For as long as I can remember, my father has been an absolutely crazy, nostalgia-obsessed pack rat.
We used to live on a dead-end road in Elba, NY, for about 7 years, and I swear to you, there were so many boxes of random shit lying around, people would think we were either the new family on the block or getting the hell outta dodge. In reality, these boxes contained anything from old cards to magazines, workshop tools to blank notebooks, shotgun bullets to pistols. I know for a fact this enraged my mother to no end, which is probably one of the thousands of reasons she and my father got a divorce. "Why aren't these GODDAMN boxes unpacked yet? They've been here for YEARS."
I can't say that looking back as an adult, reaching the stage in life where I could potentially share the same living space with someone for the rest of my life in the near future, that I blamed her at all. The real proof of my Dad's disease, though, was not in our basement--it was in our entertainment center.
Because my Dad was (and still is) a custodian who worked the 3rd shift at Notre Dame (a tiny, decrepit, poor Catholic high school in Batavia) he would be gone most nights and home during the day. Nowadays, he works split shifts; partial morning hours before kids arrive, and then after school hours when they're gone. Back then, during his night owl lifestyle, he would sleep when he was home. This posed a large problem for his television watching-- most things that he enjoyed (which, still, are few and far between) were on in the evenings. Seinfeld, Northern Exposure, Nova. Even a Canadian slapstick television show, that I happen to love: The Red Green Show. All of his favorites were on the air while he was at work.
Did my Dad fret? Did he cry himself to sleep in the mornings after turpentining and scrubbing? Or did he find a solution?
Normally, for any sort of problem, my Dad will find an exceptional solution--only after complaining and moaning over the problem in the first place. Nevertheless, he solves the issue at hand. In this case, you ask? VHS tapes. Remember, this is WAY before DVR, WAY before you could pause live television, before DVD's even existed. VCR's, while I was growing up, were the only thing that movie lovers knew. We had no predictions of the soon-to-be glory of compact disc movies, or the apocolyptic stoppage of current television via a DVR system or magical remote.
My Dad would buy multiple packages of blank VHS tapes from Walmart (JVC or Memorex, typically) and just go to town on our poor VCR. "Record (insert show) at such and such a time, then record (insert second show) an hour later. They're on the same station, so it shouldn't be difficult." My mother, I'm assuming, was in charge of this whole process because I sure as hell stayed out of the way. My brother was around 3 years old, so while he would sometimes fidget with the VCR and its contents, he preferred to stab me with mechanical pencils instead. (Seriously. I still have the scar.)
I don't know which recording eventually made my mother call for divorce papers, but I'm guessing it was the season finale of Seinfeld or a nature special featuring praying mantis, small spiders, and the circle of life. I was most likely in the other room, watching an animated, PG version of the circle of life in the form of The Lion King. My friends and I used to make a list of all characters in the film, choose roles, go to each other's houses, and watch this movie while speaking all "our" lines. If you know me, this explains a lot, right?
After my Mom ripped her final task out of the VCR, tossed it at my Dad, and wiped her hands clean of recording duties forever, my Dad set out to continue his recording journey on his own. Like I said, I can't blame my mom for divorcing my dad over VHS tapes, especially after probably falling over stacks of them. I can almost remember them arguing, a barricade of black and white plastic and recording tape built up in the middle, with only inch-by-inch squares open for peepholes. I also can almost remember my Mom sticking her pointer finger at the middle, playing a life-sized game of Jenga, and knocking the wall to my father's feet. Why would she be okay with my Dad saving time via television show when he wasn't willing to rewind the time they had missed together as spouses because he was gone every week night?
After my Mom left, surrounded by series' endings, love-triangle solutions, sarcasm and laughter, and more than one missed romantic opportunity, my Dad boxed all of his memories up, taped them shut, and got the hell out of dodge.
Into my adolescence and young adulthood, my Dad was still obsessed over VHS tapes and recording things he wanted to keep forever, things he would never watch though he intended to, things he wanted to memorialize on film. He cried when the DVD player was introduced as the main form of playing videos, and had me drive him (only half way) to an asylum when he realized that people elsewhere, outside the scope of his life, could pause their television and record it in a small box next to their TV. He's moved twice, and continued the struggle; however, the last two years, in dealing with my brother's massive shitstorm of a life, he hasn't had much time to record what he wants to watch. He also didn't pay his cable bill for several months, and never had it turned back on. Instead, he watches antenna TV, which has all of your basics, and I'm still able to watch Jeopardy, live, with him if I go over for dinner. His tapes are in boxes in his coat closet, which is used for everything but coats.
Right now I'm surrounded by picture frames, pottery I made in college, the four towels I selected to move with (four was recommended to me by a friend), artwork, a few classic games like Scrabble and Catch Phrase. I'm almost packed up. The past two days, I've had a real tough time coming to grips with the fact that I HAVE to throw shit out, that I HAVE to give things away, that I can't keep everything in my apartment. Then, I actually tried it. I have to admit: it was somewhat liberating, and I ended up taking four bags of garbage and several boxes to the dumpster, while taking a carload of things to the local AmVets resale retail shop. I don't yet miss anything I've thrown away.
I thought about why some people keep things, and what makes it so damn hard to get rid of those things when the time demands it. I mean, some of the hardest things to get rid of for me thus far have been candles, extra folders, and stray chapsticks. What if my new apartment smells like a dumpster and I'm organizing my school work, surrounded by the stench, when I realize my lips are chapped? People naturally hold on to things not because they are things, but because they are memories of something--of a time, of a place, a person, or an event. When you throw those things out, you are also throwing away that time you spent with that person in that place when you did that thing. And on a cold day, what if you need that memory?
