With you so happy

My parents left this morning, well, they didn't actually leave the region yet as they left for the airport at 6:30 for the 9:30 flight, lest there are some catastrophic delays on the 10 minute drive.
So, all bets are not off that something may step in and cancel the flight and bring them back to my house.
It will take me weeks to find everything my mom hid and or moved. Jack couldn't find his trumpet this morning and I have to assume she found a better place for that as well.
Every time they leave, we have a decompression session with laughs, tears and accusations. I'm always hoping that my children will realize how lucky they are that their mom overcame so much, or at least is better suited at parenting; however I think that they are actually just waiting for me to become the newer more efficient version, 2.o if you will.

It's a supernatural delight

Going to Coventry, and eating at Tommy's yesterday, I'm reminded of the 70's and what a very ugly time period that was. There was a store called Cargo, which is now City Buddha and then there was Bill Jones leather which always reminded me of a scrawny leather vest clad drunk guy. The thing about Coventry, is it may have that annoying stuck in time aspect, but that it remains a viable alternative for a mall hungry populous gives some comfort.

The horse knows the way

Charvez says that Jacob loves his life here and that she was amazed at his attitude about his family. The thing is, I can see what a remarkable person he is, it's just that he doesn't like to be that way around me. Last night he left the house to go to a friends and took our phone, and I'm not talking about the mobile, attached to his belt. In addition, there are " Carpet beetles, fleas, and mice in my house though, that's all news to all of us here other than my mother, chief exterminator.

Hold the phone

My parents are coming in tonight. The house is in ready mode, the liquor hidden, the papers that would be rifled through put away from prying eyes. And, after having watched Grey Gardens yesterday, maybe feeling a little better about familiar relationships. It was kind of like watching a Tennessee Williams play without the southern gothic. The thing that struck me the deepest, something I haven't seen for an awfully long time, was that it was as close to a documentary as it could possibly get, in fact, I'll bandy about CinemaVerite' for the first time in twenty years.
It's good to be made uncomfortable, not for an extended period of time, but long enough to make you realize that there is something not so bad about your own situation. So, as the holiday season approaches, I'll remember that the visit into madness is brief. Now, if only I can find the phone which Eamon hid because he's nucking futs.

In touch with the modern world

If you marry, or date someone who is from a completely different culture, and paradigm, some of the contrasting experiences provide much irony in a future time and place.
Eamon was the first child in his family born here in the glorious usofa. His older siblings were all born in Ireland. At the start of our relationship, his mom was ill with Pleurisy. I mocked him and said that it was a made up Irish disease. I now have duel citizenship. Yup, the chest pain I've been feeling isn't just pneumonia, but a nice case of the fictional Hibernian affliction.

A shot in the arm

The youngin is home sick today with a cold. He's all thick in the chest and obviously would be miserable sitting in a classroom. So, instead he's at home alone for the morning because I have to work. I'll be home in a few hours, yet it still reeks of abandonment; which is probably the hugest issue I have in the world.
My parents were both dedicated to their careers to the degree that anxiety was the only emotion they eventually could really share. If I was sick, which was a common occurrence, I would be left at home with a 2liter of diet rite cola and that would be the extent of my care.
I put a drink in a travel cup for Jack and it opened up and spilled all over the floor. So, his 2 liter is a now a bottle of gatorade and a power bar, I reckon, that's at least one better.

When the world seems to shine

I worked at Jack's school last week, they had a book sale and it was full of wonderful stuff that no one could possibly need and then they had some books.
So, I sat there and sold things to kids who had wads of cash and blank checks for stuff they really didn't want but bought anyway. There were a few girls that looked so emaciated they seemed deformed. I'm not being facetious or sarcastic. These girls were so thin they looked as if they had Osteoporosis. I have to think I'm not the only one who has noticed the oddness of young women being so thin and wearing such exceedingly tight cloths. Are there Moms living with the same delusions about size and shape that they can accept this as normal or reasonable for a child to be starving in order to feel socially acceptable.
I had no one to talk to there, but if there had been a conversation, I'm betting I would be the only one who saw something that, as far as I'm concerned was a problem. I've struggled with weight issues forever, really, who hasn't, but when it consumes your entirety at 12 what else can you expect out of life but for a hollow and superficial connection.

Feel the noise

Vocalizing is a primal and uncompromising aspect of human and animal culture. When I go to an event, I tend to be alert to the hum of voices and or screaming, chanting; the general sounds of a crowd fascinate me. Indeed, they annoy me as well, especially the high shrieks that are universally acceptable responses from many girls and women.
When we were in Japan, there was a group of "Housewives" that I taught on Saturday mornings, we could be going along with a lesson and if perhaps the male director of the school walked by or came into the classroom, all of their voices would get high and childlike in his presence. This is something that repeated itself in other settings and Eamon and I found it to be both humorous and fascinating. People and animals just make a lot of noise. Playgrounds are another place where the din and random calls and yells sound much like a forest or jungle.
Whether we are aware of it, the need to make noise is probably something we have little control over. The real issue is knowing when to shut the fuck up.

Into the Future

I guess it took another sex scandal to get people out to vote. Too bad it wasn't the loss of life in Iraq and or the crumbling of our economic, social and judicial infrastructure.
I had a dream last night; I saw people I knew and then I sort of lost them in a crowd, had to ask a few people who speculated on where they might have gone and then I woke to the jolt of am radio on Eamon's hand-me-down from Jack, Spongebob SquarePants clock radio with the aforementioned bob missing from his perch.

It could be anywhere

POV, Frontline, Nature, all of these programs are on PBS and are as good as it can get when it comes to political and social documentaries being made outside of the private sector .
Okay, so most of the time it's an accident that I get an opportunity to watch one of these shows, last night it was Nature: Chimpanzees, an unnatural history. But I do look for Frontline, because even since the Gulf war, it is a venue closer to reality in terms of an actual perspective than most any other news show.
They have had to battle with the GOP these last few years, yet somehow and I kind of like the mystery, somehow the programming remains dare I say honest and insightful. Nothing on cable TV compares and that's swell in that information that matters, should always be free and the less it costs, the more valuable it is. Right!

Remember, remember the fifth of November The gunpowder treason and plot.I see no reason why gunpowder treason Should ever be forgot.

Like a stone

There is something very liberating about dressing in costume, perhaps for some it feels like what it is to be drunk and uninhibited. Taking on a new identity, surprising people, leaning if you will, against the parameters we set up in our cultural or social strata. Even sitting behind a desk or standing behind a counter is a costume, it's an identity shift from regular person to someone who has a role to play that is very specific.
I have realized that sometimes you have to channel people who can accomplish stuff that feels out of the question for yourself. Actually Eamon taught me to do it when he worked with a guy at a residential facility for troubled youth. His friend was getting his MSW and would just plow through his work. No, getting up for a snack, stretching, calling someone. He would just sit down and truck his way through a paper. So, as Eamon finishing up his degree, he thought himself into that mind set by being this guy. And, it worked. So now I do it when I'm stuck on something that has that insurmountable feel, Like say getting up every day.