My little girl asks many questions. At 3 she wants to know why, and how, and what and who. One of her favorite questions is “Who bought this?”
“Who buy that Papa?”
“Who bought that you mean? What Emma?”
“Your truck Papa.”
“Papa bought it.”
“Oh.”
Sometimes its an article of clothing, and other times its something that is a part of everyday life. It is not always random or non important however. Its always something she likes to use, or wants to be a party to that she is asking “Who bought this?”.
I have no clue where she got the question from, and I can’t imagine what in the 3 year old analytical mind she uses my answer could possibly mean to her. Her Nanni, and her Papa and her Mama all answer though.
I got used to it.
There are many things I’ll never get used to when it comes to parenthood. One of those things is the fact that there is a living, breathing, human being walking around my house getting into my video games and leaving toys in my pants that not only looks like me, but is eating all my God Damned food.
I’ll never get used to finding out where Emma most recently decided to put her Tinkerbell stickers. There is one on my laptop I didn’t put there, and another on my copy of Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 for the Xbox 360. I’ve got another on the side of my 1986 Toyota 4runner, and a new scratch and sniff sticker has recently found its way onto the linoleum.
Sometimes I wake up to the feeling of a little hand scratching my beard, and I realize that Emma has gotten out of her bed, and moved onto mine without ever opening an eyelid (this has led to one bumped head, and a few tumbles onto the floor). Although my habit has become to open one eye, lift an arm, and use it to cover her there is always a moment of shock at the tiny face with half of my face, and half of someone elses.
Another thing, is the enormous depth that children have, even if they do not realize it yet. They might not be able to form the sentence or idea that they have brought forth, but if you pay close attention you’ll be fucking astounded.
I don’t like when Emma reverts back to baby words, so I do a lot of correcting and requesting that she speak to me in full sentences. This has backfired on me, as she now hates it when I don’t respond in full sentences.
One day while she and I were enjoying watching the same episode of The Batman for the second time in a row she looks over at a tall, cylindrical oscillating fan in the corner of my living room. I haven’t noticed that she is looking because I am busy watching The Joker become a Vampire in this episode.
“Papa, who buy that?”
“Hmm”
“Papa”
“Ya.”
“PAPA”
“Mmm Hmm”
“Papa talk to me!”
“Yes Emma what is it?”
“Who buy that Papa?”
I look over and she is pointing at the fan. I didn’t really think about my answer because I remember when Vanessa and I bought it at a Wal-Mart the Summer before Emma was conceived. I didn’t want it, I liked the fan that I had, but it’s a great fan and actually does a good job of keeping the place at cool temp.
“Mama bought it Emma, like a long time ago.”
Emma's face looks confused. She tilts her head to one side and looks at me.
“Did Mama bring it over here?”
I laughed. Emma didn’t pay attention to my laughter, but I let out an amused chuckle as I answered..
“Yeah”
I realized that Emma has no concept of her mother and father being together. She has a Mama who she loves, and a Papa who she loves. She has a woman that I love who she has grown attached to and loves, and that woman has a child whom Emma loves. It has hit me that she will never know the idea of Mama And Papa, but just Mama here, and Papa there.
Emma has two homes, but when she is with me and she says “Papa lets go home now” I find myself asking “Where?” and she always answers “Home Papa to the red house”
My house is red. Vanessa’s is not. Emma associates home as home, and I am to know that she means my home when she is with me, and Vanessa is to know that her house is Emma’s home as well.
I remember my parents fighting. I remember objects thrown and tires slashed. I remember hatred and anger and the knowledge that my father is sleeping in the VW again because my mother kicked him out. I remember leaving Houston for Los Angeles with my father, and the plane trip back to Houston when my father’s pills and alcohol made him too tired to function.
I remember when Ma was hospitalized and Pop had to take care of us for a while. I remember all of it and more.
Emma and her question make me laugh because she’ll never have to know that. She’ll never want to be here or there because its “right” or “better”. She will just be because for whatever reason her mother and father have for not seeing each other at all except for every couple of months (the reasons are unimportant, but they are fact).
It might not be what anyone planned in the beginning but there is comfort that if I do it right, the idea of that will never hurt her like it hurt me for so long.
There are a number of standards we set for ourselves that I have found to be, in all honesty…
Bullshit.
Fuck love.
Fuck hate.
Fuck life.
Fuck death
Fuck me.
Fuck you too.
Fuck the idea that we meet and do a dance and drama and adhere to what was set before us. Some of us were not meant for the happy ending and white picket fence even though that is what our parents had.
Some of us were not meant for the shame and lies we were born into, and deserve better and should have it without the guilt of what we should have been.
It wont hurt Emma because we make it okay to be like this, and we wont hold our decisions over her head. Because the idea of “Woe is me, she doesn’t have her mother on a daily basis” and "I hate being a single parent" will play second to the idea that “Its time to learn and grow” and "I am me. I am special and important and there is no time to be sad when there is a life to live"
Emma has taught me many things in her 3 years on this planet. One of those things is to see what came before, and just keep going. She'll hurt so much when/if she finds out how much her Mother and Father hurt eachother.
She'll hopefully never have to adhere to the thought that she should remember any of it in order to allow her life to reach its destination.
“Who bought that?”
Because I don’t.
Wednesday, July 08, 2009
Tuesday, May 05, 2009
Civic Duty...
I'm on the 11th floor of the Los Angeles Superior Courts building waiting for my name to be called for Jury Duty.
I'm pretty sure I'm working on a strong case of The Swine Flu.
I heard that some people who hold Swine close to their heart are offended by the Flu being named after their diety of choice, they say those groups have opted to refer to this pandemic as the Mexican Flu.
Thats okay with me.
Zombie Out.
