I've never really liked dead things. One time, I had a rabbit named Grace because, of course I had a rabbit named Grace. Anyway, she died. I was about eight years old when I found her chillin in her rabbit pin, stiff as a board. We got her from the flea market near our house where most things are half dead to begin with, so it was kind of a miracle that she lived as long as she did. Anyway, when I found Grace, I grabbed her and attempted to shake her into life again, but it was pointless. Grace was dead, and I was breaking down. To be fair, I had a pretty ugly road with death at a young age because my mom's parents were 46 and 60 when she was born, so a huge portion of my family starting dying before I could really understand what that meant. That, and I had watched Titanic pretty recently, and that whole Rose lives to be really old and then dies thing really got to me as well.
Because death happened so often, I didn't really understand why it happened--to me, death was kind of like getting a cold. People got death, and then you just kind of died. The whole thing was really unfortunate, but it happened, and in my mind, it was only a matter of time before I caught it myself. I carried Grace to resting place that my parents dug for her, and I said a prayer over her tiny rabbit body, and then I placed her in the grave. I wiped the tears from my face, and then I realized: I just wiped DEATH all over my face. Great.
As soon as it hit me, I lost it--like full blown 8-year-old panic attack. My mom grabbed me and tried to explain that my rabbit was with mamaw and papaw and all the other half-dead animals they had gotten me at the flea market, included but not limited to: my dog Sable, my dog Roxie, my cat Tiger, both of my turtles Jo Jo and Urkle, my dad's old dog Amos, and a gerbil that I had once named Conway that died because he got a penis infection. I'm not kidding. But I wasn't worried about Grace's eternal soul, because her name was Grace for God's sake. I was worried about my fragile mortal body that had been exposed to death--not just exposed really, but slathered in it. I wiped my face with dead rabbit hands, and clearly, if that wasn't terminal then I don't really know what could be.
My parents spent the next 16 years trying to persuade me that people don't die by being exposed to death, but I'm not entirely sure that they're right. Regardless, I'm still here, fighting the good fight and trying to stay away from death and all his friends. I actually became kind of numb to the whole death situation. It's been years since I had been to a funeral because a whole generation of my family passed away before I was 16 years old. Instead, I just focus on the random diseases that could kill me instead of actually catching death itself. I call my mom weekly or so to check in because I've convinced myself that I have anemia or a tumor on a lymph node. For a while it had gotten out of hand, and then she eventually called me a hypochondriac. Now, I've blocked WebMD on my browser, and my fear of sickness and death has gotten easier.
Funerals, at this point, are just hurdles. Very sad hurdles, but hurdles, and as my generation has grown up, we've all also grown apart. I haven't seen my entire family together in one place in a long time, let alone the super-extended family. We never did a great job of keeping up with one another because people were having babies or going to jail or in my weird case, relocating to a new location entirely. But I was able to make a stop home after work trip out to California, and when I arrived my mom asked me the dreaded question. "My nephew Stanley died. Will you go to the funeral with me?" I mean, of course I would go to the funeral with her, but the first words out of my mouth were, "I had a cousin named Stanley?" That's the tricky part of being separated from some of your cousins by 30-40 years--sometimes you don't know they exist until they've passed away or in the newspaper for doing something really absurd.
As I pulled what I imagine was probably an illegal U-turn in the middle of the funeral home parking lot, my mom said, "Oh look. There's Roger Dale. I wonder how life's treating him now that he's out of prison." I wasn't sure if she was being sincere or just being a smart ass. Either way, I chose not to recognize it as I attempted to pull my dad's giant truck into a parking spot made for a smart car. That, and for some reason, I kind of wanted to be friends with Roger Dale. He's one of the few people in my family that's around my age--and even though he was supposedly an accessory to an attempted murder, it's nice having friends, ya know? I finally got the truck parked, and my mom looked at me and said, "No more than 20 minutes. I'm serious. 20 minutes--in and out. Let's go. Oh, and your aunt Wanda got you a souvenir from her trip to the Amish country, so don't forget to grab it before we leave."
I wasn't expecting to go to a funeral while I was in town, but then again, I don't think anyone ever expects to go to a funeral. It's not something you etch into your planner months ahead of time. Stanley was 55 when he died, which is really complicated to explain because that makes him older than my mom. But in short, my mom had siblings that were legitimately having children before she was even born, so she was an aunt baby.
As we walked up to the funeral home, a whole bunch of people sat on the porch in white rocking chairs that overlooked the parking lot/duck pond combo below. I didn't recognize anyone on the porch, but I didn't really expect to recognize anyone anyway--kind of like when you go to a party with a friend. So, as we walked up the steps, I nodded to them and said hello, but they just kind of gave me a really annoyed look--kind of like when you go to a party with a friend... and you try too hard. Come to find out, there were two funerals going on, and I was trying to speak to people that actually weren't in my family (which at funerals, is poor form).
But once someone directed me to the sign in the lobby, I had things a little more under control. I walked into a long chapel, and everyone seemed to be gather toward the front. I inspected the front of the room, but I didn't see a casket. Luckily, they had decided to forego that part of the funeral process, and even though I was well aware that you couldn't catch death, the 8-year-old inside of me was a little bit relieved. But in its place was something terrifying in a completely different way--family that I hadn't seen in years. I was out of practice when it came to this kind of thing. I barely know what to tell my friends when they lose a family member, but it's so much harder when it's your own family. I tried to survey the room, but I couldn't place any of the faces with names, so I just kept walking forward until I reached the cork board at the front of the room.
There were pictures of Stanley and his entire family, made up of people that I may or may not have met throughout the years. I followed the pictures from the bottom to the top until something else caught my eye--a giant flatscreen TV posted up on the wall with a single candle burning. The background was totally black, and the only thing on the screen was a white candle with a single flame. I'm sure it's supposed to represent something, but for some reason, all I could think was, "I mean, could we have just not put like... a real candle or something in here? And who captured this looping video of this candle... like, how do you get that job?" I spun around and stepped on a tiny little old lady who said, "Hi there. I'm Herman's sister. You know Herman," I have no idea who Herman is. "You know there's nine of us, right? Six boys and three girls. Can you even imagine?" I still had no idea who Herman was, and for a second, I thought that she might have made the same mistake that I did earlier, except she didn't see the sign in the front directing her to the correct funeral parlor.
I didn't know what to do, so I told her that I would be right back, but when I turned around again, there was Roger Dale. I immediately felt startled, but I was also really excited because in my mind, I kept thinking, This is my chance at a friend! We shook hands, and he had a really strong handshake, and as much as I hated it, all I could think was, "This is the perfect place for him to kill me because they wouldn't even need to call an ambulance. They'd just embalm me and call it a day." I froze, and I didn't know what to say, and before I knew it, I had lost my opportunity. My mom called me over to say hello to my aunt Connie who made a grand entrance from the back of the parlor. I watched her hug my mom and dad and brother with big tears in her eyes, thanking them for coming. Then my mom said, "Connie, here's Justin." She immediately stopped crying and said, "You're grown." She pulled me in really tight, put her face against the side of my head, and then it happened. I'm not sure if it was intentional, but she just blew... blew her nose with all of her might, directly in my ear.
I pulled back with a flattened smile and touched her shoulder and said, "I'm going to head over here for a second." I felt like people were watching me, waiting to see how I would react to this whole situation. I sat down in a pew behind my mom and pulled a kleenex out of the box sitting in the pew. I shoved it in my ear and leaned forward, quietly whispering to my mom, "Aunt Connie may or may not have just blew her nose in my ear. So, that happened."
My mom couldn't stop laughing, so I had to take my family outside where we congregated with my aunt and uncle that I'm closest to. By the time I got outside to join them, my mom had already lit in on the story about Aunt Connie blowing her nose in my ear, and on the other side of the circle Was Roger Dale, whose much closer to Connie than I am. I wanted to dive on my mom and tell her to stop or to cut the story short, but it was too late. I was making no headway with Roger Dale, and if he didn't smell the fear on me earlier in the parlor, then he definitely smelled it on me now. I felt like I needed to chime in, so I said, "You know, I'm wasn't upset at Aunt Connie for blowing her nose in my ear. I was just... surprised, which I feel like is the logical response when someone blows their nose in your ear." Roger Dale stared at me with the blankest expression and said, "Yeah, that doesn't happen," and then walked away. I knew that the funeral wasn't about me, nor was it supposed to be, but I wanted to fight back. I wanted to explain how brave I was for enduring getting a snot rocket lodged in my ear. I wanted to tell everyone how I was a survivor. But my mom interrupted and said, "Can we smoke on this porch, or do we need to go somewhere?"
Standing off the porch waiting on everyone to finish up their cigarettes, I looked back on the porch, still unable to recognize if any of the people hanging outside were actually related to me. It's almost comical because at one point, every death felt like the world was ending--whether it was a person or a rabbit. And then somewhere along the way, I wasn't able to even tell the difference between who was part of my family's and who was part of someone else's.
