Fatherly love.

So, for the first time since freshman year of college, I actually spent the holiday weekend in the city in which I was currently living. Yes, I like to travel. Why change my ways? Oh, because someone's father was going to be in town, which means that all previous fun plans had to be abandoned so that I could spend all of 6 total hours with him. Yippee.

As is so often the case, we were very close. Until I started to be able to think for myself and god forbid, started speaking up. My father is the sort who believes he knows what's best for everybody. (He even told Scarlett once that he thought she should study Chinese in addition to Japanese so she could make a killing in the business world, nevermind the fact that she didn't want to learn Chinese and didn't want to enter the business world.) He means well, but this kind of attitude is very hard on someone, say, his daughter, who he has figured will be a doctor and any deviance from that path Just Cannot Happen.

He also has these very strict ideas on feminity and how women should present themselves, but we won't get into that. Suffice it to say that he can be bitingly cruel and it is a very good thing I like to dress well (sometimes to an expensive excessive degree) and that I am attractive enough, because otherwise lord knows what would happen. (For example, of my friend Katie, who I do admit isn't the prettiest girl in the world, he has said she has a "face for the military," which is perhaps stereotypically true, but I'd never put it quite like that.)

So especially since I left the family profession, things have been very rocky between the two of us. We never talk anymore. He buys me stuff and that's it. I grant that he comes from a different place and a different time, which explains his sometimes too-rigid beliefs. He does want what's best for me; he just isn't willing to bend on what he thinks the best is. I think he just has general problems understanding why I'd do something because I like it, as for him medicine has always been a vocation, not a life-long passion. At least getting into this school helped matters somewhat, if only so he could use the institution for bragging rights.

If he would just accept the fact that I am a gazillion times happier now that I've left med school and if he would try to understand what I'm studying, things would be different. But pride is a difficult thing to swallow. I know, I'm prideful in spades (which I so get from him).

Sometimes, I really think I'm adopted. The only thing is that I look like (a much prettier feminised version of) my dad, and that sorta quells my theory. That, and I got my biting wit (and pride) from him. Don't worry though, I tell my mother all the time that I'm adopted, and she agrees, saying she picked me up out of the hospital trash dumpster.

But anyway, he was in town moving my icky cousin in (who lives with us and is in a 7-year medical program; obviously she's the favoured child now). He was in town. I had to be nice. Plus, he was bringing me presents (like my new shiny camera!), so I really had to be nice. So I resolved to being pleasant and whatnot. But then he says things in this condemning tone of voice which just get my hackles up and put me back into a combative mood. For example:

[Walking into my apartment building.]
Him: It smells like pot.
Me: Huh?
Him: It smells like marijuana in here.
Me: Oh. Great, he's going to think I'm immune to the smell of pot because I do it all the time, when really, I have no sense of smell at all. I just thought it was whatever air freshener the management uses. Besides, why does he know what it smells like?

[He looks at all the booze I have on my pretty wine display rack, which is quite a lot. But it's a lot of random liqueur bottles that are rarely drunk from, they're just pretty. Although, I did just restock vodka (three different kinds), gin and wine.]
Him: This is not all yours, is it?
Me: Uh, no, it's my roommate's. Thank GOD my roommate is not at home. And thank GOD my father doesn't recognise that wine rack from my last apartment.
Him: You don't drink, do you? Alcohol is bad.
Me: Uh, no, definitely no. God I need a drink. When is he leaving?

[He sees my pretty new fur coat, which is rather carelessly draped across a chair because I didn't know what else to do with it until I had time to bring it to the furrier's.]
Him: This is not yours, is it?
Me: Uh, yeah, I picked it up at a consignment shop. No, it's my roommate's, and not only is he a gay mormon, he's a gay mormon pimp. Take that!

[He looks inside my freezer - um, all my vodka and gin happens to be stored there - and fridge - where there is currently only wine, cheese and salad mix.]
Him: You don't cook much, do you.
Me: I have been working in Providence all week. Which is true. Dude. I normally cook. And this is the guy who thinks that cooking is a waste of time and takes away from my studies, so he would rather buy me shitloads of microwaveable crap from CostCo so that I will spend more time with my books and less time in the kitchen; what's he complaining about?

There was lots of sangria had with friends afterwards. As there will be today. Happy Labor Day!