Your Father, When You Were Young, and Some Rambling

It is true: I am a writer who never writes.  I do not think this is like being a, I dunno, maybe a junky who never uses…or whatever. Fuck, I do not know what it is like.  But I have stories in my mind, sometimes I do not even have stories, just titles to them... These titles in my head illuminate like brilliant yellow autumn leaves punctuating a grey sky, imprinting a slate rock. I joined a writer's group the other day via email.  I start in a week or so.  Nervous.  Some members are published while others are not.  The moderator of the group explained that they accept members on all levels, which leaves me concerned.  I hope it is not a group designed with her at the center, the queen, hungry with a parched, starved ego, depleting me of the precarious energy I do have.  I submitted something to her, as she wanted to show the group a piece of my writing first, before they accepted me into the group.  So, I edited a dating story/mini essay I wrote about two years ago.  I considered a few other pieces instead of this one, but they were either too dated and no longer really reflected my current writing voice, whatever that is.  Pieces that do reflect my current voice amount only to a mere a paragraph or two of blah; they're all story ideas that never really ever materialize.  In rereading this just mentioned dating mini essay, I felt it was way more immature and goofy than I had initially remembered.  When I posted it (yep, I know, lame) on FB years back, one of my friends from high school really liked it and wanted me to be on his blog as a guest blogger, but I felt embarrassed.  In truth, I've since discovered that his blog is a big bunch of bullshit.  The old man and I read a big, long critique about him and how inauthentic he is, claiming to be something he's not.  I still really like this kid though, this kid of the inauthentic blog. 

Now that I’ve sent the piece to the woman who runs the group, I feel somewhat embarrassed.  I worry if the group members think I am an idiot, naive, stupid, of novice quality.  Fuck me. As I wright all of this, i need to note that I just finished watching Enlightened, with Laura Dern.  Fuck, I feel self-conscious about my every thought now, as I relate overly with the Amy character. She is so obtuse, seeming to exist in her own melodrama which nobody, even people who are less attractive and sophisticated than she, seem to want any part of.  In a word, Dern’s character is pathetic. 

As usual, I continue writing in a stream of conscience way, blah diddi-blah-blah-ing away about not much of anything.  And as we all know, this really does not get me anywhere.  Or you, you the reader. It gets you nowhere.  And really, you are already nowhere.  You are reading this blog and thus, after all, you’re nuts, probably. Really, who the fuck would read any of this garbled nutcase of a... Whatever.  

The old man is writing right now, too.  He writes in a blogger- kinda-way in the comment section in a right wing, statewide newspaper.  He gets overly angry at the conservatives (which is ridiculous, as the paper's audiences most certainly and chiefly constructed of the right, mostly blue collar types...).  He sometimes gets irate at even the libertarians on there.  He has dysgraphia, so it takes him a long, long time to articulate himself on paper, even when he is keyboarding instead of handwriting. He has really made strides, I think, as a writer.  In fact, when we were in the midst of our split, he would send me these crazy-mean, gnarly emails that were written in this totally superior way.  Not superior to me, I mean, superior to other writing that I was reading, then and now.  These emails did tend to be overly verbose (I think the word verbose cannot really be modified by overly, thoughts?)  But I think these hate emails contributed to his writing strengths, as writing them, and there were in fact --oh!--so many, helped him practice.  Before this, he had never made any kind f writing commitment. 

Here is what I've been thinking about today:

I found out that my father, who I am estranged from, got a DWI a month or so ago.  I do not want to get into a big, long discussion about our estrangement, as that is a story, with many details--both boring and gut-wrenching--for another time.  Also, my father, in so, so many ways is completely nuts.  He lies all the time.  And he has a mean streak—here we go with the cliché—a mile wide.

I will say this though, my father, when I was growing up, was most certainly anti-alcohol.  Mostly this was kind of a bad thing.  It seemed to me, and to other people, very irrational.  I think he became this way for a few reasons.  The first is that my grandmother, his mom, came from some trashy roots. These trashy roots had to do with people, of course, drinking. My great grandmother (born in maybe 1900) had three children.  First,  a boy, and then my gram with one father.  Then, years later, she had another daughter with another man. This man is named either this (G) or that (R) (cannot really name--anonymity in this blog, you know...)--same name as my father and her husband, my grandfather.  This G or R ran off after her birth.  I am not sure how old she was.  She remembers him once coming to her school and visiting her.  I have wondered if this is something, a story of sorts, she made up initially to tell others, to assuage the fact she'd been abandoned.  And maybe, at some point, she herself began to believe in its truth.  I will never know.  She told me, maybe even more than once, that she's dreamed of his hands.

