a year of the relationship. I guess it was only natural since I was more or less her best friend, I was there to listen to the brunt of complaints about this guy and when she needed to vent it was naturally about the negative things and very little about the positive.

I suppose also that it was wishful thinking on my part, because this is the same woman who wanted to bear my child before she turned 40 if it didn't work out with him and I agreed to be her "contingency plan" since I didn't see myself getting married anytime soon. In a way she was my contingency plan as well, my chance to be a father without the entanglements of marriage. I guess it wasn't really meant to be that way however and I more or less accepted that the day she announced her engagement to me.

I believe I also mentioned before that I got uninvited to her wedding and reception. It will be a little tough since I won't be having the sense closure that comes with actually seeing them get married. I'm not sure if I should discreetly pop in and watch from a distance or just try and forget the whole thing. Although the former option sounds just a little too stalkeriffic, it may lend to me some semblance of closure. Or I could ingest enough liquor the Saturday before so that I will be completely passed out that entire Sunday. Sounds like a plan to me.

To add a dash of pain on top of all that I got yet another email from the drop-dead gorgeous chick. I suppose it's all anti-climactic after surviving her wedding and a more recent encounter last March when she was in town visiting a friend. Anyway, In her email she was announcing that she was having a baby and that it was going to be a girl. I suppose that's the final nail on the coffin. I more or less have to abandon that "secret wish" that she will somehow stray back into my arms. The addition of a child in her life somehow complicates matters with me.

In retrospect however, I think I was more in love with the idea of her than actually being in love with her. I know I've mentioned her in my 100 things entry, being my second sexual experience. In a way she satisfied my long-standing sexual curiosity for Caucasian females. Though part of me will always wish I would have experienced more with her I know now that my fascination with her was almost entirely physical, so much so that I fooled myself into being in love with her when it was nothing more than an intense physical and sexual attraction to her. Funny how things like that work though.

Anyway, all this crap is enough of a bitch-slap to me that I'm not craving as much the physical affection I was the last entry. I don't think anything, even being in the arms of someone sympathetic and affectionate can really cure the state that I am in. Part of me just wants to be alone and miserable but I think apathy is probably the best course of action for me now. If you care about nothing then nothing can really hurt you, or so my theory goes. Hopefully my upcoming trip to Toronto for my cousin's wedding later this month will be enough to clear my mind for my last quarter of school and I guess that is it for now.