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To understand the story I’m about to tell you, you would have to understand the Murray family. Or at least give trying to understand them a wild shot. Shamus Murray migrated to Scotland from Ireland in the late 1890’s. No one knows why. There, he married young Scottish lass named Aggie. They had four sons, one of whom moved to Canada in 1913. David Murray eventually married a Canadian native and had a son of his own, whom he named Kurt. Kurt married in his twenties after moving to Los Angeles, California, where he had two children, Michael and Mary Catherine. Michael traveled around Chicago and New York, eventually getting work as a bit player in the Second City improvisational comedy troupe, where he met a young half Italian, half Jewish actress named Noreen Steward. They married in 1969. Noreen retired from acting in 1971 when she gave birth to their first child, a very pretty blonde daughter they named Cecilia Marie. Mike continued to travel around with Second City until the late seventies, when he decided it was time for more steady work after Noreen had given birth to a third child (their son, William Gus, was born in 1973). He lucked out by becoming one of the writers on a sketch comedy television series. The show as a rousing success. There, he met and mentored another up and coming comedy writer, Freddie Alan, and the two became fast and best friends. By 1983, Noreen had given birth to their last child (she gave pregnancy one last shot, hoping to give Gus a brother. She had another girl, whom they named Courtney, and promptly gave up bearing children). Noreen had three brothers. Her oldest brother Joe, became a talent agent in the mid seventies, specializing in helping stand up comics get their starts in show business. He had one daughter in 1967 named Alison. Her next oldest brother, Harold (or Uncle Harry, as Cecilia referred to him) was a family lawyer, specializing in child custody cases. He had three children, a daughter with his first wife (Erin, who was born in 1975) and two sons with his second wife (Peter and Steven, born in 1991 and 1993, respectively). Then, there was her twin brother, Louis. Lou is an interesting figure. He has a unique and annoying ability to see everything complete and utterly wrong with the world just by waking up in the morning, and it makes him horribly neurotic. He was married once – to a woman he met while loaded on Nyquil. He had a horrible cold one Winter and spent the entire weekend taking Nyquil shots. He woke up in Vegas married to a woman he met while trying to stand on his head in the middle of Black Jack room at the Orleans. The marriage was annulled less than a year later, and thankfully, they never had any children. While Lou seems at first glance to be the token “Family Neurotic”, his brothers do not help matters any. Joe tends to feed it every once in awhile (for example, after watching the movie “Signs”, Lou sat on the couch with Cecilia’s daughter Jo and Gus’s daughter Beth, wearing aluminum foil hats on their heads to keep aliens from controlling their minds. One can blame Joe for this, since he’s the one that told Lou that the movie was more of a documentary than a work of fiction. One could also blame Lou for being stupid enough to believe anything Joe tells him); Uncle Harry tends to say the most bizarre, off the wall remarks with a straight face, that you never know whether he’s joking or serious. For example: “There’s something seriously wrong with Gus,” Cecilia observed aloud during dinner one night. Courtney snorted. “Besides the obvious?” she retorted. “What’s wrong with him?” Uncle Harry asked, as Gus managed to come out of his shell long enough to flip his youngest sister off. “He hasn’t moved from that spot on MY couch in three days,” Cecilia replied, “he stinks more than he normally does...” “Ah,” Uncle Harry said thoughtfully, “he’s probably dead. Lack of physical movement, relaxed attitudes toward personal hygiene. All he needs is coins on his eyelids and it’s pretty much a done deal.” While his daughter Erin stared at him and Jo continued to giggle, Courtney got up and put two pennies on Gus’s eyelids. “For gods sake Courtney,” Cecilia snickered, “don’t do that, he still hasn’t willed me is stereo.” To which Gus replied, “Fuck you.” And on the other side of the family, is Mike Murray. Mike is an extremely nice man, but very, very strange. This is a man, who, when under a great deal of stress, seems to merge into one of the many characters he’s either created or performed in his many years of being in the comedy business. His favorite is a cranky Scottish blues singer, who tries to make scones (and fails, making only door stops) and flirts with under aged girls. (A character he modeled after his grandfather, although David Murray’s attempts at scones didn’t turn to door stops; they were more like Silly Putty). His sister Cathie