During her childhood, after her father was gone, she lived with her mother and this other man, the father of her half sister.  He was a a drinker in a large house in almost western, Mass. I do not want to write the name of the unsophisticated, smelly city, as I want this blog to be completely anonymous.   This sister of hers is my half, great aunt.  I have written about her here in this blog.  To my DBAG aunt.  You might've read it.  Anyway, there was drinking and not a whole heck of a lot of intellectual thought.  My grandmother tells me of this memory:  she is lying down on her back.   She is looking under a bed.  She is hearing irrational fighting from downstairs.  She thinks, "When I grow up my life will be lovely.  My house will be orderly.  There will be no alcohol.  And there will be books."  Again, it is doubtful that this isolated moment ever took place.  My gram is infamous for lying. But I have zero doubt that there was yucky drinking taking place.  My father has alluded/eluded (I've got issues with this word)  to my great grandmother running a speakeasy without a liqueur licensee.  And I've heard that she even went to jail. So, both my father and gram lie.  IT is thus that I'll never know what the fuck happened.  I learned to play cards from both my gram and my great aunt's father; the second husband of my great grandmother.  He seemed like a really cool guy.  His brother lived below my great aunt for years.  My mother thought he was a pervert.  I never picked up on this.

My mother grew up amidst drinking, too.  I have heard the stories about her brother and sisters being hit irrationally.  I have heard stories about my aunt's dog being thrown down the stairs.  I know my grandmother peed her pants as she was totally fucked up when I was about twelve; this was @ my aunt's wedding.  And I saw my grandfather ushering he up the stairs, his hand around her neck.  Not nice.  And I know he hit her, but I never aw this happen.  This grandfather, so fucking beloved by my mother, is a fucking bag of shit in my opinion.  His son, my uncle drank a lot, too.  Or did.  He went to jail for supposedly raping his stepdaughter.  I am not sure what his drinking and this have to do with each other, but I think there must be a connection.  Who knows though?  So much of my thinking about drinking, and addiction all the way around, stems from our society's bullshit disease ideology.  And this is mostly from AA.  AA teaches us to think about chemicals, using, over using, all of it, in such a black and white way.  It is true that AA humanizes the alcoholic and addict and kind of has usurped the idea that drinker is not a decided asshole or sinner. But in doing so, AA has removed accountability.  The whole deal is complicated; and I have an extremely difficult time knowing my true thoughts and feelings when it comes to drinking and using drugs in my own life, in the lives of those who are close to me, and in the lives of others. And I've said this before on this blog, I've asked him f he did do it and he told me no, he never raped her.  I met "her" when I was little and often wonder where she is now; is she ok?

I remember hearing about a fistfight; my uncle (married to mom's older sister), my uncle (mom's bother), and my grandfather (mom's dad).  This happened when I was in college.  They were drinking moonshine or whatever, bootleg.  My uncle as in jail, aside from the big raping thing, for a DUI.  My grandfather drank at the golf course and whenever, esp. at the cabin during the summer, on vacations.  My parents were always really freaked out by it.

When I was little, my father had a business partner who had a daughter.  We were friends, kind of.  She was fat though, and pretty pushy.  He mother seemed trampy, but she was not that pretty. I loved their house.  She was the first friend; I think anyway, I played creepy doctor with.  I am off track.  Anyway, this father drank.  A. lot.  I remember them driving me home and he drank when he drove.  He left his beer can on my parents’ porch.  My parents were upset.  In a way, this makes sense.  It is not overly responsible to drink and drive; we all know this.  But they waned to murder this guy.  They went on and on at length with each other and with me about how responsible and classy they were, as nondrinkers. They called these people, asking about the beer can.  They wanted an answer.  The guy, the father I mean of hate creepy, but interesting fat girl and her trampy, but not so pretty mother said to my parents, probably trying to lighten the situation, "Yeah, we corroded yer porch."  My parents explained to me that drinkers think everything about drinking is funny.  Later, my parents, who were so enraged, let the same thing happen all over again.  I got a ride home and the guy drank.  My father asked me, "Did the guy drink while driving you?"  I said yes.  And my father flew into a rage, promising to break the guy's legs.  He never really even mentioned it thought to the guy.  He was such a pussy.