I still miss Grace. She was a pretty cool rabbit, but in retrospect, sometimes I wonder if I might have accidentally killed her myself. As an 8 year old, I wasn't really great at feeding things, nor taking care of them. In reality, my parents probably should have gotten me a goldfish, or like... one of those crabs you can get from the beach that legitimately never comes out of its shell. But no matter how mortified I was by Grace's death or the lethal rabbit death disease that she carried, it wasn't so much that I actually, you know, tried taking care of her while she was alive. And maybe that's the whole point of why rabbits and dogs and cousins named Stanley die. Maybe it's about reminding you of what's still in front of you--what you could be taking care of. Or maybe it's just a solid reminder of how many germs you carry on your face. We may never know.
Showing posts with label Children. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Children. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 16, 2014
Monday, January 21, 2013
Questionable Parenting
I've thought about what my children will be like in the future, and I anticipate... well... that they will be little assholes. And I love it. I've imagined that I will train them like little animals to do things and say things that will make them irresistible to the public. I'll pull them out at parties and make them tell jokes to guests before ushering them back to their room to stay until I need them again. At least they'll know that they have a purpose, which I think is important to children. I can't begin to explain how important those first years of life are, especially now that I'm older because the things that my parents told and did to me really helped shape me into the driven, anxious, neurotic person that I am today. Actually, I think my parents did a lot of stuff just for entertainment sake, and now I'm hands down one of the most complex, potentially screwed up people that I know.
That's not to say they didn't love me though--I could be one of those kids who didn't get hugged as a child, and let's be honest, that's the not fun kind of screwed up. I'm not afraid of affectionate touch or base-level commitment. I'm just generally afraid of any kind of sexual interaction, the concept of aging, and a general distrust of doing favors for other people. Other than that, I'm pretty solid on the up and up, which considering what kind of money my friends are going to make for future therapists, I consider that a success. But that doesn't change the fact that my parents lied to me: actually, my parents lied to me a lot... and Wendell and Kathy, if you're reading this, I want you to know I know. I also want you to know that I know you know I know. This isn't for us: this is so everyone else knows.
I'm sure it all started with the best of intentions, as most habits do. When my mamaw died when I was six, I was terrified of death and the prospect of people whom I loved meeting their maker. I also really excelled at English as a child, not so much math. So when my mom's birthday came around, she told me that she was 32. And then the next year, she told me that she was 32 again. She continued to tell me she was 32 until I was eleven years old; eventually, I put the pieces together and come to realize that I had ultimately been lied to over and over. My mom instantly went from being 32 to 38, and though I guess I understood the sentiment behind it, all of a sudden, I had missed out on six years of my mom's life. Kathy had been steadily aging after all, and it was devastating because I wasn't really there for any of it. I was living all "my mom is consistently 32," when in actuality, she was getting older and older just like me.
But most of my mom's lies were to protect me, and in the grand scheme of things, I guess that makes sense. Mothers are supposed to do that, especially with their sons. Fathers, on the other hand, I have no idea what the hell they're supposed to be doing. No lie that my dad ever told me was anything but some kind of weird thing that he had made up in his head to terrify me. From the time I was little, he would pick up animals that he had killed and told me they had come back to life, and if the animal was small enough, he'd pick the entire thing up and come after me with it. And in all fairness, it's not like no one got enjoyment out of it--he loved it. But then there's me, thinking that all of these animals were just chilling out underneath my bed gunning for me in the middle of the night. That's why I started trying to make friends with all the animals, as written about in: Wendell Shot All My Friends.
As scarring as all the lies may have been, I think the problem was that my parents never teamed up to discuss what lies they were telling me. My dad sat me down one day as just a wee little child and explained to me about what puberty was. He told me that eventually, my penis would begin to grow and it would grow all the way down to my ankle; that's the reason that all men wear pants. Being the cunning child I was, I asked him about the men I had seen wearing shorts before, and he told me, "That's when you have to wrap it around your leg, and it hurts. A lot." And his logic had me for a while. I would go and check my penis every day to make sure the process hadn't started. I liked shorts. I didn't want to give them up. But a couple months later, my mom told me that if I ever had sex before I was forty, my penis would actually fall off. Again, I think she did that to scare me/protect me, but what she didn't realize is that she had given me a solution--not a threat. All I had to do was figure out what sex was, do it once, then boom: I could wear shorts all the time.
Eventually, I found out that both of my parents were lying: sex didn't make it fall off and as much as my guy friends like to believe that their... stuff... may be down to their ankle, I haven't met anyone who can prove such a claim. The lies continued for most of my childhood, and I began to be able to distinguish what the truth was, what things my parents would say just to protect me, and what my dad just wanted me to believe so that he could be entertained. But the one thing I never really got the hang of is the idea of lying by omission. One day when I was visiting from college, my mom was walking out the door, and I asked her where she was going. She said, "Oh, just down to the gas station. Be right back." I chased her out the door and said, "I'll go with you! I'll grab my keys." She responded, "Don't worry about it! I'll be right back." It didn't make sense because my mom hates being alone as much as I do, so something wasn't adding up. After a little more banter, I forced myself into the situation, and we were heading down the road.
My mom told me to turn behind this sketchy bar, and I said, "This isn't the gas station." She said, "Yeah, I know. I didn't want to tell you. We're picking up your dad's moonshine." Sweet. Illegal alcohol transactions are my favorite. So I pulled into this gravel driveway leading to this yellow painted cinderblock wall with a very shady looking back porch. A woman came out of the back with cutoff jean shorts and not a single tooth in her head. She said, "Pahp ya trunk," and placed a cardboard box into the back. She came up to my window and said, "Ya daddy's already paid," and smiled a toothless grin that closed her eyes. At this point, I felt like all decorum was out the window, so I turned to my mom and said, "Why the hell did you not tell me we were coming to pick up moonshine? I feel like that's something you tell someone before I pull into Popcorn Sutton's house." She said, "That's why I was trying to get out of there by myself. Some things are just better left unsaid, Justin."
And I guess she's right. The older I've gotten, I've come to terms with the fact that some things are better left unsaid, and sure... my parents did some weird stuff to me and Casey as kids. The lies were absolutely absurd sometimes, but in the end, I think they were trying to protect us from a lot of the potential negatives of life... kind of like when we asked why our neighbors had named their German Shepherds Hydro and Codone and my dad said, "Oh that's a seventies band." I guess that we got away from childhood pretty clean and relatively unharmed, especially in comparison to some of our other peers. And you know, I'm not going to act like I'm not excited about doing the same things to my kids.
That's not to say they didn't love me though--I could be one of those kids who didn't get hugged as a child, and let's be honest, that's the not fun kind of screwed up. I'm not afraid of affectionate touch or base-level commitment. I'm just generally afraid of any kind of sexual interaction, the concept of aging, and a general distrust of doing favors for other people. Other than that, I'm pretty solid on the up and up, which considering what kind of money my friends are going to make for future therapists, I consider that a success. But that doesn't change the fact that my parents lied to me: actually, my parents lied to me a lot... and Wendell and Kathy, if you're reading this, I want you to know I know. I also want you to know that I know you know I know. This isn't for us: this is so everyone else knows.
I'm sure it all started with the best of intentions, as most habits do. When my mamaw died when I was six, I was terrified of death and the prospect of people whom I loved meeting their maker. I also really excelled at English as a child, not so much math. So when my mom's birthday came around, she told me that she was 32. And then the next year, she told me that she was 32 again. She continued to tell me she was 32 until I was eleven years old; eventually, I put the pieces together and come to realize that I had ultimately been lied to over and over. My mom instantly went from being 32 to 38, and though I guess I understood the sentiment behind it, all of a sudden, I had missed out on six years of my mom's life. Kathy had been steadily aging after all, and it was devastating because I wasn't really there for any of it. I was living all "my mom is consistently 32," when in actuality, she was getting older and older just like me.But most of my mom's lies were to protect me, and in the grand scheme of things, I guess that makes sense. Mothers are supposed to do that, especially with their sons. Fathers, on the other hand, I have no idea what the hell they're supposed to be doing. No lie that my dad ever told me was anything but some kind of weird thing that he had made up in his head to terrify me. From the time I was little, he would pick up animals that he had killed and told me they had come back to life, and if the animal was small enough, he'd pick the entire thing up and come after me with it. And in all fairness, it's not like no one got enjoyment out of it--he loved it. But then there's me, thinking that all of these animals were just chilling out underneath my bed gunning for me in the middle of the night. That's why I started trying to make friends with all the animals, as written about in: Wendell Shot All My Friends.
