Escape Upstate

I am escaping upstate. I owe my parents the visit and need to get away from the bad moods this US Open lack of work keeps putting me in. I will forgo the rest of my opportunities to not work at the US Open into a more productive thing like visiting the family.

I do not give my family enough credit and I have avoided most of the summer without spending more than 48 hours with them. I should see them for longer than a hello and goodbye. The whole unemployed thing makes it better and worse. I expect lots of "it's almost November, what now?" Speeches. In the summer there was a sense of optimism, but now as the plants wilt so do all these ideas.

I am trying my damnedest. I just can't be expected to sit around anymore. I may as well go some where I am fed for free. I can visit my sister and my brother. There is a jet ski that needs to be tried out. There's plenty of movies to see. Friends to say hello to.

I do not enjoy the trips home, I shall begin to try though. . .

Graduation Party

I'm upstate this weekend. I wish I felt more inclined to write anything these days. There just has been nothing much to write.

Unfortunately, I do not.

Hurrah. Final Entry of 2008.

Afternoon bus ride home from Upstate, NY. As the years progress the idea of being born and raised in the town known as Burnt Hills and growing up in the family that I once considered my own. It had become more allegorical than I ever intended it to be. I have two hours to get this all straight, I may not need them. I have allotted the trip to put my thoughts in order. Join me, won’t you?

The worse part is starting at the beginning, the task at hand seems to daunting. While I was home a friend, that boy, the young religious one, told me how sorry he felt about my reaction to visiting home. Is that how life is these days? The blessed pity the impious? He felt sorry that my trips home don’t prove restful and that’s what a trip home is supposed to do. Is it? Really?

My mother and father, I love. My dad recently took a big step in a good direction. The whole of it was strange. He made a snide comment to my grandparents about how I did nothing when I was home. I let my voice raise, but I felt it wasn’t worth it. Everyone here is at their wit’s end.

My dad and I went to see a movie after this indiscretion. He decided to do his talk, for which I have learned means: sit there and listen. I compare it to a lecture in college. He’s not necessarily asking for my opinion in anything. He just wishes to lay the cards out. He complimented me, he told me truths about life.

He talked of my mother, his wife, as I’ve never heard it before. There seemed to be an eagerness in his voice. A prayer that I would just listen and not take anything at offense. I performed to my highest ability. He was being open and honest with me. When he told me how my mother threatens to leave him constantly, I could not respond.

Both my parents want me to succeed in life. Do I enjoy the fact that they both think I’m spoiled? Not necessarily, but they both believe I was. I was spoiled as a kid, I worked for the good grades while my brother slipped by. I always tried to appease their wishes, when I knew how easy it was to break the rules. I am trying to be the best son I can be. I guess I expected something in return.

Both my parents are amazed at how I’ve gotten by. They only know the censored for TV version, which tends to make life a little more difficult. I’m figuring all that out as we go along. When I am cornered with my mother in the car and discussions move from point A to B and then suddenly to point G. That much is my fault because I allow myself to go there. I can’t get frustrated at her for not understanding.

A year ago, I went to China. A year ago, I felt invincible. A year ago, I thought life owed me for everything.

My entire nine days home was focused on my Drug Addict/Alcoholic/Mess of an Aunt. I’ve never thought my family would turn into one of those families. We harbor this wraith in the house while everyone goes on pretending she’s necessary to the scenery. People speak openly about her impending funeral and I wish I could tell them what is really on my mind. True the woman has been awful in her recovery, but why do we entertain her drunken wants and needs? I learned tt’s not in my power to make choices on that, just to watch as she wastes away. Then that day when she’s gone, we will all wash our hands of the issues? Will we? Can we ever just forget that?

My mother’s boredom, her restlessness, has become an issue that drives me slightly mad. I found myself going off onto more personal issues because she argues about the littlest things. I left the ice cream out on the counter to long. Some of my high school friends I invite over are too loud. Why do you hate Upstate, NY? I have such an anger problem, but I’m only twenty-three. Whatever will we do about my aunt? (Keeping in mind this last topic was brought up about twice a day for nine days.)