My father did not even want alcohol at his wedding, the wedding where he married my mother. When he and my mother broke up he became less paranoid.  He had been led into this ridiculous paranoia by both his rigid, dopy mother and by my controlling insipid mother.  He even admitted this to me much later, after I had Mr. Z.  He explained my mother's fear of drinking as similar to a Jew who sees anti-Semitism blazing in a street sign.  However, when I was fourteen, I skipped school.  Twice.  Once, I did not get caught.  The second time, I did.  When I did all hell broke lose; yep, I write using clichés.  Fuckitall.   My father went through my bedroom; finding empties, rolling papers, and butts.  The empties-there might've been eight or so--were from a binge with a friend or even two friends.  That's what, two or three beers a piece.  The school nurse, a cunt who is now hopefully fucking dead--raped anally in an alley--called my parents during this time and tol them she was worried about me, thinking I was doing drugs.  This nurse, I believe, was par of that 12 step transmission line, the one that yanks regular kids who were merely experimenting and not overly achieving (but who were maybe getting by) and tosses them into the system, often locking them up into a fucking rehab.

I was honest.  I told my father I'd been drunk maybe twelve times, stoned maybe four-six times.  He did not believe me.  He was asking me, "How many beers does it take to get you through the day?" It was an issue that I was performing poorly in school. I was fooling around with boys sort of against my own permission, to borrow a cliché phrase from stupid AA.  I remember blowing, for example, my bf in the back seat of my father's used, sad little BMW while my friend, Dina and his friend Dino (joke names, obviously) sat in the front seat.  It was January and maybe 20 below zero (yep, hyperbole-ville).  But I felt safe, even though I Was clearly acting like a slut.  Dino was yelling from the front seat, "Lick the balls!"  I will never forget him sating this, loudly, and more than once.  I puked soon thereafter, after he came, mucus-y puke out my nose onto the snow.  My father must've seen it the next day.  I know for sure I would not have been smart enough to think to hide this puke.  I cannot remember if I was fucked up during this.

My father placed the aforementioned empties, the papers, the butts, the Marlboro box (that I stole from him) and the like onto a pretentious, antique try in the kitchen where I was met with big eyes and this when I walked in from a day of getting baked and baked again with Dina, Dino, and some other guy who would later fuck me when I was blacked out. I remember very little of what occurred after this.  I was not allowed to close my bedroom door.  I went to a drug and alcohol counselor who told my parents I was fine and my mother--the twat--was so upset.  And there was this constant threat that I'd go to rehab.  My father stopped at a stop light, crying, help my hand and told me his parents cried.  It was the most ridiculous display of an over reaction that I'd ever seen.  It sickens me to recant this all.  The irrational threat of rehab makes me shudder still.  I feel that it was the presence of my father, though his fucking crazy presence propelled me to use, also kept me out of rehab, as he was way more rational than my mother.  I think my mother wanted me @ rehab so she could gossip about it with her friends.  Cunt.  

Me @ rehab, had I gone!  Actually, I have a former friend who used to believe
 I looked a lot like Brittany Murphy, may she rest in piece.  

Anyway,  my tee-totally father got a DWI about a month ago. According to my sister.  The sometimes nice other times social climbing cunt sister tells me that he drinks a lot now.  I am not going to over react. Maybe I already have with this entry.  My family is so stupid when it comes to drinking; I am ashamed.  She thinks he was blacked out while driving.  And she said that my little brother as most certainly in the car when it happened.  Now that he lost his license, he, she reports, drinks even more.  Not knowing what was true.  I called his town's police department. The cop on the phone was so kind.  He told me that my father was not arrested in that town.  Bt he also told me this: "To err is human."  And that he had nothing but respect for my father.  I wanted so badly for my cunt of a mother who basically ruined my father for me to hear that.  You munchowsins (sp?!, yikes!) by proxy fucktwat;  my father was initially a good man and you ruined him, you selfish wanna be smart, rich, cunt.

I am not sure drinking,and even getting a DWI is that crazy of a thing.  I think I might be partly ridiculous or at least somewhat dramatic to be thinking about this so much.  All oh this though, the DWI, the email from my half brother (which I never even really brought up here...) and really that my father now drinks regularly from my sister has made me tired and worried.  Estranged and knowing that he is at least on some level taken care of by my stepmother has led me to rarely think of him.  And I have ben worried.  But I am worried now.  I will say, as noted above, that the cop I spoke with assuaged much of this concern.  But it is on my mind.  He is my father; he is the only father I will ever had.  

*******************

Here is what I wrote today that feels descriptive, heart felt, ad true.  It feels like I got some of what is real out of me.  And it feels good.  Here is is: 

I love my father.  He is and was a shitty dad and his reaction to my under achieving issues and the like when I was a teen were insane.  His preference for the anorexic is unforgivable.  And his whipped behavior towards my step mother and still, my unattractive, phony mother is stupid.  But I  love him.