As scarring as all the lies may have been, I think the problem was that my parents never teamed up to discuss what lies they were telling me. My dad sat me down one day as just a wee little child and explained to me about what puberty was. He told me that eventually, my penis would begin to grow and it would grow all the way down to my ankle; that's the reason that all men wear pants. Being the cunning child I was, I asked him about the men I had seen wearing shorts before, and he told me, "That's when you have to wrap it around your leg, and it hurts. A lot." And his logic had me for a while. I would go and check my penis every day to make sure the process hadn't started. I liked shorts. I didn't want to give them up. But a couple months later, my mom told me that if I ever had sex before I was forty, my penis would actually fall off. Again, I think she did that to scare me/protect me, but what she didn't realize is that she had given me a solution--not a threat. All I had to do was figure out what sex was, do it once, then boom: I could wear shorts all the time.
Eventually, I found out that both of my parents were lying: sex didn't make it fall off and as much as my guy friends like to believe that their... stuff... may be down to their ankle, I haven't met anyone who can prove such a claim. The lies continued for most of my childhood, and I began to be able to distinguish what the truth was, what things my parents would say just to protect me, and what my dad just wanted me to believe so that he could be entertained. But the one thing I never really got the hang of is the idea of lying by omission. One day when I was visiting from college, my mom was walking out the door, and I asked her where she was going. She said, "Oh, just down to the gas station. Be right back." I chased her out the door and said, "I'll go with you! I'll grab my keys." She responded, "Don't worry about it! I'll be right back." It didn't make sense because my mom hates being alone as much as I do, so something wasn't adding up. After a little more banter, I forced myself into the situation, and we were heading down the road.
My mom told me to turn behind this sketchy bar, and I said, "This isn't the gas station." She said, "Yeah, I know. I didn't want to tell you. We're picking up your dad's moonshine." Sweet. Illegal alcohol transactions are my favorite. So I pulled into this gravel driveway leading to this yellow painted cinderblock wall with a very shady looking back porch. A woman came out of the back with cutoff jean shorts and not a single tooth in her head. She said, "Pahp ya trunk," and placed a cardboard box into the back. She came up to my window and said, "Ya daddy's already paid," and smiled a toothless grin that closed her eyes. At this point, I felt like all decorum was out the window, so I turned to my mom and said, "Why the hell did you not tell me we were coming to pick up moonshine? I feel like that's something you tell someone before I pull into Popcorn Sutton's house." She said, "That's why I was trying to get out of there by myself. Some things are just better left unsaid, Justin."And I guess she's right. The older I've gotten, I've come to terms with the fact that some things are better left unsaid, and sure... my parents did some weird stuff to me and Casey as kids. The lies were absolutely absurd sometimes, but in the end, I think they were trying to protect us from a lot of the potential negatives of life... kind of like when we asked why our neighbors had named their German Shepherds Hydro and Codone and my dad said, "Oh that's a seventies band." I guess that we got away from childhood pretty clean and relatively unharmed, especially in comparison to some of our other peers. And you know, I'm not going to act like I'm not excited about doing the same things to my kids.
Tuesday, October 2, 2012
Wendell Shot My Friends
I am surprised that PETA didn't storm my house as a child, and if some of the photos from my childhood ever leak into the public eye (which considering my eventual run for presidency, they might), then I'm sure they will appear sooner than you can say that's not faux fur. Last night, Andrew and I were sitting on the couch watching Call of the Wildman, which is about a man who goes and grabs a lot of wild animals with his bare hands. He usually gets compensated for his services in small amounts of money, pieces of food, or the occasional first born. Anyway, as we were watching him eliminate a covey (just go with it) of raccoons from a family's house, I started telling Andrew the story of living in a single wide trailer with my family as a young boy.
Essentially, we would have the occasional mouse or perhaps on the right day, a small litter of opossums scurry through the living room or the kitchen. My dad kept a blowgun around the house and eventually mastered the art of shooting the little buggars with darts which would pin them to the floor. From there, they were available for removal. Andrew kind of looked at me with a fascinated, yet terrified, stare. Apparently his dad had never pinned any small rodents to the floor by use of a dart and a stiff gust of wind. I forget that other people didn't grow up the same way I did, and the concept to me is foreign. Of course, the dynamic changed when we moved from the single wide to the double wide. That didn't eliminate the presence of dead animals in our house... we just brought them in dead, as opposed to killing them on location.
Some of my favorite childhood portraits that are only seen by people legally bound to the Kirkland name are pictures of me hanging out with a flock of dead geese. The composition is almost ironic in that "postmodernist art that nobody gets but everyone wants to understand kind of way." There's me, kneeling next to these dead geese with a smile on my face petting their little head feathers with blood stains trailing from them. And I mean, I guess it was never a big deal for me, but even as I write this, I wonder how people will respond to phrases like petting their little head feathers with blood stains trailing from them. I get it. I see you. Something is wrong about the whole situation.
But there's also some merit in growing up around things that are kind of morbid. Instead of being afraid of everything under the sun like horror movies or snakes, I was just kind of emotionally vulnerable... but not when it came to animals. Nine year old Justin was an absolute wreck when Rose died on Titanic, but when Bambi's mom got shot, I was like Neat! Dinner! The thing is that while I may or may not have utilized the deer's body itself as a personal swing set, I knew that the deer died for a reason... and not just for a play place for my friends and me. The ultimate reason that my dad went around killing everything is because we needed to eat. Yes, holding a beating turtle heart in my hand was kind of awesome, but it's not like Wendell went all Hannibal Lectar and just killed things for the joy of killing. He's a lot of things, but he's no Dexter.
But it did take me a long time to understand exactly why all these things were ending up dead on our porch. To be the academic that I've always claimed to be, I'm really not the brightest person when it came to common sense. There was something that didn't quite click with me from the time that these animals showed up at the house to the time they ended up on the table. But I will go through the step by step process of what was going through my child mind as this timeline of animal death happened around me.
First and foremost, there was the initial victim in question: the kill. Most of the time, it would just be laying there and because most of the kids in my neighborhood lived in houses that also concocted drugs and/or were dangerous to play with themselves, these animals were my friends. I think I consciously decided to ignore that they were dead entirely because if I did that, then I could just have pets for awhile. I can't count how many pictures of me there are carrying around dead rabbits and quail, and if I remember correctly, I had conversations with them... probably because no one else wanted to talk to me anymore.
Then, in true parental wisdom, I was ushered away so that I wouldn't see the animal skinned and cut up. Actually, I don't think I saw the actual animal be taken apart until I was at least ten, which is obviously a suitable age for an introduction to animal dismemberment. Anyways, the next time that I would see the animal was all cut up in the bath tub. Yes, looking back on the whole mess, it was kind of weird to imagine that I took baths in the same place that we would leave our fresh meat to soak, but whatever. I would spend hours leaned up against the side of the bathtub just poking at the meat. I'm not sure if I didn't understand what raw meat looked like or if I thought it was going to come back to life, but there was something about it that was fascinating.
And then, for the finish I guess what it boils down to is that... I ate my friends. I suppose I should maybe go back and apologize to all of my fallen comrades, but at the end of the day, I wasn't so emotionally attached that I couldn't enjoy a Southern-fried version of venison filet mignon or stuffed wild turkey breast. And even with the mice, it's not like I had a Michael Jackson thing going on. I wasn't so much interested in naming the little guy "Ben," but more concerned about where exactly I was going to stumble upon a mouse bound to the ground by a small metal dart with a bright green cap. Call it what you want, but my childhood was kind of awesome. While everyone else was going over to friends' houses for dinner, I was having my friends over... then eating them.
Essentially, we would have the occasional mouse or perhaps on the right day, a small litter of opossums scurry through the living room or the kitchen. My dad kept a blowgun around the house and eventually mastered the art of shooting the little buggars with darts which would pin them to the floor. From there, they were available for removal. Andrew kind of looked at me with a fascinated, yet terrified, stare. Apparently his dad had never pinned any small rodents to the floor by use of a dart and a stiff gust of wind. I forget that other people didn't grow up the same way I did, and the concept to me is foreign. Of course, the dynamic changed when we moved from the single wide to the double wide. That didn't eliminate the presence of dead animals in our house... we just brought them in dead, as opposed to killing them on location.
Some of my favorite childhood portraits that are only seen by people legally bound to the Kirkland name are pictures of me hanging out with a flock of dead geese. The composition is almost ironic in that "postmodernist art that nobody gets but everyone wants to understand kind of way." There's me, kneeling next to these dead geese with a smile on my face petting their little head feathers with blood stains trailing from them. And I mean, I guess it was never a big deal for me, but even as I write this, I wonder how people will respond to phrases like petting their little head feathers with blood stains trailing from them. I get it. I see you. Something is wrong about the whole situation.
But there's also some merit in growing up around things that are kind of morbid. Instead of being afraid of everything under the sun like horror movies or snakes, I was just kind of emotionally vulnerable... but not when it came to animals. Nine year old Justin was an absolute wreck when Rose died on Titanic, but when Bambi's mom got shot, I was like Neat! Dinner! The thing is that while I may or may not have utilized the deer's body itself as a personal swing set, I knew that the deer died for a reason... and not just for a play place for my friends and me. The ultimate reason that my dad went around killing everything is because we needed to eat. Yes, holding a beating turtle heart in my hand was kind of awesome, but it's not like Wendell went all Hannibal Lectar and just killed things for the joy of killing. He's a lot of things, but he's no Dexter.