tends to be classified as “normal”, although she will, when requested, do a flawless imitation of Katherine Hepburn. Cathie Lipmann makes her living doing horror movies. However, she’s only popular in Europe, where they consider her the B-Horror Movie Queen, and she has a huge cult following. Her biggest pet peeve is being called “Mary Kate” (her full name being Mary Catherine), something that Cecilia’s daughter Joann does just to shake things up. And now, we move on to the Murray kids. Looking at Cecilia, the way she acts, the way she can flip moods in the blink of an eye, there are only two things you need to know about her. One, she’s the first born. She has had the amazing responsibility since her brother Gus was born in 1973, of looking at for him, of setting an example of him, and even more so when Wendy and Courtney were born. The second: She’s a Scorpio. One of the most passionate, hard headed, creative geniuses of the Astrological chart. Now, add that with having to hold a lot of those feelings in for everyone else’s benefit and you get…well, Cecilia. Cecilia is a single mom. She has a teenage daughter named Joann, and an autistic ten year old named Harry. Joann’s father, James Ewell, disappeared just after she turned a year old. Cecilia ran off and married him in 1992, just one day after the Margie Alan’s funeral, after finding out she was pregnant. A couple of years later, without bothering to obtain a divorce, she met and hooked up with an ex meth user named David Edmonds and had Harry. They split when the baby was about two years old, and when little Harry was four years old; he decided he couldn’t deal with having an autistic child, and was never seen again, which was just fine with Cecilia. She got sick of having to be Little Harry’s emotional punching bag whenever his father would show up and go away almost the second he started getting attached to him. Her youngest sister Courtney moved in with her in 2002 right after she turned 18 to help Cecilia deal with the kids and help out with finances. Gus gets to deal with the stigma of being the only boy in the family. He grew up surrounded by strange, hormonal women; almost by himself (since during the early years of Gus’s life, his dad was away a lot doing comedy shows around the U.S and Canada). He learned early on (no doubt from the nearly twisted guidance of his Uncle Lew) that the best way to deal with a bunch of bitchy, crying girls was to block them out. Unfortunately, he does this to his own daughter. Beth Murray was born in 1994 to Gus’s then fiancée, Christina. Not long after the birth, Christina hocked the engagement ring and ran off with a Navy man, leaving Gus and Beth behind. He’s been living with Wendy, who’s been helping him raise Beth. Cecilia offered, but he was pretty sure that all he had to do was say the wrong thing to her, and wake up with a missing limb. Wendy’s arrogance at being the baby of the family was completely wiped out in 1983 when Courtney was born. Imagine nearly six years of getting whatever you wanted and seeing your older sister get blamed if you did something wrong, watching with sadistic satisfaction at your brother being scolded for a made up slight because he wouldn’t let you play with his chemistry set…to being told “I’m sorry sweetie, but mommy and daddy have to take care of the new baby now.” And “If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a hundred times to stop trying to sell your baby sister to the neighbors.” You know that old curse, “I hope you have a kid that’s just like you?” Well, the curse works. Ask Wendy. She had a little girl in 2000, and Toria is just like her. Only Toria hasn’t tried to sell any of her cousins to the neighbors. Although she did offer some homeless guy a dollar and a half eaten bag of Skittles to take Uncle Lew. And then there’s Courtney. Courtney is nothing like her siblings, although she tends to share a lot of Cecilia’s mannerisms and views on the world. She’s like Gus in that she tends to be very quiet unless she’s drunk, but it’s for a wholly different reason: She gets too much of a kick out of how her family acts, that she is hard pressed to interrupt the flow. In fact, she knows what buttons to push and when, to get a certain reaction, or to keep the reaction they’re already on at a fever pitch. There was one instance where Cecilia and Uncle Lew were going at it in a restaurant over whether it was morally irreprehensible to eat chicken eggs. Cecilia had almost gotten Uncle Lew calmed down, when Courtney slipped him an expresso. Courtney slept in the car that night. But at least she got a good laugh out of it. Courtney doesn’t have any kids, something that Cecilia and Wendy plan to assure never happens, even going so far as to threaten so sew up her uterus. Current Mood:  tired
