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Lay Down Your Weary Tune
February 25, 2008 | permalink
You're going to love this, Gentle Readers.
A few weeks ago, I got a text message from The Old Man. This, in and of itself, is not really anything of note. I get a lot of them from him (mostly after he has had a few too many daiquiris), and they are run of them mill text messages from a tipsy parent. Which probably isn't really all that run of the mill in and of itself, but that's another issue, for another time.
In any case, this one left me floored, mouth open, and incoherent. I present it here in its entirety, because I just don't know how I could possibly do it justice otherwise.
By a series of improbable coincidences a daughter I was unaware of and I have found each other. Her name is [redacted], 33 years old. We have grown very close over the last few months. I am adopting her, we truly love each other.
Let me repeat: this was a text message. My sisters The Rockette and The Star got the same one, as I nearly instantly learned, since there was much talking on the phone between the three of us. It became clear shortly that all of my siblings (wait, scratch that- all of The Old Man's children; I have siblings that are not his) got the same message.
Obviously, this is a large and complex issue, and we will be returning to it several times over the coming weeks, but here are the things that, at first gloss, really blew my mind...
a) Did I mention this news was delivered via text message?b) [redacted] is 33. The Rockette is 32. Which means that Redacted's mother was already pregnant with her when my mother got pregnant with The Rockette.
c) Except for The Rockette, The Star, and myself, none of the other siblings had any problem with the fact that this news was delivered via text message.
d) Um... adopting? At 33? If The Old Man had any assets, I would be worried this was some kind of scam.
So, yeah. Wacky, right? This has been rippling around for a while- as I said, it was weeks ago. And I have lots more to say. But I think I will pause here and let all that sink in a little before I go on.
Posted in Family Matters & The Old Man & WTF!?(2) Comments
The Transistor
April 23, 2007 | permalink
I remembered this story the other day. Why, I cannot say; I was in the middle of a completely unrelated conversation with two completely unrelated people. Unrelated to the story, that is. Though come to think of it, they are both unrelated to me as well. And each other. But I digress...
I was maybe 14, and had babysitting duty that day. The Old Man had something to do in the afternoon, and I was supposed to make sure to get to the house before the littler ones came home. Upon arriving, I found a note on the door, in The Old Man's hand. The note said:
The dog is loose inside. Be careful not to let him out when you come in.
Gentle Readers, at this time in our lives, we did not have a dog. I was coming home to an empty, unlocked house, like I had a zillion times, and there had never been any weird notes like this left for me. I couldn't decide at the time (though I have a pretty good idea now) if the note was some kind of joke on me, or a strange attempt to deter anyone who might be walking around the neighborhood looking to burgle a house in the middle of a Wednesday afternoon. Either way, I thought it was just so odd.
Anyway, I left the note up for the others to see and went about the afternoon. The Littler Ones came home. The Star and Rockette came home. We snickered at the note, and how weird The Old Man was. And then we forgot about it. At least, I did.
A little bit later there was a knock at the door. I opened it to find a man with a clipboard. He introduced himself and said he was from the Department of Animal Control, told me that they were doing a Census of Household Pets, and asked how many animals were living here.
None, I said. (Remember the note?)
What about this dog? he asked, pointing at the note that I had oh so cleverly left on the door. He starts trying to peer around me in the doorway.
Oh that! I stammered something about how it was a joke, The Old Man is such a prankster, ha ha ha... It was clear that he didn't believe a word of what I was saying, and thought that I was standing there lying to his face. He asked again about pets in the house, saying he didn't care if the dog was licensed or anything- he just needed to know if there were any here. I told him again that we had no pets, and he made a couple of notes on his clipboard and left.
Now, I ask you, what are the fucking odds of that happening? I mean, really? The one day there is an odd, cryptic note on the door about a dog, the Animal Control people come around?
I'm telling you, life is weird.
Posted in Family Matters & Random & The Old Man & The Past(3) Comments
Good Thing
April 12, 2007 | permalink
I met my niece (pictured here with my Mother) for the first time over the Easter Weekend. Isn't she cute?
While she is not my first niece (I have several on The Old Man's side, the progeny of my older half-sister, his daughter from a previous marriage), she is the first child born to any of my siblings on my Mother's side, and as such is also Mom and Red's first Granddaughter. You can imagine, then, how she was doted on while she was here for the holiday.
The night before Easter, after dinner, we colored the eggs. It's something we do every year, whether there are going to be kids around or not. The idea is that everyone in the family ends up with an egg just for them, made by someone else (obviously, you can't make your own egg!), which we then eat as part of breakfast the next morning. It's a lot of fun- of course we all try to get artsy and out-do one another, and of course our ambitions usually exceed our talent. Most of them come out fine, but there are a couple of sad looking Easter Eggs, most years.
This year, since The Little One was here, we 'hid' some eggs for her to find. The first few she didn't get it, which is not surprising. But after a bit she got really into it, not least because of all the attention and applause she got whenever she found one. We tried to get her to put them into the basket after she found them, but of course they went right into her mouth, every time... She has a few teeth in, and by the end she was succeeding in gnawing her way past the shell, if we didn't relieve her of the egg fast enough.
Like I said, cute...
Posted in Family Matters & Holidays & Out of TownRelentless Sun
April 10, 2007 | permalink
I think a lot about myself. I don't mean in a totally ego-centric 'enough about me, darling- what do you think of my dress?' kind of way; I mean that I spend a lot of time examining my thoughts and feelings, and actions and motivations, trying to figure out what makes me tick. Trying to understand what I want and what I am, and what I'm doing and why.
You would think at this stage in my life (being nearly thirty-five) that this would be clear to me. Maybe it should be, and I am hopelessly behind my peers in terms of self-awareness and understanding. Which is a notion that kind of depresses me, to be quite honest. But since I have no way of knowing, I suppose it is equally possible that no one ever really understands themselves as well as they would like. When I am feeling reasonable (and reasonably together), I think that both things are probably true; I should have more understanding of myself by now, but no matter how much I understand, there will always be something else. Perhaps complete understanding of oneself is unattainable, or nearly so; the quest what the Buddhists would call Nirvana, or the Shaolin concept of Enlightenment, for example, were both lifelong quests.