I'm pretty sure I'm working on a strong case of The Swine Flu.
I heard that some people who hold Swine close to their heart are offended by the Flu being named after their diety of choice, they say those groups have opted to refer to this pandemic as the Mexican Flu.
Thats okay with me.
Zombie Out.
Monday, March 23, 2009
Clever
I don’t know a whole hell of a lot. I’d venture to guess that I know more about the fact that I really don’t know most of what I should be an expert at. The things that I am versed in are far and few between and I’m almost positive (though Im sure I don’t know enough to say that I’m positive about it) that the things I do know are things no one should know at my age.
Twenty Fucking Seven.
Fuck this.
At this point should I really still be stumbles and pratfalls? I’m the father of a child that will be 3 in a month. Should I really be so unsure of what tomorrow has in store?
Jesus H.
I spent the better part of today cleaning my home. It was recently invaded by leeching family members who decided it was better to pay cheap rent (not for me, I’m drowning in bills) then to simply get a cheap apartment. What do I care right? I’m just the twenty something prick who can’t get it together.
It was nice however, because for the first time since I moved in I was able to cook for my daughter. The kitchen cleaned, the living room tidy (but with that slight messiness that comes with an almost 3 year old little woman with the energy of the sun, and the intelligence of a fucking brain surgeon) I served Emma spaghetti.
“Emma, do you want meat balls in your spaghetti?”
“Papa look at this!” ::throws ball::
“Good job honey, please clean that up now”
“Okay Papa”
“Emma do you want this spaghetti with meatballs or the one with mushrooms?”
“I don’t like that one Papa.”
“I understand my love, tell your father which one you want him to cook please”
“I want, I want Meatball Masgetty Papa.”
“You mean Spaghetti? Spa-Get-Eeee?”
“No Papa, listen. MA-SGET-EE.”
“I see.”
Her room is done. My room is done after I spent two weeks or so airing it out, because the smell of lazy bastard took about that long to clear out. Along with half a box of incense, a fan, and some scent-diffusers I managed to make it smell hospitable again.
My next project is Emma’s studio, where we will dedicate the dining room to arts and crafts. I’ll most likely line the walls with butcher paper and paint splatters. We’ll work on getting her an art easel. This is the room where she keeps her drums and her keyboard. Sometimes she drums and sings, or blows into a horn. Other times she just pushes a baby on a stroller.
I’m attempting a number of projects that were left abandoned like a derelict vehicle on the side of the highway out in the high desert. My life is a busted radiator. I was on the fast track to something and all of a sudden the fucking steam blew my hood wide open. The only option I had was to walk.
I still walk. I got lost. A diner off the main road sidetracked me. I got held back by my own fear and self degradation that I didn’t realize that all I needed to do was let my vehicle cool off, call Triple-A, and breath deep.
It’s hard walking alone like that sometimes. One tends to really wonder what the fuck brought them here. I did too much of that and almost hit a point all too familiar.
I almost forgot myself.
I once did that. I gave in to what I thought I needed to do. When things changed I was not ready to roll with the punches and I’ve got one hell of a glass jaw.
This time I managed to bob and weave but I’m against the ropes again. I’m looking for a way out and I’m trying to balance as best I can.
How do I mend a relationship with someone who spent 23 years convincing me I was a joke?
How do I spend almost 27 years of my life believing that they were right?
I’m up late right now. I’ve got a cup of coffee. I’m listening to an old play list that I put together a long time ago. I used to listen to it and hope that my life would be different. The songs reminded me of when Emma was born. They reminded me of the apartment she was born in. They made me feel happy and sad at the same time.
Now they are kind of funny, and they play me into a memory of myself on a pseudo date I was once on. I was incapable of looking my company in the eye. She was talking to me and I felt that she enjoyed my company, but all I could do was think about how damaged I was at that point. All I could do was my best to pretend that I was fine. I was so uncomfortable with myself that I was afraid if I looked her in the eye she would figure me out.
I don’t have that problem any more, but a funny thing happened today.
Emma got into my socket wrenches and drill bits.
I told her to put them back, they are not toys.
She listened.
10 minutes later the door to her room was closed. I opened it to find her look up and shooting her little fists behind her back.
Busted my love, who is so sneaky.
“Emma what do you have in your hands?”
::wide eyed half smile::
“Persephone show Papa what you’ve got”
“Papa I was fixing something”
(Emma has been watching me work on the house all weekend, and I want to smile at her so much but I am doing my best “stern father” impression. I feel for a moment like if I look her in the eye for too long she will see right through me, and know that I am too proud of her to be upset.)
"Emma, you’ve got something that is silver that is mine, so you’ll give that to me and not play with it again, the other thing is okay for you to play with, but I want you to show them to me. I am not upset."
“Here Papa.”
"Thank you Emma. Do it again and you’ll get a time out."
“Okaaaay Papaaaaaa…”
I think it worked. I think she saw me and respected that she was doing something I specifically told her not to do and that is why she hid what she took. I accept that this is how it goes, and I enjoy it, but I wonder if I play my roll as well as I should.
I wonder if one day she’ll think back and realize “Damn, my dad was a mess. Always lost in thought.”
I see through my mother like plastic wrap. I see through my father like the X-ray of a cancerous tumor. I remember when they were sentinels. I remember when they had weight and infallibility.
For now I’ll do my best impression of the man I should be, maybe I can do it long enough to convince Emma that I really am him but something tells me she’s too clever for that little trick.
Twenty Fucking Seven.
Fuck this.
At this point should I really still be stumbles and pratfalls? I’m the father of a child that will be 3 in a month. Should I really be so unsure of what tomorrow has in store?
Jesus H.