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| Wendell, why you killin all the animals? |
First and foremost, there was the initial victim in question: the kill. Most of the time, it would just be laying there and because most of the kids in my neighborhood lived in houses that also concocted drugs and/or were dangerous to play with themselves, these animals were my friends. I think I consciously decided to ignore that they were dead entirely because if I did that, then I could just have pets for awhile. I can't count how many pictures of me there are carrying around dead rabbits and quail, and if I remember correctly, I had conversations with them... probably because no one else wanted to talk to me anymore.
Then, in true parental wisdom, I was ushered away so that I wouldn't see the animal skinned and cut up. Actually, I don't think I saw the actual animal be taken apart until I was at least ten, which is obviously a suitable age for an introduction to animal dismemberment. Anyways, the next time that I would see the animal was all cut up in the bath tub. Yes, looking back on the whole mess, it was kind of weird to imagine that I took baths in the same place that we would leave our fresh meat to soak, but whatever. I would spend hours leaned up against the side of the bathtub just poking at the meat. I'm not sure if I didn't understand what raw meat looked like or if I thought it was going to come back to life, but there was something about it that was fascinating.
And then, for the finish I guess what it boils down to is that... I ate my friends. I suppose I should maybe go back and apologize to all of my fallen comrades, but at the end of the day, I wasn't so emotionally attached that I couldn't enjoy a Southern-fried version of venison filet mignon or stuffed wild turkey breast. And even with the mice, it's not like I had a Michael Jackson thing going on. I wasn't so much interested in naming the little guy "Ben," but more concerned about where exactly I was going to stumble upon a mouse bound to the ground by a small metal dart with a bright green cap. Call it what you want, but my childhood was kind of awesome. While everyone else was going over to friends' houses for dinner, I was having my friends over... then eating them.
Tuesday, September 25, 2012
Fat Like Me or... Writing on Girls With Markers
I've always had a theory that skinny people were just people that shouldn't be trusted. And then I get soft, and I start letting skinny people into my life because they seem nice enough. Yes, they have their downfalls: they run and can't fit in small places, but ultimately they're people, too. It's hard for me to overcome my ultimate distrustful nature of skinny people because I know if it came down to a natural disaster like a tornado, they would never have my back. Yes, thick boys like myself have a better chance of staying grounded in a funnel cloud situation, but I can just imagine a Helen Hunt F5 size tornado coming towards me, and all my friends are playing a life and death version of sardines just staring at me from a tight space right before I get pulled into the sky. I'll never be able to fully give my heart to a skinny person because I know that all they'll do is steal it and hide it in a place that I'm too large to get into... most likely a crawl space or an inconveniently narrow alleyway.
But knowing all those facts about skinny people doesn't stop me from wanting to reach out to them anyway. After meeting a girl in my class, an obviously natural-born-skinny, I decided that even though she had her moments in class, she was worth giving a chance. She tends to dominate conversation, but I thought that it was maybe because she had a Rachel Berry/Lea Michele personality--I didn't want to blame it on her being skinny until I had to. But tonight, we were talking about the footage that broadcast journalists use as anchors and reporters do the voice overs... the particular one we watched had a flurry of obese people walking around, but the camera cut off their heads, probably to hide their identity. I asked how ethical it was to use stock footage of obese people who probably didn't know they were filmed as the image of obesity in America. That soon followed with a woman in my class, Sunset, talking about how her daughter was measured for her BMI in front of her classmates and went home and told her mom that she was... ugly.
I automatically went into mommy mode and shared my absolute disgust with Sunset. It was as if my imaginary daughter had been called fat, too. Then, out of the silence, Skinny chimed in. She stated, You know, if a seven year old is obese then someone needs to tell her that she is. Someone needs to explain that she is going to get diabetes and that her weight is a problem. I know it's not related, but when I was in a sorority, we did the same thing. Then the guys from the fraternity came in with markers and marked on our bodies where we needed to lose weight, and it was embarrassing, but it was also motivating. I've tried really hard to be a mature adult in grad school; I mean, for God's sake, I wear sweaters vests and cardigans. But I couldn't help myself; I could feel that chunky middle schooler fighting from the inside as I yelled/laughed/cried Oh... oh no. Yes, Skinny is a grown woman and can allow whomever she wants to draw on her with a Sharpie, but you can't impose that kind of behavior on to an impressionable seven year old. If I ever found out that someone had called my child's BMI out in front of class, let alone drew on them with a sharpie, I would find a special place for that sharpie that even the skinniest person couldn't get to.
I started having flashbacks to sixth grade when we were forced to run a mile in under sixteen minutes. Everyone had finished, and there I was jogging (or walking, I can't remember because after the second laugh, my vision started to go) on my second lap just hoping to finish before the time was up. Middle school was not a time that we cheered for each other; middle school was a time to mock Anna G and I for not being able to carry our body weight for a mile. The whole thing was mortifying, and I promised myself that if I could just finish that mile, I would convince my parents to buy me a Hoveround, and I would never walk again. I hated all those skinny people because even when they finished, they continued to walk around like standing up wasn't even a big deal. They didn't understand what it was like to be like me, and they sure weren't open to the idea of trying to picture it.
And I suppose that anger has subsided a bit since I've gotten older. I came to terms that I would never be one of those tinys, but as I got older, I've pretty much maintained the same weight... it just distributed itself better the taller I got. Even now, as I continue to lose weight via my diet of cigarettes and cubes of cheese, I still understand the struggles of those that have a little more to love. I identify with people who understand what it's like to fluctuate between "beautiful" and "beautiful plus some." I'm inspired by people like Kirstie Alley, Josh from Drake and Josh, and the ongoing weight mystery that is Oprah Winfrey. People who are naturally large have to actually work at being skinny, which is frustrating when you're around people who can eat like fourteen hot dogs, a honey bun, a five gallon bucket of 7-11 Slurpee and then say, Wow I feel so fat today while sporting what looks like a premature food baby at best. When I meet people like that, they don't make me want to lose weight... they make me want to eat them.
So, if you're skinny... first and foremost, shame on you. Okay, maybe not shame on you... more so, consider what it's like to walk around feeling less. On top of all the comments you get throughout your day, you're the first person that sees you in the morning. You already know what people are going to say because you say it to yourself first. If you're a little bigger, remember that no matter what size you are, you are important. You should never feel like less of a person because you're a bit larger than the rest. And if you're a bigger person moving toward a skinny life based on nicotine and a couple bites of bread a day, don't do it because you want to be skinny... do it because you don't have money or because you forget to eat, like me. And if you do achieve that point of skinny-sin, then I hope you remember all the people that stared at you because you were fat. Don't forget how it felt to be stared at as you bounced much more than everyone else as you ran laps on the track. And for God's sake, don't justify telling a seven-year-old that she's going to have diabetes one day in front of her peers. If what motivates you is having a man tell you what's wrong with your body by drawing on you with a marker, maybe you need a different kind of mirror to assess what might need some work.
But knowing all those facts about skinny people doesn't stop me from wanting to reach out to them anyway. After meeting a girl in my class, an obviously natural-born-skinny, I decided that even though she had her moments in class, she was worth giving a chance. She tends to dominate conversation, but I thought that it was maybe because she had a Rachel Berry/Lea Michele personality--I didn't want to blame it on her being skinny until I had to. But tonight, we were talking about the footage that broadcast journalists use as anchors and reporters do the voice overs... the particular one we watched had a flurry of obese people walking around, but the camera cut off their heads, probably to hide their identity. I asked how ethical it was to use stock footage of obese people who probably didn't know they were filmed as the image of obesity in America. That soon followed with a woman in my class, Sunset, talking about how her daughter was measured for her BMI in front of her classmates and went home and told her mom that she was... ugly.I automatically went into mommy mode and shared my absolute disgust with Sunset. It was as if my imaginary daughter had been called fat, too. Then, out of the silence, Skinny chimed in. She stated, You know, if a seven year old is obese then someone needs to tell her that she is. Someone needs to explain that she is going to get diabetes and that her weight is a problem. I know it's not related, but when I was in a sorority, we did the same thing. Then the guys from the fraternity came in with markers and marked on our bodies where we needed to lose weight, and it was embarrassing, but it was also motivating. I've tried really hard to be a mature adult in grad school; I mean, for God's sake, I wear sweaters vests and cardigans. But I couldn't help myself; I could feel that chunky middle schooler fighting from the inside as I yelled/laughed/cried Oh... oh no. Yes, Skinny is a grown woman and can allow whomever she wants to draw on her with a Sharpie, but you can't impose that kind of behavior on to an impressionable seven year old. If I ever found out that someone had called my child's BMI out in front of class, let alone drew on them with a sharpie, I would find a special place for that sharpie that even the skinniest person couldn't get to.