I remember my father took up running.  I might've ben about eight, nine.  I think it was before my sister was born.  It was when we had both dogs.  He used to run with one of the dogs.  That dog adored my father.  I vaguely remember him running with the stroller, but I think my mind has added this detail.  He was so happy back then; he had hope.  My mother was nothing but an overly skinny, butt-ugly criticizer.  My father at least has a germ of person to him in my memory.  It is my depth that allows me to forgive him.   Any of the depth I have is indeed from him. It is this love for my father, and this very depth that isolates and nearly kills me, that connects me to the world.  As they say, the thing that saves you, can also kill you.  My connection is  my love for reading, and my attempts at writing, this overly cliché mess I am making here.  My writing here, is my way to bridge the stretched out, seemingly insurmountable gap between my dad and I that has really become irreparable.  It is possible to love someone who cannot, will not, or does not love you.  I will never understand my father, his issues, why he cannot pick up a fucking phone to say happy birthday, why he blames me for his shitty parenting.  

But he is a smart as fuck, funny man.  I am thinking of Elissa Schappel and her book of short stories, Use Me.  And I am thinking about the protagonist and her father.  This protagonist adored her father in ways I have never felt towards my father.  

Here is how I feel about my dad:  My dad embarrasses me in ways that will make me cringe forever.  My father is unkind, ungenerous, and in a word, ugly. But he is like a song you know by heart, sometimes forgetting, but ultimately knowing forever, for the rest of your life. My father is the last dollar in your bank account, the one that almost saves the day, but in the end, screws you, leaving you to own a mountain of debt. He is the mean words out of your mouth at the wrong time.  He is the pimple on your nose on picture day.  He is the way you could never fill a bikini or prom dress in high school; however, he is the long hours of trying to try to everything in the store anyway, tirelessly.  He is the wrong way home, the short cut you cannot master or remember, the one that gets you lost, hours out of your way, every last fucking time.  But he is also: the moon in the sky, the stars winking down.  He is the sun in the morning when you cannot even think your way out of bed.  He is your favorite shoes; the ones that make it impossible to wear any others, even though they are decades out of style.  He is your natural hair color, mousy, without life and the cause of unsexiness, but the color that goes perfectly with your kin.  He is the eyes of every man you've ever wanted in "that way" and for friendship way, too.  He is the poet that is familiar, the one you hear on the radio, making you glad you're stuck in traffic.  He is nothing, but he is everything too.

I am Helping you Because You are My Mother

I am Helping You Because You are my Mother and You Asked Me to Help You....

(a REALLY, REALLY, REALLY ROUGH DRAFT)

(Below is a classic example of when a wannabe writer tells, and um, does not show; but the germ of my idea out there in this piece of writing, for the most part.) 

I heard this once:  

"I am helping you because you are my mother and because you are telling me to help you."  

And for some reason I always remembered it.  I kept on thinking about it as I was reviewing the rules of parallel construction when I had to take the teaching test.  I thought it was the most perfect "almost exemplification" of this rule.  It is not actually parallel construction.

However, the sentence's rhythm, especially within its context--a loving, loyal daughter speaking to her mother--creates a lulling like a lullaby sound and feel. When parallel construction is used, often the reader feels a sort of lulling, at least into understand a text or speaker's meaning.   This sentence--and so it also is for many sentences employing parallel construction-- ushers in a definition of meaning, an offering of an explanation in such a pretty, lyrical way that you simply cannot forget it.  These words from her daughter are like a stanza from a hidden poem that might have discovered. It’s a song, loved by many, but perhaps not yet covered in any great way. Her daughter's words are tattooed in my brain.  They were etched into the rhythm of my memory.  They have become part of my song, or at least, they have become part of my own voice.  

As she relayed the story to me, my eyes widened with anticipation.  But I wanted to stop her, too, to distract her at least a bit.  For the rest of the story, especially its ending, was going to be rich in a way that I wanted to prolong.  But mostly, my impatience and excitement overtook my desire for prolonging the pleasure from a story, this story in particular, and so I needed the details, and needed them rapidly.  I breathed in and willed myself to remain as silent possible.

But I needed to ask her and so I did.  "Did Lacy think you were crazy, Nancy?  Did she ask you why you were dong what you were doing?"

Nancy cackled in a girly way that lit up her fifty-something-year-old face.  "Lacy told me, she yelled it to me, she screamed in my face, her face was so red, she was like rage itself, she said,  'I am helping you because you are my mother and because you are telling me to help you.'"