But on reflection, after trying to continue with this post, I think that perhaps I do understand myself more than the above passages would imply. I just don't like what I see.
I suppose that the basic problem I have, if I boil it down to its simplest components, is that what I think is my innate nature (which I obviously cannot change) is in direct conflict with the things that I was taught about the world when I was young (and we all know, I think, how hard those childhood lessons are to shake). And I don't know how to reconcile the two, and resolve the conflict.
If I had to describe my basic nature (the parts of it relevant to this discussion, at least), I would say that in my heart of hearts I was basically an honest and trusting person, who greatly desired to be close to people, and open with them, and all the things that entails- trust in others and faith in the future among them. Not a bad set of traits, I think. Except...
Except that anyone who knows me can tell you that I fall pretty short of this, in reality. Especially in the trust and faith and openness parts. These are things that, even though I have always yearned for, I didn't really know existed outside of fiction. If I had to sum up the lessons of my childhood, they would go something like this: Everyone is out to get you, if they can, so the less you give away the better; keep everything possible to yourself. And you can't count on anything that you have today being here tomorrow, so don't get attached to anyone or anything.
Pretty bleak, eh? Those ideas seem inescapable to me, and color everything I do. And I hate them. I wish I could say that nothing has ever happened in my later life that reinforced them, and that I have managed to escape them, but I can't. The first friend I had set me on fire. My favorite uncle molested me. My father is (as I have mentioned before) paranoid and pretty much crazy, and consistency and stability are things I never knew until I left the house to go to college. (I lived in something like 15 or 16 different places before I graduated high school- on one occasion, we came home from school on a Friday to find out we were packing to move on Saturday.) My mentor killed himself. And I won't even talk about my ex-wife.†
Sometimes it feels like a lot to bear, and my worst fear is that I will never overcome the circumstances of my upbringing. That I will be stuck in conflict, always yearning for things I will not allow myself to have. I don't want you to think I am sitting here feeling sorry for myself; I'm not. I have survived all these things, and I'm not a total basket case. I feel certain that I can get through anything that life throws at me, one way or another. I am a success in my chosen field, and even if I am suspicious of people in general and tend to hold myself back and be a tad anti-social, I do have people that I love and trust.
I guess I just wish it were easier. I would like to be able to let go of all the crap and be able to be open and expressive to the people I care about. I would love to be able to not think of the worst things that could happen, all the time. (Not feeling like a complete cynic would be quite nice, I think).
I suppose the only thing to do is to persevere. I haven't gotten this far by giving up, and I don't guess I will start now. But like I said: I wish it were easier.
† I don't want to give the impression that I am being all 'woe is me, I am a poor sad helpless victim' here... I'm not a saint, and I have certainly done some things I am not proud of. And there are of course people who I have trusted who were indeed worthy of it. I am only trying to illustrate my point with my own experiences. I hope that makes sense...
Posted in Family Matters & Growing Up & Musings & Social Life & The Past(0) Comments
Jet Pilot
January 29, 2007 | permalink
We're big game players in my family. Going to my Mother's isn't complete without at least one night of games. Trivial Pursuit, Scattergories, Pictionary, Cranium; the kinds of games where quick wits count more than luck, and you really have the opportunity to trample your opponents' pride. I know that there are some people that hold that there are no winners and no losers- that doesn't fly in my house. Competition is the name of the game.
When we were younger, my brothers and sisters and I would play games all the time, and we were a lot more competitive and a lot less scrupulous than we are now. Winning was key, and the unspoken rule was that if you could get away with it, it was legal. Moving someone's piece to a less advantageous position when they weren't looking? Hell yes. Writing words out during Pictionary to later obscure with some meaningless scribble while your partner played like it was your superior drawing was the key? Absolutely (though this really only worked in an 'All Play' situation when your opponents were distracted). Rewiring your Operation game so that it only buzzed when you wanted it to? Definitely. And Monopoly.... that was the Holy Grail of underhandedness. Stealing money from the bank was always popular, especially if you were the banker (my brother The Architect is banned for life from being the banker- he was too greedy not to get caught); but stealing other players' money and even property was perfectly alright, provided you could get away with it, to say nothing of stiffing people on rent, palming favorable Chance Cards, and underpaying for houses and hotels.
This standard of play quickly resulted in a series of shifting and uneasy alliances, one or more of us agreeing to help one of the other siblings look after their interests in exchange for the same consideration. Of course, if such an agreement became a liability, betraying your allies was a possibility as well. The political intrigues of a royal palace had nothing on us.
But that's all in the past. All of the cheating, backstabbing and intrigue was a lot of fun, for a while; really it was like another game on top of (or maybe underneath?) whatever game we were really playing. But eventually we knew all of each other's dirty tricks and lies and tells, and so the fun of the cheat fizzled out. But the fun of subjugating your siblings through superior play? That never gets old.
Anyone up for a game?
Posted in Family Matters & Random & The Past(2) Comments
Room 712, The Apache
January 18, 2007 | permalink
The Star and I were talking the other night while sitting in the waiting room at Inkstop for Jose to finish up with his previous appointment. She was asking me about my experiences getting tattooed, and dealing with tattoo artists. Not that I have a ton of experience, mind you- I only have a few tattoos. But that's more than she had, and she was feeling nervous about communicating what she wanted and second guessing herself regarding whether or not she had picked the right guy to do the work. I asked her if she had like Jose when she met him the first time to talk to him, and she said yes, immediately. I told her that she had made the right decision, then, and that if she hadn't felt that way she should wait. Then I told her this story about my dealings with an artist named Spider, who at the time was working at Bay City Tattoo, in Erie, PA, to distract her from being nervous.
A little backstory: I was in a fire when I was but a young lad, and was quite badly burned. My right leg is mostly one big scar, and my right side has a veritable constellation of large and small sccars. The unburned parts of my right leg (which consists of my upper and inner thigh) and all of my left leg are covered with skin graft scars, where they harvested skin to patch me up, as the fire completely consumed the upper layers of flesh in the aforementioned areas. (There was a time while I was in the hospital, after all the burned tissue had been removed, but before I was strong enough for the skin graft surgeries, when I could see my own muscles and tendons and bone- gruesome, eh?) The end result is that the lower half of me is a patchwork of scars, and I was terribly self-conscious and embarrassed about my appearance for a very, very long time.
