There's nothing like getting a call from your dad at 5am telling you that your mom is in the hospital dying to snap you out of your bored-of-life funk and temporarily stop you from primarily living metaphysically... and to break a four-month code of silence here.

My dad, my brother and I spent the last three days at Kaiser. Close to midnight on Thursday, my mom was admitted into the Critical Care Unit (CCU) after having several seizures. She was in the CCU for two days, and was transferred to the Transitional Care Unit (TCU) today. She'll probably be there for several more days, and then will continue treatment at home for weeks after. The doctor says the seizures and mini coma were caused by encephalitis.

Mom didn't turn out to be in a life or death situation, though it was serious. I'm almost angry at my dad for thinking and acting as if she was dying. He always overdramatizes everything, and sees everything in the most negative light possible... and in so doing makes a lot of people around him suffer a great deal of grief unnecessarily. Between the time he told me that mom's dying and the time I found out that she's not, I went through hell thinking about her death and the ramifications of it.

Since yesterday evening, mom's condition has gotten significantly better. She's conscious now and can carry on somewhat normal conversations with us. But she's not close to 100% there mentally yet. Even after she's recovered from the encephalitis, I'm not expecting her to be completely back to the way she was before. She's had a seizure and subsequent brain tissue damage in the past, and it seemed to have had a profound effect on her personality. My brother goes so far as to say that she's been a different person since that ordeal. I wouldn't say she's been a totally different person, but there were definitely some significant changes.

I can't help feeling bitter about all of this... about mom, about dad, about my brother, about the things that happen to them and keep on happening to them, about how they react to everything, about how their lives have never been "normal", about how my parents have always been religious, about how their abnormalness and religiousness made them strange and pitiable people, about how my brother has been affected by them, about how they all have a severe inability to blend in well with society, about how I feel like the most (and possibly only) sane member of the family, about how I have always had to worry my ass off about all of them, about how I continually and regularly have to deal with the problems caused by their conditions, and do what I can not to let it all drive me into a permanent state of craziness and severe depression, or worse, draw me into their circle of mental, emotional and social dysfunctionality...

On top of it all, I wasn't able to get U2 tickets this morning.