In a short two days, I've learned that it's okay to throw away memories in light of making new ones. It's alright to let those places go, those super-tiny moments, otherwise you'll become bogged down by the past. I don't want to enter a new stage of my life where I settle down, become accustomed, and then open up a closet door and find forgotten boxes of dust lying quietly, untouched, unloved. My Dad has always brought with him the things he can't forget, I only want to bring what I need.
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
Saturday, August 18, 2012
my cat, beast of the block
A few years ago, before moving into the apartment I now am about to break the lease on, I wanted a pet. At the time, I was working at an Irish pub (they have the best reubens, I'd say, EVER), trying to figure out things for my second summer at Bread Loaf, and falling in love. It was May.
Bread Loaf School of English. It's a graduate program where people from all over the world unite in one incredibly magical, naturally beautiful environment; raw, unbiased relationships are formed here, bonding experiences thrive on Route 7 from Middlebury into Burlington, cliff-jumping thrills heighten feelings of being alive, and sitting in Adirondack chairs provide a comfortably awkward seat for students to mountain gaze while their minds do gymnastics over Faulkner and Chaucer. I've been there four years, and am going back for my fifth and final summer next year (it is only a summer program, so it takes about 4-5 years) in order to graduate with a Master's degree in English Literature. I had this to look forward to for the second time in June 2010, but there was one problem: I had nowhere to live when I returned home in August. On top of it all, that April was an emotional rollercoaster, ranging from extremely rageful lows to hilltop highs that I rode, enamored.
I can't say why, but I was much more concerned with finding a furry companion for the apartment that I didn't yet have instead of finding an actual apartment to take care of it in. A co-boss of mine (another long post for another random day), upon hearing that I really wanted a cat to keep me company when I "moved into my apartment in August" said that her niece was moving to Florida, and that she wasn't taking her cat with her. She had, in fact, been looking for a nice home for him and hadn't had any luck. My boss wrote down her number on a bar napkin and told me to call her niece ASAP.
So I did.
They were leaving in a week, she said. I had to decide whether or not to take this cat, named Tommy, within the next two days so that she might have peace of mind. I said I would think about it. I also said that I would think about why on earth someone would name her cat Tommy, as if it were original or even a remotely cute name for a grown cat. I didn't say that out loud to her, but you can bet during our entire conversation I was judging her rationale. We hung up, she hoping I'd relieve her of dropping Tommy off at a shelter, me already knowing I would.
Since I still lived with my parents at the time--this was the year after I graduated college--I told my Mom the next day that I was going to pick up a cat. He would stay at her house, I said, until I got home from the summer and could move him into my apartment: again, the non-existent one. I let her know that I would pay for cat food. I told her that his name was Tommy, as if that made him more lovable or attractive an option. She didn't know it, but my mother had no option. Would she really just throw him out of the house while I was away at school? I knew better. Not too happy at first, my mother interrogated me with questions on how I would afford him, why would I expect her to take care of him while I was away, and what if they already moved to Florida by the time I came home?
That's right. At the same time, my Mom and stepdad were also looking to move to Florida (the irony is outrageous). My stepdad had already found a job, and my Mom was going to join him once they closed on the house. Needless to say, the housing market then and even now is a giant pile of garbage, and our house wasn't sold until November. I, obviously, knew that would happen--which is why I had no trouble pawning my new cat onto my mother until I moved out.
I left at about 6pm to go pick him up, from a stranger that I'd only heard about from a boss I didn't really like from a co-worker who said our boss had a niece that was looking to get rid of a cat. Unprepared, I wheeled up with nothing in my car-- no blanket, no box, no nothing--to help this Tommy fellow enjoy my company on the ride home. I knocked on the door. I met Tommy. We made small talk for a few minutes, the owner and I (my conversations with Tommy would come much later in our relationship). She gave me his bed, his feeders, and a leash.
What the hell. A leash? I almost threw it back at her, but decided if I actually wanted to keep the cat I should restrain myself from any display of violence in her presence. I took everything into my car, came back in, grabbed Tommy, and hit the road.
He moaned like a dying cow the entire way home. Clawing at my passenger window, jumping from front to back, straining his neck like he had just guzzled poison and was sucking his last breath. Shit. This was too much. I had forgotten how crazy cats get when you try to transport them places, and immediately regretted my decision. After the 20-minute drive home, I plopped him in the yard and said, "Here ya are. Your new home. Enjoy." He immediately hid in the cat house, located outside of our backdoor, kitty-corner to the flagpole in our front yard (yes, that's correct) that donned a John Deere flag which sometimes sailed high and mighty, other times drooped in the dead air. Granted, I worked a lot at the pub to finish May and the beginning of June, but I still probably only saw that cat four times in a month's span. Three out of those four times, he was in boxing matches with the king of the household, Dominik. All of these awkward male names for cats, I get it--but this one was legit. He was named after Dominik Hasek, the legendary Sabres goalie, by my brother when he was about 8.
As I said, completely legitimate.
I tried to let Tommy into the house a few times, and those three times he rip-roared with Dominik like two Boston meat-heads arguing over a parking spot at a Red Sox game. A punch upside one furry skull. A claw swat to the thick chest, a grunt and stagger back. Hair-raised on backs, the cats would have killed eachother had I not removed Tommy from the situation. "It's MY fucking house," Dominik screeched as I plopped Tommy outside.