About fifteen years later, while I was in college, I finally got to a good place with myself about this. To celebrate, and as a badge of my acceptance of myself, I decided that I wanted to get a tattoo on the outside of my right calf, firmly in the middle of the biggest section of scarring. (That's the end of the backstory. We can now rejoin the present day, and the story that I was telling The Star, who knew all of that, of course.)
I went into two places before I went to Bay City and met Spider. Once they saw the scar and what I wanted done, they were very reluctant to do the work. Apparently the structure of scar tissue makes tattooing difficult and the results unpredictable, as well as more prone to infection and other problems. One guy actually said to me that he didn't think I should have it done in that spot, but he would, if I insisted.
Their reluctance did not fill me with confidence, Gentle Readers, and rather than proceed with misgivings, I decided to wait and and find someone who was as enthusiastic about this as I was, and understood how important the symbolism was to me.
A couple of months later, I accompanied a friend to Bay City where she had an appointment of her own, to go down and talk to them and see what they had to say. While she was getting her tattoo, I started talking to Spider, a tattooed, leather-clad mountain of a man, about what I was looking to have done. I have this scar, I said, that I want to have a tattoo done on. He immediately rolled his eyes, a little, and I realized that he saw me as some soft college kid and thought I meant some pansy-assed little scar from a cut or the like that I was trying to cover it for cosmetic reasons, and wasn't at all getting that this was tantamount to a spiritual quest of self-acceptance for me. I was indignant, and instead of trying to explain any more, pulled up my pants leg to show him the scale of what I was talking about.
His eyes lit up like a kid at Christmas. He came around the counter and pulled up a chair, and sat down to take a closer look. Then he asked me if he could call his buddy who was in the back to come out and have a look. I said that he could, and yelled back to John that he should come out and have a look at me. It was a bit strange- I'd been so self conscious for so long about my scars, and this guy was excited about them. It was like I was an instant celebrity, and Spider's attitude changed from one of veiled derision to total respect, all because of those same scars. Heady stuff.
John rolled out from the back room. Literally rolled. Like Spider, he was very much the stereo-typical tattooed biker, but unlike Spider he was missing one arm and one leg and was in a wheelchair, and like me was covered in burn scars. He was also excited about my scars, and they asked me what had happened to me. I told them the whole story of how I had come to be burned and why I wanted the tattoo there and why (and since they asked me, and so clearly thought that I was some kind of badass by virtue of the scars, I asked John what had happened to him- motorcycle crash, followed by coma), and I asked Spider about the concerns the other tattoo artists I had spoken to mentioned. He said, yes, there can be problems, but that he had lots of experience, at which point John began excitedly shoeing me some of the work that Spider had done on him and his scars.
I was totally sold. Spider's work was beautiful, and these guys completely got what I was after and why, and were totally into it to boot. When I asked about making an appointment to come back, Spider told me we could do it right then- he would ask his next appointment to wait. So we did it then and there. It turned out exactly as I wanted it, and to this day still stands as one of the best things I have ever done for myself.
By the time I was done with my story, it was The Star's turn under the gun. The desired effect was achieved, though, and instead of being overly nervous she was really excited to get started.
Posted in Family Matters & Musings & The Past(2) Comments
I'm So Excited / I'm So Scared
January 14, 2007 | permalink
I went with my sister The Star this evening to get her first tattoo. And believe me, I do mean first; she already has the next one planned out. In the picture is the shirt she wore especially for the occasion, which I thought was funny as hell.
She was really cute tonight, actually. She was nervous that it would be unbearably painful (it wasn't) and that she wouldn't be able to communicate what she wanted to the tattoo artist clearly enough (she was) or that she wouldn't like it as much as she'd thought she would once it was done (she loved it). It's been awhile since I felt 'big brotherly', if that makes any sense. While I am 4 1/2 years older, she is nearly thirty, and I've thought of her as an adult instead of as my kid sister for many years. Playing that role tonight was nice.
I was touched, actually, that she asked me to accompany her. The Star, as you might well imagine of someone who gets such a nickname, has no shortage of friends (both tattooed and not) who would have gladly gone with her and been her moral support. I'm really happy that I was able to be there with her tonight, instead.
Posted in Around New York & Family Matters & RandomCheap Motels
December 31, 2006 | permalink
A week ago Friday I went with my sisters up to The Old Man's place for his Solstice Feast. The Old Man, you see, has long since decided that he cannot countenance the commercialized, christian-centric, consumer Christmas of modern times, and so celebrates the solstice instead, preferring to focus on the company of family and friends and good food and drink rather than material things. There are gifts given, of course; I suspect it sounds much more radical here in words than it actually is in practice, and is not much different than Christmas at any of your houses. The Old Man always was a little bit of a pagan at heart.
The trip upstate was a little bit of an adventure. Not so much for me as for my sisters; they were returning from our brother's in California that day. On Thursday they left Fresno and drove the 220 miles to Los Angeles. Friday, the day we traveled, they got up at 6, went to the airport, caught their flight to Phoenix, waited for and caught their connection to JFK. They landed at JFK at 10:15, got their luggage, took a cab to Manhattan, picked up the rental car, went home, re-packed, and picked me up.
Now it's just about 1 am. The Palisades was wet and foggy, and we spent a good deal of time moving less than 20 mph with the hazards flashing because we couldn't see more than 15 feet in front of us. (Meanwhile people with apparently much better fog-vision than any of us had kept blowing past us at at least 40 mph. I am amazed that we didn't pass any of them wrecked further down the road). The upshot is that a trip that usually takes about an hour and fifteen minutes, give or take, took about two and a half. We were feeling bad, expecting to wake up half the house as we stumbled in and tried to sort out sleeping arrangements for ourselves, but half the house was up anyway, hanging out on the porch smoking and drinking (classy, right?). So that was kinda fun. When's the last time your folks were trying to entice you to throw back a couple of drinks and and all you wanted to do was go to bed?