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Let's see: Just before New Years, my black teddy bear hamster Hermes, passed away. FUCK! Just after New Years, Joanne found her guinea pig Nibbler dead in his cage. Double fuck. My mom's hamster Sugar died in February. In April, my best friend Latavia's mom died. Pleh. First time I went to a viewing. Very strange. In May, my friend Deb's son died of a drug overdose. Yeah, like that woman didn't have enough to worry about. She had just found out she had bone cancer, then her son offs himself with drugs. I didn't cry at the memorial service, even though I wanted to. My mom did though, so.. June was a double whammy. First, Carolyn died. Carolyn was our church secretary and pretty much did EVERYTHING around there. She had arranged that the kids get baptized. Then Mr Kim died the next day. I didn't know Mr Kim, but I knew his wife and grandkids. I went to Carolyns service, but I was busy setting up the downstairs alcove area for the Church Schools annual pajama party. Carolyns death messed me up for quite a while. I just now have managed to deal with it properly, although I'm still in a "I don't wanna do anything except eat chicken wings and fuck around on the computer, leave me alone." I got two turtles last month, I named them Bob and Doug. Bob disappeared one night after my son decided to set them free. My mom found Doug immediately, but Bob was missing, believed flushed down the toilet. We found him that Saturday. He seemed fine for about two weeks, but he died Saturday night. It messed me up for some reason. My back started to hurt and it suddenly became too hot for me to sleep. I can't actually think of anything extraordinarily good that happened this year. I got a new guinea pig. She's black and light brown and resembles and Reeses peanut butter cup. I named her Andrea. Mainly because thats what Andrea Martin would look like if she were a guinea pig. When I got back into my SCTV obsession a few weeks ago, I suddenly found my undying love for Rick Moranis rekindled. But I tell myself, just like in the case of Gerard Butler or Bruce Payne, I'm not good enough for him. He's way too nice to need to be dealing with me. I'm a pain in the ass. Besides, its not like I'm anyones dream girl. Anyway, time for chicken and sleep. I need to fantasize about whats gonna happen in my story and pretend that Rick Moranis and I would look cute together. Hey, just because I'm going on 36 doesn't mean I can't play pretend in my head. I ain't dead yet. Current Mood:  crazy
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Oddly enough, this doesn't have all that much to do with Dave. It's more or less an explanation as to why I can't and don't trust men that much. It's not because I don't want to, but...
My parents were married about a year and a half before I was born. I was too young to really notice any discourse between them. When I was about 9 or 10, a friend of my dads started molesting me. He would use the typical threat to keep me quiet. On me he used "If you tell anyone, no one will ever love you again." (on my sister a couple of years later, he said "if you tell anyone, i'll kill your dad")
So, I inadvertantly told another friend of my dads, who in turn informed my mother. My mother, while she believed me, knew my dad wouldn't, so she didn't say anything to him. When the guy came back to live with us again, she tried to tell him she didn't want him there and why, and he accused me of making up stories because I didn't want him there, and accused of my mom of being stupid for believing me.
The curse works.
He ended up molesting my sister, one of my dads cousin Sandy's daughters, a friend of my sister's who spent the night, another friend of my sisters, and had threatened to rape one of my friends who had come over to do a science project with me. The first girl, she told her mother, who came right over and confronted my parents. My dad chose to believe his friend, who said he never came into the room. When I tried to say that I saw him come in there, my dad accused me of lying and to shut up or I was gonna get my ass beat. The woman more or less told my dad not to be surprised if she had not only the friend, but himself arrested for sexual assault on a minor, and have him investigated cause there were other children in the house. Dad told this friend to leave for awhile, but he could come back in a couple of weeks. My life was a living hell. I got called a liar up and down. One night, I was sitting by the phone, crying, and my little sister came up to me and asked me what was wrong, and I told her I knew Mark was lying, that he did touch that little girl, because he had done the same thing to me, but it hurt that dad wouldn't listen to me. She said "I believe you Ellen, cause he touched me too." It wasn't until another little girls stepmother made my dad file a police report against the guy that I thought anyone was gonna listen to me. Donna and Doug (the stepmom and dad) were the only ones who would stand up for me. It was a nightmare.
