Paper writing makes me gloomy. I'm one down, two to go at this point. I finished my paper on Leonardo. What talent, too bad there is barely anything on this Earth left from his genius hand. It was between Leonardo and Michelangelo, and I have no doubt that Leonardo was the more genius of the two, and that Michelangelo was probably a psychopath and definitely a narcisist, so he doesn't really deserve my words.
I've been in a Billie Holiday mood ever since Hillary left yesterday. I'm just about the most pathetic creature there ever was. I was not at all homesick until Hillary got here, and now I can't stop thinking about home. Everything about it makes me giddy.
I'm going to miss London though, it's such a dreamy place. I'm going to miss the way the lights in Piccadilly Circus reflect in the glittery pavement after a gentle London rain. I'm going to miss meandering through the halls of the National Gallery, or sitting on the steps of Trafalgar Square, staring out over Parliament, Big Ben and the Eye. I'm going to miss the plays and the musicals and how you're never too far from home in London. I am far from my home though, my real home, my creaky hardwood floors and my soft mattress, with the permeating smell of cats and rabbits and dogs and people all intermingling, with a warm cup of tea sitting beside the green chair in the living room. I miss traipsing into the house with my best friends at 10 pm, greeting my tired mother and taking over the living room of the basement, having tea parties or hot chocolate parties or pizza or everything in sight. The house feels so right when all my friends are there, because they're like a family to me. My family is so small, just me and my mom, and my best friends really make me feel like I have bunches of other sisters (and my brother Rob of course).
There's nothing in this world more pleasant to me than to be sitting in my living room, surrounded by my friends and my mom, drinking tea and talking or watching a movie.
I think when I get home, I'm going to hold on to those last few days in the house with all of my heart and all of my soul and make it last forever before I move to the apartment and everything changes. I'm ready for change, I just hope I remember what it feels like to be in my little brown house, surrounded by the best friends in the world and my mom, and to know that there is nothing better.
Showing posts with label Friends. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Friends. Show all posts
Monday, November 30, 2009
Thursday, August 27, 2009
On Pet-Dumping
I was browsing Craigslist (I frequent the pet section, because I'm hopelessly addicted to animals and I always convince myself that somehow I can help the person out who is looking to rehome their cute little bunny) when I came across this post and it really resonated with me. Pass this along if you feel so inclined, and be sure to give credit where credit is due. I take no credit for the following, I simply say bravo to you, M. Clark (whoever you may be) for saying so eloquently what I feel every day of my life. A commitment is a commitment and a family member is a family member and it is our responsiblity as higher forms of life (as it were...) to care for the lower forms of life, and to treat them with respect and dignity.
On Pet-Dumping
I recently read an online article called "Why You Can't Afford a Dog." The author encouraged families facing financial difficulties to consider the money-saving move of giving up their dog. After all, feeding a dog and providing veterinary care cost an average of $800 per year, and times are tight. The author encouraged dog owners to find temporary foster care for their animals – though what sort of temporary foster care she imagines exists for dogs, I don't know - or to surrender them to already-overcrowded shelters where euthanasia is common.
I was horrified.
I was a dog-loving child. The emotions I felt for my dog were, in my tender years, akin to the emotions adults feel for their babies. I recall two primary fears in early adolescence: the premature death of a parent or sibling, and the inevitable death of my dog. I would have chosen to move to a smaller house, share a bedroom with my two sisters, and never buy another record album before I would have chosen to give up my dog. Fortunately for me, my parents understood that. Once, in my adulthood, my mother said, "I never understood people who would take their children's pets away. What message does that send?"
I can't imagine a parent who wants this to be the message they teach their children: that family members are disposable; that when they become inconvenient, we just throw them away; that material things are more important than living things.
Thinking about taking your dog to the shelter? Consider this before you go.
Things You Should Give Up Before You Abandon the Pet You Promised to Love and Protect:
1. Premium cable TV: $100 - $150/month
Standard cable TV: $39.99 per month.
Cheapo, local-only cable: $10.40/month.
No cable: $0.00 per month.
What you can buy for your dog with your savings:
Taste of the Wild Grain-Free Kibble (high-end!): $38 for a 30-lb bag, which feeds a medium-sized dog for 2 – 3 months.
2. Gym membership: $480/year
Walking up and down the hills of your local park one to two hours per day, plus tossing a stick, playing tug of war, and wrestling with your dog: $0
What you can buy for your dog with your savings:
"Basic Manners" and "Beginning Agility" classes to help him become a better doggie citizen.
3. Cell Phone Plans: $600 per year (low-end) to $1800 per year (high-end, with texting, etc.)
TracFone service: $60/year (Low-end, minimal calling – seriously, that's what I spend, with minutes left over.)
What you can buy for your dog with your savings:
Average healthy-dog veterinary care: $300 - $500/year.
4. Music for your two teenagers:
300 downloads from iTunes: $387 X 2 = $774
Medium-quality iPod: $100 X 2 = $200
Total = $974
Allowing the teenagers to baby-sit and rake leaves until they can afford their own music: $0. (And actually, let's throw in a net gain of, say, $500 for the invaluable lessons about delayed gratification, hard work, and knowing that it's a tough, cold world where Mommy and Daddy won't bail them out all the time.)
What you can buy for your dog with your savings:
Emergency surgery, stitching up, antibiotics, and follow-up care for a hypothetical dog - not my dog; he's not that dumb! - who hypothetically runs into a stick while frolicking in the woods, stabbing himself in the chest: $800.
5. New Honda CR-V: $23,500; use for 5 years = $4,700/year
5-year-old Toyota Corolla: $8,995; use for 5 years = $1799/year.
What you can buy for your dog with your savings: Wow! You can take in grandma's Yorkie, and make him a friend for your dog. Then Grandma can still see him sometimes, even though she's moving into an assisted living community. That will make her so happy!
6. Your Credit Cards: Cost on a $10,000 balance at 10% = $13,777 over 16 years
Cost on a 10,000 balance at 20% = 22,241 over 25 years.
Cost of buying something with $10,000 cash: $10,000.
What you can buy for your dog and Grandma's dog with your savings:
Fur coats, caviar, manicures, and spa treatments.
If you love your children, show them that you honor your commitments. Teach them that we care for the less powerful gently and with compassion. There are always smaller houses, smaller cars, and less expensive food. There is never, never another family member to replace a pet carelessly tossed away.
Copyright 2009 by M. Clark
On Pet-Dumping
I recently read an online article called "Why You Can't Afford a Dog." The author encouraged families facing financial difficulties to consider the money-saving move of giving up their dog. After all, feeding a dog and providing veterinary care cost an average of $800 per year, and times are tight. The author encouraged dog owners to find temporary foster care for their animals – though what sort of temporary foster care she imagines exists for dogs, I don't know - or to surrender them to already-overcrowded shelters where euthanasia is common.
I was horrified.
I was a dog-loving child. The emotions I felt for my dog were, in my tender years, akin to the emotions adults feel for their babies. I recall two primary fears in early adolescence: the premature death of a parent or sibling, and the inevitable death of my dog. I would have chosen to move to a smaller house, share a bedroom with my two sisters, and never buy another record album before I would have chosen to give up my dog. Fortunately for me, my parents understood that. Once, in my adulthood, my mother said, "I never understood people who would take their children's pets away. What message does that send?"
I can't imagine a parent who wants this to be the message they teach their children: that family members are disposable; that when they become inconvenient, we just throw them away; that material things are more important than living things.
Thinking about taking your dog to the shelter? Consider this before you go.
Things You Should Give Up Before You Abandon the Pet You Promised to Love and Protect:
1. Premium cable TV: $100 - $150/month
Standard cable TV: $39.99 per month.
Cheapo, local-only cable: $10.40/month.
No cable: $0.00 per month.
What you can buy for your dog with your savings:
Taste of the Wild Grain-Free Kibble (high-end!): $38 for a 30-lb bag, which feeds a medium-sized dog for 2 – 3 months.
2. Gym membership: $480/year
Walking up and down the hills of your local park one to two hours per day, plus tossing a stick, playing tug of war, and wrestling with your dog: $0
What you can buy for your dog with your savings:
"Basic Manners" and "Beginning Agility" classes to help him become a better doggie citizen.
3. Cell Phone Plans: $600 per year (low-end) to $1800 per year (high-end, with texting, etc.)
TracFone service: $60/year (Low-end, minimal calling – seriously, that's what I spend, with minutes left over.)
What you can buy for your dog with your savings:
Average healthy-dog veterinary care: $300 - $500/year.
4. Music for your two teenagers:
300 downloads from iTunes: $387 X 2 = $774
Medium-quality iPod: $100 X 2 = $200
Total = $974
Allowing the teenagers to baby-sit and rake leaves until they can afford their own music: $0. (And actually, let's throw in a net gain of, say, $500 for the invaluable lessons about delayed gratification, hard work, and knowing that it's a tough, cold world where Mommy and Daddy won't bail them out all the time.)
What you can buy for your dog with your savings:
Emergency surgery, stitching up, antibiotics, and follow-up care for a hypothetical dog - not my dog; he's not that dumb! - who hypothetically runs into a stick while frolicking in the woods, stabbing himself in the chest: $800.
5. New Honda CR-V: $23,500; use for 5 years = $4,700/year
5-year-old Toyota Corolla: $8,995; use for 5 years = $1799/year.