The next day was the big feast. nothing organized, mind you- people cooked and brought and set out food all day long, and everyone just grazes as they feel the need. While my sisters were making their cross country trek, I was baking cookies for the masses; Oatmeal Chocolate Espresso, Sugar, and Old Fashioned Peanut Butter cookies (all of them very well received, thank you). It was quite a spread, all told, and in addition to the nine extra people staying at the house, another dozen came through at one point or another over the course of the day.
That night, those of us that were still at the house (that is, The Old Man and Step-Mother, me and my sisters, and Step-Mother's sister and her husband and children) hung around on the porch, played darts and drank and (well, the 'adults', anyway) smoked. It was a lot of fun. I felt closer to and more comfortable with The Old Man than I had in a very, very long time.
Posted in Family Matters & Holidays & Out of Town(0) Comments
Giddy Up and Go
December 22, 2006 | permalink
I was browsing around some of your writings the other day, Gentle Readers, and Emily of Pretty Crabby and Brian of An Audience of One were writing about Christmases both imminent and long gone, respectively, and it got me thinking about Christmas when I was a kid, specifically Christmas at my Mother's.
My parents split when I was seven or so, and my Mother got together (and eventually married) Red, and we had a real Brady Bunch situation going on. There was me, The Star, and The Rockette, of course, and Red had his daughter Cat and his sons the C.O. and The Architect. Three boys, three girls, all of us just about a year apart. There is actually a small three day window every year between The Rockette's birthday and The C.O.'s birthday when the six of us are in consecutive chronological order. My Mother says that then we are In Alignment, and tries to get a photo of us during this time every year.
I've strayed from the point of my story. Which was Christmas.
The Christmases when the six of us were all there together (roughly every other one) were great, by far the best holidays of my childhood. Up until we were too old and self-conscious, we would all camp out in the girls' room (which was the larger) on Christmas Eve, too excited to sleep and excitedly speculating about what the next morning would bring. Eventually, of course, no matter how hard we tried to stay awake and catch Mom and Red putting out the presents, we would one by one drift off. I don't think we ever did manage to stay up late enough to find them out; my Mother insists to this day that Santa, and not her or Red, places the gifts under the tree. She's cute like that.
In the morning whichever of us woke up first would wake the others, and our excited chatter from the night before would continue. We usually were up well before dawn, and even though we weren't supposed to wake up Mom and Red until at least 6am, we discovered we could usually push it to 5:30 or even 5:15 if we made coffee for them and sent it in with whichever of us was most in their good graces. Which was usually Cat or The Star. The Rockette and I were too consistent to ever be especially in or out of favor, and The Architect and The C.O. fought too much to ever rise to 'Golden Child' status.
I'm hard pressed to actually remember anything I got on those Christmas mornings; its the camaraderie I felt with my brothers and sisters (well, this subset of them, anyway) that makes the memories so special to me. So I will leave you with that happy picture, Gentle Readers, whilst I head upstate to see The Old Man. Happy Holidays, and I will return next week, no doubt with tales of holiday mayhem.
Posted in Family Matters & Growing Up & Holidays & The Past(0) Comments
Osborne Avenue
October 21, 2006 | permalink
I got drunk texted by The Old Man today. It's definitely not the first time, though it hasn't happened in a while. I found that it made me feel exasperated, a little; and then sad. We were really close, when I was a kid, even though it was in a fucked up kind of way; and now it's like some stranger is wearing my father's skin. Despite all the things I resent him for, I still miss that closeness that we once had.
Posted in Family Matters & The Old Man(0) Comments
Let Them Eat...
October 6, 2006 | permalink
Gentle Readers, I'm off for the hinterlands of Upstate New York, for the wedding of my sister The Star's very best friend, The Giggler, of the Wurts clan. It's bound to be a bit bittersweet, with the death of her brother The Writer just nine months past, but that aside it should be a blast. The Giggler is good people, and I'm thrilled to see her so happy.
Posted in Family Matters & Out of Town & Social Life(2) Comments
Well, I Guess I Just Didn't Notice
October 1, 2006 | permalink
I was unaware of my The Old Man's dissociative identity disorder until my late teens. There were some strange things that, in hindsight, make it clear that something was not right, but at the time it was all just normal. That's what we were used to, the baseline that we compared everything else to. I guess on some level, I figured everyone's family was more or less like ours. It wasn't until I went away to college that I had enough regular contact with people outside my family to realize that this was not the case. I can count on one hand the number of times that I went over to another kid's house when I was growing up, and I don't think any of my classmates ever came over to ours.
This didn't particularly bother me; as I said, it seemed normal at the time. I didn't feel deprived or like a shut in. Most of the time I was off in some daydream or another anyway. Of course, now that I am an adult and have trouble feeling comfortable when I interact with people, especially people I don't know well, I wish that things had been different; but that's another can of worms altogether.
I'm sure you are wondering, Gentle Readers, what the strange things that I mentioned earlier might be. I don't imagine that any of you have had any dealings with someone with multiple personalities. I tried for a long time, actually, to find someone else who had, so that I could discuss it with another person (besides my sisters- at that time it was something that we didn't talk about amongst ourselves. That is no longer the case). I never did. But I digress.
The Old Man would leave notes to himself, on the message board by the front door. Only, they were from one personality to another, reminding whomever might be at the steering wheel that day about the things that had to be done. Because when one of the personalities wasn't 'on top,' they had no awareness. Not of anything. He told me, once, years after the fact, about waking up one morning and not recognising where he was or knowing why he was there instead of in his own room. Except it was his own room- it was just that particular personality hadn't been 'on top' since before we had moved last, and had no idea that we had new digs. Things like this were not uncommon, and as you can imagine, there were serious mood and behavior swings all the time, reflecting the differences in each of The Old Man's facets. Different speech patterns, different likes and dislikes, different gaps in his memory. Something that was perfectly acceptable one day was practically a hanging offense the next. Some days he seemed like a rock, some days fragile. Some days he was approachable, some days he seemed so stern and aloof I didn't want to be in the same room with him. You just never knew what his reaction to anything would be. It was both incoprehensible and completely normal all at the same time. I guess I didn't really try to make sense of it; that was just how things were. The Old Man was a rollercoaster, and we were all along for the ride.