I spent the better part of today cleaning my home. It was recently invaded by leeching family members who decided it was better to pay cheap rent (not for me, I’m drowning in bills) then to simply get a cheap apartment. What do I care right? I’m just the twenty something prick who can’t get it together.
It was nice however, because for the first time since I moved in I was able to cook for my daughter. The kitchen cleaned, the living room tidy (but with that slight messiness that comes with an almost 3 year old little woman with the energy of the sun, and the intelligence of a fucking brain surgeon) I served Emma spaghetti.
“Emma, do you want meat balls in your spaghetti?”
“Papa look at this!” ::throws ball::
“Good job honey, please clean that up now”
“Okay Papa”
“Emma do you want this spaghetti with meatballs or the one with mushrooms?”
“I don’t like that one Papa.”
“I understand my love, tell your father which one you want him to cook please”
“I want, I want Meatball Masgetty Papa.”
“You mean Spaghetti? Spa-Get-Eeee?”
“No Papa, listen. MA-SGET-EE.”
“I see.”
Her room is done. My room is done after I spent two weeks or so airing it out, because the smell of lazy bastard took about that long to clear out. Along with half a box of incense, a fan, and some scent-diffusers I managed to make it smell hospitable again.
My next project is Emma’s studio, where we will dedicate the dining room to arts and crafts. I’ll most likely line the walls with butcher paper and paint splatters. We’ll work on getting her an art easel. This is the room where she keeps her drums and her keyboard. Sometimes she drums and sings, or blows into a horn. Other times she just pushes a baby on a stroller.
I’m attempting a number of projects that were left abandoned like a derelict vehicle on the side of the highway out in the high desert. My life is a busted radiator. I was on the fast track to something and all of a sudden the fucking steam blew my hood wide open. The only option I had was to walk.
I still walk. I got lost. A diner off the main road sidetracked me. I got held back by my own fear and self degradation that I didn’t realize that all I needed to do was let my vehicle cool off, call Triple-A, and breath deep.
It’s hard walking alone like that sometimes. One tends to really wonder what the fuck brought them here. I did too much of that and almost hit a point all too familiar.
I almost forgot myself.
I once did that. I gave in to what I thought I needed to do. When things changed I was not ready to roll with the punches and I’ve got one hell of a glass jaw.
This time I managed to bob and weave but I’m against the ropes again. I’m looking for a way out and I’m trying to balance as best I can.
How do I mend a relationship with someone who spent 23 years convincing me I was a joke?
How do I spend almost 27 years of my life believing that they were right?
I’m up late right now. I’ve got a cup of coffee. I’m listening to an old play list that I put together a long time ago. I used to listen to it and hope that my life would be different. The songs reminded me of when Emma was born. They reminded me of the apartment she was born in. They made me feel happy and sad at the same time.
Now they are kind of funny, and they play me into a memory of myself on a pseudo date I was once on. I was incapable of looking my company in the eye. She was talking to me and I felt that she enjoyed my company, but all I could do was think about how damaged I was at that point. All I could do was my best to pretend that I was fine. I was so uncomfortable with myself that I was afraid if I looked her in the eye she would figure me out.
I don’t have that problem any more, but a funny thing happened today.
Emma got into my socket wrenches and drill bits.
I told her to put them back, they are not toys.
She listened.
10 minutes later the door to her room was closed. I opened it to find her look up and shooting her little fists behind her back.
Busted my love, who is so sneaky.
“Emma what do you have in your hands?”
::wide eyed half smile::
“Persephone show Papa what you’ve got”
“Papa I was fixing something”
(Emma has been watching me work on the house all weekend, and I want to smile at her so much but I am doing my best “stern father” impression. I feel for a moment like if I look her in the eye for too long she will see right through me, and know that I am too proud of her to be upset.)
"Emma, you’ve got something that is silver that is mine, so you’ll give that to me and not play with it again, the other thing is okay for you to play with, but I want you to show them to me. I am not upset."
“Here Papa.”
"Thank you Emma. Do it again and you’ll get a time out."
“Okaaaay Papaaaaaa…”
I think it worked. I think she saw me and respected that she was doing something I specifically told her not to do and that is why she hid what she took. I accept that this is how it goes, and I enjoy it, but I wonder if I play my roll as well as I should.
I wonder if one day she’ll think back and realize “Damn, my dad was a mess. Always lost in thought.”
I see through my mother like plastic wrap. I see through my father like the X-ray of a cancerous tumor. I remember when they were sentinels. I remember when they had weight and infallibility.
For now I’ll do my best impression of the man I should be, maybe I can do it long enough to convince Emma that I really am him but something tells me she’s too clever for that little trick.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Bleh
Its me.
Im still going. Kind of.
I've been busy doing nothing with my life. That is a lot of us I think. Though, I dont know why that is exactly.
Im so frustrated. Im so far past the point of being bummed out its fucking ridiculous.
I told myself and other people that I would be way passed this point by now. I'd be better off somehow and it turns out I was only fooling myself.
I wrote a draft of many things only to erase it and replace those words with what you are reading now.
The irony.
Im still going. Kind of.
I've been busy doing nothing with my life. That is a lot of us I think. Though, I dont know why that is exactly.
Im so frustrated. Im so far past the point of being bummed out its fucking ridiculous.
I told myself and other people that I would be way passed this point by now. I'd be better off somehow and it turns out I was only fooling myself.
I wrote a draft of many things only to erase it and replace those words with what you are reading now.
The irony.
Tuesday, January 06, 2009
Gasp
I remember the first time I had the wind knocked out of me. I was no older than 5. It couldn't have been later than 1987. We lived in Rosemead and we had a nice big back yard. There was tons of room to play. There was an old swing set in the center of the back yard. I was running to reach up to grab what could only be described as two chains a couple of feet in length. At the end of these chains was a metal pipe. A bar.