What you can buy for your dog with your savings: Wow! You can take in grandma's Yorkie, and make him a friend for your dog. Then Grandma can still see him sometimes, even though she's moving into an assisted living community. That will make her so happy!
6. Your Credit Cards: Cost on a $10,000 balance at 10% = $13,777 over 16 years
Cost on a 10,000 balance at 20% = 22,241 over 25 years.
Cost of buying something with $10,000 cash: $10,000.
What you can buy for your dog and Grandma's dog with your savings:
Fur coats, caviar, manicures, and spa treatments.
If you love your children, show them that you honor your commitments. Teach them that we care for the less powerful gently and with compassion. There are always smaller houses, smaller cars, and less expensive food. There is never, never another family member to replace a pet carelessly tossed away.
Copyright 2009 by M. Clark
Thursday, August 20, 2009
A Week and Five Days!!
Finally some good weather! It took freakin long enough for it to get here, but it's here and it is glorious, but it is going away on Sunday so I'm hanging on to it with every fiber of my being.
We're going to... you guessed it... PTOWN! this weekend! I'm so excited. I love nowhere else on this Earth the way that I love Provincetown. I'm sure there will be pictures after the weekend.
Two weeks from today I'll be in London, and I will have been there for two days! It's so surreal... I can hardly believe that just a few months ago studying abroad was a fleeting thought and now all of a sudden it's here and it's real and my suitcases are empty and glaring at me from across the room (they're saying "Rachel, you really can't put off packing us much longer..."). I'm going to miss everyone from home so much, and all of my college friends. A lot of my friends are seniors this year and I'm missing one whole half of their senior year. I'm missing four months of my little kitten's young life. I'm missing my one year anniversary with Hillary, apartment hunting and quality time.
I'm not too concerned about missing our one year because Hill knows that I love her and that every moment we have together is a gift, months and years don't matter, rather the most important aspect is the amount of love and happiness that fills those months and years. I'll miss her sleep breathing and setting the alarm clock fifteen minutes later and pulling her in to my arms for just a little bit longer. I'll miss playing with her hair on car rides while she drives. I'll miss climbing mountains with her and visiting my nieces and nephew with her and going out to dinner and holding hands under the table and going to the movies and putting my arm around her and letting her head rest on my shoulder. I'll probably even miss arguing with her over trivial things, things I only pick fights about because I know in the end she will still love me, if I thought for a minute she would stop loving me I would never argue about anything. She's a one of a kind kinda girl, and this is a one of a kind kinda love.
I'll miss all my friends from home, but I always miss them anyways. Kate and Natasha are so wrapped up in school and their new lives that I hardly ever see them anyway. I feel kind of like they don't appreciate the fact that I'm going to be 3,000 miles away for nearly four months and that they won't see me or likely talk to me for that amount of time. But I supposed, at this stage in our lives, I'm really only of use to them when they're home from school (if I'm home from school at the same time). I'll send them a postcard or two, but they won't understand that I miss them and that I love them, because they don't miss me and I'd venture to say that they don't love me anymore. It's all growing up though, I s'pose.
Molly and Rob and Jaime are all different stories. Rob and Jaime work all the time, and it's difficult to coordinate hanging out with them. I do feel, though, that they miss me when I'm not around and that they love me and that they appreciate the distance and length of time I will be away. Molly is the one person out of all of my friends from home who I am sure will miss me and appreciates that I will be gone for a long time and that I will be virtually unreachable a great deal of the time. If I retain a relationship with any of these people, I believe Molly will be the one with whom I still have a strong relationship in the coming years, even when I move to MA.
I'll miss my family, even though I don't see them as often as I would like, at least I know that if I need anything they are a phone call away for the most part. I visited my grandmother on Nantucket last Friday, and even though my grandmother remembers me as a 13 year old, she does recognize me (although she is shocked that I am as tall as I am, since the last time she remembers seeing me I was in rollerblades and overalls, speeding around the parking lot in her retirement community), but it's incredibly depressing to have a member of your family with Alzheimers. I needed to see her, though, because the last time I saw her was Thanksgiving two years ago, and if she were to die while I was in London I would never forgive myself for not seeing her in two years.
My mother will be the one who misses me the most, I am sure. She likes to pretend that she is okay without me, and she is, but I know she misses me and my crazy antics and she will find it strange that I don't call her in the afternoons when I know she is headed home just so we can shoot the breeze for a few minutes. She'll have difficulty not driving to my school on Saturday afternoons to pick me up and take me out to dinner or to take the T in the Boston with me to go to a museum. She'll worry about me constantly until my feet are planted safely on the ground on December 20th at Logan. It makes me feel good to know that she cares, but at the same time I worry that I am the cause of her suddenly more grey hair.
I'll try to blog often while I'm in Europe, and I'll try to have significantly more pictures than I usually do. This is the chance of a lifetime, I'm so glad to have this wonderful opportunity and I can't wait to share my experiences with everyone!
We're going to... you guessed it... PTOWN! this weekend! I'm so excited. I love nowhere else on this Earth the way that I love Provincetown. I'm sure there will be pictures after the weekend.
Two weeks from today I'll be in London, and I will have been there for two days! It's so surreal... I can hardly believe that just a few months ago studying abroad was a fleeting thought and now all of a sudden it's here and it's real and my suitcases are empty and glaring at me from across the room (they're saying "Rachel, you really can't put off packing us much longer..."). I'm going to miss everyone from home so much, and all of my college friends. A lot of my friends are seniors this year and I'm missing one whole half of their senior year. I'm missing four months of my little kitten's young life. I'm missing my one year anniversary with Hillary, apartment hunting and quality time.
I'm not too concerned about missing our one year because Hill knows that I love her and that every moment we have together is a gift, months and years don't matter, rather the most important aspect is the amount of love and happiness that fills those months and years. I'll miss her sleep breathing and setting the alarm clock fifteen minutes later and pulling her in to my arms for just a little bit longer. I'll miss playing with her hair on car rides while she drives. I'll miss climbing mountains with her and visiting my nieces and nephew with her and going out to dinner and holding hands under the table and going to the movies and putting my arm around her and letting her head rest on my shoulder. I'll probably even miss arguing with her over trivial things, things I only pick fights about because I know in the end she will still love me, if I thought for a minute she would stop loving me I would never argue about anything. She's a one of a kind kinda girl, and this is a one of a kind kinda love.
I'll miss all my friends from home, but I always miss them anyways. Kate and Natasha are so wrapped up in school and their new lives that I hardly ever see them anyway. I feel kind of like they don't appreciate the fact that I'm going to be 3,000 miles away for nearly four months and that they won't see me or likely talk to me for that amount of time. But I supposed, at this stage in our lives, I'm really only of use to them when they're home from school (if I'm home from school at the same time). I'll send them a postcard or two, but they won't understand that I miss them and that I love them, because they don't miss me and I'd venture to say that they don't love me anymore. It's all growing up though, I s'pose.
Molly and Rob and Jaime are all different stories. Rob and Jaime work all the time, and it's difficult to coordinate hanging out with them. I do feel, though, that they miss me when I'm not around and that they love me and that they appreciate the distance and length of time I will be away. Molly is the one person out of all of my friends from home who I am sure will miss me and appreciates that I will be gone for a long time and that I will be virtually unreachable a great deal of the time. If I retain a relationship with any of these people, I believe Molly will be the one with whom I still have a strong relationship in the coming years, even when I move to MA.
I'll miss my family, even though I don't see them as often as I would like, at least I know that if I need anything they are a phone call away for the most part. I visited my grandmother on Nantucket last Friday, and even though my grandmother remembers me as a 13 year old, she does recognize me (although she is shocked that I am as tall as I am, since the last time she remembers seeing me I was in rollerblades and overalls, speeding around the parking lot in her retirement community), but it's incredibly depressing to have a member of your family with Alzheimers. I needed to see her, though, because the last time I saw her was Thanksgiving two years ago, and if she were to die while I was in London I would never forgive myself for not seeing her in two years.
My mother will be the one who misses me the most, I am sure. She likes to pretend that she is okay without me, and she is, but I know she misses me and my crazy antics and she will find it strange that I don't call her in the afternoons when I know she is headed home just so we can shoot the breeze for a few minutes. She'll have difficulty not driving to my school on Saturday afternoons to pick me up and take me out to dinner or to take the T in the Boston with me to go to a museum. She'll worry about me constantly until my feet are planted safely on the ground on December 20th at Logan. It makes me feel good to know that she cares, but at the same time I worry that I am the cause of her suddenly more grey hair.
I'll try to blog often while I'm in Europe, and I'll try to have significantly more pictures than I usually do. This is the chance of a lifetime, I'm so glad to have this wonderful opportunity and I can't wait to share my experiences with everyone!
Sunday, January 18, 2009
The Best Days of Our Lives
On Friday we piled into Jaimes car and headed on the two hour journey from Connecticut to Boston, complete with sleeping bags, pillows, blankets, and scrabble. I can't do a step by step of what happened, because although it would be thoroughly entertaining, it would be about a year long. So, I'm going to highlight some of the most hilarious things that occured on this little trip to Boston.
Kate and Molly sat in the back seat, while Jaime drove and I sat in the passenger seat (because I'm the coolest and I always get shotty). As soon as Jaime started driving, the two in the back whipped out scrabble, not travel scrabble but legit scrabble, and proceeded to open the board, distribute seven letters each, and play. It was just... too funny for words. Every time Jaime changed lanes or tapped the brakes the pieces slid all over the place.
