You are Reading the The Past Category
Tiny Little Fractures
June 23, 2008 | permalink
You see the bear charm in that picture? It was the first external element of my bearish persona to come to me, and up until a couple of weeks ago, I had worn it around my neck nearly continuously since 1993. In fact, I can only recall two occasions on which I removed for a period of time longer than that which was required to put it on a new string.
It is no secret that I feel a great affinity for the bear, and it shouldn't surprise you that I hold the bear as my totem and spirit guide, and that I regarded the necklace as a token and symbol of that relationship. When I saw it for the first time, I was unaware of this facet of myself; yet (as corny as this may sound) when I saw it, it really spoke to me, resonating in a way that would take me years to properly understand and put into words. But even if I didn't understand it at first, it nonetheless had a powerful effect on me, and I have had it as a touchstone and reminder of things greater than myself throughout my adult life, through many joys and many trials.
I found it while randomly browsing the wares for offer at a sale some group or other was sponsoring in the Campus Center. They had brought in a bunch of vendors to raise money. You know the type well enough- army surplus, rainbow hackey-sacks, cheap jewelry, black lite posters- the mainstays of college life in the early 90s. I am sure you remember it well. I passed it by at first; I didn't understand or really want to acknowledge the incredibly strong pull I felt towards it. I drifted by the table two or three more times before moving on with my day. However, I just couldn't let it go. My thoughts kept drifting back to it, and at the end of the day I went back to get it.
Only to find it gone.
Let me tell you, Gentle Readers, I was crushed, and I cursed myself for being such an idiot as to pass it by in the first place. Luckily for me, I had been browsing with a friend, who not only noticed my fascination with the bear charm, but bought it for me after I left. It was presented to me the next day, after I relayed how much of an idiot I felt like for letting it go. (It was, I gathered, to have been a birthday present, but I was apparently so morose it was given to me on the spot...)
And, as I said, I have worn it ever since. Until I lost it a couple of weeks ago.
I noticed, in the middle of a load in, that the bit of wire that held the bear to the string had snapped sometime during the day. It was pretty much the perfect top off to what had been a supremely craptacular day, and while I tried to tell myself that I would find it, I knew the truth of it, and to say it bummed me out would be a very large understatement.
So, what is one to do, when one's totem goes missing? I thought about replacing it with as close a copy as possible, but that didn't sit right with me. I even have another bear necklace that was given to me as a gift. But, while I treasure it, it didn't seem like the right thing to do.
What I finally arrived at was that I could not try to replace the bear with another bear; instead, I decided to make myself a charm that would encompass a different aspect of the bear. Something that paid homage to my totem, but also reflected some of the ways that I have changed since that first bear charm came to me. So, I made myself a necklace with a bear claw as it's centerpoint.
It is very different from the last, and I am quite pleased with it.
Posted in Bad Luck & The Past(3) Comments
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(1) Comments
The Promise of Shadows
September 23, 2007 | permalink
My ex-wife got married a few weeks ago.
I found out about a week ago, at a bar, from a mutual friend. He let it slip because he thought I knew already. Apparently, a lot of people thought I knew. My sisters The Rockette and The Star both knew, but didn't talk to me about it because they thought I knew already, and was keeping it from them. I found that out yesterday.
I felt... weird, is the best I can come up with, about it at first. Not exactly sad, not angry or betrayed, not exactly happy for her; but some strange combination of those emotions, and maybe more besides. It was a little confusing, and I felt a little dazed, for a bit. It was truly a unique sensation, and I am not altogether sure I could describe with any fidelity.
The next morning, when I woke up, that confusing, dazing emotion was gone, and I realized that what I felt was a little bit of relief, and a little bit of lightness. For a long time after we split, we each remained the focus of the other's emotional life, only in terrible, hurtful ways. A little under a year ago, we had a civil, honest discussion for the first time in I don't know how long. There were several others after that, and it seemed to me that we had reached a truce, and maybe a little bit of understanding. We haven't spoken in months, and I didn't (and don't) expect that we will again. Our emotional lives are no longer connected, and I am glad for it.
That is not to say, Gentle Readers, that I am not happy for her; I am. I bear her no ill will. But we tore each other apart, once upon a time, and we will never be friends.