I was running as fast as I could with my Thundercats Kite that my father must have purchased from the local 7-11. With this kite I could not only take on legions of Skeletor's army but half of the "Bad" Gremlins, one or two of the Foot Clan, and maybe if I was lucky enough I'd be able to kick the shit out of one of the Goulies. I hated those mother fuckers.
So, I was leaping gracefully with my kite, grabbing onto this pipe when one hand grabbed as hard as I could when the wonderful world of "Physics" came rushing at the back of my head. My grip was firm (This is what happens when you're a 5 1/2 year old Ninja, you understand) so firm that it snapped me parallel to the brown and green earth below me.
Now, I don't know if it was the shock of seeing for a moment my house, than the blue sky above me (oh look there goes my kite. Awesome.) and the sudden impact of the ground against my back that freaked me out. Maybe it was the stars that I saw, that I had never seen before. It might have been the strange sound I was making when my eyes started to tear and the tubes that the "Good Lord" had seen fit to fashion out of flesh and bone that got oxygen from the world outside of young William Joshua and into my body began flowing normally.
I dont know if it was any of that, which would normally be the case. Or, it should be the case but not for me.
I think it was the trip from the yard to my house that hurt the most. My mother was in the house. There were men in the driveway talking on their lunch. They were the ones who tore down the old Garage and put up a simple posts in the ground with a white roof over a concrete slab to replace it.
From the time I got to my feet to the time I got to the back door one of those men asked "Mijo are you okay?".
I couldnt speak so I just nodded. I felt silly.
I went inside and on the way I kept thinking that the only one in the world who could make this better was my mother.
When I found her she was smiling. She smiles a lot. She asked "William whats wrong?"
I blinked,
I was breathing again,
I was fine.
She didn't know I almost died. I could have fell apart into a million tiny pieces from that amazing fall or worse yet I could have never began to breathe again. Christ what if one of those old bastards had seen how good I was with my kite and decided to recruit me into the underground world of 5 year old featherweight kick boxing? What then Mom? What the fuck would you have done then?
I was stunned. She didnt do anything because she didnt know. I was hurt, I hurt myself. I was doing my thing, minding my own business and I somehow got up and did the only thing I knew to do and that was do something familiar. I went to her and I realized that I was okay. On my own and without my mother, who should have known EVERYTHING but knew nothing of her son in that moment.
I never told my mother what happened. It was my secret. Later when I poked my eye really hard I didn't tell her about that either. I rubbed it, and checked to see if my eye was still in my head. I thought it was but I couldn't be sure so I checked in the mirror. It was still there, if a little blurry.
When one of the old splinters from the garage that was now gone had gotten lodged into the palm of my hand I yanked it out. It stung, and it bled but I didnt tell her then either. I just kept going.
I never told her about the nightmares I began having when my parents divorced.
I didn't tell her that I knew why she and my father REALLY split up.
I never told her when I figured out that she was a fucking liar. I just kept going.
Innocence is a funny thing. It goes away eventually, but its an amazing thing to see in action when its pure.
I was sitting and watching a movie while my daughter slept next to me. I checked her PJs to make sure she hadn't wet herself. She had. So I grabbed her up, and told her "Honey wake up you forgot to tell Papa you have to potty remember?"
I got piss all over me. I plopped her down on the toilet. Told her to finish. I cleaned her up and changed her.
At no point was she ashamed, or did I get upset. Its what you do when you are teaching. Training. Getting someone to grow and learn. She wasn't ashamed because I wasn't upset with her. I just have to remind her and keep trying till she learns to get up and go.
I want her to come to me with this. Anything. Burns and cuts and bruises. Pains and aches and rashes.
All of it.
I'm afraid that one day she wont. The day she doesn't is the day that she begins to figure out that there are some things that she can handle on her own. Those scrapes that need band aides will one day give way to anger and embarrassment. Her pals will be friends who might be short lived or life long or lovers.
One day she'll handle the air leaving her body in gasping heaves till she has corrected what she did on her own.
What good will I be to her then?
When my mother kicked me out for the last time. When my older sister had already been gone for years after being kicked out. When I was gone and my little sister had left the next day leaving my mother alone it was like the day that I first had the wind knocked out of me. I had to work it out somehow on my own.
All of it.
I hope its a long time before Emma realizes it.
5 is a bit early I think.
I was running as fast as I could with my Thundercats Kite that my father must have purchased from the local 7-11. With this kite I could not only take on legions of Skeletor's army but half of the "Bad" Gremlins, one or two of the Foot Clan, and maybe if I was lucky enough I'd be able to kick the shit out of one of the Goulies. I hated those mother fuckers.
So, I was leaping gracefully with my kite, grabbing onto this pipe when one hand grabbed as hard as I could when the wonderful world of "Physics" came rushing at the back of my head. My grip was firm (This is what happens when you're a 5 1/2 year old Ninja, you understand) so firm that it snapped me parallel to the brown and green earth below me.
Now, I don't know if it was the shock of seeing for a moment my house, than the blue sky above me (oh look there goes my kite. Awesome.) and the sudden impact of the ground against my back that freaked me out. Maybe it was the stars that I saw, that I had never seen before. It might have been the strange sound I was making when my eyes started to tear and the tubes that the "Good Lord" had seen fit to fashion out of flesh and bone that got oxygen from the world outside of young William Joshua and into my body began flowing normally.
I dont know if it was any of that, which would normally be the case. Or, it should be the case but not for me.
I think it was the trip from the yard to my house that hurt the most. My mother was in the house. There were men in the driveway talking on their lunch. They were the ones who tore down the old Garage and put up a simple posts in the ground with a white roof over a concrete slab to replace it.
From the time I got to my feet to the time I got to the back door one of those men asked "Mijo are you okay?".