We went to Barnes and Noble near the Pru and I went to get a cup of tea at the coffee shop in the store. The chick behind the counter told me I could get a discount if I used my B&N card, which I didn't have on me, so I asked if she could look up my card. So she looked it up by phone number, but she didn't use the area code so obviously it wasn't going to work (freakin dumb) and then she tried my email address. I told her the address, and "at cox dot net" and she looked at me with a super perplexed face and said "How do you spell cox?"
*cue laughter*
She turned so many shades of red when I said it was spelt c-o-x and she was like "uh uh uh we don't have it on record uh uh uh sorry uh uh uh I don't know of any other way you would spell cox." It was so funny.
There was a woman in the science museum who looked exactly like Kate (Kate is super Asian), like exactly like her. They could have been twins, it was actually kind of scary. We were all wandering around in different places and I guess Jaime went up to this woman, thinking it was Kate, and started talking to her. The woman looked at Jaime like she had three heads and Jaime was like "Oh.. you're not Kate." Too funny.
They have a part of the x-ray exhibit at the science museum where you feel boobs to see if you can find the lump. Like... you feel these anatomically accurate boobs. The science museum was awesome.
There were baby chicks in one of the exhibits, and eggs that were hatching! It was beautiful and I definitely was tempted to steal some of the chicks cause they were adorable.
Kate couldn't reach the handrails on the T so she had to hold on to Natasha, and after that we referred to Kate as abuela (actually we called her al-bu-la in reference to the fact that my mother, everybodys favourite of course, can't pronounce abuela and it's funnier that way) and walked around Boston saying "Grandma you're gonna be late for mah-jong!" It makes me weepy with giggles just thinking about how much of a ruckus we cause everywhere we go.
Those girls are the greatest. Sleeping on Natasha's floor wasn't even that bad, it was actually the most comfortable floor I've ever slept on before, and I was surrounded by my best friends in the whole world. We stayed up until four am reminisching about the past... fourteenish years we've shared together. I hadn't forgotten what a big part of my life these girls are, I just needed to be reminded. I never realised how much of my life I've shared with them, how many memories we have together. I really love them a lot, and I miss them when I'm at school. But our relationships with one and other are changing and it's okay, as scary as it is it's okay. We won't always be able to drop everything and go on roadtrips, or pile into cars and visit each other wherever we are in this country or this world. Someday soon we'll have families, and real jobs, and real responsibilities.
It's wonderful, for now, to be able to be with them, and to be reminded of how important we are to each other.
Kate and Molly sat in the back seat, while Jaime drove and I sat in the passenger seat (because I'm the coolest and I always get shotty). As soon as Jaime started driving, the two in the back whipped out scrabble, not travel scrabble but legit scrabble, and proceeded to open the board, distribute seven letters each, and play. It was just... too funny for words. Every time Jaime changed lanes or tapped the brakes the pieces slid all over the place.
We went to Barnes and Noble near the Pru and I went to get a cup of tea at the coffee shop in the store. The chick behind the counter told me I could get a discount if I used my B&N card, which I didn't have on me, so I asked if she could look up my card. So she looked it up by phone number, but she didn't use the area code so obviously it wasn't going to work (freakin dumb) and then she tried my email address. I told her the address, and "at cox dot net" and she looked at me with a super perplexed face and said "How do you spell cox?"
*cue laughter*
She turned so many shades of red when I said it was spelt c-o-x and she was like "uh uh uh we don't have it on record uh uh uh sorry uh uh uh I don't know of any other way you would spell cox." It was so funny.
There was a woman in the science museum who looked exactly like Kate (Kate is super Asian), like exactly like her. They could have been twins, it was actually kind of scary. We were all wandering around in different places and I guess Jaime went up to this woman, thinking it was Kate, and started talking to her. The woman looked at Jaime like she had three heads and Jaime was like "Oh.. you're not Kate." Too funny.
They have a part of the x-ray exhibit at the science museum where you feel boobs to see if you can find the lump. Like... you feel these anatomically accurate boobs. The science museum was awesome.
There were baby chicks in one of the exhibits, and eggs that were hatching! It was beautiful and I definitely was tempted to steal some of the chicks cause they were adorable.
Kate couldn't reach the handrails on the T so she had to hold on to Natasha, and after that we referred to Kate as abuela (actually we called her al-bu-la in reference to the fact that my mother, everybodys favourite of course, can't pronounce abuela and it's funnier that way) and walked around Boston saying "Grandma you're gonna be late for mah-jong!" It makes me weepy with giggles just thinking about how much of a ruckus we cause everywhere we go.
Those girls are the greatest. Sleeping on Natasha's floor wasn't even that bad, it was actually the most comfortable floor I've ever slept on before, and I was surrounded by my best friends in the whole world. We stayed up until four am reminisching about the past... fourteenish years we've shared together. I hadn't forgotten what a big part of my life these girls are, I just needed to be reminded. I never realised how much of my life I've shared with them, how many memories we have together. I really love them a lot, and I miss them when I'm at school. But our relationships with one and other are changing and it's okay, as scary as it is it's okay. We won't always be able to drop everything and go on roadtrips, or pile into cars and visit each other wherever we are in this country or this world. Someday soon we'll have families, and real jobs, and real responsibilities.
It's wonderful, for now, to be able to be with them, and to be reminded of how important we are to each other.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Fried Green Tomatoes
The trip to DC was basically uneventful. I drove home yesterday (it takes about two hours from school to home) and then we drove all the way back up today to Framingham to take the Logan Express in to Logan. The flight was very short and very uneventful. We were right on the wing so I had to lean really far back into the person behind me or get on top of the person in front of me in order to look out the window (which I did, cause I have no shame).
I finally finished Fried Green Tomatoes while at the airport waiting to leave this evening. I don't get much time for leisure reading but when I have the opportunity I take full advantage of it.
My God, what a good book. I feel like I've never read anything like it before. I feel like my heart hasn't ached so badly for something to not be over in a very long time. I remember the same ache when I finished The Last Battle in the sixth grade and I cried for a week, not because all of the kids on those beautiful pages I had known and loved for an entire summer had all died in a train crash after seven books (I'm refering to The Chronicles of Narnia in case you are unfamiliar) but because it was over. The magic was over. Sure I can (and do) reread the Narnia stories, but there is something different about reading them as a child, and there is something absent when you reread a story. The mystery is dead, you turn a page and it is the same as the last time you turned it.
The point is, I am very achey right now after having finished Fried Green Tomatoes. It might not have been a good idea for me to read it around Thanksgiving, either, because now I am not only aching at the fact that it is over, but I severely miss the old days.
I miss the old neighbourhood, with Grampa Fred and Mary and the tomatoes that grew bright red along the chain link fence, with Miss Bubba and Turbo who would greet me every day after school. Miss Bubba would take me into her arms and hold me like I was her own little girl, and Turbo the little Sheltie would run across the street and shepherd me onto the sidewalk like a good babysitter. Grampa Fred got cancer when I was five. I still remember being ushered into the house to say goodbye to the man who had loved me like a grandfather and seeing all the machines helping to keep him alive for a little while longer. Mary died after we left the old neighbourhood. Daddy always told me she was alive and well, but after he died I found out he had only been lieing to me, to keep me from being too upset. Miss Bubba always smoked like a chimney. I remember bringing her one of my favourite stuffed animals and telling her she could have it, if only she would stop smoking. She took the toy and told me she would do her best. I went back a few years ago to visit her and saw the black and white dalmatian stuffed animal on the back of her couch, and the lingering smell of decades of smoke perfumed the air. But I think she quit, I have to think she quit. I love her so much still, and I know she loved the little red haired girl who would bring her beautiful leaves and art projects from school. I remember running into Mary and Grampa Fred's house, completely uninvited but completely welcome, in search of the peanuts I knew they always had.
My parents told me of the time that a transformer exploded right outside the house and they couldn't get out of the front gate, so they handed me (I was an infant) over the fence to Grampa Fred and Mary to keep me safe. They were the closed people I had to true grandparents, besides my maternal grandmother who has lost all her faculties at this point in time.
I miss Thanksgiving with my family in the old days. Mom and Dad and I would drive up to New Hampshire to my aunt's house and the whole family would be there. My four aunts and their husbands and my uncle and his wife, my eleven cousins and their spouses and their children, and my grandmother if she could make it. There was a kids table, where I sat until I was twelve years old, and then Thanksgiving stopped being a family tradition and I never got to sit with the adults (SUPER upset about that aspect of this whole shenanigan). And then the family drifted apart, and now we are lucky if we see each other sporadically in the span of a year. We all live up and down the East Coast, from New Hampshire and Vermont to North Carolina, Virgina and Florida.
I just want to hold my Mom and Dad's hands and walk into the warm mud room of my aunts house, being greeted by warm smiles and hugs and kisses that make your cheeks raw and red, hugs and kisses that you dread until they are long gone and then you want nothing more in the world than to be hugged and kissed by your family and your neighbors who you can never see again. I'm not a little girl anymore, I can't take my parents in each hand and walk into the bright kitchen and ask my aunt for a glass of tap water and head down the hill to the trampoline with my cousins. I can't get out of the little red Horizon and watch Turbo scamper across the street and greet me with a wagging tail. I can only see those things in my memory, a memory that I cherish so much these days.