Posted in Family Matters & Growing Up & The Old Man & The Past(0) Comments
A Rose by Any Other Name
July 29, 2006 | permalink
I went to the DMV this week, to renew and update my ID. It's been expired for the better part of a year, and I never bothered to change my address and the picture is twelve years old, so I thought it was time. I went to the DMV office in Harlem, and let me tell you, Gentle Readers, they have got a hell of a streamlined system down there. It was less than an hour between when I walked in off the street and when I walked out with my new temporary ID card. I was astounded. I figured it would be at least 3.
The first time I tried to get ID was not so easy. And I want to say upfront that as fantastic and unlikely as what I am about to relate to you sounds, it is, in fact, a true story. It's another of those bizarre little things that seems to happen to me. Another part of the backstory- I lived my teen years on a farm, driving the farm truck, for which the operator, as long as he is on farm business, need only be over the age of 16- so there was no need for me to get a license until much later in life than average.
So- I'm twenty, and am trying to get my legal license. I get the forms from the DMV, see what I need, and call my parents to get my birth certificate. They don't have it. Not only do they not have it, but I learn that the name I have been living under is NOT the name I was born with. The Old Man changed his name to distance himself from his abusive family when I was about two. So I need to accquire the birth certificate with the wrong name and the legal papers showing my name change.
Getting the birth certificate wasn't hard. And at first, getting the name change documents from Albany didn't seem like it was going to be too hard either. A couple of phone calls, a letter or two. No problem.
Yeah, right. I get a letter from Albany a few weeks later telling me that they couldn't find the paperwork at first. There didn't seem to be any record of my name change. Then they found the original application from 18 years ago, and realized that it had never been processed, so my name was never changed. The letter went on to say that they were submitting the paperwork now for me, and that I should recieve my copies in four weeks or so. Okay, great. I've been living my whole life on an assumed identity. But it's getting taken care of, so it's okay.
Two months later I still haven't gotten anything, and I start making phone calls. I get the run around for a couple of weeks, and then someone finally admits to me that the paperwork is nowhere to be found: they lost it. So now I'm back to square one. Actually, square minus one. Because now I have to get a lawyer and legally change my name from the name I was born with to the name that I have been living under my whole life. Which was expensive, and a pain in the ass, since it was impossible for me to prove that the name on the birth certificate was me, because every other piece of paperwork I had, including my Social Security card, had the other name on it. Finally it was resolved, and I got all of my documents and my New York ID.
I decided to keep going while my luck held, and went and got my passport as soon as my state ID got to me in the mail. As I'm sure you know, you have to give the passport agency all of your documents for verification. They take them, and mail them back- or at least, they used to. So I handed over my Birth Certificate and ceritfied copies of all of the name change paperwork along with my application. A few weeks later I got my passport. My other documents never came back to me, though- they lost them.
Posted in Around New York & Family Matters & The Home Front & The Past(0) Comments
I Laughed So Hard it Hurt
July 26, 2006 | permalink
I went to dinner with my sisters on Monday night. We're sitting there, drinking wine, having normal conversation when out of the blue The Rockette turns to The Star and says...
Wait- let me back up for a minute, Gentle Readers, and give you the backstory on this one. That way you will get the full effect of the way that sentence ends.
On Saturday I was at The Star's apartment, helping her sand and stain a table. The Rockette called while I was there, and she and I chatted on the phone for a while, making the plans for Monday's dinner in the process. She also mentioned that she and The Star and another of their friends were going to go and get Brazillian waxes- none of them had ever done it, they wanted to see what it was like, sorry if that's too much info for you brother, but there it is. I laughed, and didn't really give it another thought. Until:
I went to dinner with my sisters on Monday night. We're sitting there, drinking wine, having normal conversation when out of the blue The Rockette turns to The Star and says, 'Sister, how is your Mini Mr. Bigglesworth doing?' It took me a second to make the connection and get the joke, and then I almost peed myself I was laughing so hard.
Then, of course, I get the entire story- the stinging and the soreness, the sensory overload now that they were bald, the way their friend wept, the crazy old Russian lady who administered the waxing and how she commented to The Rockette that her weeping friend was a pansy, the pros and cons, and wheter or not they'd ever do it again- the whole deal. The other people in the restaurant were looking at us funny, we were laughing so hard.
As you can tell, my sisters are a hell of a lot of fun; but they don't have a lot of limits or barriers. And we were sober- you should see them when they get liquored up! It's a treat.
Posted in Family Matters & Random(0) Comments
The Old Man: An Introduction
February 20, 2006 | permalink
I have a lot to say about my father. More than I could ever get out in one post. In truth, I could probably write in this forum for years about nothing else; but rather than subject you, Gentle Readers, to that, I will start a new recurring thread and string it out. Probably forever. It's a long, complicated story, but I will do my best to make it as clear as I can.
Before I start, there is something I want to clarify: I've been thinking about pursuing this topic here for quite a while. Some of it is going to be decidedly unpleasant, and I do not undertake this lightly. The Old Man has had, and continues to have, a huge impact on my life (beyond the obvious, I mean). The impact of the way he raised my siblings and I, of the way his personality and worldview was imprinted on us, is something I still struggle with. Despite having some resentment and bitterness towards him, I love The Old Man deeply, and have immense respect for his intellect and strength of will. As I write, that might not always be clear, so I want to say it right at the beginning.
In order for you to understand where I'm coming from, I think you need to understand where The Old Man came from. He was born in 1949, the son of a WWII veteran and a secretary. He has an older brother and an older sister. All normalcy ends there.
To call my grandfather abusive would be like calling the Olympics a track meet. The Old Man was derided and beaten for showing any kind of spark of creativity or independence. He was fed on the floor like an animal. He was the scapegoat for anything his siblings did, and often punished in their stead (not that you should believe that they escaped unscathed- far from it). He was tortured for the most minor offenses- fingers broken for drawing on the wall, choked to unconciousness for waking Grandfather from a nap. He was brutally raped, sometimes by his father, somtimes by his father's friends. (His Mother did nothing, by the way.) This happened from as early as The Old Man can remember until he realized that he had become bigger and stronger than his father. The Old Man hit back, once, and Grandfather realized that the gig was up, and never touched him again. Though I have no doubt that the emotional abuse continued until he left home when he was sixteen.