I left for school around the middle of the third week in June. Blue eyes and I stayed together, and I was also able to find an apartment, thanks to the old man who frequented O'Lacy's that eventually became my neighbor. He heard rumors of my now-apartment-soon-to-be-old being up for grabs, and gave me the name and number of the guy who owned it. I called a few weeks into school, and was able to cut a deal. By August 1st, it was finalized--I had a place. So pumped I couldn't stand it, I thought about all the things I would be able to do now that I wasn't living at home. Watch TV when I wanted without being berated to do the dishes-- I could do them whenever the damn hell I wanted to now. Come home late without having to be quiet, because it was my domain, and I paid the bills. Buy my own groceries, be alone. Yes.
My lease was signed when I got home, sometime in the first week of August. Blue eyes and my mom had moved everything in before I got home, very graciously, I might add--and all I really had to do was unpack. And pick up my cat. Tommy.
I had almost forgotten about him, probably because sometime around mid-July my Mom, on one of our rare phone conversations while I was at school (there is no cellphone reception), told me that he disappeared. What in hell did that mean? Cats don't disappear, I said. That makes no sense. She told me she heard screaming and cat-crying about a week earlier and assumed that Dominik and Tommy got into a major fight--possibly one that caused fatal injury to my cat because Dominik was still around. She hadn't seen Tommy in days. When I confirmed with my landlord that I wanted the apartment on August 1st, I called my mom. She still hadn't seen him. Suspicious, though, was the way the cat food diminished in the feline dorm room in our yard. We suspected he roamed the countryside by day, and gorged on glutenized cat food during the wee hours of the night when Dominik was inside the house, in my brother's room, curled up at Mike's feet.
When I did arrive back in New York, my Mom confirmed a Tommy sighting--just like the Yeti of the Himalayas, he prowled our yard's edge with a watchful eye, waiting for a human to make direct contact. She was able to lure him to her with some promise of "treat" and the cunning, "kitty, kitty, kitty" that all cats apparently listen to. She pet him, he purred. She kept him in the house until two days later, I was unpacked and ready to receive him.
At first, he was a skiddish freak. He wouldn't let me touch him, let alone pet him. I'll freely admit that when I own animals, I like to cuddle them like children--this was not an option with Tommy. Much to my surprise, he began to come around after a few weeks; he would brush up against my leg, look up at me with his emerald eyes, asking for food, and even purr a little. By about a month in to my freedom I was able to pick him up, and he nuzzled my face, which now looking back seems odd to recount because he is incredibly loving and thinking back to a time when he was tentative seems unrealistic. He was the only animal in my apartment, unless you include me. This time no one yelled at him to get the fuck out. My apartment was his.
Because he was so used to the outdoors, I couldn't keep him inside all the time. I wouldn't have felt right about it, and my street is a fairly quiet side street so I didn't see it being an issue--and it hasn't been. He will lay on other people's porches, get into drunken brawls with other street hoodlums after having drank too much milk, and come running up to me from the corner of the street--7 houses down--when I call his name. He is a night watchman, keeping rodents away from my doorstep, scaring the evil cat up the street who I refer to as Lucifer away from my property, and always gets out of the way when I pull into my driveway. Tommy always comes home.
Now, Tommy and I are on the search for a new home, but unlike the first time we met, we will be doing it together. I've thought about how I would feel if I tried to leave him behind or give him away because I was moving, and I always stop thinking about it because it was never really an option. I've just gotten back from Bread Loaf after my fourth summer, and I was afraid, as I was last year, that he would have forgotten me. When I walked into my apartment for the first time after 7 weeks, he brushed up against my calf and meowed at me. His food bowl was empty, and he was hungry. Blue eyes had taken care of him for me while I was away.
I picked up Tommy and he hugged me--which is how I now refer to his nuzzles. Each paw will be on each one of my shoulders, and he will shove his sparsely-covered kitty chin into my nose, clouding my senses with loose cat hair and dander. I usually am a little annoyed when that happens, but this time I wasn't. Setting him down on my kitchen chair, I filled his measuring cup with food and filled his porcelain bowl marked with cat paws to the brim. I gave him fresh water, and stroked his tail as he began to eat. I visited my Dad, watched a little TV, read a little Steinbeck. At about 1am, I fell asleep in my own bed for the first time in weeks.
The next morning, I woke up to a hairy ass in my face. Because at this stage I was single, I knew it had to be Tommy. He often likes to lay the opposite of me, with his head and front paws stretched toward my toes and his hindlegs grazing my neck. Putting my hand gently on his head, he lazily got up and turned himself around. He plopped himself down right next to me, spine to my stomach, back of his head in-between my chest, toes pointed the same direction as mine. I draped my hand over him, and told him that no matter where I was going, he was coming with me.
Bread Loaf School of English. It's a graduate program where people from all over the world unite in one incredibly magical, naturally beautiful environment; raw, unbiased relationships are formed here, bonding experiences thrive on Route 7 from Middlebury into Burlington, cliff-jumping thrills heighten feelings of being alive, and sitting in Adirondack chairs provide a comfortably awkward seat for students to mountain gaze while their minds do gymnastics over Faulkner and Chaucer. I've been there four years, and am going back for my fifth and final summer next year (it is only a summer program, so it takes about 4-5 years) in order to graduate with a Master's degree in English Literature. I had this to look forward to for the second time in June 2010, but there was one problem: I had nowhere to live when I returned home in August. On top of it all, that April was an emotional rollercoaster, ranging from extremely rageful lows to hilltop highs that I rode, enamored.
I can't say why, but I was much more concerned with finding a furry companion for the apartment that I didn't yet have instead of finding an actual apartment to take care of it in. A co-boss of mine (another long post for another random day), upon hearing that I really wanted a cat to keep me company when I "moved into my apartment in August" said that her niece was moving to Florida, and that she wasn't taking her cat with her. She had, in fact, been looking for a nice home for him and hadn't had any luck. My boss wrote down her number on a bar napkin and told me to call her niece ASAP.
