He said that he should have pleaded not guilty and that he was sentenced to five years, saying he only had four more left, talking as if he would live those four years. The talk with my father this morning was not what I wanted it to be, it was too typical, and for that reason, it shouldn't have been suprising how disapointed I was with the conversation. I barely did any talking besides answering his brief question about if I was going to college again - the question that people love to ask me.

He said that his old housemates got arrested and then accused him of selling them his Oxycotin, but he pleaded guilty following the advice of his lawyer, who suggested he might be able to be home sentenced if he did so. My father has the most annoying sense of entitlement to say things like this, since I know he used to sell his Oxycotin, that I drove him to the hospital once and there he met up with a friend who then with my dad, snorted Oxycotin in the backseat of my mom's minivan, which I had driven him to the hospital in. And maybe this is why I was silent during the conversation besides the requiste verbal nod of the head, the uh-huhs, to show that I was listening.

He said that his tumor has spread from his lungs to his bones, but that it is in remission. He said that he was doing real good, and I don't think he meant it. He told me I should write my aunt Herta a card for her birthday on Saturday. I wanted to yell at this point, to yell like I did yesterday at McDonald's when I felt like I was being wronged, when an employee told me I couldn't use the girl's bathroom even though it was just one stall, a single bathroom and I was about to wet myself after a giganto size cup of coffee at the queer RNC meeting. I got in a shouting match with her in front of a restaurantful of people because I had to pee, and I had to pee bad and it was totally senseless that I should not be allowed to use an empty stall when I was about to piss my pants. I called McDonalds when I got home and filed a complaint against this rude Alba.

But yes, yellling is what I wanted to do, to say don't tell me what to do, don't tell me that I need to send a birthday card to your sister after not talking to me for two years. But I remembered that he would be dead soon and that all I had to do was hold my tongue, that some things are not worth it. He said he had to go, that they only let him talk for about ten mintues. He said, I love you, in that way you do to parents and children when you are getting off the phone with them.

I said, Love you too, and didn't know why, felt like I had to. Sort of regretted it, and as soon as I put down the phone, a new song started on my mp3 playlist: Joy Division's "Love Will Tear Us Apart." And because it just seemed too appropriate, too right, I ran to my computer and turned the song up as far as it would go, tried to overwhelm my senses, to push my body to a breaking point because I wanted to cry. But I didn't. The song ended and I went to the bodega to get a banana.