You might wonder, Gentle Readers, what effect such an upbringing might have on a person. The Old Man, not surprisingly, learned to be paranoid, anti-social, and was filled with self-loathing. In addition, and overshadowing the rest, he fractured, and developed Multiple Personality Disorder as a method of coping with the horrific abuse.
As I'm sure you know, abuse begets abuse. My Grandfather was no doubt ill treated by his father, and so on. The Old Man broke this cycle. Whatever problems I have with him, whatever resentment I harbor for being brought up within his skewed, paranoid world-view, he never beat us. The more I learn about myself, and the far-reaching way the past affects my present life, the more in awe I am of his incredible intellect and force of will. The man is a super-genius, scoring way off the charts... I often wonder what he might have become if he were raised by less sadistic people.
I think that's enough to digest for now, Gentle Readers. It's certainly enough for me. For now. There will be more.
Posted in Family Matters & Growing Up & The Old Man & The Past(0) Comments
I Wanna Live a Life of Danger
February 18, 2006 | permalink
One of my younger brothers (younger half-brother, to be precise) was in town last night, so my calamitous siblings and I all got together for a drink or four. Always a good time. Except that this was a bit of a farewell extraganza; Punk Recruit had, well, been recruited. He signed on with the Airborne Rangers, and ships out next week to begin training at Fort Benning, Georgia. When he told us that he was coming in to see us and why, we were a bit taken aback; this was very much out of the blue.
I have mixed feelings. One one hand, I understand the desire to serve something larger than yourself. And while quite smart and industrious, Punk Recruit is drifting, and not terribly self-motivated. It is my hope that he can learn about what it is he is looking for in this life, and that his experiences in the military can help him to achieve them.
On the other hand, he's my brother and I worry. I fear that he was double talked by the recruiter and clouded by the signing bonus (did you know that the military gives signing bonuses?) My brother walked out of the recruitment center with a check for $24,000.00. That's quite a sum for a twenty-two year old kid.
But what can you do, but say congratulations and wish him luck? In this life, everyone has to be able to make thier own decisions, and see the consequences through. I have enough trouble taking care of myself; I surely don't want to be responsible for anyone else.
Posted in Family Matters(0) Comments
Reflection
January 26, 2006 | permalink
Well Gentle Readers, I'm back. I went upstate for The Writer's wake and funeral. There is something really just extra crappy about burying a young person. When someone is old and dies, it's natural. But this...
The Writer was stubborn, contrary, smart as a whip, and full of humor. I often wondered, during the course of his illness, if I would be able to maintain the same good cheer and hopefulness that he did under the same circumstances. I consider myself fairly tough and resilient, but I'm not sure that I could. He was like a light in a dim room. I'll miss him.
Posted in Family Matters & Musings & The Home Front(0) Comments
A Lot Like Family
January 23, 2006 | permalink
People's lives get entwined with each other's all the time. Some times it's kind of loose, sometimes very close, sometimes for a few weeks and sometimes forever. Usually this happens on an individual basis, but sometimes whole families end up bound together. My sisters (The Star and The Rockette) and I, have such a connection with the Wurts'.
Mama Wurts was one of the guidance councilors at our High School. (And believe me when I tell you that we needed a lot of guidance, the home life being what it was.) We all, seperately, became very close to Mama Wurts. Her son The Writer and I became friends. Her daughter The Giggler and my sister The Star became thick as thieves. The Rockette got close to everyone, and eventually Papa Wurts and the youngest of the Wurts' daughters, The Idealist, got into the mix. For fifteen years, they have been like family.
The Writer died this weekend, succumbing to comlications and infection as a result of leukemia. He was twenty-nine. It's a crappy, crappy thing, Gentle Readers, for one so young and full of promise to fade away like he did. It makes me sad.
Posted in Family Matters & The Home Front(0) Comments
Drinking In the Festivities
December 27, 2005 | permalink
A lot of people have Christmas Eve traditions. Some people decorate the tree, others go carolling or to services... at my Mom's place, we get drunk.
All day we have relations in and out; giving gifts, having coffee, coming early for dinner, staying late for supper (or both)... the usual holiday mayhem for any large family, I'm sure. So afterwards, we wind down. (We being me and my sisters, my Mother and Red, and my step-brothers The Architect and The CO, and my step-sister Cat.)
It starts with a couple of rounds of board games with drinks, and usually degenerates to just drinks after that. Sometimes it ends up as drinking games, even... Ever played Asshole with your parents on Christmas Eve? It's fun.
This year Christmas Eve was particularly hectic, so we all were looking forward to the drinks a little more than usual. Plus all six of us kids were there, which hasn't happened in years (The Architect lives in Fresno and Cat lives in Virginia), and Red's sister, Auntie Redneck, stayed to hang out with us after everyone else left.
It started out fine... some of us with beer, some of us with wine, some of us with The Star's concoction of Goldschlager and apple cider. Auntie Redneck started to get a little tipsy, and told us all in great length (and at great volume) about the bar brawl she got in this summer... aparently some 'trashy bitch' kept putting her paws on Uncle Redneck, and refused to heed Auntie's polite warnings. (Just to clarify, this is a fifty year old woman I'm talking about here.)
As she rolled on with her story, we got rowdier and rowdier. By the time it ended, the Goldschlager was making the rounds of the table, all of us taking slugs out of the bottle. After the second round, things started to get really ugly. My sisters and my parents bowed out of the heavy drinking, but stayed for the hillarity that ensued. Me, The CO, and Auntie Redneck kept passing the bottle. The Architect started making noises about going to bed. Bad idea.
Gentle Readers, I have seen peer pressure in action before, but it was nothing compared to the drunken baiting that Auntie Redneck (remember, fifty) laid onto The Architect. He was accused of losing his touch, of having no balls, of being California-pansified (my personal favorite) and a half dozen other things that I can't remember for having been laughing too hard. (My Mother, by the way, was laughing along with everyone else.) It degenerated to drinking by bargain- I'll have another if you have two, and Auntie Redneck has to pound her beer... and so on and so forth. It was a bad scene. I think we only stopped before we finished the bottle because The Star took back her Goldschlager so she could have more of her apple cider drinks the following day.