I couldnt speak so I just nodded. I felt silly.
I went inside and on the way I kept thinking that the only one in the world who could make this better was my mother.
When I found her she was smiling. She smiles a lot. She asked "William whats wrong?"
I blinked,
I was breathing again,
I was fine.
She didn't know I almost died. I could have fell apart into a million tiny pieces from that amazing fall or worse yet I could have never began to breathe again. Christ what if one of those old bastards had seen how good I was with my kite and decided to recruit me into the underground world of 5 year old featherweight kick boxing? What then Mom? What the fuck would you have done then?
I was stunned. She didnt do anything because she didnt know. I was hurt, I hurt myself. I was doing my thing, minding my own business and I somehow got up and did the only thing I knew to do and that was do something familiar. I went to her and I realized that I was okay. On my own and without my mother, who should have known EVERYTHING but knew nothing of her son in that moment.
I never told my mother what happened. It was my secret. Later when I poked my eye really hard I didn't tell her about that either. I rubbed it, and checked to see if my eye was still in my head. I thought it was but I couldn't be sure so I checked in the mirror. It was still there, if a little blurry.
When one of the old splinters from the garage that was now gone had gotten lodged into the palm of my hand I yanked it out. It stung, and it bled but I didnt tell her then either. I just kept going.
I never told her about the nightmares I began having when my parents divorced.
I didn't tell her that I knew why she and my father REALLY split up.
I never told her when I figured out that she was a fucking liar. I just kept going.
Innocence is a funny thing. It goes away eventually, but its an amazing thing to see in action when its pure.
I was sitting and watching a movie while my daughter slept next to me. I checked her PJs to make sure she hadn't wet herself. She had. So I grabbed her up, and told her "Honey wake up you forgot to tell Papa you have to potty remember?"
I got piss all over me. I plopped her down on the toilet. Told her to finish. I cleaned her up and changed her.
At no point was she ashamed, or did I get upset. Its what you do when you are teaching. Training. Getting someone to grow and learn. She wasn't ashamed because I wasn't upset with her. I just have to remind her and keep trying till she learns to get up and go.
I want her to come to me with this. Anything. Burns and cuts and bruises. Pains and aches and rashes.
All of it.
I'm afraid that one day she wont. The day she doesn't is the day that she begins to figure out that there are some things that she can handle on her own. Those scrapes that need band aides will one day give way to anger and embarrassment. Her pals will be friends who might be short lived or life long or lovers.
One day she'll handle the air leaving her body in gasping heaves till she has corrected what she did on her own.
What good will I be to her then?
When my mother kicked me out for the last time. When my older sister had already been gone for years after being kicked out. When I was gone and my little sister had left the next day leaving my mother alone it was like the day that I first had the wind knocked out of me. I had to work it out somehow on my own.
All of it.
I hope its a long time before Emma realizes it.
5 is a bit early I think.
Tuesday, August 05, 2008
Death By Stereo
I’m listening to R.E.M.-Losing my religion.
I’ve been sneaky and silly and getting myself into all manner of idiocracy.
I’ve so far, in this life been a loser, and a winner. I’ve been a liar and a cheater and a thief. I’ve been good and upstanding and unimportant. I’ve been a father. I’ve played father to a sister and a daughter and a lover who needed help instead of love but I gave too much of what I didn’t have anyway.
My life hit a strange but familiar lull recently. I suppose one can say that in High School life was full of mixed tapes loaded with Punk Rock, and Metal. Some Industrial and 80’s music for good measure just to shake things up a bit, and bring me out of my self-important all knowing 14 year old mind and make me more like the rest of the kids at some point or another. There was no lull then but a punk beat.
Doot dat do do dat. Doot dat do do dat. Over and over as fast and clean as you can.
You can define me by the tapes that people dubbed for me. Old Punk Rock that can’t be found because the record labels have gone belly up because the scene stopped supporting it, or grew out of it, or maybe it just got stale.
What those tapes remind me of is Miller High Life that my best friends step father used to buy us on Friday and Saturday nights. Bottles of Snake Eyes and Cisco that we drank and sang old Mexican songs and Mid 90’s Rap to. We smelled like skate park and bus rides. We looked like shit with haircuts we gave ourselves and hair dye we bought from friends.
“Dude who the fuck vomited on my Dead Kennedy’s shirt?”
“You did fucker, you don’t remember?”
“Pfft, No.”
We didn’t care. We didn’t know what needed to be cared for and over time my tapes gave way to more CD’s.
After a time less punk and more rock.
Mellow, but edgy. I walked and held my CD player making sure it didn’t skip as I headed over to whatever class I was failing at the local junior college.
The beats gave way to Sonic Youth and The Pixies and guitars that carried and spoke to us rather than screaming with conviction.
Cute girls walked the hallways. I carried a camera and a notepad and drew in my design classes. I took the bus to the local music store that I worked at. I had moved on from bumming booze and bumping coke to being snuck into bars and having drinks bought for me by older gay men who thought I was cute and didn’t mind that I was straight.
I was clean cut, and smelled of the gym or whatever cologne I was wearing to impress my on and off girlfriend. The music I used to listen to was no longer a thing to get me excited but a tool for nostalgia.
Lets trade stories and remember the time that Operation Ivy played in the background and that one dude that no one liked boned his girlfriend in the back of my mothers Plymouth.
Lets get together and realize that at 19 I am working with 30 year olds and 20 something’s and I was thinking “Holy shit you’re 24? What the hell am I gonna be doing at 24?”
Eventually, I didn’t care about music at all. I didn’t care about the scene or the art or my friends. I was working. I was driving on my graveyard shift and I didn’t care what I wore and I was becoming less and more of myself every day.
