Jeff @ home > Maura @ work, home
Having given you a week as promised, I can now proceed to easily pick off your numerous misguided assertions in your emails. I will begin with the one I received on Jan 20 @ 12:33pm PDT
1. The check that Mom gave me was not specifically for anything in particular. [The check that Mom gave you was written at my behest. Although I have no remorse over the nature of my response to your challenge over dealing with Rebecca, I did regret the timing, and I was afraid you may use the incident as an excuse not to come over at Christmas, so I asked her to write you the check so that you may not claim poverty. The plan, as we all know, did not succeed.]2. The 2nd check is on its way back to Mom. [Ripping up a check normally has the same effect, but I am glad to hear that you can at least afford some postage in your financial plight.]3. I never said for sure I would come in january, but that I would try to do so. [I told you that I was hoping to get away for a weekend in January, which would naturally have involved a degree of planning. While this was not the only reason by any means for wanting you to travel, simple common courtesy would dictate that timely notification of your failure to do so was necessary.]
I hope this helps your confusion.
1:30pm PST
Jeff,Whether I consider myself part of this family is not a valid question. [A truer politician-style avoidance of a question has rarely been seen. I can only assume that your response leans more toward NO.]I dislike your abusive tone, though. That I will most definitely admit.If you can't communicate with me without being abusive, then perhaps you shouldn't. I do no at all care for it - that's a fact. [Attacking the style as opposed to the content implies said content has a large degree of accuracy.]
3:49pm PST
I think you need to grow up. Getting a job might help [At least now I have evidence that you do not consider caring for your 95 year old mother, not to mention my two kids better than one night in four, to be any kind of work. Pretty much what I expected. As for the growing up thing, apparently the irony is clear to all but your good self.]Please be so kind as to respect the fact that I DO have a job and do NOT appreciate receiving upsetting and infuriating messages while I am trying to do it. [You have a computer and internet at home, not to mention a telephone, you spend all of your time outside of work at home, yet not ONCE have you replied to any email I have sent to your home address. Considering I have taken this decision to challenge you, how else was I supposed to do it?]
5:39pm PST
Hi Jeff,
Sorry - I couldn't wait to read this.
At first glance, it sounds exactly like I thought it would - poor Jeff. You see everything as rotating around you. That is NOT reality for anyone but you. [Ah, more irony!!!! I think this makes you the pot and me the kettle.]
Perhaps it's not completely your fault - you were rather spoiled [I have a piece of paper here signed by you which hands over responsibility for my upbringing to your parents. I don't care if they locked me in a dungeon and fed me nothing but bread and water, it does not give you any right to criticise how they reared me.] but please don't think that this is received wisdom. It is not, in fact, wisdom by any true definition of the word.
I've known for sometime that you were filled to the brim with resentment, and I had a pretty fair idea of where you laid the blaim[sp].NOT, of course, on Pappa Pagan -- the guy who wanted to have nothing at all to do with you or with me when there was a need. [You talk about steering into dangerous waters? I will give you ONE CHANCE to refute this lie. I have my own issues with him, and they are none of your business. Regardless of what he has said about what happened at that time, and regardless of what Mom has said, YOU told me he wanted to call me Aaron. Is this the action of a "guy who wanted to have nothing at all to do with" me???]
Much of what you have accused me of is your resentment of choices that I have made. You have never, and probably WILL never, had any empathy for anyone [To expose the irony of this accusation, I refer you to my challenge to you from several years back; "What exactly do you do to help other people ever?" to which you replied "I help people move occasionally." Feel free to criticise me for lack of empathy when you work out what exactly it is.] except perhaps your daughter.[Word to the wise, Maura, I actually have a son as well. Should I see any significance in the fact that you only appear interested in how I treat my daughter? When the Who Robbed The Pen Debacle happened while you were here, should I perhaps have made her kneel on the floor until she admitted to the heinous crime of thinking it was for her?] I think that you probably have a lot for her - it's a pity that it will do her nothing but harm. [Is THIS received wisdom? Please enlighten me as to from whence it came.]
You're steering this into dangerous waters, my boy. I hope you know what you're doing. [If the two of us steer into dangerous waters, I am overwhelmingly confident my vessel would be far more seaworthy than yours. That is a pathetic statement, Maura. I know exactly what I'm doing, I just regret not having done it sooner.]