Anyway, that's how we roll at Mom's...
Posted in Family Matters & Holidays(0) Comments
The Week in Review
December 23, 2005 | permalink
Let me catch you up, Gentle Readers, on what I would have been writing about were it not for my little surprise at the beginning of the week. Namely, the holiday craziness of my visiting my family.
Last weekend I went to my Father's for his annual Solstice Celebration. He doesn't do Christmas anymore- he say's it's too 'white man' for him. (This is the man whose decent is English and German... and believe me when I tell you that this is mild on Father's idiosyncrasy scale.) He had the Solstice Frog in the living room, wearing a Santa hat, with the presents all around, a fire in the hearth, and the bar stocked.
I haven't been to my Father's in quite a while. I have issues with him, as you may or may not have noticed. A lot of the things I am trying so hard to work through have their root in the way I was raised, and I confess that at the moment that I feel a bit resentful for this. I'm sure this is unfair, and yet there it is. So it was a little awkward. But mostly fun. My sisters were both there, as well as a couple of aunts and other sundry relations. There was liquor to drink and Star Wars on the television, and plenty of good food.
After two days, I headed back to the city, having some work and a long list of shopping and errands to finish. Not to mention the Sagittarian Party. Two very unproductive days later (the party and the accompanying drinking was all I managed to accomplish- thanks for the Subway Strike!) I got on the Metro North to my Mother's Very Full House.
My Mother and Red (my step-father) live in a small two story, three bedroom house upstate. My Grandfather moved in with them after Grandma died this summer and took one of the rooms, so now there is one spare room. Both of my sisters and two of my aunts are in there... we had to bust the bunkbeds out of the basement. I'm sleeping on the couch, and my cousin Spacey is sleeping on the recliner. Plus my aunt's pug is running around. And these are just the people sleeping here! I think something like thirty more people are showing up on Christmas day. Madness. My Mother is already cracking up.
Last night my sisters and I escaped for a while, playing drinking games with my step-brothers and their wives across town. Quite a welcome distraction.
Posted in Family Matters & Holidays(3) Comments
In Which Burdens are Disclosed
December 1, 2005 | permalink
Ever since I was a kid, I wanted to be someone else. Not in a casual I-want-to-be-an-astronaut way, but in a Jesus-I-wish-I-was-anyone-but-me way. I daydreamed a lot, and read a lot, and was generally lost inside my head as often as possible. I realized that a great deal of the self-loathing that I was writing about the other day is an extension of this long held desire to be someone else. And I realized where it comes from.
When I was born, my Father was on the brink of suicide. My birth was the reason that he decided not to end his life. I know this because he told me, many times. Not recently, the way that parents will share things with you as you get older, but when I was a child. For as long as I can remember, I have been aware that I saved my Father's life; that I was his best friend and the only person that he trusted.
I couldn't deal with that burden. Here I was, five years old, responisble for my Father's life, for the existence of my family. Somewhere in my mind, I believed that I had to be the best, or it would all fall apart. It was too much for me. I have never felt worthy of that responsibility. I set impossible standards for myself, and I lived in fear of falling short (which of course I did; no one could have met the expectations I imposed... still impose... on myself). I feel unworthy and inadequate to this day, and fear failing those that count on me so much...
Posted in Family Matters & Growing Up & Musings(0) Comments
Liberty Enlightening the World
October 16, 2005 | permalink
When I was upstate last August, my Mother mentioned that she has always wanted to go to the Statue of Liberty. I couldn't believe that she had never been- it is sooo right up her alley. She asked if I had been; I hadn't. When I was in gradeschool, we were supposed to take a field trip to the Statue, but that was one of the years it was under renovation, so we went to the Museum of Natural History instead. It turned out that Step Dad had never been; neither had my sister The Star. Of the five of us, only my sister The Rockette had been (the monument was reopened by the time her class went for the field trip). My Mother got more and more excited as she realized how few of us had been there. She decided that we had to take a family trip.
The date had been set for yesterday for well over a month. We all anxiously watched the weather during the Monsoon of '05, but we needn't have worried; it was gorgeous. We met at The Rockette's place in Inwood at 9:30 (except The Star; she was late! and we didn't leave until 10), and then got on the train for Battery Park. The Rockette had preordered all of our tickets and organized everything, and had ferry schedules and maps and all kinds of random information. And let me tell you, it's a good thing.
The line for tickets for the Liberty Island ferry had to be over an hour long. Our line, at the Will Call window, consisted of two little old ladies. Score one for planning.
The line for the ferry itself was far longer, though of course it moved faster. Still, it took a little over an hour to get past the security checkpoint and onto the ferry. By the time we set foot on Liberty Island, it was 1:30.
At this point, I admit that there was a little bit of disappointment. I mean, we had spent the entire morning on the subway and in line. Not exactly what we had in mind. But once we got to the island, everyone's spirits lifted. The Statue is really quite majestic.
We had booked a guided tour through the museum and the pedistal, given by the Park Rangers. We got some history, some obscure facts, and saw as much of the interior of the Statue as anyone can, these days. It was all pretty cool; though I thought that the best part of the tour was the passion of the Rangers.
The view of the Statue from the various parts of the island were totally breathtaking. You can see some pictures here. If you haven't gone, I highly recommend it.
Posted in Family Matters(1) Comments
Wocka Wocka Wocka
September 26, 2005 | permalink
So, for the last week or so, I've been moody, surly, depressed and generally avoiding people. I've been doing a lot of thinking, and some self examination, and taking stock of this life I am living. A lot of things have become clear to me in the last couple of weeks, and while I am not too happy about all of them, I reminded myself (again) today that this, after all, was the point of all of the work I have been doing with myself; dragging the crap that's bogging me down out into the light. And seeing some real success in that venture, as unpleasant as some of it is, gives me no small sense of satisfaction.