I love and miss you all, my family and long lost friends. You made me who I am today, all of you. Happy Thanksgiving, wherever you are.
I finally finished Fried Green Tomatoes while at the airport waiting to leave this evening. I don't get much time for leisure reading but when I have the opportunity I take full advantage of it.
My God, what a good book. I feel like I've never read anything like it before. I feel like my heart hasn't ached so badly for something to not be over in a very long time. I remember the same ache when I finished The Last Battle in the sixth grade and I cried for a week, not because all of the kids on those beautiful pages I had known and loved for an entire summer had all died in a train crash after seven books (I'm refering to The Chronicles of Narnia in case you are unfamiliar) but because it was over. The magic was over. Sure I can (and do) reread the Narnia stories, but there is something different about reading them as a child, and there is something absent when you reread a story. The mystery is dead, you turn a page and it is the same as the last time you turned it.
The point is, I am very achey right now after having finished Fried Green Tomatoes. It might not have been a good idea for me to read it around Thanksgiving, either, because now I am not only aching at the fact that it is over, but I severely miss the old days.
I miss the old neighbourhood, with Grampa Fred and Mary and the tomatoes that grew bright red along the chain link fence, with Miss Bubba and Turbo who would greet me every day after school. Miss Bubba would take me into her arms and hold me like I was her own little girl, and Turbo the little Sheltie would run across the street and shepherd me onto the sidewalk like a good babysitter. Grampa Fred got cancer when I was five. I still remember being ushered into the house to say goodbye to the man who had loved me like a grandfather and seeing all the machines helping to keep him alive for a little while longer. Mary died after we left the old neighbourhood. Daddy always told me she was alive and well, but after he died I found out he had only been lieing to me, to keep me from being too upset. Miss Bubba always smoked like a chimney. I remember bringing her one of my favourite stuffed animals and telling her she could have it, if only she would stop smoking. She took the toy and told me she would do her best. I went back a few years ago to visit her and saw the black and white dalmatian stuffed animal on the back of her couch, and the lingering smell of decades of smoke perfumed the air. But I think she quit, I have to think she quit. I love her so much still, and I know she loved the little red haired girl who would bring her beautiful leaves and art projects from school. I remember running into Mary and Grampa Fred's house, completely uninvited but completely welcome, in search of the peanuts I knew they always had.
My parents told me of the time that a transformer exploded right outside the house and they couldn't get out of the front gate, so they handed me (I was an infant) over the fence to Grampa Fred and Mary to keep me safe. They were the closed people I had to true grandparents, besides my maternal grandmother who has lost all her faculties at this point in time.
I miss Thanksgiving with my family in the old days. Mom and Dad and I would drive up to New Hampshire to my aunt's house and the whole family would be there. My four aunts and their husbands and my uncle and his wife, my eleven cousins and their spouses and their children, and my grandmother if she could make it. There was a kids table, where I sat until I was twelve years old, and then Thanksgiving stopped being a family tradition and I never got to sit with the adults (SUPER upset about that aspect of this whole shenanigan). And then the family drifted apart, and now we are lucky if we see each other sporadically in the span of a year. We all live up and down the East Coast, from New Hampshire and Vermont to North Carolina, Virgina and Florida.
I just want to hold my Mom and Dad's hands and walk into the warm mud room of my aunts house, being greeted by warm smiles and hugs and kisses that make your cheeks raw and red, hugs and kisses that you dread until they are long gone and then you want nothing more in the world than to be hugged and kissed by your family and your neighbors who you can never see again. I'm not a little girl anymore, I can't take my parents in each hand and walk into the bright kitchen and ask my aunt for a glass of tap water and head down the hill to the trampoline with my cousins. I can't get out of the little red Horizon and watch Turbo scamper across the street and greet me with a wagging tail. I can only see those things in my memory, a memory that I cherish so much these days.
I love and miss you all, my family and long lost friends. You made me who I am today, all of you. Happy Thanksgiving, wherever you are.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Camera Wonders
I just plugged my camera into my computer and I am overcome with a desire to post my fvourite pictures on my memory card. I have something near 900 pictures on the memory card, and these are my favorites by far!
Rob and I being amazing
The waves don't care if your bathing suit is coming off, but your best friends think it's HILARIOUS
Puppy!
My friends being awesome on a bridge in central park
Kitty
Kitty at one of our tea parties
Buns!
The pictures make me miss summer, but at least I have a piece of home here with me, and lots and lots of fabulous memories!
Rob and I being amazing
The waves don't care if your bathing suit is coming off, but your best friends think it's HILARIOUS
Puppy!
My friends being awesome on a bridge in central park
Kitty
Kitty at one of our tea parties
Buns!
The pictures make me miss summer, but at least I have a piece of home here with me, and lots and lots of fabulous memories!
Saturday, August 30, 2008
I'm Not Bitter
If I had a nickel for every time I was treated with disrespect because I am (clearly) a lesbian, I think I'd have maybe 10 cents, but that's pushing it. I don't really recall ever being treated differently in any respect because I'm gay, either better or worse.
I guess I never really expected to be treated differently.
All of my friends parents know (basically everyone knows except my mother, but she's not dumb) and they're all cool about it, very cool in fact. When I came out to each of them, nothing in that relationship changed, which is exactly what I had hoped for.
My roommate's entire family knows, and they're basically the best. I love my roommate and her family to pieces. Couldn't ask for a better roommate.
The whole coming out process for me was kind of like "whoa, I got myself all worked up over nothing?"
But then this has to happen, and I wonder to myself "what the fuck?"
The "this" I am referring to is something that one of my very best friends told me the other day. She and I hang out a lot, and a lot of the time we're hanging out with a bunch of our mutual friends. Some of the time we hang out just the two of us, for no reason other than the fact that sometimes it's nice to hang out one on one instead of having to deal with six people all competing for attention. I make one on one time for all my best friends.
Hope you don't mind that I'm telling your story, I know you're reading this right now.
Anywho, so my friend told me that her grandmother (a very old country Roman Catholic) found out that I'm a lesbian (because it was a big fucking secret, obviously) and doesn't want her to hang out with me anymore. "People will get ideas." What the fuck does that even mean? People will get ideas? If people wanted fucking ideas they would use their heads!
I've been friends with this girl for a very long time, I know her family and they know me. AND SHE'S NOT GAY. Does her grandmother honestly think that I'm going to change her? Or that I have any desire to?? And why the hell does she care what people think? The people in this town who know I'm a lesbian, the only people who would potentially talk about it, first of all DON'T MATTER, and second of all wouldn't talk about it because I'M NOT THE ONLY GAY PERSON IN THIS FUCKED UP TOWN.
And then, her little sister who is a friend of mine, basically asked her if she and I were together because we spend so much time together. Are you kidding me? Is this SERIOUSLY happening?
I'm not in high school anymore, I do not need to deal with this sophomoric bullshit.
I don't understand how or why things like this happen. I can't have friends anymore because obviously if I'm friends with a girl it means I'm in a romantic relationship with her? I can't spend time with the same group of girls I've hung around with since elementary school? I would have been a lesbian whether I came out or not, I was always a lesbian. I was a lesbian when I blew out the candles on my seventh birthday cake, I was a lesbian when I kissed a boy for the first time in the fourth grade, I was a lesbian when I walked across the stage at graduation. I have always been and will always be a lesbian. Would society rather that I stay in the closet and continue to suffer? I don't want the answer to that question, and I refuse to believe the truth.
It hurts so much to know that there are people out there who think of me differently just because I'm gay and just because I'm out and just because I am proud of who I am.
I will never regret coming out, I would have died if I hadn't. The pain of leading a life you weren't meant to lead is far worse than the pain of being made to feel "different."
I wish, more than anything else, that I could talk to my mother about this, and that she could tell me it's all going to be okay. But I don't believe that will ever happen.
I'm a damn good friend to ALL of my friends, the fact that I'm gay shouldn't matter.
I just don't understand.
I guess I never really expected to be treated differently.
All of my friends parents know (basically everyone knows except my mother, but she's not dumb) and they're all cool about it, very cool in fact. When I came out to each of them, nothing in that relationship changed, which is exactly what I had hoped for.
My roommate's entire family knows, and they're basically the best. I love my roommate and her family to pieces. Couldn't ask for a better roommate.
The whole coming out process for me was kind of like "whoa, I got myself all worked up over nothing?"
But then this has to happen, and I wonder to myself "what the fuck?"
The "this" I am referring to is something that one of my very best friends told me the other day. She and I hang out a lot, and a lot of the time we're hanging out with a bunch of our mutual friends. Some of the time we hang out just the two of us, for no reason other than the fact that sometimes it's nice to hang out one on one instead of having to deal with six people all competing for attention. I make one on one time for all my best friends.
Hope you don't mind that I'm telling your story, I know you're reading this right now.
Anywho, so my friend told me that her grandmother (a very old country Roman Catholic) found out that I'm a lesbian (because it was a big fucking secret, obviously) and doesn't want her to hang out with me anymore. "People will get ideas." What the fuck does that even mean? People will get ideas? If people wanted fucking ideas they would use their heads!