I gave in, but to this day I can’t say that I know exactly what I gave in to.
I’ve given in to sin. I’ve given in to God. I’ve given in to pressure and to sex and to sadness and to joy. I’ve given in to love and all the things that come from that which if you were to ask me to describe what love is like, I would say that its Sin, and God, and Pressure, and Sex, and Sadness and Happiness all wrapped up into a nice, neat little package (laced with fucking poison).
Then there was no music at all.
I hated it.
I didn’t like that I didn’t stand for anything but making other people happy. I didn’t like that I took love and made it a means to an end and an excuse for complacency.
A funny thing happened when the music went away. So did all the love.
And when that was gone I was listening to whatever was on the radio. I didn’t care that it’s all watered down, and filtered into easy to digest little bits of FCC approved douche baggery.
I didn’t care that it was empty and shallow and meant nothing to me until the day when it all meant something again. It reminded me of something I once had. It gave me hope when I didn’t have any again. The funny thing was it was all the same shitty music that played in the background of a life that I had technically checked out of completely.
I get into conversations with 50 year old men about pop music from the 80’s, and stale tunes from the 90’s, and I talk to an older woman about theme songs from the 70’s. I offer an underground album to a co-worker and at some point I realize that the tapes are all gone. So are the CDs I collected. MP3 files have replaced it all and my life is reduced to a laptop.
Folk singers and their sad songs play in my head a lot more now. That is the rhythm of my life, but only when I think of what I lost. It’s a steady flow of smooth sound that wraps me up and holds me tight till I figure out what the fuck is wrong with me. Long enough for me to deal with loss. Damien Rice plays me to sleep.
And then I go out and get a drink and all of a sudden those New Wave tunes I used to hate have me dancing like a fucking idiot with a pretty friend of mine, or a girl I’m dating or maybe just a buddy I haven’t seen in a while. The smiths start playing and we dance as spastically as possible till we are all smiling and laughing and ordering more drinks.
Its in all of this that my life is unsure and feeble and I teeter on the edge of something I can’t put my finger on. It matters to me less though, and as time goes by its gone. After the next morning, after the alcohol I realize that just before passing out I’ve brought a bottle of water to bed, and I’ve made it a habit to avoid a hangover.
It works.
And I get up and I go for a run.
After the 2nd mile or so I am listening to my music as loud as I can and sometimes It’s the old stuff. Sometimes it’s the new stuff. Sometimes it reminds me of cruising the streets with my daughter in the back seat and she is nodding her head back and forth to something I passed by on the dial.
Shoe loves Modest Mouse and pronounces it “Moss Moush”.
“Moss Moush Papa!”
Or was it an import of “The Kooks”?
Or was it an old Tupac tune I have buried on a playlist?
Eclectic now. At 26 I’ve started collecting again and now I wonder if I’ll ever make a tape again. Or hell if I even have the balls to make a CD or a playlist for someone.
I’ve gotten to the point where there is so much I’ve listened to. There is so much that I have given in to that if I were to sit, and really map myself out by the silly beats and the parties and the music I’d simply stop existing because in that moment I have been defined by a soundtrack.
Fuck I’ve come so far.
I have written myself into a corner. I have played myself into oblivion. I have listened to so much that I begin to wonder how the fuck I’ve managed to make a life of listening to music when what I should have been doing is listening to myself. I need to make my own soundtrack and make it the best that I can.
I need to add to it continuously till the day I die.
I wonder if anyone will listen to it.
I’ve been sneaky and silly and getting myself into all manner of idiocracy.
I’ve so far, in this life been a loser, and a winner. I’ve been a liar and a cheater and a thief. I’ve been good and upstanding and unimportant. I’ve been a father. I’ve played father to a sister and a daughter and a lover who needed help instead of love but I gave too much of what I didn’t have anyway.
My life hit a strange but familiar lull recently. I suppose one can say that in High School life was full of mixed tapes loaded with Punk Rock, and Metal. Some Industrial and 80’s music for good measure just to shake things up a bit, and bring me out of my self-important all knowing 14 year old mind and make me more like the rest of the kids at some point or another. There was no lull then but a punk beat.
Doot dat do do dat. Doot dat do do dat. Over and over as fast and clean as you can.
You can define me by the tapes that people dubbed for me. Old Punk Rock that can’t be found because the record labels have gone belly up because the scene stopped supporting it, or grew out of it, or maybe it just got stale.
What those tapes remind me of is Miller High Life that my best friends step father used to buy us on Friday and Saturday nights. Bottles of Snake Eyes and Cisco that we drank and sang old Mexican songs and Mid 90’s Rap to. We smelled like skate park and bus rides. We looked like shit with haircuts we gave ourselves and hair dye we bought from friends.
“Dude who the fuck vomited on my Dead Kennedy’s shirt?”
“You did fucker, you don’t remember?”
“Pfft, No.”
We didn’t care. We didn’t know what needed to be cared for and over time my tapes gave way to more CD’s.
After a time less punk and more rock.
Mellow, but edgy. I walked and held my CD player making sure it didn’t skip as I headed over to whatever class I was failing at the local junior college.
The beats gave way to Sonic Youth and The Pixies and guitars that carried and spoke to us rather than screaming with conviction.
Cute girls walked the hallways. I carried a camera and a notepad and drew in my design classes. I took the bus to the local music store that I worked at. I had moved on from bumming booze and bumping coke to being snuck into bars and having drinks bought for me by older gay men who thought I was cute and didn’t mind that I was straight.
I was clean cut, and smelled of the gym or whatever cologne I was wearing to impress my on and off girlfriend. The music I used to listen to was no longer a thing to get me excited but a tool for nostalgia.
Lets trade stories and remember the time that Operation Ivy played in the background and that one dude that no one liked boned his girlfriend in the back of my mothers Plymouth.