The pecularities of my upbringing and personality have combined, as I was saying earlier, to make me a task oriented machine, seeking approval from whoever it is that set me at the task. This is very clear to me now, but for a long time it was shrouded in mystery... I couldn't figure out why I was happiest when I was working (maybe because the goals at work are very clear) or why when I didn't have anything I had to do or anywhere I had to be I had so much trouble motivating myself to get anything done. We were not encouraged, as children, to take initiative on things, or go off on our own; my father was too paranoid for that. Everything thing that he could control, he did. And self motivation just kind of fell by the wayside. It's really kind of a bizarre sensation... I mean, I don't think that I am a lazy person; it's like something gets turned off in my head. Standing by... standing by... standing by...
I talked to one of my sisters about this today... she said that she has the same problem with free time that I do... that she kind of dreads the weekends a little under the best circumstances, and when it's particularly bad she actually looks forward to getting up for work on Monday morning, because it's something that she has to do. I was very comforted to learn that I was not so crazy, that I was not the only one to have this particular problem.
It drove my ex-wife crazy. She said sometimes she felt like she had to take care of everything, because I wouldn't. I remember one exchange where she was pissed because I hadn't done something or other... I don't remember what. I couldn't understand why she was so mad. I told her all she had to do was ask, and she responded that she shouldn't have to. Looking at it now, I see how and why I drove her so crazy; at the time, though, I was totally clueless. Not a very flattering portrait, is it?
Posted in Family Matters & Growing Up & Musings(1) Comments
I'll Take You Home Again, Kathleen
August 14, 2005 | permalink
It's been a hell of a week, Gentle Readers. And I don't mean that in the good, fun way that makes for interesting reading for you; I mean it in the way that means my week was crappy.
My Grandmother went to the hospital for a scheduled surgery last tuesday. The surgery went well, everyone was very optimistic... Grandma was awake and bitching about being poked and prodded. She even extracted a promise from my sisters to put the beat down on the docs, if it became necessary. She was supposed to stay for a day or two for observation and then head home for the rest of the recovery.
Instead, taking all of us and her doctors by surprise, she had a heart attack that night. If she hadn't been in the hopital already, she would have almost certainly died before anything could be done for her. As it was, she was able to get treatment for the attack almost immediately. Unfortunately, the damage was severe; She never regained conciousness after Wednesday afternoon, and two more, smaller, heart attacks in the following days didn't help matters any either. She died in her sleep early Saturday morning.
Me and my family- my mother and aunts and uncles, my grandfather, me and my sisters, a couple of close family friends- spent most of the intervening time in the waiting room of the ICU. To be honest, I can't remember the last time I spent that much time with so many members of my family all at once. Indeed, having been working out of town all summer, I hadn't seen most of them at all in months; While it was sad to be gathered together under the slowly worsening situation, it was great to have the time together. We had everything from tearful debate over signing the DNR papers to laughing ourselves to tears over stupid childhood antics (me and my sisters' AND my mother and her brothers' and sisters'- high comedy, let me tell you). We discussed eating habits, reading habits, sleeping habits... my mother and my aunts even had a discussion about who among them was a 'shy pooper'- there are some things you just don't want to know about your elders, let me tell you- Unfortunately, I think I heard about them all.
We spent all day Saturday at my Grandfather's, keeping him comfortable and providing what support we could; my mother my aunts dealt with making the funeral arrangements most of the day, and my sisters and I coordinated the stream of visitors and well wishers who came to the house, and made sure that the food and the coffee kept up with the demand. As I write this on Saturday night, the plan is to do the same tomorrow. The wake is scheduled for Monday, and the funeral for Tuesday.
My Grandmother was a wonderful, strong woman. She was the pillar of her neighborhood, always ready to help out anyone that needed it. She was fierce, in every sense of the word, and she will be sorely missed. I will leave you with this picture: The last time I dropped in on Grandma unannounced, I found her in the armchair in the living room crocheting a blanket while she watched football on TV, smoking a cigarette and drinking a beer. What a great old broad...
Posted in Family Matters(8) Comments
I Should Be Sleeping...
April 27, 2005 | permalink
...but instead I will regale you with tales of my whirlwind weekend of travel. Another one of my eleven siblings got married last weekend, so I journeyed to exotic Fresno, CA to take part in the festivities. And let me tell you, there were festivities.
The flight out was pretty uneventful, except that I left JFK before the sun came up. That hurt. By the time I got to Fresno I was feeling dehydrated, jet-lagged, and generally bad. And it was only 12:30 in the afternoon, local time. My brother The Wrestler picked me up and took me back to his place- they had just bought their first house, and let me tell you, I was blown away. It was nice and spacious inside, as you might expect for a small city in California, but the yard was something else. Orange trees and a little fountain, a nice little flagstone patio- I tell you, I don't think I'd ever go inside. I confess to being a little jealous. But who wouldn't be?
Anyway, that night all of the people in from out of town came over for dinner and drinks. I had never met the bride's parents before, or most of the wedding party for that matter- what a great group. Everybody was happy and smiling and just having a ball. I lost ten bucks at poker to one of the groomsmen after the party mostly broke up. I was promised a chance to win it back, but that never seemed to happen. Hmmmm....
The day of the wedding I stayed around the house and helped out where I could, though The Wrestler had so many groomsmen who were so on top of everything that there really wasn't much for me to do, except take pictures of the boys getting ready. They were wearing kilts, so this was a lot more amusing than you might think. Lucky for them, the Scottish Uncles were there to help. Otherwise I'm not sure they would have gotten together in time.
The ceremony was beautiful; also, it was long enough to feel like the momentous occasion that it was, and yet short enough to not feel like you were never getting out of church. The reception followed right after, at the DD Ranch. This place was awesome! It's themed like an old western town- saloons, a general store, a sheriff's office, even a jail. The DJ was set up in a barn, and most of the buildings were open and had displays and memorabilia inside to look at.
The DJ got going and the we all got our drink on and hit the dance floor. He started us off with 'Footloose' and took us through all of the great dancing favorites... Michael Jackson, Kool and the Gang, Madonna- you know what I'm talkin' about. We had a shuttle bus, so there were no designated drivers... even my mom got wasted. What a riot!
Posted in Family Matters & Out of Town
(Continuing Adventures in Fermentation)
(Standing on the Shoulders of Giants)
(Standing on the Shoulders of Giants)
(April 2005)
(April 2005)
(Hellbound Train)