So I did.
They were leaving in a week, she said. I had to decide whether or not to take this cat, named Tommy, within the next two days so that she might have peace of mind. I said I would think about it. I also said that I would think about why on earth someone would name her cat Tommy, as if it were original or even a remotely cute name for a grown cat. I didn't say that out loud to her, but you can bet during our entire conversation I was judging her rationale. We hung up, she hoping I'd relieve her of dropping Tommy off at a shelter, me already knowing I would.
Since I still lived with my parents at the time--this was the year after I graduated college--I told my Mom the next day that I was going to pick up a cat. He would stay at her house, I said, until I got home from the summer and could move him into my apartment: again, the non-existent one. I let her know that I would pay for cat food. I told her that his name was Tommy, as if that made him more lovable or attractive an option. She didn't know it, but my mother had no option. Would she really just throw him out of the house while I was away at school? I knew better. Not too happy at first, my mother interrogated me with questions on how I would afford him, why would I expect her to take care of him while I was away, and what if they already moved to Florida by the time I came home?
That's right. At the same time, my Mom and stepdad were also looking to move to Florida (the irony is outrageous). My stepdad had already found a job, and my Mom was going to join him once they closed on the house. Needless to say, the housing market then and even now is a giant pile of garbage, and our house wasn't sold until November. I, obviously, knew that would happen--which is why I had no trouble pawning my new cat onto my mother until I moved out.
I left at about 6pm to go pick him up, from a stranger that I'd only heard about from a boss I didn't really like from a co-worker who said our boss had a niece that was looking to get rid of a cat. Unprepared, I wheeled up with nothing in my car-- no blanket, no box, no nothing--to help this Tommy fellow enjoy my company on the ride home. I knocked on the door. I met Tommy. We made small talk for a few minutes, the owner and I (my conversations with Tommy would come much later in our relationship). She gave me his bed, his feeders, and a leash.
What the hell. A leash? I almost threw it back at her, but decided if I actually wanted to keep the cat I should restrain myself from any display of violence in her presence. I took everything into my car, came back in, grabbed Tommy, and hit the road.
He moaned like a dying cow the entire way home. Clawing at my passenger window, jumping from front to back, straining his neck like he had just guzzled poison and was sucking his last breath. Shit. This was too much. I had forgotten how crazy cats get when you try to transport them places, and immediately regretted my decision. After the 20-minute drive home, I plopped him in the yard and said, "Here ya are. Your new home. Enjoy." He immediately hid in the cat house, located outside of our backdoor, kitty-corner to the flagpole in our front yard (yes, that's correct) that donned a John Deere flag which sometimes sailed high and mighty, other times drooped in the dead air. Granted, I worked a lot at the pub to finish May and the beginning of June, but I still probably only saw that cat four times in a month's span. Three out of those four times, he was in boxing matches with the king of the household, Dominik. All of these awkward male names for cats, I get it--but this one was legit. He was named after Dominik Hasek, the legendary Sabres goalie, by my brother when he was about 8.
As I said, completely legitimate.
I tried to let Tommy into the house a few times, and those three times he rip-roared with Dominik like two Boston meat-heads arguing over a parking spot at a Red Sox game. A punch upside one furry skull. A claw swat to the thick chest, a grunt and stagger back. Hair-raised on backs, the cats would have killed eachother had I not removed Tommy from the situation. "It's MY fucking house," Dominik screeched as I plopped Tommy outside.
I left for school around the middle of the third week in June. Blue eyes and I stayed together, and I was also able to find an apartment, thanks to the old man who frequented O'Lacy's that eventually became my neighbor. He heard rumors of my now-apartment-soon-to-be-old being up for grabs, and gave me the name and number of the guy who owned it. I called a few weeks into school, and was able to cut a deal. By August 1st, it was finalized--I had a place. So pumped I couldn't stand it, I thought about all the things I would be able to do now that I wasn't living at home. Watch TV when I wanted without being berated to do the dishes-- I could do them whenever the damn hell I wanted to now. Come home late without having to be quiet, because it was my domain, and I paid the bills. Buy my own groceries, be alone. Yes.
My lease was signed when I got home, sometime in the first week of August. Blue eyes and my mom had moved everything in before I got home, very graciously, I might add--and all I really had to do was unpack. And pick up my cat. Tommy.
I had almost forgotten about him, probably because sometime around mid-July my Mom, on one of our rare phone conversations while I was at school (there is no cellphone reception), told me that he disappeared. What in hell did that mean? Cats don't disappear, I said. That makes no sense. She told me she heard screaming and cat-crying about a week earlier and assumed that Dominik and Tommy got into a major fight--possibly one that caused fatal injury to my cat because Dominik was still around. She hadn't seen Tommy in days. When I confirmed with my landlord that I wanted the apartment on August 1st, I called my mom. She still hadn't seen him. Suspicious, though, was the way the cat food diminished in the feline dorm room in our yard. We suspected he roamed the countryside by day, and gorged on glutenized cat food during the wee hours of the night when Dominik was inside the house, in my brother's room, curled up at Mike's feet.
When I did arrive back in New York, my Mom confirmed a Tommy sighting--just like the Yeti of the Himalayas, he prowled our yard's edge with a watchful eye, waiting for a human to make direct contact. She was able to lure him to her with some promise of "treat" and the cunning, "kitty, kitty, kitty" that all cats apparently listen to. She pet him, he purred. She kept him in the house until two days later, I was unpacked and ready to receive him.