Posted in Musings & The Past & WomenThe 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
Relentless 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
The Old Account
March 6, 2007 | permalink
I've had a couple of conversations with my Ex-Wife in the last week or so. The first one (which was initiated because of a financial matter) was really exhausting. It lasted about 40 minutes or so, and the first half was pretty much a quick re-cap of all the terrible things we did to each other. After that, though, with some of the tension relieved, it was a lot more civil and in some ways even a little nice. For a long time she was my closest friend, and I guess some remnant of that is always there. I'm not saying it was all roses and giggles, of course; far from it. But there was something... comfortable, maybe, is the right word; but then again that's not quite right... but talking to her, in a real conversation and not just a barrage of acrimonious accusations was, well, it was alright. Which is better than I thought it would be.
The second was this morning, for about ten minutes. Civil the whole time, and even more of the strange sensation of familiarity and comfort overlaid with tension and mistrust. A weird, confusing combination. This conversation was mostly about that. We haven't spoken at all in well over a year, and we haven't had a civil conversation (let alone two!) since I can't tell you when.
I don't claim to have been the perfect husband. I think anyone I have been involved with can tell you that I am overly reserved with my feelings and emotions and give an impression of indifference. And after she left, and I found out about Whats-His-Face, I was so angry and hurt, I could hardly stand it. I froze her out, eventually, rather than deal with it. Which, no matter how angry I was, was shitty; I'm not proud of how I behaved, no matter the provocation.
I don't know where I was going, Gentle Readers; I lost my train of thought. Which, I suppose, sums it up. The whole thing has been weirdly unsettling and confusing. I don't want to be with her, or indeed, even meet up for coffee... but the past is all stirred up, runnign around in my head and part of me, despite all the betrayal, actually misses her, which I find simultaneously completely understandable and completely galling.
*sigh*
I don't know how it could be any different, though, really. I'm beginning to believe that no one ever truly leaves, that once the threads of people's lives are woven together they never truly unravel completely, and the colors and patterns that they introduce stay with you, in some fashion at least, until the end. So you had better figure out a way to incorporate them and live with it.
Posted in Musings & The Past & Women(3) 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
Dreaming My Dreams With You
January 22, 2007 | permalink
I have bad dreams.
I have them often, more often than it seems to me that most people do, and I've had them since I was a kid. I have them is fits and spurts and cycles; none for a few weeks and then every night (sometimes several in a night) for a few days or a week. When it's really bad, I will have them for a couple of weeks straight. They range from the unclear and unremembered, filling me with a vague unease when I wake and a jaw sore from being clenched, to the vivid and unspeakable, from which I wake up thrashing and yelling, leaving me out of sorts for days. Most, though, are solidly between the two extremes- vivid and memorable, disturbing but not horrifying, full of tension instead of terror, and mostly shaken off by the time I get to work.
While I don't have recurring dreams very often (though it has happened on occasion) the vast majority of them fall into two broad themes- one where there is something terrible about to happen that only I can prevent, and no matter how hard I try I know that I don't have enough time and my efforts are futile; and the other where I am being pursued by something horrible that even as I attempt to evade know I cannot escape from. In the recent past I have a couple instances of a new type of nightmare, where, for reasons unknown to me, I am being beaten and tortured. I find these much worse than the others, and on all three occasions have woken up literally screaming.
Mostly my nightmares are populated by my family, and a wide assortment of monsters and beasts. Sometimes my family become the monsters and beasts, but mostly they are the people I am trying to save by preventing the terrible something that is about to happen. But always, whether pursuing or pursued, running free or in someone's thrall, I am on my own, with no one to help me complete my task or escape from danger.
I'm bright enough, I think, connect the dots between the circumstances of my upbringing and my nightmares, and to draw some conclusions about what it all means and where they come from. I clearly fear not being in control of my life, and with being at the whim of forces outside myself. I fear that I will fall short of the tasks that need doing, that I am not good enough or smart enough. I am afraid that I will be all alone in the world when I need help the most.
In case you were wondering, Gentle Readers, it's about as much fun as it sounds.
Posted in Growing Up & Musings & The PastRoom 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
The Eighth Day of the Gregorian Calendar
January 8, 2007 | permalink
Today would be the Eighth Anniversary of my wedding, were I still married. It also marks the point at which we have been separated / divorced exceeds the time that we were married (though we were together for 6 years before that, so our time apart still falls far short of the time we spent together). In years past, I have loathed the arrival of this day, eying it on the calendar as it approached with increasing dread.