I've been friends with this girl for a very long time, I know her family and they know me. AND SHE'S NOT GAY. Does her grandmother honestly think that I'm going to change her? Or that I have any desire to?? And why the hell does she care what people think? The people in this town who know I'm a lesbian, the only people who would potentially talk about it, first of all DON'T MATTER, and second of all wouldn't talk about it because I'M NOT THE ONLY GAY PERSON IN THIS FUCKED UP TOWN.
And then, her little sister who is a friend of mine, basically asked her if she and I were together because we spend so much time together. Are you kidding me? Is this SERIOUSLY happening?
I'm not in high school anymore, I do not need to deal with this sophomoric bullshit.
I don't understand how or why things like this happen. I can't have friends anymore because obviously if I'm friends with a girl it means I'm in a romantic relationship with her? I can't spend time with the same group of girls I've hung around with since elementary school? I would have been a lesbian whether I came out or not, I was always a lesbian. I was a lesbian when I blew out the candles on my seventh birthday cake, I was a lesbian when I kissed a boy for the first time in the fourth grade, I was a lesbian when I walked across the stage at graduation. I have always been and will always be a lesbian. Would society rather that I stay in the closet and continue to suffer? I don't want the answer to that question, and I refuse to believe the truth.
It hurts so much to know that there are people out there who think of me differently just because I'm gay and just because I'm out and just because I am proud of who I am.
I will never regret coming out, I would have died if I hadn't. The pain of leading a life you weren't meant to lead is far worse than the pain of being made to feel "different."
I wish, more than anything else, that I could talk to my mother about this, and that she could tell me it's all going to be okay. But I don't believe that will ever happen.
I'm a damn good friend to ALL of my friends, the fact that I'm gay shouldn't matter.
I just don't understand.
Friday, August 29, 2008
And I Pointed My Dreams North
Packing sucks.
My room started out the summer looking rather like a storage closet, with everything I know piled up all over the place. Getting from the door to the bed or the closet quickly became impossible. I basically lived out of laundry hampers all summer, and never really gave a second thought to having to move back to school.
And here it is, the Friday before I go back, and piled all around me are boxes of clothes, sweatshirts for the Massachusetts winter, baskets filled with God only knows what, pens and pencils, computer stuff, instruments, a cat and a dog.
I wish they could come with me. Kitty has placed herself in the box for my desktop, and scrunched herself down so she is just peering over the edge and watching me type. She knows I'm going again, and she knows I'm probably going for a long time. It's hard to leave your best friends behind. Like most things in life, I wish they could comprehend how very much I love them.
Puppy is laying with her paws under her chin and looking up at me with her big brown eyes. She looks pretty pathetic, I'll admit. If I could find room for them in one of the bins and hide them away in my dorm, I so would. But they are happy here, where they are room to roam around, and all the treats and love an animal could ever dream of. They certainly aren't lacking for anything.
But it will be hard for them when I'm not here to go swimming on warm afternoons with Puppy, or lay in the sun with Kitty on my chest, or hold them both close when there is a storm. The three of us get along pretty swell. They grew up together in many ways. They're always growing up with me, and I was there to watch them grow up.
The madre and I will be happy to part ways for a while. She has her life and I have mine. When they intersect for too long a period of time, we tend to argue a lot. There are so many things about me that she doesn't know, and as I get older the things she doesn't know build and build, until eventually I feel as though we're strangers here. Strangers sharing a house, sharing a family, sharing a town and a little life we created. And yet, she is the person who understands me the best in the world. The silence between us isn't defeaning, it's a silence of understanding. We both know each other, but at the same time we understand that there are things about the other person that don't need to be discussed. The mystery in our relationship is good and healthy, for the time being.
I'm sure somewhere in her heart and in her mind she knows. She watched me grow up, she watched me struggle when being a tomboy wasn't okay anymore. She was there for every boyfriend, every failed relationship.
I remember driving in the car with her after I had recently broken up with some little boy. I think it was the seventh grade. I said to her "Mom, I don't think I can date one boy," and I tried desperately to articulate how I was feeling at the time. I always felt lost and confused, like all the girls were dating boys so I should do the same. No one ever even told me that how I was feeling was normal and okay, maybe it wasn't normal and okay. I had no idea that feeling the way I did was just the beginnings of trying to figure out who I was.
Being a kid is so hard. If everyone was just born a girl, or born a boy, and that was that everything would be so much simpler. But people aren't born that way. There is no ideal girl or ideal boy, and there never was. We're all different, whether it is due to nature or nurturing. Why can't people just accept us as we are?
Why couldn't someone just tell me it was okay? Why did I have to abandon who I was and who I would always be, and pretend to be someone I never was and never will be? Does society make us do this? Or do we put that pressure on ourselves?
I'm a firm believer that, at the end of the day, you and you alone are the only person in the entire world who matters. If you don't love yourself, no one can love you. How can we be expected to love ourselves if from every direction we are being told we are fundamentally wrong, we are being told that there is something wrong with us that we have no control over?
This is what I'm thinking about while I'm packing my clothes, my possessions, my memories, into boxes to be packed away in my car and hauled up to school.
It's hard to leave the ones you love behind, whether it's your dog or your cat, your mom, your friends, or the you you left behind so long ago. Some day we'll get there.
My room started out the summer looking rather like a storage closet, with everything I know piled up all over the place. Getting from the door to the bed or the closet quickly became impossible. I basically lived out of laundry hampers all summer, and never really gave a second thought to having to move back to school.
And here it is, the Friday before I go back, and piled all around me are boxes of clothes, sweatshirts for the Massachusetts winter, baskets filled with God only knows what, pens and pencils, computer stuff, instruments, a cat and a dog.
I wish they could come with me. Kitty has placed herself in the box for my desktop, and scrunched herself down so she is just peering over the edge and watching me type. She knows I'm going again, and she knows I'm probably going for a long time. It's hard to leave your best friends behind. Like most things in life, I wish they could comprehend how very much I love them.
Puppy is laying with her paws under her chin and looking up at me with her big brown eyes. She looks pretty pathetic, I'll admit. If I could find room for them in one of the bins and hide them away in my dorm, I so would. But they are happy here, where they are room to roam around, and all the treats and love an animal could ever dream of. They certainly aren't lacking for anything.
But it will be hard for them when I'm not here to go swimming on warm afternoons with Puppy, or lay in the sun with Kitty on my chest, or hold them both close when there is a storm. The three of us get along pretty swell. They grew up together in many ways. They're always growing up with me, and I was there to watch them grow up.
The madre and I will be happy to part ways for a while. She has her life and I have mine. When they intersect for too long a period of time, we tend to argue a lot. There are so many things about me that she doesn't know, and as I get older the things she doesn't know build and build, until eventually I feel as though we're strangers here. Strangers sharing a house, sharing a family, sharing a town and a little life we created. And yet, she is the person who understands me the best in the world. The silence between us isn't defeaning, it's a silence of understanding. We both know each other, but at the same time we understand that there are things about the other person that don't need to be discussed. The mystery in our relationship is good and healthy, for the time being.
I'm sure somewhere in her heart and in her mind she knows. She watched me grow up, she watched me struggle when being a tomboy wasn't okay anymore. She was there for every boyfriend, every failed relationship.
I remember driving in the car with her after I had recently broken up with some little boy. I think it was the seventh grade. I said to her "Mom, I don't think I can date one boy," and I tried desperately to articulate how I was feeling at the time. I always felt lost and confused, like all the girls were dating boys so I should do the same. No one ever even told me that how I was feeling was normal and okay, maybe it wasn't normal and okay. I had no idea that feeling the way I did was just the beginnings of trying to figure out who I was.
Being a kid is so hard. If everyone was just born a girl, or born a boy, and that was that everything would be so much simpler. But people aren't born that way. There is no ideal girl or ideal boy, and there never was. We're all different, whether it is due to nature or nurturing. Why can't people just accept us as we are?
Why couldn't someone just tell me it was okay? Why did I have to abandon who I was and who I would always be, and pretend to be someone I never was and never will be? Does society make us do this? Or do we put that pressure on ourselves?
I'm a firm believer that, at the end of the day, you and you alone are the only person in the entire world who matters. If you don't love yourself, no one can love you. How can we be expected to love ourselves if from every direction we are being told we are fundamentally wrong, we are being told that there is something wrong with us that we have no control over?
This is what I'm thinking about while I'm packing my clothes, my possessions, my memories, into boxes to be packed away in my car and hauled up to school.
It's hard to leave the ones you love behind, whether it's your dog or your cat, your mom, your friends, or the you you left behind so long ago. Some day we'll get there.
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Why?
My roommate and I were talking the other night. She's going through a lot right now. Her best friend is moving out to LA, thousands of miles away, maybe forever. Needless to say my roommate is broken hearted.
She also told me something that I was completely unprepared to hear, something that I don't think anyone is ever prepared to hear.
Her other best friend out in Arizona recently told her that he is HIV positive.
He's HIV positive.
I think I said oh my god about a million times.
He's my age, and he's HIV positive. He'll never live the carefree life of a young adult again. He can't just be a normal kid anymore.
So I have to ask why.
Why do things like this have to happen? Why is HIV so prevalent?
It's so preventable. There is no reason why people should get HIV, why young lives should be cut short.
And if the person who gave it to him knew he was HIV positive? Well that person is a murderer. If you're sick, let the people you are with know about it. Don't have anonymous sex.
I just don't get it.
I know bad things happen and there is nothing we can do about it, and there are some things we just have to accept.