At first, he was a skiddish freak. He wouldn't let me touch him, let alone pet him. I'll freely admit that when I own animals, I like to cuddle them like children--this was not an option with Tommy. Much to my surprise, he began to come around after a few weeks; he would brush up against my leg, look up at me with his emerald eyes, asking for food, and even purr a little. By about a month in to my freedom I was able to pick him up, and he nuzzled my face, which now looking back seems odd to recount because he is incredibly loving and thinking back to a time when he was tentative seems unrealistic. He was the only animal in my apartment, unless you include me. This time no one yelled at him to get the fuck out. My apartment was his.
Because he was so used to the outdoors, I couldn't keep him inside all the time. I wouldn't have felt right about it, and my street is a fairly quiet side street so I didn't see it being an issue--and it hasn't been. He will lay on other people's porches, get into drunken brawls with other street hoodlums after having drank too much milk, and come running up to me from the corner of the street--7 houses down--when I call his name. He is a night watchman, keeping rodents away from my doorstep, scaring the evil cat up the street who I refer to as Lucifer away from my property, and always gets out of the way when I pull into my driveway. Tommy always comes home.
Now, Tommy and I are on the search for a new home, but unlike the first time we met, we will be doing it together. I've thought about how I would feel if I tried to leave him behind or give him away because I was moving, and I always stop thinking about it because it was never really an option. I've just gotten back from Bread Loaf after my fourth summer, and I was afraid, as I was last year, that he would have forgotten me. When I walked into my apartment for the first time after 7 weeks, he brushed up against my calf and meowed at me. His food bowl was empty, and he was hungry. Blue eyes had taken care of him for me while I was away.
I picked up Tommy and he hugged me--which is how I now refer to his nuzzles. Each paw will be on each one of my shoulders, and he will shove his sparsely-covered kitty chin into my nose, clouding my senses with loose cat hair and dander. I usually am a little annoyed when that happens, but this time I wasn't. Setting him down on my kitchen chair, I filled his measuring cup with food and filled his porcelain bowl marked with cat paws to the brim. I gave him fresh water, and stroked his tail as he began to eat. I visited my Dad, watched a little TV, read a little Steinbeck. At about 1am, I fell asleep in my own bed for the first time in weeks.
The next morning, I woke up to a hairy ass in my face. Because at this stage I was single, I knew it had to be Tommy. He often likes to lay the opposite of me, with his head and front paws stretched toward my toes and his hindlegs grazing my neck. Putting my hand gently on his head, he lazily got up and turned himself around. He plopped himself down right next to me, spine to my stomach, back of his head in-between my chest, toes pointed the same direction as mine. I draped my hand over him, and told him that no matter where I was going, he was coming with me.
Friday, August 17, 2012
e.e. cummings at his best
Yesterday I was shopping at Aldi--a chain grocery store that offers decent products/produce for a fraction of the price--for a few key items. Since I may only be in my apartment for another week, it was crucial that I chose wisely: products that I would thoroughly enjoy, couldn't be eaten in one use (i.e. T.V. dinners) so that I got bang for my buck, and versatile blinner items.
Blinner. Breakfast + lunch + dinner. For instance, eggs can be eaten any time of the day. Who doesn't love fried eggs? Egg salad? A veggie omelet for dinner? Then there's cereal--the most incredible food item in existence. You can include in this category sandwiches of many varieties, even oatmeal. I guess, looking at this list, breakfast items are really the only true blinner items one can enjoy at any time of the day.
Needless to say, I got eggs, milk, a few cans of tuna fish, apples, peaches, a few yogurts--all for under 10 bucks. Oh, and chocolate chips. (I've got a potluck to go to this weekend and have most of the ingredients needed for a healthy chocolate-chip cookie pie, inspired by one of my favorite bloggers, Chocolate Covered Katie. If you haven't been to her blog, I highly recommend it! http://chocolatecoveredkatie.com/) As I was checking out, I noticed the woman in front of me had the New York Yankees logo tattooed on the nape of her neck, amidst the tufts of fluffy, frizzy white hair growing there. She was about forty, give or take, wearing a t-shirt that was too tight, a bra that was too small, and jeans from the juniors section of American Eagle or Aeropostale. They may or may not have had embellishments on the pockets; I'm going to err on the side of yes, yes they did. She was alone.
For whatever reason, I couldn't stop staring. I must have said out loud, "Wow. That's dedication." because the cashier looked at me puzzled, for a brief moment, before telling me that I owed her nine dollars and some change. Snapping out of my trance, I quickly collected my things out of the shopping cart at the end of the conveyor belt. At Aldi, you either steal their boxes and pack all of your shit in, or bring your own bags to prove you're going green. You can also buy bags at the register, but luckily I was able to fit everything into my arms.
I walked quickly to the automatic doors, hoping to gain some ground on this Yankee woman. Was this some sort of dynastic family symbol? Perhaps her father, now dead from leukemia, was an avid Yankees fan and this was some sort of tribute. Her son, born on the day the Yankees won their last World Series (which, by the way, seems like ages ago) was a child of God; his umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck and he wasn't supposed to survive. His father, screaming both at the television in the hospital room and at the good Lord for his undeserved travesty, watched as his wife pushed out his first son at the same exact time the immaculate trophy was brought on the field. She went weeks later and got the tattoo. Perhaps good gin and less tonic put her into a state of utter oblivion and her then-boyfriend pressured her into getting the NY as a way to prove her undying love to him. Maybe she just really loved the goddamn Yanks.