I started having flashbacks to sixth grade when we were forced to run a mile in under sixteen minutes. Everyone had finished, and there I was jogging (or walking, I can't remember because after the second laugh, my vision started to go) on my second lap just hoping to finish before the time was up. Middle school was not a time that we cheered for each other; middle school was a time to mock Anna G and I for not being able to carry our body weight for a mile. The whole thing was mortifying, and I promised myself that if I could just finish that mile, I would convince my parents to buy me a Hoveround, and I would never walk again. I hated all those skinny people because even when they finished, they continued to walk around like standing up wasn't even a big deal. They didn't understand what it was like to be like me, and they sure weren't open to the idea of trying to picture it.
And I suppose that anger has subsided a bit since I've gotten older. I came to terms that I would never be one of those tinys, but as I got older, I've pretty much maintained the same weight... it just distributed itself better the taller I got. Even now, as I continue to lose weight via my diet of cigarettes and cubes of cheese, I still understand the struggles of those that have a little more to love. I identify with people who understand what it's like to fluctuate between "beautiful" and "beautiful plus some." I'm inspired by people like Kirstie Alley, Josh from Drake and Josh, and the ongoing weight mystery that is Oprah Winfrey. People who are naturally large have to actually work at being skinny, which is frustrating when you're around people who can eat like fourteen hot dogs, a honey bun, a five gallon bucket of 7-11 Slurpee and then say, Wow I feel so fat today while sporting what looks like a premature food baby at best. When I meet people like that, they don't make me want to lose weight... they make me want to eat them.So, if you're skinny... first and foremost, shame on you. Okay, maybe not shame on you... more so, consider what it's like to walk around feeling less. On top of all the comments you get throughout your day, you're the first person that sees you in the morning. You already know what people are going to say because you say it to yourself first. If you're a little bigger, remember that no matter what size you are, you are important. You should never feel like less of a person because you're a bit larger than the rest. And if you're a bigger person moving toward a skinny life based on nicotine and a couple bites of bread a day, don't do it because you want to be skinny... do it because you don't have money or because you forget to eat, like me. And if you do achieve that point of skinny-sin, then I hope you remember all the people that stared at you because you were fat. Don't forget how it felt to be stared at as you bounced much more than everyone else as you ran laps on the track. And for God's sake, don't justify telling a seven-year-old that she's going to have diabetes one day in front of her peers. If what motivates you is having a man tell you what's wrong with your body by drawing on you with a marker, maybe you need a different kind of mirror to assess what might need some work.
Sunday, September 23, 2012
Apparently, I'm No Sarah McLachlan
I keep telling everyone that I want a cat, and in essence, I do. I love the idea of having a cat in the same way that I really like the idea of having over-sized glasses or actually being compelled to read past page 24 of Anna Karenina. I like cats in the same way that I like black coffee or doing yoga or having a legitimate interest in craft beer. All of these things come to mind when I think of ways to describe myself, but actually, those things are all lies. Maybe that's an issue, that I describe myself with interests that sound appealing as opposed to the things that I actually do. But at the end of the day, I think I want a cat because I once had a pretty cool relationship with a cat, and I'm kind of blocking out all the other pet experiences I've had in my life. My cat Skeeter was a boss. He laid around a lot, mostly on his back under the ceiling fan. I didn't really have to take care of him, so it was more like having a really quiet brother that I would talk to sometimes. Most of the time, he didn't want anyone around and considering that he was obese, I didn't really want him on me either. Skeeter and I got along because most of the time, neither of us really wanted the other one around. It kind of worked the same as most of the relationships I had in middle school.
But when it comes down to it, I'm really not a pet person. Most of what I have owned I ended up killing. For instance, when my mamaw died, I had really bad emotional backlash, so my parents bought me a red beta fish. Essentially, you can't kill a beta, even if you don't feed it for like three days. I know because I was really bad at feeding it. I named him George (after George Strait, naturally), and he was good people. After a while, I got the hang of taking care of him, and like most of my pets, he quickly became my best friend. Then, like a thief in the night, my dad bought himself a small catfish. Dad decided that it would be a good idea for them to share an aquarium, so when I came home from first grade and found half of George floating at the top of the water with the other half inexplicably missing, I panicked. Had not feeding George resulted in him eating the top half of his body? When I approached my dad with tears in my eyes, his only explanation was... and I quote, "Catfish domination." From that point on, pretty much everything I owned was destined for some terrible fate.
My dog Sable died of parvo. The dove I found outside our house died from some bird disease. The next dog I had, Roxie, died of parvo. My pet rabbit, Grace, was attacked by one of my dad's hunting dogs. When I buried her, I cried so hard that I covered my face with my hands. It then took a subsequent two years to convince me that I wouldn't die myself via facial exposure to dead rabbit germs. The pet turkey (a seemingly indestructible creature) we had was eaten by coyotes. All the quail we owned started disappearing... years later, I found out that I ate them. However, the most devastating fate was probably the first cat that I ever had, Tiger.
After a moving sermon at New Hopewell Baptist Church, I had acquired what I call "the baptism bug." As soon as I got home, I started looking for things to baptize: action figures, my pillow, my brother Casey... you name it, and I redeemed its soul in the name of Jesus Christ. Tiger, however, was a tricky target. He had been scratching things for some time, and the most logical eight-year-old solution was to wash those demons out of him. So eventually, after hours of work... I caught him. I filled up the bath tub beforehand, understanding in previous attempts, the sound of the bathtub filling up only induced the demons within him. His demons were no challenge for me though. The day that I baptized Tiger was one of my proudest; nevertheless, Tiger clawed his way up my arm, over my shoulder, and ran out the door. I never saw Tiger again after that day.
With a pet resume like that, I was honestly surprised that anyone would ever allow me to babysit their kids, but throughout high school, I babysat two kids who have grown up to be seemingly halfway decent people now. I like to think I had a pretty heavy hand in that. I would make them food sometimes or turn off the television and make them do homework. Essentially, I was the closest thing to Maria Von Trapp that someone could be without making a new wardrobe out of the drapes. So when my former boss presented me with the opportunity to "dog-sit" for her, I embarked on the opportunity with open paws (several puns intended). I had, at some point, blocked out all of the horrible things I had done to animals over the years and assumed that if I could watch kids a couple days a week that I would surely be able to watch dogs.But it didn't take long to realize that maybe this wasn't the kind of a job for someone like me. When I walked into their house, the couch and chairs were covered in hair, and I mean, if that's what you're into then cool. These people had a baby though... a little tiny human that I had watched eat her own boogers on several different occasions. I rarely ever saw the kid, but I always saw the dogs and it only took me a couple minutes to realize that these dogs are the stars and the baby is kind of like a recurring character. I know that wherever this couple went, they didn't take their baby, but I was also unsure where the baby actually was. After some contemplation, I assumed she was in the mailbox... I didn't check to confirm or deny that theory. My job was the dogs, and that's what I was going to attempt to do. I was instructed to stay in the house with them and that I should sleep there.
After one night of sleeping in the house though, I knew that I would never dog sit again. I don't cuddle with humans, let alone dogs. I have boundary issues, and maybe that means I wasn't hugged enough as a child, but we can't really do much to remedy that now. As I laid there trying to fall asleep, these two full sized labrador retrievers boxed me in, similar to the way that football players would sandwich me in the hallway as a high school freshman. I felt intimidated and uncomfortable, especially when one of them would start pawing against my butt... the dogs, not the football players. After night one, I decided that the best option would be to lock them in the basement at night. It was only like... eight hours. They'd be fine because normal living creatures should work the same way as humans, right?
Wrong. One of two things happen to dogs at night: (1) They poop on themselves mid-sleep or (2) Dogs are oddly nocturnal. I never thought to check the basement the next morning because I was using human mentality. I don't poop on myself when I sleep, so surely they'll be good to go once I get up in the morning. After my four day stay, I picked up my compensation and went on my way. Later that day, I would get a call from their owner that went something like this: Justin, do you enjoy abusing my dogs? I mean, did you even take them outside to use the bathroom or did you just lock them in the basement for the entire week for you to go off and do God knows what? Seriously, what the f*%& did you do this week? You will never get near my dogs again. How would you feel if you were locked in a basement for an entire week? Well, I probably wouldn't mind it because I could get some serious reading done, but that was neither here nor there. At this point in the conversation, I laid the phone down because this was obviously a battle I was going to lose. I began to wonder what exactly was in the basement... did they really poop feet upon feet of feces or was this like... one poop pile left unattended? Maybe my theory about the baby was wrong, and they made the same misconception that I did and the baby pooped everywhere. Yes. That was the theory that I would follow.
Saturday, September 1, 2012
The Muffled Sound of Laughing Asian Children
Dedicated to the laughter of those little Asian children running on the lawn of Anderson... not so much the children... just their laughter.