Forgive me, but I just cannot accept the fact that people are dying of a completely prevantable disease. People are dying, families are being destroyed, futures are never being realized.
And that's just OK with the U.S. government? There has to be more we can be doing to find a cure, to find a vaccine, to do SOMETHING.
I'm really scared. I've never known someone who was HIV positive (that I'm aware of) and even though I don't know my roommate's best friend, I feel like I know him. He's our age, he's shared memories with one of my best friends.
It scares me because it's not okay. It's not okay at all, and it never will be until someone does something about it. This isn't one of those problems that can just be passed along from generation to generation, and hopefully one day one generation will say enough is enough. This is a big problem that needs to be fixed right now. It needed to be fixed years ago.
I guess I'm just at a loss for words. It doesn't make any sense to me, at all. And it never will.
On a lighter note, Mighty Mouse is doing fine this morning. The cats even knocked his cage over some time last night, and the little one is still doing fine. He really is just a little baby, he can hardly walk, but he loves burying his little head in the palm of my hand and curling up into a ball. He hates the milk I try to give him (it is fat free, I don't really blame him, but it's all we have) but he seems to like bird seed just fine. I had mice a long time ago, I've even had baby mice, but the baby mice had a mother to take care of them, and they were store bought mice, not wild mice. He's not out of the woods yet, but I think he's getting there.
I guess some things will never make sense.
She also told me something that I was completely unprepared to hear, something that I don't think anyone is ever prepared to hear.
Her other best friend out in Arizona recently told her that he is HIV positive.
He's HIV positive.
I think I said oh my god about a million times.
He's my age, and he's HIV positive. He'll never live the carefree life of a young adult again. He can't just be a normal kid anymore.
So I have to ask why.
Why do things like this have to happen? Why is HIV so prevalent?
It's so preventable. There is no reason why people should get HIV, why young lives should be cut short.
And if the person who gave it to him knew he was HIV positive? Well that person is a murderer. If you're sick, let the people you are with know about it. Don't have anonymous sex.
I just don't get it.
I know bad things happen and there is nothing we can do about it, and there are some things we just have to accept.
Forgive me, but I just cannot accept the fact that people are dying of a completely prevantable disease. People are dying, families are being destroyed, futures are never being realized.
And that's just OK with the U.S. government? There has to be more we can be doing to find a cure, to find a vaccine, to do SOMETHING.
I'm really scared. I've never known someone who was HIV positive (that I'm aware of) and even though I don't know my roommate's best friend, I feel like I know him. He's our age, he's shared memories with one of my best friends.
It scares me because it's not okay. It's not okay at all, and it never will be until someone does something about it. This isn't one of those problems that can just be passed along from generation to generation, and hopefully one day one generation will say enough is enough. This is a big problem that needs to be fixed right now. It needed to be fixed years ago.
I guess I'm just at a loss for words. It doesn't make any sense to me, at all. And it never will.
On a lighter note, Mighty Mouse is doing fine this morning. The cats even knocked his cage over some time last night, and the little one is still doing fine. He really is just a little baby, he can hardly walk, but he loves burying his little head in the palm of my hand and curling up into a ball. He hates the milk I try to give him (it is fat free, I don't really blame him, but it's all we have) but he seems to like bird seed just fine. I had mice a long time ago, I've even had baby mice, but the baby mice had a mother to take care of them, and they were store bought mice, not wild mice. He's not out of the woods yet, but I think he's getting there.
I guess some things will never make sense.
Friday, July 18, 2008
Hilarity
I lead a pretty interesting life. Well, it has it's moments in any event. For one thing, I am currently unemployed so I don't have any workplace drama to entertain me. Thank you God, You have certainly blessed me.
I also am not exactly in the dating scene. Not by choice so much as I have no clue where it is. When I find it I'll let you know. Until then, I'm pretty content with my life the way it is, uninterruted by a prospective love-interest. Perhaps when I stop considering prospective love-interested to be interruptions in my life then I will be in the dating scene. I'm in no rush to find her, when she's there she's there and we'll know it and it will be magical and fireworks and flowers and puppies and all that. Yeah. Perfect.
Back to my original story though. So I am out to all of my friends, EXCEPT for one of my three very best friends in the entire world. Truth be told I didn't come out to any of them, I was more or less outed. The first one wasn't at all phased, and it was excellent. I got the butterflies and all that when I found out that she knew.
And then I was outed to my best best best friend in the whole world. She was VERY shocked, but she was also relieved that I was (and still am) happy. I clearly did not have the balls to tell any of them.
So I was going through the motions, pretending that I was neither interested in men nor interested in women around my third best friend.
That was until the other night. There was a carnival in town so two of my friends and I went down to ride the rides and be generally awesome. The carnival sucked, it had three rides that spun around and gave the onlookers more motion sickness than the rider, no doubt. It was a veritable death trap, and I was stuck holding the bags because I refused to put my life into the hands of people who looked like they hadn't bathed since exiting the womb.
So after over an hour of doing the carnival thing, saying hi to people who we graduated with, the siblings of friends, the parents of friends, etc etc. we exited the park for bigger and better things: Dairy Queen. By this time there were four of us, one of whom is one of my best friends.
We piled into my SAAB and drove out to the Dairy Queen for frozen goodness, as it was incredibly hot that evening. The line was about a year long, so we settled in for the long haul. I called my two other best friends to get them to meet us there. As we were standing in line, a friend from high school showed up.
She's pretty awesome, not gonna lie. She's been out forever, she does her own thing, and I definetly aspire to be like her in several ways. We never hung out in high school, but we knew each other, have mutual friends, etc. same old song and dance ya know.
Well as soon as she pulled in my friend Rob flagged her down and we got to chatting. Rob immediately proclaimed to the poor girl that I was a lesbian.
"You finally came out huh?" she asked.
"Yea! Nice of you to tell me I was gay in high school!! That would have made things LOTS easier!" and we joked around for a while and stuff. It really was a good time.
And then my friend who didn't know showed up, and there could be no more of that. We couldn't talk about it, we couldn't allude to it, we couldn't even think about it.
By the time we moved over the a chinese food parking lot so we could all sit down and chat, there were eight of us.
We all sat down, some of us smoked, we all talked and shot to breeze for in the neighborhood of 4 hours. The gays were on one side and the breeders were on the other, it was actually pretty funny. I kept floating amongst them.
At one point my friend Rob went down the line asking about every single person's sexual orientation. Because he's a jerk and LOVES to see me squirm.
I shrugged off the question.
And then it happened.
"Rachel, I KNOW!" she said. My best friend, who was not supposed to know until I got the balls to tell her. She knew, she's known.
"WHAT?" Everyone gasped, my mouth hung wide open.
"I've known for months." I was so shocked. I couldn't even begin to explain my shock.
And then it became the funniest thing that ever happened. We were all in stitches laughing our asses off.
I'm still laughing.
And that, boys and girls, is the story of how I came out to all of the people I hold dear :-)
I also am not exactly in the dating scene. Not by choice so much as I have no clue where it is. When I find it I'll let you know. Until then, I'm pretty content with my life the way it is, uninterruted by a prospective love-interest. Perhaps when I stop considering prospective love-interested to be interruptions in my life then I will be in the dating scene. I'm in no rush to find her, when she's there she's there and we'll know it and it will be magical and fireworks and flowers and puppies and all that. Yeah. Perfect.
Back to my original story though. So I am out to all of my friends, EXCEPT for one of my three very best friends in the entire world. Truth be told I didn't come out to any of them, I was more or less outed. The first one wasn't at all phased, and it was excellent. I got the butterflies and all that when I found out that she knew.
And then I was outed to my best best best friend in the whole world. She was VERY shocked, but she was also relieved that I was (and still am) happy. I clearly did not have the balls to tell any of them.
So I was going through the motions, pretending that I was neither interested in men nor interested in women around my third best friend.
That was until the other night. There was a carnival in town so two of my friends and I went down to ride the rides and be generally awesome. The carnival sucked, it had three rides that spun around and gave the onlookers more motion sickness than the rider, no doubt. It was a veritable death trap, and I was stuck holding the bags because I refused to put my life into the hands of people who looked like they hadn't bathed since exiting the womb.
So after over an hour of doing the carnival thing, saying hi to people who we graduated with, the siblings of friends, the parents of friends, etc etc. we exited the park for bigger and better things: Dairy Queen. By this time there were four of us, one of whom is one of my best friends.
We piled into my SAAB and drove out to the Dairy Queen for frozen goodness, as it was incredibly hot that evening. The line was about a year long, so we settled in for the long haul. I called my two other best friends to get them to meet us there. As we were standing in line, a friend from high school showed up.
She's pretty awesome, not gonna lie. She's been out forever, she does her own thing, and I definetly aspire to be like her in several ways. We never hung out in high school, but we knew each other, have mutual friends, etc. same old song and dance ya know.
Well as soon as she pulled in my friend Rob flagged her down and we got to chatting. Rob immediately proclaimed to the poor girl that I was a lesbian.
"You finally came out huh?" she asked.
"Yea! Nice of you to tell me I was gay in high school!! That would have made things LOTS easier!" and we joked around for a while and stuff. It really was a good time.
And then my friend who didn't know showed up, and there could be no more of that. We couldn't talk about it, we couldn't allude to it, we couldn't even think about it.
By the time we moved over the a chinese food parking lot so we could all sit down and chat, there were eight of us.