Her car was parked adjacent to mine, but she made it to her car and unloaded her cart in record time. By the time I made it out to my Cavalier, she was dipping her inked neck into a Pontiac and shutting the door. I opened my driver's side backdoor and set my things down--eggs first, of course. I made sure that the yogurt and milk were sitting upright, and tore open the bag of apples with my fingers, grabbing one for the drive home. I got into my front seat, took a bite of Empire State, and drove home.
I don't know why, but this woman--we will call her Maude--kept popping into my head randomly throughout the day. This morning, when I woke up, I saw her tattoo on the ceiling in my room. The walnuts in my oatmeal created the letters "N" and "Y" next to eachother; I swear I heard Whoopi Goldberg on The View say something about a crazy woman with a Yankees tat that was parading her almost-three year old son around Times Square, celebrating prematurely his birthday and praising God at the same time. Why was this woman tormenting me?
My favorite poet is e.e. cummings. I'm not entirely sure why, except for the fact that his manipulation of language and creation of phraseology is unmatched by any other American poet, in my opinion. since feeling is first is my favorite cummings poem for sure, but it isn't my favorite thing he has said or written. That sentiment lies in a quote on being true to yourself:
I don't know how I came across this quote today, or why e.e. cummings was even on my mind. But, nevertheless, Google images came through for me. After seeing this picture, I thought of Maude. Maybe her life was one big battle, and the only thing that really made her happy was watching the New York Yankees, win or lose, rain or shine, trophy or not. Maybe Maude's way of fighting was silent; maybe she was exhibiting her constant struggles in the name of family illness and strife via a gigantic NY because it was her way of proclaiming victory, something she had chosen for herself. I thought that maybe yesterday, after I had seen her, Maude was going home to start preparing dinner before her husband, a hard-working, construction-loving, concrete-laying build of a man, got home. There is a babysitter at her apartment, watching her three-year-old son, Paul, named after Paul O'Neill. The babysitter leaves. Maude walks into his bedroom, where Paul is taking a nap. She rustles his hair, pushes it gently out of his eyes, tells him all the things a mother can only say when her children are asleep. She slowly fingers the discoloration under his chin, a deep-penetrating scar that creates a half-moon on his neck, remembering how he is a miracle. Paul's eyelids flutter and he reaches his arms out, eyes still closed, in an effort to put them around his mother's neck. Maude obliges and bends her forty-year old back, the one in constant pain she inherited from her father, toward her son; creaks her aging neck down to his tiny, delicate hands. He traces the ever-so-slightly raised scar tissue on the back of her neck-- N in fluttered swoops, then the Y splitting the middle that caresses her upper spine.
I thought maybe Maude knows more about winning battles than most.
Blinner. Breakfast + lunch + dinner. For instance, eggs can be eaten any time of the day. Who doesn't love fried eggs? Egg salad? A veggie omelet for dinner? Then there's cereal--the most incredible food item in existence. You can include in this category sandwiches of many varieties, even oatmeal. I guess, looking at this list, breakfast items are really the only true blinner items one can enjoy at any time of the day.
Needless to say, I got eggs, milk, a few cans of tuna fish, apples, peaches, a few yogurts--all for under 10 bucks. Oh, and chocolate chips. (I've got a potluck to go to this weekend and have most of the ingredients needed for a healthy chocolate-chip cookie pie, inspired by one of my favorite bloggers, Chocolate Covered Katie. If you haven't been to her blog, I highly recommend it! http://chocolatecoveredkatie.com/) As I was checking out, I noticed the woman in front of me had the New York Yankees logo tattooed on the nape of her neck, amidst the tufts of fluffy, frizzy white hair growing there. She was about forty, give or take, wearing a t-shirt that was too tight, a bra that was too small, and jeans from the juniors section of American Eagle or Aeropostale. They may or may not have had embellishments on the pockets; I'm going to err on the side of yes, yes they did. She was alone.
For whatever reason, I couldn't stop staring. I must have said out loud, "Wow. That's dedication." because the cashier looked at me puzzled, for a brief moment, before telling me that I owed her nine dollars and some change. Snapping out of my trance, I quickly collected my things out of the shopping cart at the end of the conveyor belt. At Aldi, you either steal their boxes and pack all of your shit in, or bring your own bags to prove you're going green. You can also buy bags at the register, but luckily I was able to fit everything into my arms.
I walked quickly to the automatic doors, hoping to gain some ground on this Yankee woman. Was this some sort of dynastic family symbol? Perhaps her father, now dead from leukemia, was an avid Yankees fan and this was some sort of tribute. Her son, born on the day the Yankees won their last World Series (which, by the way, seems like ages ago) was a child of God; his umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck and he wasn't supposed to survive. His father, screaming both at the television in the hospital room and at the good Lord for his undeserved travesty, watched as his wife pushed out his first son at the same exact time the immaculate trophy was brought on the field. She went weeks later and got the tattoo. Perhaps good gin and less tonic put her into a state of utter oblivion and her then-boyfriend pressured her into getting the NY as a way to prove her undying love to him. Maybe she just really loved the goddamn Yanks.
Her car was parked adjacent to mine, but she made it to her car and unloaded her cart in record time. By the time I made it out to my Cavalier, she was dipping her inked neck into a Pontiac and shutting the door. I opened my driver's side backdoor and set my things down--eggs first, of course. I made sure that the yogurt and milk were sitting upright, and tore open the bag of apples with my fingers, grabbing one for the drive home. I got into my front seat, took a bite of Empire State, and drove home.
I don't know why, but this woman--we will call her Maude--kept popping into my head randomly throughout the day. This morning, when I woke up, I saw her tattoo on the ceiling in my room. The walnuts in my oatmeal created the letters "N" and "Y" next to eachother; I swear I heard Whoopi Goldberg on The View say something about a crazy woman with a Yankees tat that was parading her almost-three year old son around Times Square, celebrating prematurely his birthday and praising God at the same time. Why was this woman tormenting me?
