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The Busy Girl Buys Beauty
June 10, 2008 | permalink

When I was young, The Old Man took us ('us' being whatever collection of siblings, cousins, and relatives more removed that made up the family at any given time... it is strange to me, even now, how such a big and diverse group could have been so closed and insular... but that is another musing, for another time...) camping and hiking and boating quite often. These outdoor excursions are some of my favorite memories.

We had a couple of swimming holes that we liked to frequent; one had a wide, shallow stone shelf and a deep and fast moving center channel- it was good for really hot days, because the water was always so shockingly cold. There was another place we went often, a river medium wide and medium deep, with an old bridge that we would leap off of into the water. The river was probably too shallow, really, for the height of the bridge. It's a wonder we never cracked our skulls open.

There was another place we went a few times, a really wide, slow moving bend in a river. I learned to snorkel there, and once we found and cooked and ate river mollusks. I remember that there was the rusted out wreck of a car in one place, and I used to wonder how it had ended up on the bottom of the river.

I wonder what those places are like, now... I haven't been to any of them in over 20 years. Are they still as remote as I remember, as pristine? I doubt it. Likewise, the leap from the bridge that felt so death-defying would probably be revealed as only 10 or 12 feet, and the wide expanse of the river bend is likely nothing special to look at. I know where they are, and how to get there- I could go look, and see what has become of them.

But I think I prefer to keep them as they were.

Posted in Growing Up & Musings & The Old Man & The Past
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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

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
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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
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Guard Duty
June 8, 2006 | permalink

One of the things that I had to do for The Old Man, one of my duties, if you will, was standing guard. Despite being a physically powerful person, the abuse he endured during his childhood made him more than a little paranoid. What he was most afraid of, I think, was being taken unawares, without a chance to flee or fight someone face to face. Using a public restroom made him especially anxious, and this, whatever it says about my childhood, is one of the things that stands out in my memory.

We travelled a lot by car when I was younger, and I must have stood guard over The Old Man while he peed in every picnic area, truck stop, and rest area along the Eastern Seaboard. At first, I was too young to realize that standing guard was what I was doing; he would just come to the bathroom with me when I went. As I got older, I realized that he was nervous about being that exposed, and that having me around made him feel safer. That he believed that with me there, nothing could happen. Or maybe that's not right- maybe it was more like, with me there he would have some warning if something went down. I'm not sure. But it became part of my job, one of the facets of my unswerving service. It was another one of the ways that I was the adult, caring for the scared child that lived in The Old Man's skin.

The strangest thing about it, looking back, is that it didn't seem strange to me at all. Like so much of my childhood, it was just another set of circumstances that existed in the world I lived in. I had never known anything else. It was normal.

Posted in Growing Up & The Old Man & The Past
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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
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