Having given you a week as promised, I can now proceed to easily pick off your numerous misguided assertions in your emails. I will begin with the one I received on Jan 20 @ 12:33pm PDT
1. The check that Mom gave me was not specifically for anything in particular. [The check that Mom gave you was written at my behest. Although I have no remorse over the nature of my response to your challenge over dealing with Rebecca, I did regret the timing, and I was afraid you may use the incident as an excuse not to come over at Christmas, so I asked her to write you the check so that you may not claim poverty. The plan, as we all know, did not succeed.]2. The 2nd check is on its way back to Mom. [Ripping up a check normally has the same effect, but I am glad to hear that you can at least afford some postage in your financial plight.]3. I never said for sure I would come in january, but that I would try to do so. [I told you that I was hoping to get away for a weekend in January, which would naturally have involved a degree of planning. While this was not the only reason by any means for wanting you to travel, simple common courtesy would dictate that timely notification of your failure to do so was necessary.]
I hope this helps your confusion.
1:30pm PST
Jeff,Whether I consider myself part of this family is not a valid question. [A truer politician-style avoidance of a question has rarely been seen. I can only assume that your response leans more toward NO.]I dislike your abusive tone, though. That I will most definitely admit.If you can't communicate with me without being abusive, then perhaps you shouldn't. I do no at all care for it - that's a fact. [Attacking the style as opposed to the content implies said content has a large degree of accuracy.]
3:49pm PST
I think you need to grow up. Getting a job might help [At least now I have evidence that you do not consider caring for your 95 year old mother, not to mention my two kids better than one night in four, to be any kind of work. Pretty much what I expected. As for the growing up thing, apparently the irony is clear to all but your good self.]Please be so kind as to respect the fact that I DO have a job and do NOT appreciate receiving upsetting and infuriating messages while I am trying to do it. [You have a computer and internet at home, not to mention a telephone, you spend all of your time outside of work at home, yet not ONCE have you replied to any email I have sent to your home address. Considering I have taken this decision to challenge you, how else was I supposed to do it?]
5:39pm PST
Hi Jeff,
Sorry - I couldn't wait to read this.
At first glance, it sounds exactly like I thought it would - poor Jeff. You see everything as rotating around you. That is NOT reality for anyone but you. [Ah, more irony!!!! I think this makes you the pot and me the kettle.]
Perhaps it's not completely your fault - you were rather spoiled [I have a piece of paper here signed by you which hands over responsibility for my upbringing to your parents. I don't care if they locked me in a dungeon and fed me nothing but bread and water, it does not give you any right to criticise how they reared me.] but please don't think that this is received wisdom. It is not, in fact, wisdom by any true definition of the word.
I've known for sometime that you were filled to the brim with resentment, and I had a pretty fair idea of where you laid the blaim[sp].NOT, of course, on Pappa Pagan -- the guy who wanted to have nothing at all to do with you or with me when there was a need. [You talk about steering into dangerous waters? I will give you ONE CHANCE to refute this lie. I have my own issues with him, and they are none of your business. Regardless of what he has said about what happened at that time, and regardless of what Mom has said, YOU told me he wanted to call me Aaron. Is this the action of a "guy who wanted to have nothing at all to do with" me???]
Much of what you have accused me of is your resentment of choices that I have made. You have never, and probably WILL never, had any empathy for anyone [To expose the irony of this accusation, I refer you to my challenge to you from several years back; "What exactly do you do to help other people ever?" to which you replied "I help people move occasionally." Feel free to criticise me for lack of empathy when you work out what exactly it is.] except perhaps your daughter.[Word to the wise, Maura, I actually have a son as well. Should I see any significance in the fact that you only appear interested in how I treat my daughter? When the Who Robbed The Pen Debacle happened while you were here, should I perhaps have made her kneel on the floor until she admitted to the heinous crime of thinking it was for her?] I think that you probably have a lot for her - it's a pity that it will do her nothing but harm. [Is THIS received wisdom? Please enlighten me as to from whence it came.]
You're steering this into dangerous waters, my boy. I hope you know what you're doing. [If the two of us steer into dangerous waters, I am overwhelmingly confident my vessel would be far more seaworthy than yours. That is a pathetic statement, Maura. I know exactly what I'm doing, I just regret not having done it sooner.]
