hey!

i bet you didn't know this about me, but i'm a pretty shitty daughter. i don't think my mom would agree 100% with this statement, but ask my dad, see what he says.

this morning i actually did it ... i sent out a package to my dad for his birthday which is next friday (halloween ... it's also rizpickles' birthday and my grandparents' wedding anniversary ... which i think is the coolest, and the #1 reason why *i* want to get married on halloween. okay, it's the #2 reason why i want to get married on halloween, with the #1 reason being that "i'm just a freak like that" .... my my my look at how long i've been writing in these parentheses ... i'll stop now) and last year at this time, i talked to him and asked him what he wanted for his birthday. he told me he wanted a boston college hat 'cause his initials are "BC" and he likes their colours. (aside note: um ... yah ... did i mention that my dad LIVES in British Columbia??? why he needs me to send away to the 'states to get a hat with the initials "B.C." on them is be-YOND me) so i looked at the big fat eaton centre in all of their sports stores to see if i could find one, and then i thought to myself "hey! what about ebay???"

well i got the hat, and i recieved it a little after his birthday, so i decided that i was going to give it to him as a christmas present.

that didn't work out so well (did i mention that I tend to procrastinate? ... well i'll tell you more about that later. ha HA HARRR) and so then it was supposed to be a fathers' day present.

you can see where this is going.

i had a lot of excuses for why i didn't send this package. one was that i wanted to write him a really long letter, and that floundered back and forth between whether or not i wanted to write a) a letter telling him everything i ever wanted to say to him in detail (like why i think he's been a shitty father to me all these years and how i feel like he wishes that i wasn't his daughter blah blah blah) or b) a happy-go-lucky "this is what's going on in my life right now" kind of thing. another excuse was that i wanted to make a video tape for him showing him around my apartment and giving him a glimpse of my life and how it is right now. yet another excuse was that i wanted to include some nice pictures of spike, violet and i, and just never took them or had them developed.

either way, the box had been sitting in my bedroom mocking me for almost a year now. i decided that i really really really should just send it. i had even gone as far as to buy my dad's girlfriend a nice hummingbird wind chime (she collects stuff with hummingbirds on it) months ago, and for some reason this STILL didn't inspire me to send the package. what *did* inspire me this time is that if i didn't send it this year for his birthday that not only would i be the shittiest daughter in the world (besides lizzie borden) but that lately i've been trying really hard to change a lot of my bad habits, and procrastination is one of those which is particularly nasty.

so last night while my gotchies were in the dryer, i typed out a three page letter (opting for the happy "this is what's going on in my life" kind ... mostly 'cause my life is going pretty well right now, knock wood) and printed it out, signed it, sought out his address (oh! that was another excuse! i forgot that one, and it was a good one! "oh, i don't have his address" heheh) and sent 'er off.

now i'm currently basking in my own sense of self-satisfaction. sure, i'm not waiting for the "daughter of the year" committee to show up at my doorstep with a trophy for me or anything, and i'm pretty sure that the people at "Daughters Monthly" aren't going to be renewing my subscription to their newsletter, but hey. At least my dad's going to have a nice present and letter on his birthday, and even a phone call from me, and maybe we'll get to talking and everything will be cool.

then i might open up and tell him how much of a shitty father he's been to me.

but probably not.