My dad got mad. You wanna know why? Not because this friend he trusted sexually abused both of his daughters, but because he never got the money back the fuck owed him.
I was used when I was fifteen by my best friends brother because I was a virgin. A few monthes later, when David fled the state after my dad threatened to have him arrested, his younger brother Richard, raped me when I was half passed out. My dad's friend Sergio, a few years later, used me to fuck when he was pissed off at his live in girlfriend.
Ask me where this makes any sense. It was okay for me to be molested, but it wasn't okay for me to lose my virginity, but it was okay for his friend to come over drunk and fuck me, even though he had a girlfriend? It was almost like...no one was allowed to touch me without my dads permission. It was almost like Mark and Sergio had permission to hurt me. None of this ever made any sense to me, until recently.
A couple of years after Sergio was Jim. I ended up pregnant with Joanne, and dad ran him off by saying he would kill him if he ever saw him anywhere near me. Dad couldn't handle the fact that the guy was the first guy that was anywhere near being kind to me than I had ever met in my life, he touched me without my dads permission. When Jim was successfully gone, dad went around and vehemently told anyone who would listen that I was nothing but a little whore who would spread her legs for anyone just to have a baby like my cousin. My dad packed up my brother and his self and left me behind in a home that I couldn't afford, cause he didn't want to be around a welfare whore (which is funny, considering he told me in the first place to get on welfare cause he wasn't gonna do a damn thing to support no baby) Luckily, my mom and my best friend took over the two rooms that were left vacant, and the rent could be paid.
Then there was Shawn, who, while he told everyone he had no feelings or any attraction to me whatsoever, and even at one point referred to me as his sister, used me to get off on two occasions when he couldn't pick up some bar bitch. Pat, who chased me down to force me to admit I liked him, only to turn around and say he didn't want a relationship, but two weeks later, hook up with his ex. Then there was Richard, my sons father, who made my life a living hell, even when he was in prison. When he was out, it was drugs and mental abuse. He even told me one night that the only reason he wanted to marry me, was so he could blow my head off in front of my family just to see the looks on their faces. I lost alot because of him. He blamed me for ruining his chances with the girl he really loved cause I got pregnant, so he just continuously punished me until there was nothing more he could do to me. I managed to get away from him once he got arrested. Only to find out he was banging this mexican chick that lived across the street from our apartment.
Then there was Rick, who it turned out was only using me to get his ex back. Then there was Don, who it turned out was all about the conquest, and liked to see how many of the waitresses he could fuck at the bowling alley. Then there was the other Rick, who pretty much just used me whenever his wife pissed him off.
I got tired of having feelings for people if this was what was going to happen all the time.
But thats not the end of the dad story.
When I was sixteen, I would travel around the Inland Empire (San Bernardino County) with my dad while he sold vaccum cleaners and whatnot. I thought spending time with him would bring us closer. One night, when we went to go pick my mom up from work, he blurted out something really interesting. He said he never really liked my mom, he just felt sorry for her. I had no idea why he was telling me this. He then proceeded to tell me that he would have left her after they got married...
Except she got pregnant with me. He talked about how much happier and better his life could have been if I hadn't been born, cause he could have left her.
So, taking that into consideration, it was okay for his friends to touch me, cause he knew it would hurt me. It wasn't okay for Jim to touch me, because Jim treated me right. And I didn't deserve that. I ruined dads life after all.
I know its not true. I know its not my fault. But can you imagine going through what you do, only to hear the father that claimed to love you pretty much tell you that he never wanted you? That your existance made his life a living hell?