Lets get together and realize that at 19 I am working with 30 year olds and 20 something’s and I was thinking “Holy shit you’re 24? What the hell am I gonna be doing at 24?”
Eventually, I didn’t care about music at all. I didn’t care about the scene or the art or my friends. I was working. I was driving on my graveyard shift and I didn’t care what I wore and I was becoming less and more of myself every day.
I gave in, but to this day I can’t say that I know exactly what I gave in to.
I’ve given in to sin. I’ve given in to God. I’ve given in to pressure and to sex and to sadness and to joy. I’ve given in to love and all the things that come from that which if you were to ask me to describe what love is like, I would say that its Sin, and God, and Pressure, and Sex, and Sadness and Happiness all wrapped up into a nice, neat little package (laced with fucking poison).
Then there was no music at all.
I hated it.
I didn’t like that I didn’t stand for anything but making other people happy. I didn’t like that I took love and made it a means to an end and an excuse for complacency.
A funny thing happened when the music went away. So did all the love.
And when that was gone I was listening to whatever was on the radio. I didn’t care that it’s all watered down, and filtered into easy to digest little bits of FCC approved douche baggery.
I didn’t care that it was empty and shallow and meant nothing to me until the day when it all meant something again. It reminded me of something I once had. It gave me hope when I didn’t have any again. The funny thing was it was all the same shitty music that played in the background of a life that I had technically checked out of completely.
I get into conversations with 50 year old men about pop music from the 80’s, and stale tunes from the 90’s, and I talk to an older woman about theme songs from the 70’s. I offer an underground album to a co-worker and at some point I realize that the tapes are all gone. So are the CDs I collected. MP3 files have replaced it all and my life is reduced to a laptop.
Folk singers and their sad songs play in my head a lot more now. That is the rhythm of my life, but only when I think of what I lost. It’s a steady flow of smooth sound that wraps me up and holds me tight till I figure out what the fuck is wrong with me. Long enough for me to deal with loss. Damien Rice plays me to sleep.
And then I go out and get a drink and all of a sudden those New Wave tunes I used to hate have me dancing like a fucking idiot with a pretty friend of mine, or a girl I’m dating or maybe just a buddy I haven’t seen in a while. The smiths start playing and we dance as spastically as possible till we are all smiling and laughing and ordering more drinks.
Its in all of this that my life is unsure and feeble and I teeter on the edge of something I can’t put my finger on. It matters to me less though, and as time goes by its gone. After the next morning, after the alcohol I realize that just before passing out I’ve brought a bottle of water to bed, and I’ve made it a habit to avoid a hangover.
It works.
And I get up and I go for a run.
After the 2nd mile or so I am listening to my music as loud as I can and sometimes It’s the old stuff. Sometimes it’s the new stuff. Sometimes it reminds me of cruising the streets with my daughter in the back seat and she is nodding her head back and forth to something I passed by on the dial.
Shoe loves Modest Mouse and pronounces it “Moss Moush”.
“Moss Moush Papa!”
Or was it an import of “The Kooks”?
Or was it an old Tupac tune I have buried on a playlist?
Eclectic now. At 26 I’ve started collecting again and now I wonder if I’ll ever make a tape again. Or hell if I even have the balls to make a CD or a playlist for someone.
I’ve gotten to the point where there is so much I’ve listened to. There is so much that I have given in to that if I were to sit, and really map myself out by the silly beats and the parties and the music I’d simply stop existing because in that moment I have been defined by a soundtrack.
Fuck I’ve come so far.
I have written myself into a corner. I have played myself into oblivion. I have listened to so much that I begin to wonder how the fuck I’ve managed to make a life of listening to music when what I should have been doing is listening to myself. I need to make my own soundtrack and make it the best that I can.
I need to add to it continuously till the day I die.
I wonder if anyone will listen to it.
Saturday, May 10, 2008
A Little Something for the Ladies
This is a different night than one I am used to. Its dark in this living room, and I look out the window at palm trees that are black, and a sky that is a deep and dark purple. I have pulsing music playing on this little laptop, and a tiny child sits on the sofa.
I’m baby-sitting Elise, while my sister and her boyfriend celebrate his birthday. Tomorrow is Mothers Day. I never bothered with it before, and I don’t care for it now. The first Mothers day I ever cared to remember began with Pancakes and Emma by my side, and ended with the demise of my relationship. My family began to fall apart on Mothers day.
Funny.
I grew up with women. My mother, single and crazy and constantly looking for something better. My older sister growing and stumbling through life discovering that her father was a lie, her family was something strange and foreign. My little sister being raised by an 8-year-old boy who knew nothing of the world except that as long as his sister had food, and was in bed when Mom got home everything would be okay, even if I knew it wasn’t.
Latch Key Kids for the win.
On we went, moving constantly and all the time my mother surrounding us with crazy bible thumping older women who raised us on stories of The Lord and how men never treated them right. I was raised on these stories, and smooth jazz, and taught at an early age that a gentleman…
1Walks on the outside of the sidewalk.
2Opens doors.
3Nods, smiles, and acknowledges conversation.
4Leads a good dance.
5Doesn’t really exist, so try not to be too much of a dick when you’re old enough to fuck.
4 out of 5 ain’t bad huh?
I’m not 8 anymore. I act like I am most of the time but times are vastly different than I remember. I like Scotch, I like Red Wine, I hate crowds and I like a good smoke now and then (a pack a day is now and then right?). I’m still surrounded and defined by the women around me.
I even made one once.
And my big sister did too.
So did my little sis.
It’s different when you’re surrounded by women who care about you like a brother, a son, a father. It’s different when you never spent your summers under the hood of a car, but at the business end of a mood swing.