This year, I am happy to report that this did not happen. There was no needless dread, no feeling of looming doom that has been weighing me down. Which I take as a very good thing- no one wants to be eaten at forever, and I have worked very hard to move on with my life. But now that the day is here, Gentle Readers, I admit I am sad. Not devastatingly depressed, not unbearably miserable (though I have been there, of course)... just sad.
My wedding day was, and remains, one of the happiest days of my life. Thinking about never fails to make me smile a little, and I miss her, despite everything. part of me doesn't want to- the small, mean part of me looks back at the things that happened between us and wishes that I could put all vestige of her out of my head; all the memories, all the sadness, all the pain, everything. Just cut it all out and never look back.
But the better part of me knows that if I did that, all of the good things would have to go as well, and that is not something I want. Happiness like that should not be cast aside- it is too long and far between to just throw away. And knowing love like that, well, it means I know what I am looking for. It took me a while, but I realize that no matter how it ended, I am lucky to have known it at all. So while I am sad today, for happiness lost, I do realize and am thankful that I had the opportunity to have that happiness in the first place. Not everybody gets there, and at the end of the day, even this day, I am glad that I did.
Posted in The Past(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
Hunka Hunka Burnin' Love
December 1, 2006 | permalink
I was reminded of a very embarrassing story last night, about a date gone horribly awry. I still feel a tiny bit sheepish about it, actually. So of course I will share it with you, Gentle Readers.
So, I'm on this date. I'm maybe 21. It's not our first date, but it is the first seriously romantic date that we've been on. I took her to the best restaurant I knew for a candlelit dinner. We were all dressed up, and I was trying very hard to be the perfect gentleman and make it something really special. And it was working out pretty well for me. Dinner was delicious, and I was overcoming my usual social awkwardness very well. I remember feeling like I was being especially charming and witty. Right up until after dinner, when I leaned over the table to kiss her.
At the time, I had quite the head of hair. Long and curly, down to the middle of my back, at least. And on this particular evening it was unfettered, so when I leaned over the table with the candles on it... I set my hair on fire.
I jerked back, smacking myself with my hands to put out my hair, generally creating a spectacle of myself, and most certainly breaking the mood. My date tried very hard to be gracious, but I was crushed. The whole place was dead silent, looking at us, and the stink of burned hair hovered around our table all throughout dessert. It was terrible. I wanted to sink through the floor and crawl out of there. I don't think I have ever felt like such an ass on a date as I did that night. Which, believe me, I am thankful for.
I do see the humor in it, now. But at the time... not so much.
Posted in Random & The Past & Women(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
This Music is Wasted if We Don't Dance
August 28, 2006 | permalink
I love the rain- always have. I like the way it smells, I like the way it sounds, and I especially like the way the rain can transform a place, making it linto something new.
The most extreme example of this that I have ever seen personally is the city of Aberdeen, in Scotland. Like most medieval towns, it is built out of the most readily available material. In Aberdeen, this means slate. The whole old section of the city is built from
the same grey slate, from the streets (crushed slate mixed with tar) to the sidewalks (huge slabs of slate) to the buildings (blocks or bricks of slate) to the rooftops (shingles of slate). Its kind of oppressive and dreary after a couple of days.
But after it rains, and the sun comes back out... Gentle Readers, it's breathtaking. The sunlight shines on the wet slate, and the shole city looks like it was fashioned from silver, like it's from some fairy tale or Arthurian legend. It's magnificent.
Posted in Around New York & Out of Town & Random & The Past(1) 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
One Million Years B.C.
July 4, 2006 | permalink
I made a stop motion claymation short when I was in the fourth grade. It was about dinosaurs. Specifically, I wanted to show the relationship between the different tiers of the food chain. Not that I was able to express it like that when I was nine, but the concept was there. My film opened with an egg, out of which a small brontosaurus hatched. It shambled over to some green construction paper grass and started munching. A clever use of cottonballs as a dissolve to show the passage of time later, and we see the brontosaurus, now fully grown, munching away on yet more grass.
Cue the predator! A tyrannasaurus stalks into the frame, and after a very one sided battle, begins munching on the now dead herbivore. After eating his fill, the tyrannosaur walks off, and the carcass quickly decomposes, with new grass sprouting from its remains.
I did the whole thing myself- the story, the sets, the lights, the sculpting and animation. The only things I let anyone else do were modify the camera to shoot frame by frame and develop the film. I was immensly proud of my accomplishment. Actually, truth be told, I still am. I never made another- not long after my parents split up and we started moving around, and blah blah blah (is that an old story or what?)