She launched further into the story, full forced, her voice intense.  Her body leaned this way and that, clenching and relaxing feeling every feeling it had felt all those years back.  Her hands and fingers molded the air, illustrating the scene and setting up the stage of her memory.  Her engagement right and wedding band jingled as she gestured, her finger thin to the bone.  I knew it was wrong to be jealous of her sickness induced skinniness. As she spoke I saw.  Her daughter, in a state almost as crazed as her own, flung the arm of the futon out the window.  Fake teak, splintered and graphic hit the ground without apology.  And then the futon's cushions, and then the TV, and then a single piece of the kitchen table, a lone leaf.  Among true, autumn  leafmeal, lay (look up--problem for Violet!) the remains of Dice's furniture.    They were hurried in this endeavor.  It needed to be finished before Dice returned from his mid shift factory job.  They held their breath hoping that his son would not somehow come home early.  It was imperative that the mom and daughter evict this father and son timely, quick quick!, before any sort of interruption could arrest their cathartic, cleansing solution.  They looked around their small, tired apartment, dull in its practical construction.  Their own TV, table, and beds remained.  School pictures and artwork created by Lacey and her sister, Megan hung neatly, zealously almost usurping the loneliness that invited Dice and his son into their lives in the first place.  In a hard scramble pile, looking very much like an earthquake victim's former life, was their new beginning.  Gingerly and then plainly, the teenage girl and young woman stuck their heads out of the apartment's window.  If they blurred their eyes and pretended just a little bit: below them were bodies without arms and arms without bodies.  

I picture her rage attack, their rage attack, on a day very similar to today.  I look at the window and see an evening similar to the one they saw that same day.  And then I look outside of her window, over fifteen years back.  And I see: all Dice's belongings, as well as his son's.  Everything broken, scatters, but also clumped in a sense, all dead, ruined, embarrassed and demeaned.  The young woman, the teenager, and now I saw this all.  And Nancy, today, she looked at the debris again as she had all those years back.  We looked as they had beneath them, and they began to sense a quiet so profound it was nearly heartbreaking.  Their apartment was now their own.  It was filled now only with their own things, cast offs not contemporary to the setting of that decade, the 90's.  Their present, a mother and her two daughters who became so quickly enmeshed with this leaching monster and his sad son was now their past.  It was a matter of the furniture.  

"Everything they owned, their whole entire lives was now..." Nancy inhaled here, pausing, and looked at me.  I looked at her.   This particular pause in the story was like an epic rock and roll pause, "It was out of the window and on the ground outside."  She exhaled, looking out the window of the restaurant, but I knew she was really looking outside the window of that long ago apartment she shared with Lacey and her other daughter, Megan. 

She giggled now, a noise or motion that seemed forced in order to shake a kid of permanent sadness.  Shaking her head at the younger, unbalanced woman she was once.  She explained,  "It was going nowhere, we weren't safe.  Dice had stolen jewelry, cheap stuff from the girls several times.  And their allowances had gone missing.  At first, Nancy had thought it was Dice's boy.  His sad eyes, never changing, not even at dinner, not even when they were laughing together.  She had believed with her whole entire heart that the meetings were supposed to get you better; they were supposed to help everybody, right?  Her sponsor told her to pray about it.  her sponsor told her to read a page out of the AA book, a page that ushered the ex user into a mindset of complete acceptance, as acceptance, it was believed in the meetings, was the solution to all of their problems. 

Dice, she had realized soon after he moved in, had never really gotten clean.  Sure, he was done with booze, it was a sloppy high that little to take the edge off.  But Dice was a heroin addict.  And he would never change, ever.  

Nancy's voice got higher and faster the deeper she went into the story.  "Violet," she told me, speaking my name to engage me in a way that I could hardly not bring myself to it was  the meditating that did it.  It was the meditating that led me to this."  She shook her had again, "I knew we had to cut up the furniture with the electric knife and the ax.  I told you, I swear to you right here in this restaurant, it came to me while I was in one of my many trances at the Buddhist Center.  I would go there sometimes three times daily.  I let Lacey and Megan make their own supper all the time, for god sakes.  I do not know what Dice and his son ever ate; I do not think they did.  I knew Megan would cook for Lacey; that much I did know...” She looked down at her plate of half eaten salad then.  It was a look that portrayed a shame, the kind of shame that only certain people live to articulate. The look struck me on a visceral level and it felt like seeing a  familiar, but long forgotten enemy at a party--a mean, mean bully from middle school who rushes momentarily back into your life, if only for that night. .  I shook for a moment, and then shook the shaking off.  I took a sip of chowder.  And I waited.

 "But I know that my girls were there alone... With them!  God knows what could have happened.  I did not know.  I did not care.  I was meditating.  Anything can become addictive, anything."  She looked at me and waited.  She wanted me back at meetings.  She said, really without saying, that I should drop a class, work less hours, stop spinning.  She wanted me to be a follower of hers at the local AA meeting.  