My favorite poet is e.e. cummings. I'm not entirely sure why, except for the fact that his manipulation of language and creation of phraseology is unmatched by any other American poet, in my opinion. since feeling is first is my favorite cummings poem for sure, but it isn't my favorite thing he has said or written. That sentiment lies in a quote on being true to yourself:
I don't know how I came across this quote today, or why e.e. cummings was even on my mind. But, nevertheless, Google images came through for me. After seeing this picture, I thought of Maude. Maybe her life was one big battle, and the only thing that really made her happy was watching the New York Yankees, win or lose, rain or shine, trophy or not. Maybe Maude's way of fighting was silent; maybe she was exhibiting her constant struggles in the name of family illness and strife via a gigantic NY because it was her way of proclaiming victory, something she had chosen for herself. I thought that maybe yesterday, after I had seen her, Maude was going home to start preparing dinner before her husband, a hard-working, construction-loving, concrete-laying build of a man, got home. There is a babysitter at her apartment, watching her three-year-old son, Paul, named after Paul O'Neill. The babysitter leaves. Maude walks into his bedroom, where Paul is taking a nap. She rustles his hair, pushes it gently out of his eyes, tells him all the things a mother can only say when her children are asleep. She slowly fingers the discoloration under his chin, a deep-penetrating scar that creates a half-moon on his neck, remembering how he is a miracle. Paul's eyelids flutter and he reaches his arms out, eyes still closed, in an effort to put them around his mother's neck. Maude obliges and bends her forty-year old back, the one in constant pain she inherited from her father, toward her son; creaks her aging neck down to his tiny, delicate hands. He traces the ever-so-slightly raised scar tissue on the back of her neck-- N in fluttered swoops, then the Y splitting the middle that caresses her upper spine.
I thought maybe Maude knows more about winning battles than most.
Thursday, August 16, 2012
Many, Many Excuses
So apparently, I'm not too good at keeping up with this whole blog thing. Actually, I should say "was not" too good, because from now on I truly do plan on updating this for your reading and commenting pleasure--also for my own catharsis.
If you hadn't noticed the title of this new post, read it now.
Go on.
Okay. Newsflash: this title reflects my life. Possibly a bit of an overstatement, but seriously. My entire life, for better or worse, has been founded on making excuses in spite of what I really might want to do, what my heart has told me to do. An inexplicable dedication to the name of safety and comfort has been my backbone: not applying for jobs out of state for fear of losing relationships, not searching out an area of the world I'd like to live in or visit in lieu of building a foundation in a place where my soul isn't filled because it is the easier option, not keeping up with a simple fricking blog because I have had "better things to do." Let me tell you--I haven't had better things to do. I've remained here, in small-town Batavia (which, by the way, would be a great place to settle with a family later on in life; I'm just not there yet) where opportunities lack for free-spirited, lost souls such as myself, and where everyone knows everyone else's name.
Why have I stayed? Well, if we go back to the "beginning" of my journey--or what seems like the beginning-- I remained here for love. I know, I know. That's a no-no.
But is it, really? I mean, sure, I was living at home after college, dating a guy that I met online for about 6 months, and was going to move to Saratoga to be closer to him. And sure, I simultaneously was working at a local pub where I met a stunningly handsome guy with bright blue eyes and a great smile. And sure, that changed my mind about everything. I was donezo. My heart was in my throat. I didn't move. In some ways, I guess, I also didn't stay. Regardless, I was 100% smitten. Batavia became my home at that moment. Come to think of it, that thought became clear probably the next morning after I was cured of a terrible hangover.
But would I be writing this blog, the same one I wanted to start years ago and haven't kept up with for over a year, without this happening? A little backwards, I know, but I'm a believer in things happening for a reason and soaking every little lesson you possibly can from those same things.
Without meeting blue eyes, I would have never stayed in Batavia. I wouldn't have had a loving, explorative, eye-opening relationship with someone I consider to be a best friend. I wouldn't have made friendships here, built connections, bonded with the athletes I would soon coach, or earn my first teaching job at a rural school nearby. I also wouldn't have lost that same job, which destroyed my self-confidence and jaded my views on teaching. I wouldn't have lived on my own, taken care of my own apartment (along with my cat, who is a blog post in and of himself), paid my own bills, struggled like hell to survive. I wouldn't have learned where to buy the cheapest eggs, gas, or lunch special when I'm on the go. I wouldn't have realized that people move in and out of houses like they enter and exit a bathroom. I wouldn't have kept and then quit my job at an Irish pub where my boss treated his employees like garbage; I wouldn't have been in a friend from highschool's wedding. I wouldn't have spent enough time with my Dad on Sundays-- grilling out, eating pizza in, throwing the frisbee, watching Seinfeld, or talking about nothing. I wouldn't have learned to appreciate the teller at my bank who knows me by name, the t-shirt shop owner who is a fantastic businessman, or the cute barista at the coffee shop up the street who asked for my number. I wouldn't know the side streets by name here, I wouldn't get free cocktails at the bar a few blocks away. I wouldn't know how to belong somewhere.
Now, looking to leave Batavia, I aim to belong somewhere else. It is hard to describe the restless feeling that resonates through my bone marrow and behind my eye sockets, but it has always been there. For some reason, I'm not fully happy here. My friends recently told me I've seemed "depressed" the last year, year and a half. I fought that tooth and nail, claiming that depressed people sit on their asses watching Maury Povich and his paternity test results while eating TV dinners for breakfast. I realized though, that depressed can mean just...inherent negativity. Feeling unfulfilled. Unhappy. Something, whatever that word might mean, is absent from my life. As the Dixie Chicks said, perhaps it is simply the "room to make a big mistake." Silly, cliche, whatever--but aren't mistakes the chastised sisters of success?