I mention this now because I have often thought about my little short, and about trying my hand at another. The other day on Boing Boing they ran a bit about Between You and Me, a film strung together from still images from a digital camera. I feel like an idiot for not putting it together that I have had all of the equipment I need to make a stop-motion film for years. Doh!
I made a little test film last night; nothing complicated, just a few frames of a guitar pick crawling across the coffee table, to see what it would take to animate something. It was so cool. I can't wait to try something a little more ambitious.
Posted in Artistic Endeavors & The Past(0) Comments
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(0) Comments
Never Say Never
May 12, 2006 | permalink
Gentle Readers, I used to have some friends. We were close, like brothers, and if you had asked me at the peak of our friendship if I thought that there was anything that could come between us, I would have said no, never. And I think that that might have been true, of outside forces anyway. I didn't take my own bitterness and jealousy into account. And that, of course, is why I say I used to have some friends like brothers.
We all met in college. I moved here first, to be with my future ex-wife. One by one, they moved here too. Two of them stayed with us while they got settled, and I got all of them work. (They were in the biz as well...) The five of us were like family. There was another, JP, who was part of our pot-luck family, though he hadn't yet given in and moved to New York.
JP committed suicide in August of 2001. In October my wife left. My whole world was turned upside down. All of our worlds were. Only I don't think I recovered nearly as well as the others. Actually, that's an understatement. I was a miserable bastard. As time went on, I got more miserable and withdrawn, while my friends, my brothers, were able to start to put their lives back together. I was unable to accept the help they offered, my unhappiness was so great.
I began to resent them for whatever happiness they had, resent them for moving on. I stopped calling, and returned their calls more and more infrequently. Before long, I stopped altogether. I couldn't stand to see them, it only made my own pain more present. Two of them I haven't seen in years. The other I see on occasion, at work. We are like strangers that know everything about each other. It makes me sad.
Posted in The PastThe 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
It Keeps Pulling Me Back In
January 8, 2006 | permalink
When I woke up this morning, I remembered that it was the anniversary of my wedding day. I mean, I knew that it was coming, but for obvious reasons I was trying not to dwell on it. And I lost track of the days, not really having any kind of set scedule this week, and I was doing a pretty good job of not dwelling on it. Until this morning. That's when I woke up, and remembered that today is the anniversary of my wedding day.
If you had asked me a few weeks ago, I would have told you that I was getting to a good place, mostly, with this. I'd been working very hard on the crap in my head, both from the divorce and from my upbringing (which of course exacerbated the problems in my marriage). I felt like I was making progress.
Let me tell you, Gentle Readers, that's all out the window. I don't know what I think or feel anymore. I spent a long time avoiding the subject of my marriage, in both word and thought; it was just too painful for me. But I had been getting to a place where I could think about the good times we had, without them being colored by how terrible things were at the end. Where I could tell stories about things that we had done together without feeling all fucked up that it was over. I was able to truly take the good and be glad that I had had so much happiness, and leave the bad behind. Now, though, I've lost the distinction. I feel like the whole ten years is just one big elaborate hoax, and I was the hoaxee. I feel adrift, like I've lost my way, my point of reference.
If one can be fooled that completely by the person that you think you know best (or, conversely, if one can fool themselves so completely to avoid the truth), then what chance is there, really, to know someone, to love someone? I feel like I don't know anything anymore.
Posted in Musings & The Past & Women(0) Comments
In Which I Can't Let Go
December 21, 2005 | permalink
I've been trying to write about my trip to my Father's, or the NYC Transit Strike, or the Sagittarian Birthday Bash that we had last night, but I can't. I am still reeling and completely undone by finding the photo of my ex-wife on the internet.
I find myself going back in my mind, questioning every detail of our time together. What else was going on? What else don't I know about? It's horrible. I feel like that whole decade of my life has been cast in a different light, and cheapened somehow.
In some ways, I feel like it's karmic retribution. I can say in all honesty that I was the best husband that I could be; but my behavior in subsequent relationships leaves something to be desired. I could make all kinds of excuses, but the truth is I was a selfish cad on more than one occasion... so maybe in some way I deserve this.
I talked to a couple of my friends about this... One said it sounded like she was more troubled than he or I ever realized and that I was better off, and shouldn't lose all faith in humanity. Another just said, 'Man, that bitch is crazy.'