I took a breath.  I put a spoon filled with chowder into my mouth and considered my furniture without her.  I looked into the road ahead of me and I felt the sort of loneliness that kicks you from the inside.  It kicks and then seems to, almost at the same time, hollow you out like a kid's jack o lantern.  But you've got no scary face.  You've got no face.  You're hollow and you're forgotten.  You were going to ornament a festivity, but then you became flawed, and you were tossed.  The air outside was brilliant, clear, sparkling, fall sunshine, eclipsed only by the occasional deep evening clouds.  I wondered if she was part of my forever.  Was she going to be the mother I never really had, or was she going to be a soft memory usurped by sadness, sadness over losing yet another person.

"You cut up all of all of Dice's furniture and threw it out the window with your daughter's help?"  I asked.  There was no point of clarification; it was not really a question.  It was a silly stall tactic. And Lacy helped you, being the dutiful daughter that she is?"  I imagined Lacy just then.  And though I knew my days of friendship with Nancy were numbered (she was not a proper mommy sub, nor was she interested in the job, she was dying after all) I felt the familiar pang of jealousy I always did when Nancy talked about either one of her daughters. Lacy looked like me a bit.  Were wee a similar height, build, and coloring.  She had a broader, more ethnic looking nose.  I thought, "Jewish?”  when I first saw her.  But then her crucifix style cross looked more like a rosary in it gaudiness, cheap carrot gold with fake ruby gems dotting its slender chain.  Lacy was certainly more endowed than me, but I will not e that this is not saying too much about her bust size.  I could see her cross skimming her cleavage in a way that suggested nice girl, bad girl, simultaneously.  

"How many meetings are you going to?" Nancy furrowed her brow and continued with, "And when was the last time you went to a meeting?"  Did you go here, in town?  Or did you go south to the city.  I know you're lonely and I do not blame you."  

At least she empathized somewhat.  I was stuck in this tourist town that became nearly deadly in its dullness over the autumn, winter, and early spring.  I had tried forgiving the men at the meetings in my town, but I could not bring myself to.  I loved myself more; I had to.  And the meetings out of town took time.  It was too much time away from Sammy, and Sammy needed me.  His dad was in a fucking shelter after all.

How could I tell her that I was finished with all of it.  The idea of sobriety bored me to tears, and then there was “my using” and how it was not the true issue anyhow.  I had PTSD from abandonment issues.  My boarding school days--I know, poor little rich girl--among other abandonment examples had essentially fucked me for good.  And soon, she would be leaving, too. "I'm trying, "I smiled in a pleading way.  "Love me," is what I meant. "Invite me to your family's Halloween party. Anything,"  I wanted to shout. 

I looked out into the autumn evening and then I looked at her old, tired face.  How long would she be here?  Even if she did not choose to leave me, she was being pulled away from this planet faster than I could control.  My throat tightened as I saw a hospital bed in my mind. Cancer.  And then the worse thought, "Does she really even have cancer."  I had been around in, or avoiding AA for so long that I had become pretty apt at picking out all sorts of cons.  It was true that I was most certainly still ridiculously naive; however, I got hunches that others missed, too.  And I had to wonder at the authenticity of her sickness.  She'd been stage four forever.  

I saw her check her watch then.  And I saw where she was going in her mind.  Lacey. The prettier version of me.  Me, with an ethnic nose and bigger boobs.  Me, with a mom.  And I saw them crouched by that garden style window, ugly in its function.  I see the ceiling pop corned.  I see the carpet, that depressing, apartment, beige carpet.  It is the kind of carpet that echoes, "Lower middle class, lower middle class." Mom and Lacy together.  They have gotten rid of the monster.  And they will always rid themselves of any monster, together, the two of them.  Today, Lacy's cross, Nancy's sensible Aerosole shoes.  In those days, Nancy is more sluttified.  Plunging V-Neck, tight, camel toe jeans and her daughter, probably fifteen the day of the furniture, in an equally sluttied up outfit.  Like mother like daughter, slut like slut. 

