Thank you to everybody who read or reviewed the last conversation. You're all fabulous.
Day 137: Reconsidering Internship Choices
From: Kevin KR
To: kitten_loverJJMU
Time arrived: 7/8/2260 00:00:01
Subject: Maybe working for my girlfriend's mom was not the best idea
Why did I want to do a summer internship with my girlfriend's mom? I feel like I'm doing triple what any of the other interns are doing because I want to make the best impression possible on the woman, despite the fact that she rescued me from famine and genocide. I don't think it's possible to ever overwrite that first impression. I'm always going to be someone that needs protecting. You understand that with the overprotective stepmom.
Okay, I might also be overworking because I don't want the rumor mill to think I only got a top internship because I'm dating the daughter of the head of Starfleet or my brother is the infamous Captain Kirk. I love my brother, but sometimes it's hard to be in his shadow. Everybody expects me to be just like him. It was like that in Riverside as well, but in a more negative way.
Okay, the professors that don't know how to do math think I'm George's other kid which adds to the pressure. There's a lot of professors at the Academy who are really bad at math, apparently. Sometimes, I wish I enrolled at the Academy under my birth name of Riley. But, then they would know I survived Tarsus and honestly, I prefer the nepotism accusations to that.
Also I feel like Kevin Riley died on Tarsus when he saw his family be killed. Kevin Kirk is a different person. See this is why I totally understand why you decided to change your name.
Not everything is horrible. I'm learning a lot of important future diplomatic skills such as creative lying and how to pretend to drink. Alcohol is apparently a major tool of diplomacy and the ability to look like you're drunk when you're actually are completely sober is a valuable tool in your arsenal. Thanks to Winona, I prefer to stay sober. I'm sure you understand why. Probably better than anyone, but my brother.
We did ship your package to your aunt the day after we got back. She called last night to let us know that it arrived safely. We also talked a little bit. She seems healthier, although she's sad. It's understandable, we're heading into your anniversary month.
The first one is always the worst. I would say it gets better, but that's not quite true. Maybe you get better at dealing with the grief as more time passes by. At the same time, it's always going to be a part of you. But not the only part. You're going to grow and become someone else and then the grief will just be a little part of you.
She mentioned something about getting the hell out of Georgia and that's probably best. I may have passed on her name to Shawn. He is looking for new associates as he builds up his own firm. He doesn't want to just be an extension of the family practice. San Francisco might be a good place to look into relocating to.
Winona is happier here. Now that she just signed the papers for the farm to become the Kirk Museum, her move here is permanent. Liz's mom actually hired her on to be a consultant. I'm personally shocked about that one. After the Tarsus fiasco and the fit that she threw when both Jim and I signed up for the Academy, you would think she would never, ever want anything to do with Starfleet again, but here we are.
Baby D misses you. She misses everybody, but you as well. You're one of her favorite friends. Even more than her cousins which she got to spend quality time with at a very Sulu birthday party. Pictures attached. Please share with Sulu.
Yes, we had to do a second birthday party for baby D with the Sulu family. Good news, it went better than a very Sulu family reunion. I think that's mostly because the evil family members weren't there. Also I think they like Liz and Ben better than Sue. I'm not going to touch that one. However, I think I liked my brother's party better even with that bachelor party Enterprise piñata. Actually, because of it. Your dad was as red as a beat. You on the other hand couldn't stop giggling. Almost 12-year-olds know things. Too much really.
Full-time parenthood is an interesting experience. Desi's favorite word is no. She's also getting the handle of running. Like running into an elevator and pressing the button before we could catch up. Thankfully, the Admiral is paranoid and Desi has a tracking bracelet. I've been using the find my toddler app a lot. Like at the other birthday party, we found Desi making a cake angel, again. This is what happens when you live somewhere where there is no snow. I still wonder how she climbed up on the table.
Yes, I include pictures. I hope they make you laugh.
As we get closer to the anniversary of that day, just remember my email is always open and may take me forever to respond, but I will respond.
From: Kevin KR
To: Spock's_cuddlebunny
Time arrived: 7/8/2260 00:00:01
Subject: Happy anniversary, big brother
So happy late anniversary, even if I'm sending this to you on your anniversary. I'm sure you probably got your presents from the husband by this point. I'm the one who kept Liz from getting you the happy anniversary package from the red light district so you're welcome.
So just that you know the family house is now on its way to becoming a museum and you're getting your own trust fund. Not that you need it, since you married royalty. I think Winona actually smiled when she signed the papers. It's like she's free from the past. Maybe that's a good thing.
Also, mom is now a Starfleet contractor for the Academy. She is working with the engineering department. I have money on her teaching classes for winter semester. We shall see.