I woke up in a real bed this morning... the first time I've actually slept in a real bed in nearly a month, and it was such a beautiful feeling. But as my eyes flittered awake this morning and buzzed about the room, I felt like there was something missing; it was a perfectly beautiful Saturday morning with sun streaming through the curtains. Everything seemed to be as it was the night before, but I couldn't put my finger on it. What. Was. Missing... and then it hit me. Saturday morning. There was no muffled sound of Asian children; I had become so accustomed, so spoiled, to the sweet sound of Asian laughter that I almost felt robbed when I realized it wasn't there this morning. And after I had come to this revelation, I made a decision: I don't want to be here anymore. I don't want to be an adult. I just want my Asian children.
But alas, there were things that needed to be done. I had to go and fill out paperwork to make sure I could start work this week, and I had to make arrangements with my other job so that it would all work. There's homework in PR Ethics and preparation for my writing class. Rent is due today, and the light and cable are surely going to follow soon enough. And still, all that I could think about were those Asian children. For those of you who don't understand, Maryville College would turn Anderson Hall into what I imagine was a preparatory program for the local Asian children on Saturdays. You would never actually see the children around the city of Maryville throughout the week, but on Saturday, they would pour out of the woodwork and take classes, followed by some version of recess on the Anderson lawn. As a Maryville College student, it's not something you come to just accept; it's something you come to embrace.
And it's not like we had any sentimental attachment other than the fact that when I would stir on Saturday mornings, the volume and quantity of the laughter would alert me as to what time it was. If I heard full blown screaming and cheering, I knew that it was about eleven o'clock. If it was just a couple of giggles and the occasional burst of childlike Japanese, then I had definitely overslept. They would gather outside of my window, and their sweet little voices would carry up through the cracks in the window sill like an alarm clock... but the children themselves... they were mean. Kind of like a polar bear or a honey badger, the Asian children were to be admired from afar: get too close and you could bet that you would be mauled or at minimum, have a kickball shot at your person.
And you know, as I closed my eyes and ran through them as quickly as I could to make it to Pearson's to get breakfast/lunch/salad bar/chewy pizza/yesterday's barbecue chicken, I never really thought to stop and ask someone What are they actually doing at this Saturday school? and I suppose that would have been the logical thing to do instead of treating the Asian children like some harmonic monsters that lived under the bed as I ran to get a glass of water at night, but I never asked. I sometimes hope that I run into at least one of them again later on in life for a number of reasons... a) to ask them to laugh just once more b) to explain how mean they were as children and c) I guess to eventually get to the heart of the matter and find out what they were doing up in Anderson.
It goes to show that when you end up getting further and further distanced from the familiar, the things that you miss start becoming more and more obscure. As I left campus for the last time, taking one (or seven) victory laps, I thought about how much I would miss my friends and professors, the bosses I had, and the overall familiarity of the campus. Then, as I started having to pay for my own food, I realized how much I missed meal plans and furthermore, the spectacular people that made food for me. And as I traverse the street of the District of Columbia in a traffic jam of people very obviously hopped up on speed and bath salts (concluded by their chosen method of operating a vehicle), I start to miss the super inconvenient four minute walk I had to take from the "far" parking spot back over to whatever building I was going to, but I think you really have some reconsidering to do about how much you miss a place you have left when you start to miss the stifled laughter of small Asian children, and with the typical "want it now" Generation Y attitude, I looked on Craigslist to see if anyone had any Asian children, or children in general, for sale, but I don't think that's been legal since circa 1978.
Reflecting back on a place you've come from seems to follow a similar timeline to the grieving process. Everything seems to have a parallel: specifically the anger stage and that one time at a Virginia Target when I contemplated ramming a woman's minivan Fried Green Tomatoes style when she took my parking spot, and I would imagine that this somewhat empty, yet understanding feeling I have sans-Asian children is my way of accepting that it's time to find something to fill the void. It's time to move forward.
I'll never forget you Asian child laughter. You'll always have a special place in my heart, and no matter where in the world I am, nor how old I get, there will always be an echo of your loving, yet intimidating, giggles lingering in the back of my mind.
I woke up in a real bed this morning... the first time I've actually slept in a real bed in nearly a month, and it was such a beautiful feeling. But as my eyes flittered awake this morning and buzzed about the room, I felt like there was something missing; it was a perfectly beautiful Saturday morning with sun streaming through the curtains. Everything seemed to be as it was the night before, but I couldn't put my finger on it. What. Was. Missing... and then it hit me. Saturday morning. There was no muffled sound of Asian children; I had become so accustomed, so spoiled, to the sweet sound of Asian laughter that I almost felt robbed when I realized it wasn't there this morning. And after I had come to this revelation, I made a decision: I don't want to be here anymore. I don't want to be an adult. I just want my Asian children.
But alas, there were things that needed to be done. I had to go and fill out paperwork to make sure I could start work this week, and I had to make arrangements with my other job so that it would all work. There's homework in PR Ethics and preparation for my writing class. Rent is due today, and the light and cable are surely going to follow soon enough. And still, all that I could think about were those Asian children. For those of you who don't understand, Maryville College would turn Anderson Hall into what I imagine was a preparatory program for the local Asian children on Saturdays. You would never actually see the children around the city of Maryville throughout the week, but on Saturday, they would pour out of the woodwork and take classes, followed by some version of recess on the Anderson lawn. As a Maryville College student, it's not something you come to just accept; it's something you come to embrace.And it's not like we had any sentimental attachment other than the fact that when I would stir on Saturday mornings, the volume and quantity of the laughter would alert me as to what time it was. If I heard full blown screaming and cheering, I knew that it was about eleven o'clock. If it was just a couple of giggles and the occasional burst of childlike Japanese, then I had definitely overslept. They would gather outside of my window, and their sweet little voices would carry up through the cracks in the window sill like an alarm clock... but the children themselves... they were mean. Kind of like a polar bear or a honey badger, the Asian children were to be admired from afar: get too close and you could bet that you would be mauled or at minimum, have a kickball shot at your person.
And you know, as I closed my eyes and ran through them as quickly as I could to make it to Pearson's to get breakfast/lunch/salad bar/chewy pizza/yesterday's barbecue chicken, I never really thought to stop and ask someone What are they actually doing at this Saturday school? and I suppose that would have been the logical thing to do instead of treating the Asian children like some harmonic monsters that lived under the bed as I ran to get a glass of water at night, but I never asked. I sometimes hope that I run into at least one of them again later on in life for a number of reasons... a) to ask them to laugh just once more b) to explain how mean they were as children and c) I guess to eventually get to the heart of the matter and find out what they were doing up in Anderson.
It goes to show that when you end up getting further and further distanced from the familiar, the things that you miss start becoming more and more obscure. As I left campus for the last time, taking one (or seven) victory laps, I thought about how much I would miss my friends and professors, the bosses I had, and the overall familiarity of the campus. Then, as I started having to pay for my own food, I realized how much I missed meal plans and furthermore, the spectacular people that made food for me. And as I traverse the street of the District of Columbia in a traffic jam of people very obviously hopped up on speed and bath salts (concluded by their chosen method of operating a vehicle), I start to miss the super inconvenient four minute walk I had to take from the "far" parking spot back over to whatever building I was going to, but I think you really have some reconsidering to do about how much you miss a place you have left when you start to miss the stifled laughter of small Asian children, and with the typical "want it now" Generation Y attitude, I looked on Craigslist to see if anyone had any Asian children, or children in general, for sale, but I don't think that's been legal since circa 1978.
Reflecting back on a place you've come from seems to follow a similar timeline to the grieving process. Everything seems to have a parallel: specifically the anger stage and that one time at a Virginia Target when I contemplated ramming a woman's minivan Fried Green Tomatoes style when she took my parking spot, and I would imagine that this somewhat empty, yet understanding feeling I have sans-Asian children is my way of accepting that it's time to find something to fill the void. It's time to move forward.I'll never forget you Asian child laughter. You'll always have a special place in my heart, and no matter where in the world I am, nor how old I get, there will always be an echo of your loving, yet intimidating, giggles lingering in the back of my mind.
Sunday, August 26, 2012
Mommies Get Tired, Too
When I was younger, there was always something that I wanted my mom to do for/with me. There was a television show or some kind of homework or a shirt that absolutely had to be washed before the next day or even worse, I wanted her to do something physical. I'm not exactly sure why I wanted her to jump on the trampoline or walk down the road or practice soccer with me, but it seemed logical at the time. My mom's energy was limitless, and as far as I was concerned, it all belonged to me. It wasn't as if she worked or cooked dinner or did all of our laundry... the rest of her time was supposed to belong to me, or that's what I thought until I had my first weekend as a Mommy myself.
