Old movies, old memories, bad TV, bad memories

Justin is back in CT for a bit, and we were not feeling well Sunday afternoon, so what was there to do but pull out the old family videos.  There is something completely melancholic about reminiscing over one's past, when that same past is actively being suppressed due to its painfulness.  Thankfully, dance recitals aside, there are not many videos in existence, which is a sad thing in and of itself.  We had a video camera from 1994 (enter tbj) until 2007 (good-bye tbj), yet we only possess footage of Justin, Ian, and Derek in a few scenarios, and Courtney and Brandon briefly as infants.  I would like to eventually edit the best parts to a DVD, and discard the rest.  Let me explain.  In one video it is Justin and Courtney's birthday party.  They are turning 11 and 1, respectively.  In the room are my aunt and cousins, tbj's mother, sister, ex-brother-in-law, father, ex-step-mother, his aunt who is now institutionalized, her ex-boyfriend, and a few other of his aunts and uncles whose names escape me, and who never really spoke to us ever, for reasons strictly having to do with who his mother is, and her actions at tbj's grandmother's funeral (which is a whole different story).

Anyway, tbj is wielding the camera and narrating (I was already feeling dizzy and nauseous), it is two of our four children's birthdays, yet he is recording his mother, his father, his brother, his family.  Not OUR family, HIS family.  This same family I was told by both sides didn't really have much to do with him at all until our daughter brought everyone back together, by reason of her birth.  Justin doesn't appear in the video, Courtney appears if she happens to be with either his mother or one of his aunts.  It is so clear now to see they way he behaved then, and so defeating to know that I did nothing about it.  I used to try.  And I gave up.

Justin also brought with him season 4 of Dexter.  I know, Dexter is bad for me.  I am working on eliminating the rest of my vices, such as the very few shows I watch, only on DVD as we haven't had television for more than two years.  It is a process, sometimes difficult, especially when one has to know what happens next.  I have to get out more.  Anyway, Justin said that Dexter had an episode about tbj.  It was frightening.  John Lithgow plays a controlling serial killer, who's obsessed with his family of origin and who has his family of marriage so terrified and subdued by him, that they are afraid to breathe, lest they offend him.  At Thanksgiving, his wife interrupts him (gasp) while he is berating a child, and he snaps at her, "Shut up, C*nt."  There were sooooo many things in that show....  I am going to sue the writers of Dexter for plagiarism.  How did they glimpse into my life?  How did they experience Thanksgiving 2006?