When I was fifteen I was at my father's mostly.  I did not have the sophistication to wear a bra that helped.  I wore make up to hide, not invite.  And I wore my clothes at least two sizes too big.  Nobody bothered to tell me I was a petite, especially not my mother who was five foot seven inches tall.   My petite grandmother, whose height I had inherited, was so ugly and had double d breasts to boot.  She was not me; she was nothing like me in her frumpy, matronly overbearing almost sickness.  I tried to borrow my friend’s femininity back then.  I remember friends literally being about twice the size of me.  So I then took to learning how to look female from Seventeen and from the ratty college students who lived in my town.  And I tried to cover some seamy episodes with my conservative preppiness.  I did not blow my boyfriend, thank you, do you notice my Keds?  No, I did not puke when he came in my mouth, do you see my impeccable Champion sweatshirt tucked into my Gap Jeans?  Note how my bob hairstyle is undercut professionally. Look, my mom does not speak to me, but she picked me up from school in our Peugot.  Instead of saving me from the monster, she pushed me out the window.  She looks out with relief, as she sees me broken, a bird who permanently is unable to fly.  I am stuck in the clump of furniture debris tossed, ended lives; I am outside of the window.  It is autumn again and I am alone; it is growing cold.  I’m scared because I am with Dice and his son.  My artwork has long since been forgotten.  I close my eyes to remember a puffy sheep water- colored with an intensity I no longer remember.  I am scared out here without my artwork, without my childhood belongings, and I am hiding with and from thee kicked away men.  Do you hear me?  I am calling you name? 

My mother will survive as will Lacey, Megan, and their mother.  They are crafty and can cut up furniture just short of an hour; it is a quick autumn, evening’s work.  I am calling to her, I am screaming her name, “Nancy, please, it is not too late for me, I can see out the window.  I can see myself below.  I need you to come out here, now.  I need you to help me get back inside!”

Later--about a week later--October 2, 2011

I was reading an interview with E. Schappell's man, Rob Spillman.  He writes about started where the story starts, not starting before this.  For example, if a man shoots a gun in a car, not writing about the man putting his socks on, finding his keys, and then getting into the car, but shooting the gun off in a car!  This was not his example, prolly obviously.  Fuck! I cannot write anymore.  But I am trying.  I am like the dilettante craftsman, building sloppy birdhouses, punctuating my already shitty yard was something sad.  Spillman also speaks to the notion of writing with confidence.  Um, yeah.  I will try to get to this.  

Good Night Nobody

I cannot decide which loss is more difficult to bear: the loss of my immediate family or missing my youth. I cannot believe my son is now the same age as I was when my parents split apart.  I was  forced to spend my weekends out of town with my unstable father.  Fantasizing about suicide, but then regaining my my more even demeanor by looking at all of my Espirit shirts hanging in my closet.  Even today, over twenty years later, I remember sitting on the carpeting of my father's rented house.  And I remember one Espirit shirt in particular, it's coolness large in my thirteen year old's mind--its ragged white and maize colored, college lined strips, soothing me.  Sometimes I consider writing about them, my family.  I would rewrite some of it, to fit them into my mind in a more loving way.

If any of you, my family,  were to ever read this, I am talking to you as I was back then:

I love you.  I am mean because I hate myself, and the little one is not as sweet as she seems.  I need your help, please help me.  I cannot ask you because I did not realize I would need to, and because I do not trust you.

But I miss:

The hill in our back yard

Mom's melon baller

The tupperware contained mom makes chocolate milk in

I miss the university the shirts you two both had, the grey ones with maroon lettering.  You two made me think that silly, low brow, overly average college was a kingdom of coolness, an epic academic environment.

I miss dad throwing the pasta outta the strainer so it'd bounce offa the cabinet and on to the counter, just to make me laugh.

If I had known it was all so fleeting, that once we left that place, that'd be it, I would have held onto you with everything I had.

I canot believe it ended, all of us. I thought it was a forever thing.  I never stopped loving you.

We watch so much gd TV, so much that we simply cannot write a sentence...

The Shows for fall of 2011, New and Continued from Last Year…

It is this bad.  This is how poorly my mind is able to even hold sentences together.  My son, Mr. Z and I are writing bad, half wittish television reviews.  It is true.

NEW SHOWS:

Up all Night: already on (stupid)… It amazes me how Will Arnette performs in supporting roles with such perfection, but when it comes time for him to shine, he is completely useless.  Yes, he is disappointing, but the show is beyond disappointing.  It is ridiculously painful.  The only people who might want to see this series are leftover Christina Applegate fans, boob men who were teens in the late eighties.

What we think as of 10/14: Mr. Z says this show suks.  I find it watchable.  It is not my favorite.  I like the friend, and I like watching Will Arnette just cuz he is adorable to me.  Mr. Z says that Mr. Arnette always plays the same character: "rich without deserving it."

New Girl: The Zooey show—not perfect, but definitely worth watching.  I was very relieved and almost proud that I had forced my fifty-two-year-old boyfriend to sit through an hour-and-a-half of Dirty Dancing earlier this summer.  It is for this reason that he cold have been able to happily sing along with the Zoey character during this series’ pilot production. Not that he did this.  At all.   It is my belief that you will, indeed, have the time of your life watching this new show. 