There was an incident, right around the time this photo must have been taken. H came home and said that she had somehow gotten chlamydia. She accused me of sleeping around; I wasn't, and said so, gearing up for what I was sure would be a long and heated conversation. then she backed down, and told me that the doc had said that this actually was one of those things that you could get from a toilet seat, and that that was what must have happened. I remember being a little surprised at how quickly she let it go; she tended to be a bit suspicious. Anyway, I took her at her word, we took the meds, and I forgot all about it. Now I feel like a fucking idiot.
Posted in Musings & The Past & WTF!? & Women(0) Comments
On the Bliss of Ignorance
December 18, 2005 | permalink
No picture with today's post, Gentle Readers, as it is a picture which is currently messing with my head. A futile gesture, perhaps, but I find the irony very poetic.
A while ago, a friend of mine sent me a purity test, wondering how my score might compare to hers. All in good fun, I dutifully took the test (and scored more pure, to both our surprise). Ever since I have gotten emails from one of those 'adult' dating sites about once a week. You know, the kind that is supposedly full of people who just want to have one night stands with you. I never got around to taking my name off of the list... just not annoyed enough, I guess.
Anyway, I get one today, and it comes up in the preview pane of Outlook, and one of the pictures of near nude women is that of my ex-wife. (You can't see her face, but even without the tattoo on her back that I designed for her clearly visible, I would have no doubt. I was with her for ten years; I know every inch of her.) It was taken in the apartment on the Upper West Side that we used to live in, in the bedroom. From the furniture and whatnot in the background, I would say it was taken the year before we were married, or maybe just after.
Gentle Readers, I did not take this picture. I have never seen this picture before. I can't help but think the worst. I know that she was with another man at the end of our marriage. And as terrible as that was, on one level it was understandable; we were miserable, and things were horrible. But this picture is from a time when I thought that things were good, and that we were happy. Now I think maybe I was just a fool. I feel sick.
Posted in The Past & WTF!? & Women(0) Comments
In Which I Tell of a Contradiction
December 12, 2005 | permalink
Last night I went to a surprise birthday dinner for Smacktalk. Nothing big, just his close friends for dinner. It was organized by his girl, the supremely organized Babs, and held at Artisanal Fromagerie and Bistro. Delicious. You can never, in my opinion, have enough cheese.
At one point in the evening Babs and I were talking about my love life. She asked if I thought I would ever get married again. I had to think about it for a bit, but then I realized that no, I don't think I will. I took the vows I made very seriously; Indeed, I still do. I would never have left my ex-wife, no matter what had happened between us. It just wasn't an option to me. I signed up for life, and I meant it. When things were bad, those vows helped me keep going, and gave me hope that we could work together and make things better.
When she left, it was clear that she didn't feel the same way, and that she was done with our marriage. I let her go. But I don't think that the vows I made are lessened, and I don't see how I could make them again to another. Our marriage is over, and I don't believe that the bad blood between us can be diluted enough for us to be friends, even. Yet I do not feel completely free either. It's a tricky contradiction, and I'm not quite sure what to do about it.
Posted in Musings & The Past & Women(0) Comments
In Which I Wax Poetic, Sort Of
November 4, 2005 | permalink
I'm really getting into the meat of it now, Gentle Readers.
I refer, of course, to my ongoing struggle to understand the forces and events in my life that have led me to this point, and in understanding them, break the hold they have on me. For most of my life, I have abdicated control, and allowed myself to be funneled along by patterns and habits and behaviors like a mouse in a maze. And for most of the time, I was unaware of the maze. Being unaware, I was content; or at least complacent...
When I reached my lowest, destructive to myself and to those around me, I realized that I had to change. I became aware of the maze I had built for myself, but still I felt as though I had no control, no choice. I had to find out what drove me, and do something about it. If I couldn't do this, I would, at best, end up miserable and alone. At worst, well... let's just say that my lowest was very low, and leave it at that.
I've been working backwards, looking at what I feel are chief events in my life, and trying to see not only their effect on me, but what effect I had in bringing them about. I have come to believe that there are very few things in life that you truly have no control of whatsoever. I've been trying to see the maze, and understand it; I think that once I can do that, I can stop myself from feeling driven by events; I can free myself from the past.
After all, it is the past that haunts us, isn't it? I mean, I might worry some about the future- when the next gig will come up, what I will do if it doesn't- but the past is what keeps me up at night.