I guess my entry to mommyhood started on Friday. I knew as soon as I woke up, I felt different and not because of some excruciating labor or anything like that... I decided to skip that step of mommyhood. I walked into the kitchen of our apartment and looked at the leftover pasta with homemade creamy feta sauce that I had made the night before. I like trying new recipes; it's my time to remember who I was when I was younger: creative, hopeful. But of course, when Andrew came home from work, he rudely overlooked the dinner I made, the dinner that he was two hours late for. Didn't it matter that I had cooked that evening? Wasn't it good enough? No. He opted for a sandwich instead, and as I looked at the pasta, I realized just how unappreciated I was. But because of my unrelenting spirit, I decided to sweep the apartment, but no one cared. Eleanor and Marsha would have been so proud of me because the entire floor was spotless, but alas, no one noted it. And then when we went out for "happy hour" that night, I drank more drinks than anyone else. I could feel their judgment. I could visibly see the terrible vibes heading my way, but when a mommy works as hard as I do cooking and sweeping and watching half of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows 2 and the last fifteen minutes of No Strings Attached, I feel like I deserved all three of those margaritas.
And then on Saturday, I did the most mommy thing I could think of: I spent the day going off to antique stores and thrift stores by myself. Sure, I left Ben at the apartment sleeping, but he's stayed by himself before; he could find something to eat for lunch. It was "me time;" a moment for me to go and enjoy the things that old people had once owned, then left to someone in their will, only to be market at a completely unaffordable price. I enjoyed looking through old newspapers and furniture, measuring cups marked for 45 dollars and the occasional affordable, but completely impractical, cigar tin. And then after that, I made friends with an old woman and met her and her life partner at their house to pick up a free record player. I then swung by the Goodwill to pick up a Carole King album to test on my record player-- my favorite one, Tapestry. And as I carried it to the register, I had realized that maybe this mommy metaphor had gotten out of control. I was standing in a secondhand store, running my finger along a Carole King album and reflecting on how I had fallen in love with the distressed wood armoire that was completely out of my price range. The whole day had been consumed with mingling with old people and befriending old lesbians. I was just excited that after two weeks of a new city and new people and a new apartment, I was finally getting some time to myself. I had suddenly become the hybrid of a gay man and a 45 year old divorcee, and I had no idea how I had gotten there.
So today I decided to go back to being a twenty-two year old man; I had every intention of doing so, but as soon as I got up, that all changed. Andrew and I took off at a completely unreasonable hour on a Sunday to go pick up an old plastic Christmas tree; once we got there, we found a blue wing backed chair, a piece of wall art, and a KitchenAid blender. We spent a bit loading it all into the car, but then I felt accomplished all over again, in the way that I imagine only mommies feel accomplished. Then, we returned and they asked me to go play basketball, but all I wanted to do was pour myself a morning drink and read yesterday's Washington Post that someone conveniently throws away everyday without reading. Apparently, we played a game called "21," which I thought involved a deck of cards, a fold out table, and a visor, but then I found myself out on a basketball court running around (which is honestly the furthest thing from the truth). After meandering around the court for a while, I made a legitimate attempt to score, made 2 points, and then sat down. I had accomplished what I set out to do: be involved long enough to feel like I had done something, then quit... kind of like what I do with every sport I've been involved in. Then I spent the rest of our time watching Ben argue with the Mexican children at the court, as Andrew was being called "big boy," by the other child. I wanted to run out on to the court and explain to Andrew that he is perfect the way God made him, and he probably just looks "big boned" to the other kids, but sometimes, you have to let them grow up on their own. Instead, I sat on the bench and talked to a friend from home.
We decided to go to the mall, which concluded with Ben yelling in the car and pressing on my knee to make the car go faster. I almost threatened to pull over and let him walk home, but seriously, what kind of parent does that? If I'm stuck in mommy-mode indefinitely, I will not be the kind of parent that ends up getting visited from DHS. Not at my home; not on my time. Eventually, we came back, and Andrew wanted me to teach him how to iron. After the first shirt, he offered a trade: if I would iron all his shirts for him each week, he would give me a preset amount of cuddle time in return. Yes, cuddling. Even though I'm a pretty huge fan of some recreational cuddling, I barely have the ambition to iron my own shirts during the week, let alone Andrew's. Plus, I don't know what I'll be doing when Andrew needs his shirts ironed. It might be TV time, and it's just a sin to cross housework with syndicated television.
I honestly don't know how my mom did it. I can't cut being a mom, and I hate feeling like I've somehow let myself fall into mommy mentality. I miss being a 22 year old, and I can only hope that maybe this is some weird phase that I'm going through, kind of like how I treated the majority of last week like I was on a reality television show. Andrew and Ben are not children by any means... correction: Andrew and Ben are not children any more than I am. We're all still kind of children, I guess. But if randomly going through a mommy phase is any kind of reflection on how being an actual parent is, I don't know if I want a part in that for a while. Buying things for myself is expensive, let alone things for people that don't have the ability to buy things themselves. Sometimes, like this morning, I don't want to even get out of bed to do things that I've chosen to do myself, so the prospect of waking up to take care of someone else just isn't something that appeals to me right now. All I can hope is that this weird mommy feeling will be over before I know it because there's only so much red wine I can drink out of a Redskins cup; that's the problem you have when two cultures collide.
I guess my entry to mommyhood started on Friday. I knew as soon as I woke up, I felt different and not because of some excruciating labor or anything like that... I decided to skip that step of mommyhood. I walked into the kitchen of our apartment and looked at the leftover pasta with homemade creamy feta sauce that I had made the night before. I like trying new recipes; it's my time to remember who I was when I was younger: creative, hopeful. But of course, when Andrew came home from work, he rudely overlooked the dinner I made, the dinner that he was two hours late for. Didn't it matter that I had cooked that evening? Wasn't it good enough? No. He opted for a sandwich instead, and as I looked at the pasta, I realized just how unappreciated I was. But because of my unrelenting spirit, I decided to sweep the apartment, but no one cared. Eleanor and Marsha would have been so proud of me because the entire floor was spotless, but alas, no one noted it. And then when we went out for "happy hour" that night, I drank more drinks than anyone else. I could feel their judgment. I could visibly see the terrible vibes heading my way, but when a mommy works as hard as I do cooking and sweeping and watching half of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows 2 and the last fifteen minutes of No Strings Attached, I feel like I deserved all three of those margaritas.
And then on Saturday, I did the most mommy thing I could think of: I spent the day going off to antique stores and thrift stores by myself. Sure, I left Ben at the apartment sleeping, but he's stayed by himself before; he could find something to eat for lunch. It was "me time;" a moment for me to go and enjoy the things that old people had once owned, then left to someone in their will, only to be market at a completely unaffordable price. I enjoyed looking through old newspapers and furniture, measuring cups marked for 45 dollars and the occasional affordable, but completely impractical, cigar tin. And then after that, I made friends with an old woman and met her and her life partner at their house to pick up a free record player. I then swung by the Goodwill to pick up a Carole King album to test on my record player-- my favorite one, Tapestry. And as I carried it to the register, I had realized that maybe this mommy metaphor had gotten out of control. I was standing in a secondhand store, running my finger along a Carole King album and reflecting on how I had fallen in love with the distressed wood armoire that was completely out of my price range. The whole day had been consumed with mingling with old people and befriending old lesbians. I was just excited that after two weeks of a new city and new people and a new apartment, I was finally getting some time to myself. I had suddenly become the hybrid of a gay man and a 45 year old divorcee, and I had no idea how I had gotten there.So today I decided to go back to being a twenty-two year old man; I had every intention of doing so, but as soon as I got up, that all changed. Andrew and I took off at a completely unreasonable hour on a Sunday to go pick up an old plastic Christmas tree; once we got there, we found a blue wing backed chair, a piece of wall art, and a KitchenAid blender. We spent a bit loading it all into the car, but then I felt accomplished all over again, in the way that I imagine only mommies feel accomplished. Then, we returned and they asked me to go play basketball, but all I wanted to do was pour myself a morning drink and read yesterday's Washington Post that someone conveniently throws away everyday without reading. Apparently, we played a game called "21," which I thought involved a deck of cards, a fold out table, and a visor, but then I found myself out on a basketball court running around (which is honestly the furthest thing from the truth). After meandering around the court for a while, I made a legitimate attempt to score, made 2 points, and then sat down. I had accomplished what I set out to do: be involved long enough to feel like I had done something, then quit... kind of like what I do with every sport I've been involved in. Then I spent the rest of our time watching Ben argue with the Mexican children at the court, as Andrew was being called "big boy," by the other child. I wanted to run out on to the court and explain to Andrew that he is perfect the way God made him, and he probably just looks "big boned" to the other kids, but sometimes, you have to let them grow up on their own. Instead, I sat on the bench and talked to a friend from home.