Right now, my goal is Washington D.C. I have a great, very special friend there, and many others close by that would help me get on my feet. I've been madly applying for jobs while trying to sublet my apartment as soon as possible. It's been an immediate turnaround from a month ago, when I was going to live here with blue eyes in my apartment. I would have been engaged by December.
Maybe all of those things I learned by staying in Batavia don't really matter in the grand scheme of my life; then again, life is one giant domino chain of cause and effect. But, without predicting the future, there is one thing I do know, while sitting here in my apartment, surrounded by folded clothes I don't want to put away in my dresser because they will soon go in boxes, listening to terrible mufflers driven by old people drive by, and watching Barbara Walters on The View in my pajamas: I won't find out what my wouldn't have knowns mean until I learn to know things somewhere else.
Stay tuned.
If you hadn't noticed the title of this new post, read it now.
Go on.
Okay. Newsflash: this title reflects my life. Possibly a bit of an overstatement, but seriously. My entire life, for better or worse, has been founded on making excuses in spite of what I really might want to do, what my heart has told me to do. An inexplicable dedication to the name of safety and comfort has been my backbone: not applying for jobs out of state for fear of losing relationships, not searching out an area of the world I'd like to live in or visit in lieu of building a foundation in a place where my soul isn't filled because it is the easier option, not keeping up with a simple fricking blog because I have had "better things to do." Let me tell you--I haven't had better things to do. I've remained here, in small-town Batavia (which, by the way, would be a great place to settle with a family later on in life; I'm just not there yet) where opportunities lack for free-spirited, lost souls such as myself, and where everyone knows everyone else's name.
Why have I stayed? Well, if we go back to the "beginning" of my journey--or what seems like the beginning-- I remained here for love. I know, I know. That's a no-no.
But is it, really? I mean, sure, I was living at home after college, dating a guy that I met online for about 6 months, and was going to move to Saratoga to be closer to him. And sure, I simultaneously was working at a local pub where I met a stunningly handsome guy with bright blue eyes and a great smile. And sure, that changed my mind about everything. I was donezo. My heart was in my throat. I didn't move. In some ways, I guess, I also didn't stay. Regardless, I was 100% smitten. Batavia became my home at that moment. Come to think of it, that thought became clear probably the next morning after I was cured of a terrible hangover.
But would I be writing this blog, the same one I wanted to start years ago and haven't kept up with for over a year, without this happening? A little backwards, I know, but I'm a believer in things happening for a reason and soaking every little lesson you possibly can from those same things.
Without meeting blue eyes, I would have never stayed in Batavia. I wouldn't have had a loving, explorative, eye-opening relationship with someone I consider to be a best friend. I wouldn't have made friendships here, built connections, bonded with the athletes I would soon coach, or earn my first teaching job at a rural school nearby. I also wouldn't have lost that same job, which destroyed my self-confidence and jaded my views on teaching. I wouldn't have lived on my own, taken care of my own apartment (along with my cat, who is a blog post in and of himself), paid my own bills, struggled like hell to survive. I wouldn't have learned where to buy the cheapest eggs, gas, or lunch special when I'm on the go. I wouldn't have realized that people move in and out of houses like they enter and exit a bathroom. I wouldn't have kept and then quit my job at an Irish pub where my boss treated his employees like garbage; I wouldn't have been in a friend from highschool's wedding. I wouldn't have spent enough time with my Dad on Sundays-- grilling out, eating pizza in, throwing the frisbee, watching Seinfeld, or talking about nothing. I wouldn't have learned to appreciate the teller at my bank who knows me by name, the t-shirt shop owner who is a fantastic businessman, or the cute barista at the coffee shop up the street who asked for my number. I wouldn't know the side streets by name here, I wouldn't get free cocktails at the bar a few blocks away. I wouldn't know how to belong somewhere.
Now, looking to leave Batavia, I aim to belong somewhere else. It is hard to describe the restless feeling that resonates through my bone marrow and behind my eye sockets, but it has always been there. For some reason, I'm not fully happy here. My friends recently told me I've seemed "depressed" the last year, year and a half. I fought that tooth and nail, claiming that depressed people sit on their asses watching Maury Povich and his paternity test results while eating TV dinners for breakfast. I realized though, that depressed can mean just...inherent negativity. Feeling unfulfilled. Unhappy. Something, whatever that word might mean, is absent from my life. As the Dixie Chicks said, perhaps it is simply the "room to make a big mistake." Silly, cliche, whatever--but aren't mistakes the chastised sisters of success?
Right now, my goal is Washington D.C. I have a great, very special friend there, and many others close by that would help me get on my feet. I've been madly applying for jobs while trying to sublet my apartment as soon as possible. It's been an immediate turnaround from a month ago, when I was going to live here with blue eyes in my apartment. I would have been engaged by December.
Maybe all of those things I learned by staying in Batavia don't really matter in the grand scheme of my life; then again, life is one giant domino chain of cause and effect. But, without predicting the future, there is one thing I do know, while sitting here in my apartment, surrounded by folded clothes I don't want to put away in my dresser because they will soon go in boxes, listening to terrible mufflers driven by old people drive by, and watching Barbara Walters on The View in my pajamas: I won't find out what my wouldn't have knowns mean until I learn to know things somewhere else.
Stay tuned.
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