What we think as of now:   This show is on hiatus b/c of baseball. Mr Z says it is great.  I am not sure how great it is, but I do love Zooey Dashel. (sp.)

Revenge: 9/21—looking forward to it.  I have not seen this dark-haired beauty that is Madeline Stowe in much of anything for the past ten years.  The last time this actress struck me as perfectly talented was during her performance of 12 Monkeys, which I watched at least six times.  She was amazing in Short Cuts, too.

10/14: I completely fucking love this show.  

Pan Am: 9/25—Christina Ricci is the only part of this series that I am interested in, at all.  As it is a certain Mad Men copy, I do not hold onto much hope that it will deliver me from an iota of me real life anxiety, boredom.  What truly interests me here is scrutinizing how Christina Ricci has aged.  And I am wondering what her weight it right now.  As a former skinny turned pudgy, the opposite type girl fascinate me, a lot.

10/14: Fucking stoopid.  Cancelled already.  

Broke Girls: 9/21—This series looks funny to me, and it looks as though much of the setting will take place in a restaurant of a sort of low caliber, my most favorite type of place to eat.

10/14: Could hardly watch it, that bad.  

American Horror Story: 10/5—This series looks good, as the Friday Night Lights mom is in this.  It looks as though this mimics the early nineties, David Lynch directed, Twin Peaks.

10/14: Adore this.  

Enlightened: 10/10—This show features a fresh rehab graduate.  The star of the show is Laura Dern.  I am hoping that HBO “gets” that 12 step ideology is dbagcity, and my assumption is that they—in more ways than none—*do* understand this.  Laura Dern appears in trailers as a tra-la-la singer of all that is puppies and unicorns one moment, only to reappear as a borderline mascara-streamed faced lunatic the next.  I look forward to laughing my ass off.

10/14:  So fucking hard to watch, as Dern's character is so pathetic and clueless.  But the show is very true to the recovery personality type.  I think this show is a success thus far.  

Once Upon a Time: 10/23—This looks a bit stupid, but definitely looks watchable.  The young wife, Ginnifer Goodwin, from Big Love is on this.

10/14:  Still have not seen.  Premiers this Sunday, I think.  

Ringer: 9/13—This is the new “twin” show, think Buffy times 2.  I think I might actually pass on this.

10/14:  Have not seen it yet.  I might Amazon it when I get a chance.  

Suburgatory:  9/28—This show, featuring a teen girl with subversive, adorable qualities, looks freakin’ hilarious.  I am so looking forward to this.

10/14:  This is Mr. Z"s favorite thus far.  I think it is watchable.  LArry David's wife is freaking amazing.  But it is not my favorite.   

Hereafter: HBO –I am unsure about this new series, but something in the trailer has compelled me to try it …

10/14:  Not sure yet. 

Person of Interest: Show where Ben from Lost is the star.  Hmm? 9/22

10/14: I have watched this twice, maybe three times.  And all those times I was hardly paying attention, as I was this bored.  

Circle show: where the teens are witches--  And what a surprise, this show taking place in Washington, which is prolly filmed in Canada--Vancouver. I cannot help myself, I think I might have found a fave.  

10/14:  Utterly cheesy, but I really like it.  

OLD SHOWS:

Modern Family: 9/21—Funny, a lot of repeated jokes (example): the Dunphy family trying to fix their staircase.

The Office : 9/22 A great show, but they’ve lost star.                        

Parks and Rec: 9/22: We cannot wait.

Grey’ Anatomy: Do we really need to say a thing here, hm?

Parenthood: 9/13: Perfect—though decidedly trite—in almost every, possible way.             

Hung: 10/2—Cannot wait to see Miss Heche and her new antics, if any. 

Louie:  Louie Louie Louie Louie.  Need I say more? 

Blah...

My son is becoming too old; it is literally tearing my into pieces.

I feel claustrophobic right now living in this little, sports obsessed  town.  If had blond hair, big boobs, and a dumber mentality, I would be OK, but this is not the case.

I am obsessed with this blog, though the writer no longer writes it.  I have always wanted to be a carny.  According to the writer of this blog, and I believe him, I never woulda made it.  I am too much of a princess and I have a super hard time taking shit.  Anyway...here is the blog: http://diary-of-a-carny.blogspot.com/

Went to a corn maze today with my family.  I am having a hard time recognizing it is autumn.  I am sick on kettle corn.  The boy is playing his new football video game.  The old man just went in for a nap.  I need to get more serious about my writing.  But there is so much else to do, too.

Night Blogland.