How do I say thank you? How do I apologize? How do I say that I am trying to become the standard you all set for me, but I have no idea how to do it? How do I admit I am not the man you want, but the one you got and now I’ve got to make up the difference?
Tonight is different because when I leave this apartment, after Leslie and Jeremy have come home to their child sleeping soundly in her bed I won’t know where to go. I could go home but why? I could go out but for what? I don’t know if I will sit at this computer writing nonsensical things, or uploading photos, or if I am going out to see if a friend or to feels like drinking themselves silly.
I woke up this morning with someone next to me. I looked at the ceiling and out my dirty windows while music played in my speakers. I lost myself in thought for a moment. I remembered things.
Somber, pulsing music from across the pond played me into a daze as I remembered where I was when we first picked up the album and talked about its simple but honest guitars, and soulful voice.
My companion asked me what was wrong, and nothing was but I was in thought.
I remembered the beginning of my adult life.
Leaving home angry.
Sitting with my sister and some friends for an evening drinking a bottle of Tequila into oblivion.
Driving up the 5 freeway to San Francisco while Emma grew in Vanessa’s belly.
This is the album I began to grow up to. It wasn’t punk and it wasn’t unusual but it meant something to me, and it played me to San Francisco. It played me to Erich’s Funeral and back home. It played Emma to sleep more nights than she will ever remember.
It played this morning and it didn’t stop until I got here to carry Elise to her bed. I put it on and began to write.
Tomorrow marks the beginning of the end for me. It marks the beginning of a new person that was born of me on that day.
I’m uglier on the inside. Angrier. I’m something else that wasn’t what was surgically removed from my mother’s womb. I am not the little ball of fat that my mothers friends used to dance with. I am not the exceptional young man with good manners and a gift for art.
I am not what I want to be.
I am nothing like I think I should be.
Today when Leslie kissed and told me she loves me and misses me and she’s so happy her bother is here it struck me that it doesn’t matter to me what I am. As long as the women in my life know how much I love them.
The little girls, the nieces and daughters and mothers.
If it weren’t for you I would be nothing.
I love you.
I’m baby-sitting Elise, while my sister and her boyfriend celebrate his birthday. Tomorrow is Mothers Day. I never bothered with it before, and I don’t care for it now. The first Mothers day I ever cared to remember began with Pancakes and Emma by my side, and ended with the demise of my relationship. My family began to fall apart on Mothers day.
Funny.
I grew up with women. My mother, single and crazy and constantly looking for something better. My older sister growing and stumbling through life discovering that her father was a lie, her family was something strange and foreign. My little sister being raised by an 8-year-old boy who knew nothing of the world except that as long as his sister had food, and was in bed when Mom got home everything would be okay, even if I knew it wasn’t.
Latch Key Kids for the win.
On we went, moving constantly and all the time my mother surrounding us with crazy bible thumping older women who raised us on stories of The Lord and how men never treated them right. I was raised on these stories, and smooth jazz, and taught at an early age that a gentleman…
1Walks on the outside of the sidewalk.
2Opens doors.
3Nods, smiles, and acknowledges conversation.
4Leads a good dance.
5Doesn’t really exist, so try not to be too much of a dick when you’re old enough to fuck.
4 out of 5 ain’t bad huh?
I’m not 8 anymore. I act like I am most of the time but times are vastly different than I remember. I like Scotch, I like Red Wine, I hate crowds and I like a good smoke now and then (a pack a day is now and then right?). I’m still surrounded and defined by the women around me.
I even made one once.
And my big sister did too.
So did my little sis.
It’s different when you’re surrounded by women who care about you like a brother, a son, a father. It’s different when you never spent your summers under the hood of a car, but at the business end of a mood swing.
How do I say thank you? How do I apologize? How do I say that I am trying to become the standard you all set for me, but I have no idea how to do it? How do I admit I am not the man you want, but the one you got and now I’ve got to make up the difference?
Tonight is different because when I leave this apartment, after Leslie and Jeremy have come home to their child sleeping soundly in her bed I won’t know where to go. I could go home but why? I could go out but for what? I don’t know if I will sit at this computer writing nonsensical things, or uploading photos, or if I am going out to see if a friend or to feels like drinking themselves silly.
I woke up this morning with someone next to me. I looked at the ceiling and out my dirty windows while music played in my speakers. I lost myself in thought for a moment. I remembered things.
Somber, pulsing music from across the pond played me into a daze as I remembered where I was when we first picked up the album and talked about its simple but honest guitars, and soulful voice.
My companion asked me what was wrong, and nothing was but I was in thought.
I remembered the beginning of my adult life.
Leaving home angry.
Sitting with my sister and some friends for an evening drinking a bottle of Tequila into oblivion.
Driving up the 5 freeway to San Francisco while Emma grew in Vanessa’s belly.
This is the album I began to grow up to. It wasn’t punk and it wasn’t unusual but it meant something to me, and it played me to San Francisco. It played me to Erich’s Funeral and back home. It played Emma to sleep more nights than she will ever remember.
It played this morning and it didn’t stop until I got here to carry Elise to her bed. I put it on and began to write.
Tomorrow marks the beginning of the end for me. It marks the beginning of a new person that was born of me on that day.
I’m uglier on the inside. Angrier. I’m something else that wasn’t what was surgically removed from my mother’s womb. I am not the little ball of fat that my mothers friends used to dance with. I am not the exceptional young man with good manners and a gift for art.
I am not what I want to be.
I am nothing like I think I should be.
Today when Leslie kissed and told me she loves me and misses me and she’s so happy her bother is here it struck me that it doesn’t matter to me what I am. As long as the women in my life know how much I love them.
The little girls, the nieces and daughters and mothers.
If it weren’t for you I would be nothing.
I love you.
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