And all this time, with him telling me he's proud of me, I have to find out from my sister that he wrote her this letter saying I was pathetic and useless and I was never gonna make it on my own. To find out that the only reason he and his wife did anything for me, was out of obligation cause I was his blood, but so that he could have control over what happened in my life. To find out that him and his wife blame me cause Quentin isn't getting better quick enough for their expectations. This man still hates Jim for leaving me, and made it clear that his aunt had no rights to Joanne in anyway shape or form because he left. Yet, he was the one that ran him off in the first place. You would think he would be happy. When I brought that up, he said that he ran him off cause he was a loser and not good enough for me. Does that make any sense? He did what dad wanted, but dad still hates him for it, and can't even forgive him even though the guy is nine years dead. Not that he has any right to forgive him for anything, he's the one that should be asking for forgiveness. But he will never do that, cause as far as he's concerned, he was just doing what he felt he had to do, control my life and who's in it.
I can't let him do that anymore.
Maybe Dave will understand now. Maybe he will understand why what he does hurts me so much.
The curse works. Mark said no one would ever love me if I told anyone. And he was right. Not one of them has ever loved me back, and the only one that did, was driven away, and died five years later of cancer.
I'm not saying its okay to molest someone. If someone molests you or someone next to you, by all means, stand up for yourself and stop it, do something. Don't worry about curses.
But when you have my dad and all this shit....you can't help but wonder.
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Ever since that conversation I had with Dave, things have just gotten weird around here. Joanne has been sick off and on with some weird stomach thing. I keep having dreams about getting engaged (I even saw the ring, it was silver with little light blue diamonds in it, about five or six, I think) and one other dream that I was either getting married or was married (to Nick Lachey no less...not that Nick isn't a cutie, he's just not my type. I don't want a guy prettier than me) And just alot of odd dreams where I can't really remember what was going on, just that Dave was in them or I felt his presence somehow. Then Saturday, it got even weirder. Or at least disturbing. There's a stray cat that wanders around the apartment complex, and she likes to just wander in out of nowhere sometimes. I blame Joanne, she has this thing about stray cats, she starts feeding them and they never go away. Anyway, this nice lady that we met at a Pet Shop had given us a 30 dollar white Society Finch named Snow. Her color is very rare. She was a doll. She used to talk at us all the time, and she would play this game with the kids, where my son would let her out of the cage, chase her around laughing, and then hide. When my daughter would find her, she would let Joanne pick her up and put her back in the cage. She would even sit on my shoulder or head when I was at the computer and watch what I was doing. She was fantastic, a real joy to have around. Well, Saturday, the kids were playing their game with Snow, and it seems the cat got in the house when I brought my laundry in from the laundry room. Joanne opened the door to the room, Snow flew out and tried to hide, but the cat pounced on her. We managed to get her out of the cats mouth and get her outside. She didn't look hurt, just stunned, and I didn't see any bleeding, so I assumed she was okay. You could see her flying a bit around her cage, nibbling on her food and everything, but my mom said she noticed she wasn't chirping like she normally did. I thought she was just tramatized. Well, Monday morning, my mom said she wasn't moving and brought her out to me. My daughter then pointed out that her beak was turning purple and her breathing was really shallow. I looked up some stuff on the internet that said that it was possible that the cat had punctured one of her lungs when she was attacked, but nothing could be done for her other than putting her to sleep. I started crying, blaming myself and feeling disappointed in myself because I promised that lady that Snow would be well taken care of and I remember her saying that she felt it was a good match for us and the bird. I just felt sick to my stomach. I was talking to Robert in chat and my daughter was cradling Snow, and she died in her hands. The whole thing just makes me feel sick. I can't help but be mad at that cat, even though I know she's just doing what comes naturally, I can't stop myself from hating her. All the attention we've given her and the food we've provided for her, and she just up and kills my bird as a reward? God, I can't even look at her. I still haven't had my Skype convo with Dave yet. Monday he said he was really busy, and yesterday I got a message that his dad had an accident at work and he was gonna stay over there a few days to help take care of him. Which is completely understandable. His dad is more important than I am. He told me that I could stop pacing up and down the stairs, and I told him no, because I was nervous about reading the letter to him and scared about what he had to say. He told me he didn't see anything for me to be nervous or scared about and that he had a feeling I knew what he was thinking, but I really don't. He goes back and forth so much, that the only thing I know is that it could go either way. I figured him saying everything he said to me when we started talking again pointed to something good, and what he said about me not having anything to worry about was also good, but I don't know what to think about what he said about me knowing what he was thinking. Current Mood:  distressed
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