We all sat down, some of us smoked, we all talked and shot to breeze for in the neighborhood of 4 hours. The gays were on one side and the breeders were on the other, it was actually pretty funny. I kept floating amongst them.
At one point my friend Rob went down the line asking about every single person's sexual orientation. Because he's a jerk and LOVES to see me squirm.
I shrugged off the question.
And then it happened.
"Rachel, I KNOW!" she said. My best friend, who was not supposed to know until I got the balls to tell her. She knew, she's known.
"WHAT?" Everyone gasped, my mouth hung wide open.
"I've known for months." I was so shocked. I couldn't even begin to explain my shock.
And then it became the funniest thing that ever happened. We were all in stitches laughing our asses off.
I'm still laughing.
And that, boys and girls, is the story of how I came out to all of the people I hold dear :-)
Monday, June 30, 2008
Bosom Buddies
My best friend and I have been best friends since somewhere in the neighbourhood of 1st grade. Of course, I did think she was a boy, and I often wondered (vocally) why a boy was in the girl scouts with us. She did look like a boy for a very long time, and she was always hanging out with this stupid boy, Michael Cornoyer, and getting into trouble with him.
And then she discovered me, and my awesomeness, and we became the best of friends. We were the bad kids of the girl scout troop. I wouldn't be terribly surprised to learn that the reason our troop leaders ditched our entire troop was because of how awful my best friend and I were, in terms of handling little girls. We were just generally a mess, and took advantage of the fact that our troop leaders neither controlled our grades or had the balls to tell our parents what little demons we were.
We quit girl scouts in 6th grade, when we had to switch troop leaders, merge with another troop, and deal with all that non sense. We stayed best friends though, and in late elementary school we picked up two more girls to be in our little clique. The four of us are still best friends, and whether or not we stay in the same town (highly unlikely) we are only a phone call away and we all love each other dearly.
That is to say, we love each other when we're not fighting. I don't fight with anyone the way I fight with my best friend. I don't even fight with my other two best friends. I may have raised my voice to them once or twice, but we just don't fight.
My very best friend and I, however, have no issue fighting, and we do it vehomently.
Usually when we fight, it just takes its course and we forgive each other and that is that. This time it's not going to happen that way.
Last year we weren't in each other's faces all the time so we didn't have an opportunity to fight. When we came home on breaks and things, we were in each other's faces, so when we did fight we had the opportunity to deal with it like we used to.
But I'm sick and tired of being treated like this, and I can't imagine how her friends at college deal with it. She is so freakin stubborn it's not even funny. She needs a wake up call.
And the only way I know how to wake her up is to not deal with her immaturity anymore. So if she wants to repair this friendship of 13 sumodd years, she should apologize for her actions. Grow a pair and manup.
It's not my problem anymore because I am not limited in my friendships anymore. This isn't high school where if you don't hang out with one person from your group of friends you are isolating yourself from all of your friends. Not to mention the fact that we never even hang out at my best friend's house or really do anything with her unless I come up with the plans. We're always hanging out at my house or going places I suggest. And now it's summer, and a million degrees, and my friends are going to want to go swimming in my pool.
My best friend is cutting off her nose to spite her face, and she can be my guest. I am done with her bullshit.
And then she discovered me, and my awesomeness, and we became the best of friends. We were the bad kids of the girl scout troop. I wouldn't be terribly surprised to learn that the reason our troop leaders ditched our entire troop was because of how awful my best friend and I were, in terms of handling little girls. We were just generally a mess, and took advantage of the fact that our troop leaders neither controlled our grades or had the balls to tell our parents what little demons we were.
We quit girl scouts in 6th grade, when we had to switch troop leaders, merge with another troop, and deal with all that non sense. We stayed best friends though, and in late elementary school we picked up two more girls to be in our little clique. The four of us are still best friends, and whether or not we stay in the same town (highly unlikely) we are only a phone call away and we all love each other dearly.
That is to say, we love each other when we're not fighting. I don't fight with anyone the way I fight with my best friend. I don't even fight with my other two best friends. I may have raised my voice to them once or twice, but we just don't fight.
My very best friend and I, however, have no issue fighting, and we do it vehomently.
Usually when we fight, it just takes its course and we forgive each other and that is that. This time it's not going to happen that way.
Last year we weren't in each other's faces all the time so we didn't have an opportunity to fight. When we came home on breaks and things, we were in each other's faces, so when we did fight we had the opportunity to deal with it like we used to.
But I'm sick and tired of being treated like this, and I can't imagine how her friends at college deal with it. She is so freakin stubborn it's not even funny. She needs a wake up call.
And the only way I know how to wake her up is to not deal with her immaturity anymore. So if she wants to repair this friendship of 13 sumodd years, she should apologize for her actions. Grow a pair and manup.
It's not my problem anymore because I am not limited in my friendships anymore. This isn't high school where if you don't hang out with one person from your group of friends you are isolating yourself from all of your friends. Not to mention the fact that we never even hang out at my best friend's house or really do anything with her unless I come up with the plans. We're always hanging out at my house or going places I suggest. And now it's summer, and a million degrees, and my friends are going to want to go swimming in my pool.
My best friend is cutting off her nose to spite her face, and she can be my guest. I am done with her bullshit.
Thursday, June 26, 2008
The Missing Pieces
A little over a year ago (so sometime during my senior year of high school) one of my very best friends and orchestra mates left school, left town, and virtually disappeared. I didn't know he was leaving, I don't think anyone was really aware that he was going. One day he was there, happy, playing his viola, enjoying being a junior in high school. The next he was sad, clearly something was wrong. He talked about leaving. And then he was gone.
We didn't talk much. When we did talk, we used the medium of aim. I didn't see him in over a year though. He moved to Boston and unfortunately we couldn't coordinate a time/place to meet.
I talked to him tonight, on aim, for the first time in a while.
There are a lot of things I didn't know, that never even occurred to me.
He was kicked out of his house by his mother. Not just the typical teenage bull. No, his mother made him leave because he is bisexual, and she "hated" him for it.
He had to leave his little home town, suburbia USA and his wee little high school to conquer the big scary world all by himself.
He moved in with his boyfriend in Boston, whom he had met and dated since 2006, unbeknownst to most people. He got a job, signed up for and began attending an urban public school. He became vice president of his senior class and started two new clubs at the school. He got a job in a urban retail store and met a whole new variety of people than the kind you meet in small town USA. He loves his boyfriend, and it's clear that his boyfriend loves him too.
He's back in town now, after graduating from high school (as a member of National Honor Society, no less), being accepted to Boston University and most importantly reconciling with his mother. She realized, after a long enough time, that he is her son and that his happiness is of the uptmost. Isolating him from her will only be detrimental to her in the long run. I'm glad she realized that.
I am sad, and probably will be eternally sad, that he didn't tell me sooner. I would have been there. My mother who knows and loves him would have been there. Our mutual friends would have been there. We would have opened our doors to him in a heartbeat. Of course he has a place in my home, all he would have had to do is ask. Thankfully he made the most of this unfortunate situation, and he has become a stronger and better person for it. He has no hard feelings, he holds no grudge. He is living life to the fullest and enjoying ever second of it.
I could not be more proud of him, more overjoyed for him and his accomplishments. I'm sorry I couldn't have been there for him. I would, had I known.
It's why coming out it so important, and terrifying.
It's just terribly confusing and upsetting. I wish parents could just love their children no matter what. Embrace them no matter what they do, no matter who they are. Loving someone of the same gender is not the same as being an axe murderer or getting straight F's or coming home pregnant. We love someone. Be glad that we love at all.
We didn't talk much. When we did talk, we used the medium of aim. I didn't see him in over a year though. He moved to Boston and unfortunately we couldn't coordinate a time/place to meet.
I talked to him tonight, on aim, for the first time in a while.
There are a lot of things I didn't know, that never even occurred to me.
He was kicked out of his house by his mother. Not just the typical teenage bull. No, his mother made him leave because he is bisexual, and she "hated" him for it.
He had to leave his little home town, suburbia USA and his wee little high school to conquer the big scary world all by himself.
He moved in with his boyfriend in Boston, whom he had met and dated since 2006, unbeknownst to most people. He got a job, signed up for and began attending an urban public school. He became vice president of his senior class and started two new clubs at the school. He got a job in a urban retail store and met a whole new variety of people than the kind you meet in small town USA. He loves his boyfriend, and it's clear that his boyfriend loves him too.
He's back in town now, after graduating from high school (as a member of National Honor Society, no less), being accepted to Boston University and most importantly reconciling with his mother. She realized, after a long enough time, that he is her son and that his happiness is of the uptmost. Isolating him from her will only be detrimental to her in the long run. I'm glad she realized that.
I am sad, and probably will be eternally sad, that he didn't tell me sooner. I would have been there. My mother who knows and loves him would have been there. Our mutual friends would have been there. We would have opened our doors to him in a heartbeat. Of course he has a place in my home, all he would have had to do is ask. Thankfully he made the most of this unfortunate situation, and he has become a stronger and better person for it. He has no hard feelings, he holds no grudge. He is living life to the fullest and enjoying ever second of it.
I could not be more proud of him, more overjoyed for him and his accomplishments. I'm sorry I couldn't have been there for him. I would, had I known.
It's why coming out it so important, and terrifying.