This is perhaps vague, and maybe a little overly dramatic, but I think it's a good analogy. I have lots more to say on the subject; think of this as a forward.
Posted in Musings & The Past(0) Comments
They Tell Me it Can Land On a Dime
July 3, 2005 | permalink
I'm not really sure what, in the conversation about scars and surgeries that I was having the other night with my roommates, sparked this memory; but then again, the workings of the mind are strange and mysterious, and have puzzled and stumped men and women much smarter than me. So let's just leave it that somewhere out of that bloody, painful, and narcotic-ridden conversation, this childhood memory pops up out of nowhere.
I was thirteen or fourteen. We (me and my sisters) were at my Mother's house for the weekend. It was after dinner... I think I was clearing the table. The girls had already gone back outside. All of a sudden they come running in, telling me and my mom to come outside, quick. We run out, and there is this hot air balloon drifting towards us. It's low. Really low. Like, just clearing the tops of the trees across the street low. Suddenly it becomes clear that the hot air balloon is going to land in our backyard.
It was awesome, and surreal. I'd never seen anything like it; I can tell you, hot air balloons are MUCH bigger up close than they seem in pictures. And why, you may ask, did they land in our yard? For directions. They'd set out from outside of Scranton earlier that day, but had lost track of their landmarks and their ground team, and now had no idea where they were. They saw my sisters playing out in the yard and decided to stop.
As cool as it was when they landed, taking off again was way cooler. the burner roared, and this giant, graceful thing floated away like a soap bubble.
Posted in Growing Up & The Past(2) Comments
Bringing Up Bear
April 21, 2005 | permalink
I've spent a lot of time and energy in the past avoiding any kind of ties or connection to people or places. When friends reminisce about hanging out in the old neighborhood or grade school chums with whom they have become lifelong pals, I smile and nod like I know what they are talking about. But really, I have no such experiences. I don't think I had anything like a close friend until I was in my twenties. I've actually forgotten a great deal of my childhood- working so hard to avoid any kind of bond, coupled with the instability of my household, taught me to live in a moment-to-moment kind of mindset. The past didn't matter, because I couldn't count on anything that had been true yesterday to be true tomorrow. The future didn't matter, because any plans I made or things I hoped for were sure to get swept aside by circumstance out of my control. All that was left was the moment I was in. While this worked very well at the time to help keep me sane, it has outlived it's usefulness; I'm sure you can imagine all kinds of problems that this mindset might cause.
This is, I feel, one of my big stumbling blocks. It tends to make me ignore the cause and effect of my actions- I can come off as careless with other people's feelings. And if I put something aside to get to later, it is very difficult for me to get back to it- out of sight, out of mind... It's a big pain in the ass, and I will be glad when I get it licked.
Posted in Growing Up & Musings & The Past Yeah, Like I Said Last Time
April 3, 2005 | permalink
I leave for Charleston, and seven weeks of what can only be described as commando theatre at the Spoleto Festival in just under four weeks. I have a ridiculous amount of things to do before I go- loose ends to tie up, taxes to do, projects in progress to hand off to associates, and finding a sub-letter top the list. (Anybody want a sublet in Manhattan for a few months?) But despite these and other pressing matters, I have been dragging my feet. Why would I do such a thing, you ask? Well, I've been asking myself the same question for weeks; last night I realized the answer. (What can I say- I'm slow on the uptake...)
My ex-wife saw my traveling for work as a slap in the face, a sign that I didn't love her enough to want to stay around her. Never mind that we spoke every day, or that I asked her to come with me... and never mind the practical aspect- it's good money, better than what I could make in the city in that time of year. This turned into a huge issue, as you can well imagine. I realized last night that I still feel guilty about traveling, even after all this time. Which really sucks- I used to enjoy going to Charleston immensely. Now I feel like all of the enjoyment is sucked out of it. And believe me, between the long hours, challenging conditions, and shortage of personnel that the Festival imposes, if you're not enjoying the job it can be hell.
So, what to do? If it was further off, I might not go this year, and find something to do here. But it's way too late for that; my bosses at the Festival has been very good to me, and I can't leave them in a lurch. I'm hoping that seeing clearly why I am apathetic about going will help me get over it.
Posted in Musings & The Past & Working
(Continuing Adventures in Fermentation)
(Standing on the Shoulders of Giants)
(Standing on the Shoulders of Giants)
(April 2005)
(April 2005)
(Hellbound Train)