She is so terribly bored and thus has become a creature of habit. She doesn’t read or follow anything, other than TV. She obsesses over these little things, but can’t admit that. Yet, there is nothing wrong in reminding me of my eccentricities. I guess I am used to it.

I return home, nine days later, knowing that everyone in the family now sees my depression. Notices my sadness, as if I wear it on my sleeve and they are concerned. I wonder if I walk by bushes and they don’t wilt. They understand the world is in awry, I am jobless, poor and stressed. They want to be there for me, which is reassuring.

So I need to be proactive and look for a job, if one exists. I need to better myself as a person, because the damages can be repaired. I need to be ceremonious and allow the New Years of 2009 to be a transition. Of energies, goals, wishes and happiness.

A year ago on New Years I blacked out in China. Drunk on too much rice wine. 2008 came without my approval and I believe that something happened. A wire crossed and things became blurry.

It’s only been a year, people expected so much improvement in only a year. People can’t see time how I see time. That’s their folly.

Lets End This Sooner Than Later

I'm ending this affair upstate, only a day earlier than planned. I have accomplished all I can while I've been up here. I need to just be in Brooklyn and be done with this last semester. I need to take a breath and think of what is coming next.

I've rediscovered Queen thanks to K. Freddie Mercury makes me so happy and hot. Bicycle is such a trippy song and the way he sings the word "bicycle" is just chills my soul. I melt a little.

So today was the day I ate with my Oma and Opa. Which means I returned into that time capsule. In turn this means images I enjoy thoroughly:




My Opa has made a bunch of pens out of different kinds of woods from all over the world. He let me pick out any one of the pens from his collection. I felt like a J.K. Rowling character getting their wand for the first time.I picked this one he made from a rare African wood and African Nut. Also because the story of this pen went something like this:

OPA: (Thick German Accent.) I get these little African nuts, that I have to shape with my machines. So I crack open the nut and what do I see . . . little insects! Little insects are living in the nut! You know what I do? I pack the nut up into a plastic bag . . . and I stick it in the freezer!

My Oma stores her cookies in a pot with pieces of bread to keep moisture? The pot is stored in her guest/sewing room. She somehow manages to make cookies without using butter or some intricate ingredient.
Welcome to my home...

For a Moment, All Was Calm

It started off with a conversation on how old the Boston Terrier was. It ended with me telling her I did need help and I was indeed seeking it!

How did it go from point A to point G? I'm holding my cool, I can't be mad at them. They can't understand. I blame too much, I rely on past events because she writes my life off. Was I just the boy who always made a mountain out of a molehill? Yes mother, it's not as if I were molested or abused.

This is the holiday time of year. Did I run home for a chance to relax, I am trying to relax. I am unable to relate with some of these people here. Does that mean I'm living a better life? Or what? I am not sure.

I get worked up so easily. I get so upset and I yell and tense up. When I talk to her, it just gets to me. She's a mother, that's what they do. They annoy and prod. There is a generation gap and it's not to passe to realize they can't figure out based on experience.

Breath, breath, breath.

Returning "Home"

The semester is finished and as predicted by the great prophets. I will return upstate. It's going to be a trip to remember, or perhaps not. It will read and look for jobs. I will argue with my father and hang out with friends. It's all like it used to be.

I was going to write something meaningful, but I have an emergency errand to run before I go home. Oh, to get pregnant now!

My Mother and I

I am 23. Not old at all. I am the same age my mother and father were when I was born. I am half their age. Half of their lives were used up in raising me. The thought that 23 years ago my parents were already raising one kid, with me on the way and just about to move into their first home. My dad was just beginning in a business that would soon make him a small fortune. We were Jehovah's Witnesses! For God's sake this was a life that one would never be able to tell upon looking at me now.

Then comes the present. I am not married at 23. I am not caring for a three-year-old child. I'm not starting my career (yet). Soon, perhaps. And I sure as hell haven't found religion.