How is work? I haven't heard anything about new missions going badly so I think things are well at the moment. At least I hope so.
The internship is going well-ish. I only hate half the people I'm working with. Oh, and Desi made a cake angel at her other birthday party. It turns out you can't get chocolate icing out of lace without taking it to the cleaners. At least I can't. Pictures attached. I sent an upload to Sulu as well, but I'm not sure if it made it. Your system is weird.
From: kitten_loverJJMU
To: Kevin KR
Time arrived: 7/8/2260 17:03:01
Subject: Maybe working for my girlfriend's mom was not the best idea
I'm glad she got the present and I agree she needs to get out of Georgia. I think not being there helps me the most. There's just too many reminders of how bad things got. Plus, Grandpa Lee is there and he's horrible. He puts so much pressure on everybody to be absolutely perfect, according to his standards. No one could measure up, especially mom. I'm not even sure if he knows that auntie is a lesbian. Probably not. So I kind of understand what it is like for you at the Academy, always being in someone's shadow. That is another reason why I'm glad I'm not in Georgia anymore. I'm only McCoy's kid here and that's a lot better than the alternative. It's better than being a Lee granddaughter.
For similar reasons, it's probably best that your mom is with you in San Francisco. There were probably way too many bad memories there. I'm glad she's recovering and staying sober. I'm glad she wants that. Not everybody does. My mom didn't.
Thank you for the offer. When I'm ready to really talk about my mom, I think you'll be first on the list outside of Margarita, but I'm not quite ready to have the deep conversations yet. Margarita doesn't let me have a choice. I have sessions scheduled for the 13th, 14th and 15th. I hope there's board games and chocolate.
But right now I'm not ready to really dive into the issues. Especially with the anniversary coming up. I don't want to think about it. I wish I could pretend it's another day, but I can't even look at the Disney swag from last year without getting sad. I was off frolicking at Disneyland when my mom was off dying in a car alone.
I'm almost thankful that I have classes full-time on Enterprise. Schoolwork is a good distraction. Gina is so much better. And yes, she lets us call her Gina. Jeremy hates her. I'm pretty sure he tried to drug her twice. Of course anybody that Jeremy hates is automatically the best teacher ever.
We're doing a poetry unit right now and we're going to do all the fun stuff. She decided I'm doing the same language arts curriculum as the others because I work on their level. I may be testing out of middle school soon.
We're about to break for lunch so I must wrap this out. And yes we talked. There's been bonding. It's been good to have more friends than just Jay. I'm just trying to take it one day at a time.
From: Spock's_cuddlebunny
To: Kevin KR
Time arrived: 7/8/2260 21:06:51
Subject: Re: Happy anniversary, big brother
A nine day lag time. I'm not even that surprised. And Sulu got the pictures like three days ago without context. He is neither shocked nor surprised that his daughter made a cake angel.
No thanks to you because your girlfriend still sent us a dildo. Granted, I'm pretty sure she did it, so we knew that we needed to sue some people, but she still gave us one. There was also chocolate body paint, but still inappropriate. I expect nothing less from Liz.
I'm happy that the house is now a museum. It's probably better for all of us if we leave George Kirk deep in the past. I'm kind of hoping that sobriety work this time. Her working again might be a good step forward.
She's totally going to be teaching classes by the winter semester. You just know it, so be happy you're not in the engineering track.
Yeah, I really don't need the trust fund with the husband. Also, I managed to win the will their marriage survive another year bet. I think that money is going into the Jo Jo college fund. Maybe we can do something similar with the museum money. It's something to think about.
Work is good, mostly. Diplomatic babysitting as well as prepping for the great crew swap of September. Okay, all of it makes me wish I could drink while working. Last night, one of our diplomats said something about Spock's mom, not realizing Spock knew the language and I may have had to take him to his ready room to calm down. Twice.
We drop everybody off in the morning and you have no idea how happy I am for that. Fingers crossed, that we actually get the star mapping/planet surveying assignment that they promised us next. Yes that's preferable to the current assignment. Although, knowing our luck, we're probably going to end up being asked to do resource negotiation or something else. Or worse they could make us take Vista's place. That ship is supposed to be doing security for the conference that we're dropping people off at. I kind of want a mission where I don't have to talk to people outside of my crew for at least a month. I mean we're supposed to be doing deep exploration.
Anyway, I hope your internship gets better and your one-year-old stops diving into large baked goods. But hey, at least you are not dealing with teenagers that make their instructor fill out harassment complaints on a near daily basis and keep breaking into engineering for the booze. Yes, I need that kid off my ship.
To be continued