We decided to go to the mall, which concluded with Ben yelling in the car and pressing on my knee to make the car go faster. I almost threatened to pull over and let him walk home, but seriously, what kind of parent does that? If I'm stuck in mommy-mode indefinitely, I will not be the kind of parent that ends up getting visited from DHS. Not at my home; not on my time. Eventually, we came back, and Andrew wanted me to teach him how to iron. After the first shirt, he offered a trade: if I would iron all his shirts for him each week, he would give me a preset amount of cuddle time in return. Yes, cuddling. Even though I'm a pretty huge fan of some recreational cuddling, I barely have the ambition to iron my own shirts during the week, let alone Andrew's. Plus, I don't know what I'll be doing when Andrew needs his shirts ironed. It might be TV time, and it's just a sin to cross housework with syndicated television.I honestly don't know how my mom did it. I can't cut being a mom, and I hate feeling like I've somehow let myself fall into mommy mentality. I miss being a 22 year old, and I can only hope that maybe this is some weird phase that I'm going through, kind of like how I treated the majority of last week like I was on a reality television show. Andrew and Ben are not children by any means... correction: Andrew and Ben are not children any more than I am. We're all still kind of children, I guess. But if randomly going through a mommy phase is any kind of reflection on how being an actual parent is, I don't know if I want a part in that for a while. Buying things for myself is expensive, let alone things for people that don't have the ability to buy things themselves. Sometimes, like this morning, I don't want to even get out of bed to do things that I've chosen to do myself, so the prospect of waking up to take care of someone else just isn't something that appeals to me right now. All I can hope is that this weird mommy feeling will be over before I know it because there's only so much red wine I can drink out of a Redskins cup; that's the problem you have when two cultures collide.
Saturday, July 21, 2012
The Megabus Diaries: Vol. 1
10:20am
After a horrible morning of waking up and grabbing my bag that is safety pinned together, we headed to the bus station. I had a premonition this morning of children, and I immediately reconsidered even going. Our truck was a horrible combination of my morning hatred, Dad's worry about traveling, and Mom's awkward compensation for the high tense emotions by mentioning everything she sees out the window on the way there. After looking at the stop for fifteen minutes, we decided to part ways with Mom to wait at the stop like normal people. We found a woman and her daughter to mingle with, but they were obviously the wrong choice to sit with. You never want to sit with anyone that is too chatty, apparently. Upon boarding, we secured upper level seats in between the cast of a Tyler Perry movie and a woman with her... children.
11:40am
I regret publicly announcing my glee for The Golden Girls coming on the bus television. In some weird form of psychological punishment, the driver has decided to play us the entire first season of the show. After an hour, I had the slight urge to pee, so I decided to go inspect the facilities to see what I was working with. The children were blocking it, and the portly one announced to me that he threw up in it. I noticed drying chunks on the side of the door, and when I looked at him with my you're shitting me eyes, he gave me a coy smile, as if to say, I'm the child you saw in your vision. I will make sure he doesn't make it back on the bus when we stop next.
1:20pm
The girls are still on TV.
2:00pm
Freedom. We've finally made it to the rest stop. I was beginning to shake from my desperate longing for a cigarette, or a "nic fit" as I like to call them. The driver announced that we had "dirty minutes" to get back to the bus, which I can only assume has something to do with pornography. In unison, Dad and I announced our short term goals, Dude, I need a cigarette/I gotta go piss. After a couple seconds, I devised a plan; Wendell would wait in the Wendy's line, and I would smoke. We would tag team out for him to pee. At the smoking station, I met two friends: Chest Tattoo and Betty White. Chest Tattoo and I exchanged a knowing look and took deep inhales from our cigarettes as Betty White joined us to light up. Once I finished, I told Dad about my new friends. He responded, I bet the guy who did that woman's tattoo is probably named Lefty or Stubs or something. We made it back on the bus with about two dirty minutes remaining; The Golden Girls, Season 1, Disc 3 has officially been started.
3:20pm
We're picking up more passengers. I don't know who thought that was a good idea, but they're never going to know what happened on the first three discs of The Golden Girls. I'd be pissed.
3:45pm
One of the DVDs broke, and all the passengers looked up with hopeful eyes. I sat whispering, Please let it be Grey's Anatomy. Nope. The driver just skipped to the next disc in the season. One woman started crying. Dad announced to the bus, Oh! This is my favorite episode. Then I got a message on OKCupid, the highlight of my day so far... I really need to reevaluate my life.
5:20pm
We're all essentially catatonic. I'm beginning to believe that Jim Jones took this same approach to bring his followers together. Dad and I have allied with the woman that looks like Sally Field, the woman behind us, and possibly the token black guy. I haven't seen Tattoo Chest or Betty White (the smoker, not the actress... I see her every time I look up) in ages. I'm worried about them. Someone came up and said they were watching movies on the lower deck. In an emotional outburst, I offered that our deck stage a coup against the bottom one; the woman lied. They're in the same Golden Girls hell that we are. Oh, and I saw a Chick-Fil-A. I'll never forget, Dan Cathy.
6:45pm
Had a weird impulse to bite the kid's ear in front of me. I'm chocking it up to bath salts and boredom. However, in my delusional state, I have come up with a theory. Some seats have green lights over them and some have yellow. After surveying the bus, I've determined that the green lights are over people who have been "chosen," kind of like LOST. The other lights are over the lost souls. For the record, the vomit twins are sitting under a yellow light.
9:50pm
Sitting on the metro headed toward our ride so that we can see Batman... and the whole ride was so, so worth it. Golden Girls and all.
After a horrible morning of waking up and grabbing my bag that is safety pinned together, we headed to the bus station. I had a premonition this morning of children, and I immediately reconsidered even going. Our truck was a horrible combination of my morning hatred, Dad's worry about traveling, and Mom's awkward compensation for the high tense emotions by mentioning everything she sees out the window on the way there. After looking at the stop for fifteen minutes, we decided to part ways with Mom to wait at the stop like normal people. We found a woman and her daughter to mingle with, but they were obviously the wrong choice to sit with. You never want to sit with anyone that is too chatty, apparently. Upon boarding, we secured upper level seats in between the cast of a Tyler Perry movie and a woman with her... children.
11:40am
I regret publicly announcing my glee for The Golden Girls coming on the bus television. In some weird form of psychological punishment, the driver has decided to play us the entire first season of the show. After an hour, I had the slight urge to pee, so I decided to go inspect the facilities to see what I was working with. The children were blocking it, and the portly one announced to me that he threw up in it. I noticed drying chunks on the side of the door, and when I looked at him with my you're shitting me eyes, he gave me a coy smile, as if to say, I'm the child you saw in your vision. I will make sure he doesn't make it back on the bus when we stop next.
1:20pm
The girls are still on TV.
2:00pm
Freedom. We've finally made it to the rest stop. I was beginning to shake from my desperate longing for a cigarette, or a "nic fit" as I like to call them. The driver announced that we had "dirty minutes" to get back to the bus, which I can only assume has something to do with pornography. In unison, Dad and I announced our short term goals, Dude, I need a cigarette/I gotta go piss. After a couple seconds, I devised a plan; Wendell would wait in the Wendy's line, and I would smoke. We would tag team out for him to pee. At the smoking station, I met two friends: Chest Tattoo and Betty White. Chest Tattoo and I exchanged a knowing look and took deep inhales from our cigarettes as Betty White joined us to light up. Once I finished, I told Dad about my new friends. He responded, I bet the guy who did that woman's tattoo is probably named Lefty or Stubs or something. We made it back on the bus with about two dirty minutes remaining; The Golden Girls, Season 1, Disc 3 has officially been started.
3:20pm
We're picking up more passengers. I don't know who thought that was a good idea, but they're never going to know what happened on the first three discs of The Golden Girls. I'd be pissed.
3:45pm
One of the DVDs broke, and all the passengers looked up with hopeful eyes. I sat whispering, Please let it be Grey's Anatomy. Nope. The driver just skipped to the next disc in the season. One woman started crying. Dad announced to the bus, Oh! This is my favorite episode. Then I got a message on OKCupid, the highlight of my day so far... I really need to reevaluate my life.
5:20pm
We're all essentially catatonic. I'm beginning to believe that Jim Jones took this same approach to bring his followers together. Dad and I have allied with the woman that looks like Sally Field, the woman behind us, and possibly the token black guy. I haven't seen Tattoo Chest or Betty White (the smoker, not the actress... I see her every time I look up) in ages. I'm worried about them. Someone came up and said they were watching movies on the lower deck. In an emotional outburst, I offered that our deck stage a coup against the bottom one; the woman lied. They're in the same Golden Girls hell that we are. Oh, and I saw a Chick-Fil-A. I'll never forget, Dan Cathy.
6:45pm
Had a weird impulse to bite the kid's ear in front of me. I'm chocking it up to bath salts and boredom. However, in my delusional state, I have come up with a theory. Some seats have green lights over them and some have yellow. After surveying the bus, I've determined that the green lights are over people who have been "chosen," kind of like LOST. The other lights are over the lost souls. For the record, the vomit twins are sitting under a yellow light.
9:50pm
Sitting on the metro headed toward our ride so that we can see Batman... and the whole ride was so, so worth it. Golden Girls and all.
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