It's just terribly confusing and upsetting. I wish parents could just love their children no matter what. Embrace them no matter what they do, no matter who they are. Loving someone of the same gender is not the same as being an axe murderer or getting straight F's or coming home pregnant. We love someone. Be glad that we love at all.
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Just Another Manic... Tuesday?
I woke up this morning around 10 and my mother was still around the house. In fact it was she, walking into my room and dropping a hamper on my bed (exactly where my legs were, thanks mom) who woke me up. "Is it Sunday?" I mumbled almost incoherently. She laughed and said "Yeah, you slept for a whole week" and then proceeded to tell me about how her front axel fell apart this morning in the driveway so it was in the garage and she couldn't get to work. Bullshit, my car is sitting in the driveway, if she really wanted to get there she totally could have. But I'm glad she didn't because, for some reason, I always seem to have more fun when that crazy madre of mine is around.
So I said I was going to quit my job and well... I'm not. I got my pay check today and I discovered how much I really like money. I have to go talk to my boss about putting me on the schedule again. Blah... I'm not very good at grovelling... sadly. But whatever, such is life.
So I went to visit my pal Rob today at his college, we had lunch, discussed quitting smoking/quitting my job/nature, things like that.
My friends and I also decided that we will be going camping on the cape in a few weeks, also. I'm VERY excited about that, but I hope it happens (with work schedules and all). Le sigh, things were so much simpler when we were younger.
So I took the madre to the garage and she got her car, $2,000 later. We also opened the pool today and it's awesome. I haven't been in it yet but it looks really good.
So it was a pretty good day, a pretty busy day. I'm going on a bike ride with my best friend in a little while. I love taking bike rides with her cause, well, we're best friends and it's just awesome. We get to be all bikey and talky and ridey and things like that.
And I love sitting on the swings with her when we arrive at our destination (which is usually the playground of our old elementary school) and talking about everything in the world. She's pretty amazing, that best friend o'mine. I'm incredibly lucky to have the people in my life who I do have in my life. They truly are gifts.
So I said I was going to quit my job and well... I'm not. I got my pay check today and I discovered how much I really like money. I have to go talk to my boss about putting me on the schedule again. Blah... I'm not very good at grovelling... sadly. But whatever, such is life.
So I went to visit my pal Rob today at his college, we had lunch, discussed quitting smoking/quitting my job/nature, things like that.
My friends and I also decided that we will be going camping on the cape in a few weeks, also. I'm VERY excited about that, but I hope it happens (with work schedules and all). Le sigh, things were so much simpler when we were younger.
So I took the madre to the garage and she got her car, $2,000 later. We also opened the pool today and it's awesome. I haven't been in it yet but it looks really good.
So it was a pretty good day, a pretty busy day. I'm going on a bike ride with my best friend in a little while. I love taking bike rides with her cause, well, we're best friends and it's just awesome. We get to be all bikey and talky and ridey and things like that.
And I love sitting on the swings with her when we arrive at our destination (which is usually the playground of our old elementary school) and talking about everything in the world. She's pretty amazing, that best friend o'mine. I'm incredibly lucky to have the people in my life who I do have in my life. They truly are gifts.
Sunday, June 15, 2008
Please Return Your Tray Tables to the Upright and Locked Position
And don't forget to have the worst flight ever. Ugh, I do not even know where to begin.
We left Disney for the airport at about 4 in the afternoon, for a 6:30 flight on Delta. Little did we know that, upon arriving at gate 77 in Orland Intl. Airport, we would discover that our flight was delayed until 8.
I wasn't terribly upset, seeing as I really had nowhere better to be and doing better to be doing with my time. So I sat down with my new Vonnegut novel (Jailbird... it's really good so far!) and a mini box of wheat thins and I was completely satisfied with life.
My mother, on the other hand, was ripshit, and made it known to anyone who cared to listen. Eventually, the flight was delayed even further to 8:45, while we waited for the flight crew to come in. They were apparently delayed by weather, and we were assigned a new flight crew something crazy like that I have no idea what the hell was going on. All I know is we would all be arriving in Hartford at least 2 hours after we were originally scheduled to be arriving.
Finally the flight crew arrived, and we boarded the plane. The seats were 3 across on one side and 2 across on the other. We were sitting in a row of 2, directly across from where they keep the peanuts and diet cokes. Oh and where one of the emergency exits were located. Not cool, at all, totally not on the flight plan. It was SO noisy right there. AND the arm rest in betwen my mother and I wouldn't go up, so whenever I would stretch my seat would recline because my thigh rubbed against the little recline button.
Up until that point I was being my regular cool calm collected self, taking everything in stride and generally pissing my mother off with my mellow-ness. But the arm rest killed me. I was cramped, uncomfortable, and very pissed off. I travel a lot and this was by far one of the worst air travel experiences I have had thus far.
So Delta, if you're listening, you guys need to step up your act. I'm a frequent flier, and I'll start flying Southwest or American if this happens again.
Otherwise it was a very enjoyable, if not educational, vacation.
I'm dreading calling in to work and asking for my hours. I'm just dreading work in general. I would so much rather just lay around by the pool all summer and work on my awesomeness.
Oh, we're opening the pool today too! I'm super excited, it should be fully operational by Wednesday. My dog and I are so going to be the first "people" in the pool this year, we can't even wait. I can see the anticipation in her big brown eyes. The pool water is green right now, but pretty soon it's going to be crystal blue and oh man I just cannot even wait.
Speaking of amazing things, when we finally got home last night (walked through the door at almost exactly 1 am) I was pleasantly surprised with a banner and balloons at the bottom of the stairway right in front of the main door. My friends (who had been pet sitting for us and did WONDERFUL job) had left me a "happy birthday" banner, a "happy birthday" balloon and an "it's a girl" balloon. It was so cute and touching, I freakin love my friends. Molly and Kate, you guys are THE BEST (and so are you Natasha, I know you would have been in on it if you weren't in Poland... COMING HOME TOMORROW!!). Last year, for my 18th birthday, I woke up that morning to a "CONGRATULATIONS IT'S A GIRL!" sign on my front lawn. We left it there for a long time, and I still have it (I'll so have it forever).
There really are beautiful things in this world, like flowers and babies and rainbows (I saw a rainbow over the magic kingdom the other day, it was way cool). The most beautiful thing of all, though, is friendship. There is nothing like it in the world, and with friendship, anything and everything is possible.
We left Disney for the airport at about 4 in the afternoon, for a 6:30 flight on Delta. Little did we know that, upon arriving at gate 77 in Orland Intl. Airport, we would discover that our flight was delayed until 8.
I wasn't terribly upset, seeing as I really had nowhere better to be and doing better to be doing with my time. So I sat down with my new Vonnegut novel (Jailbird... it's really good so far!) and a mini box of wheat thins and I was completely satisfied with life.
My mother, on the other hand, was ripshit, and made it known to anyone who cared to listen. Eventually, the flight was delayed even further to 8:45, while we waited for the flight crew to come in. They were apparently delayed by weather, and we were assigned a new flight crew something crazy like that I have no idea what the hell was going on. All I know is we would all be arriving in Hartford at least 2 hours after we were originally scheduled to be arriving.
Finally the flight crew arrived, and we boarded the plane. The seats were 3 across on one side and 2 across on the other. We were sitting in a row of 2, directly across from where they keep the peanuts and diet cokes. Oh and where one of the emergency exits were located. Not cool, at all, totally not on the flight plan. It was SO noisy right there. AND the arm rest in betwen my mother and I wouldn't go up, so whenever I would stretch my seat would recline because my thigh rubbed against the little recline button.
Up until that point I was being my regular cool calm collected self, taking everything in stride and generally pissing my mother off with my mellow-ness. But the arm rest killed me. I was cramped, uncomfortable, and very pissed off. I travel a lot and this was by far one of the worst air travel experiences I have had thus far.
So Delta, if you're listening, you guys need to step up your act. I'm a frequent flier, and I'll start flying Southwest or American if this happens again.
Otherwise it was a very enjoyable, if not educational, vacation.
I'm dreading calling in to work and asking for my hours. I'm just dreading work in general. I would so much rather just lay around by the pool all summer and work on my awesomeness.
Oh, we're opening the pool today too! I'm super excited, it should be fully operational by Wednesday. My dog and I are so going to be the first "people" in the pool this year, we can't even wait. I can see the anticipation in her big brown eyes. The pool water is green right now, but pretty soon it's going to be crystal blue and oh man I just cannot even wait.
Speaking of amazing things, when we finally got home last night (walked through the door at almost exactly 1 am) I was pleasantly surprised with a banner and balloons at the bottom of the stairway right in front of the main door. My friends (who had been pet sitting for us and did WONDERFUL job) had left me a "happy birthday" banner, a "happy birthday" balloon and an "it's a girl" balloon. It was so cute and touching, I freakin love my friends. Molly and Kate, you guys are THE BEST (and so are you Natasha, I know you would have been in on it if you weren't in Poland... COMING HOME TOMORROW!!). Last year, for my 18th birthday, I woke up that morning to a "CONGRATULATIONS IT'S A GIRL!" sign on my front lawn. We left it there for a long time, and I still have it (I'll so have it forever).
There really are beautiful things in this world, like flowers and babies and rainbows (I saw a rainbow over the magic kingdom the other day, it was way cool). The most beautiful thing of all, though, is friendship. There is nothing like it in the world, and with friendship, anything and everything is possible.
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