What am I beginning with? Was my mom having the same thoughts I am having now? Not like specific thoughts, but the worries. Did my mom lay awake at 2 am wondering if she had made the right moves in life? Or did she thank a God she never believed in? Telling him that she was so happy to be free of the tyrannical mother who lived in that gated kingdom?

I'm nervous more often nowadays. The life I've been living. Why, without working and simply going to class. I've had so much time to reflect the thoughts that have been flitting about. First, I'd like to start a job that I could have for a while, without getting completely tired to quickly. I worked at the same job for two years?! How did that happen?

It was the moment of stability in life. The hectic events always went away for 8 hours while you were in the financial printing office. Printing away the economy, hearing what is happening on Wall Street and watching how work slowed down with no jobs coming in. No one was spending money. 8 hours to sit and do nothing, but still you could avoid thinking about the rest of the mess.

At present, I glide in and out of thoughts. I don't like to stay in one for to long. If it lingers you can actually figure something out. It's such exhausting work. Your own little private audience of one. Alone, but not alone. You certainly are in a much better place than you were several months ago. I shudder when I think about how bad it could be. I want the silence. I want silence. That's not much to ask for, is it?

The above, I think I've just written a riddle I don't know how to solve. Breath, breath, breath. Okay. Continue on.

Iguana's Home Again

(An actual house that is down the street from me, yes in case you're wondering. The Iguana grew up in luxury. Poor little rich boy.)

Driving back home from the mall I had a mind fuck. I looked around and then looked at my hands and thought. What? Is this really me? I'm upstate and d riving an SUV to and from the mall.

At the mall I strolled the FYE and purchased a COMPLETE recording of Showboat (that in the city is normally like 50-60 dollars) for 20 bucks. Who says treasures aren't in normal places. What's great about this recording is not only is it the absolute full show, it has the original lyrics. So there's a lot of the N-Word being sung...by white people no less.

Keeping on task, I drive. And I drive very well I might add. I may have gotten many speeding tickets, but let it be known. That I never got in an accident, no matter how fast I drove. I wonder how I grew up here. I still wonder that. It's like being stuck in time.

I drove out of the city on the bus, at 7:15 am, I looked at the city and said, "I will be back Sunday." How melodramatic.

Another note: I got a full bootleg recording of Young Frankenstein. I'm gonna listen to it fully soon, mark my words. I listened to Sutton Foster yodel and I was actually amused. Then I listened to other songs and was slightly upset. All of the songs are about sex, REALLY about sex. It's kind of annoying. Mel, we get the point, lets move on.

I miss certain people back in the city. You probably know who you are.

Sitting becalmed on the Lee of Cuttyhunk. Show Boat is getting very dramatic, it's insane!

OH yes, speaking of insane. I was talking to my mother and I've come to the conclusion that insanity, or eccentricity is in my blood. Don't believe me? My mother isn't enough proof for you? Lets examine her parents for a moment...

My grandparents are two German immigrants. My Oma (German for grandma) had three kids originally, but the oldest died at two months old and the youngest died due to a blood disease after giving birth to a child.

They entered the Jehovah's Witnesses when my mother was 15 and then left the practice years later. Now they celebrate nothing, yet are extremely careful in religious aspects. As a child I was always forced to say prayers at night starting with, "Dear Jehovah..." To begin a prayer with Dear Jesus seems absolutely strange to me. She would tell me little strange tidbits of information like how God would see me lying and all that.

Twice in her life she has suffered from two nervous breakdowns. The first, I was too young to witness. The second, I was there watching.

She became insanely paranoid. Accused my parents in front of me. Would scream at them, accusing them of plotting against her. For over a year she refused to leave the house, convinced that they would put things in the food is she did. On top of that, she is extremely stubborn. It's all rather complicated. She's an enigma with stark white hair!

It came to my mind today that I have my father's horrible way of insulting people. But my Oma's weakness for holding things in when being mistreated and her stubborness to hold grudges.

I see insanity, I truly do.