Well, here I am at home in pennsylvania.  Just had a little chat with the parents.  Some things they reminded me of:
Apparently, according to my mother, I was the only one of the four brothers who really caused a lot of trouble as a youth.  For inexplicable reasons, she said, I would go to the only bookshelf in the house and take out all the books and just throw them on the floor.  I also supposedly took apart an alarm clock or two for no good reason.  So if you can imagine a 3-year old me, imagine it as sort of passively destructive.  Personally, I thought it was sort of cute.  But at this point my dad confessed that as a child, he often took the backs off of watches to see how they worked.  I think there was a commercial for Lincoln Technical Institute that used to say "Do you like to take things apart to see how they work?  Then you should call Lincoln Tech!"  these were always the commercials on during the days of my youth, during Divorce Court and Dukes of Hazzard reruns.  I remember complaining to my mom once, asking why in the world there were so many technical school commercials on during daytime TV, and I think she said something like "Because the only people watching TV at this time of day are the lazy people who don't work."  I'd never made that connection before.  Anyway, now that my parents mention it, I do seem to remember taking all the books out of my dad's metal bookshelf. I also remember ripping off the dust jackets to several books. I think I had a favorite book that I'd keep ripping parts off over a long period of time.  I wonder where that is now.

    When my brother Garrick was little, he was in the mall with my dad, and i guess he was by an escalator, and the little bastard pushed this red button and the whole escalator stopped.  On Garrick's birthday last week, he was in the mall with my dad, and when they were by the escalator my dad asked him if he wanted to press the red button again, for old time's sake, on his birthday.  Now that I'm old and whatnot, these little scenes really touch me, thinking about my parents and their memories of us as small children, stopping escalators or tipping over shopping carts full of food.  Anyway, my dad said that now the red button by the escalator is in a glass case, and when Garrick pulled it up as a joke, some sort of alarm went off.  Isn't it horrible how modern precautions just rob us of memories of our youth?  It's like how nobody on Bugs Bunny gets shot in the head anymore, or how the Aunt Jemaima-esque black woman on Tom and Jerry has been changed to an equally offensive Irish accented women. Why oh why can't they just let them be and stop trying to change history?
    These little anecdotes about my parents were much more impressive coming from them.  So much so that I felt like i had to write about it.  But my sense of irony prevents me from writing about it with the same sincerity I felt as I heard it.  But it's nice hearing these stories that i'd totally forgotten about.  I don't remember being so destructive and weird. Isn't that kind of creepy, that I'd just systematically take all the books off the shelf for no reason? Sort of Poltergeist-y or something. But I suppose it's not as scary as if I would have stacked them in some weird formation. No, i just dumped 'em on the floor. I think I just wanted to see what the back of the bookshelf looked like.  Anyway, I enjoy talking to the folks.  They're funny and weird and definitely my parents.

    So I spent most of today feeling pretty miserable. I'm pretty sick, and totally dehydrated.  It's good to be home, where the central heating doesn't make the air as unbearably dry as the hot water pipes of my Brooklyn apartment do.  Plus, the magazine office was a bloody inferno all day. Usually it's so cold. But on the day when I was sort of feverish, it's fucking blazing.  So that sucked. And i didn't go to the editorial meeting today. I felt bad about it, because the other intern went. But they didn't tell me to go, so I didn't. But I'm wondering about my standing there now.  Don't want to think about it right now.

    For the first time ever, I think, I talked to somebody on the bus.  I took the bus today because, if you'll recall, some bastards stole my fucking car.  That aside, the girl sitting behind me on the bus was also coming to Reading.  Not suprising, really, since it's a Reading-New York busline.  But we got to talking a bit.  A sort of sassy looking blond chick with short hair.  She's a freshman at the Fashion Institute, and went to Wyomissing highschool.  She seemed surprised that I was in grad school. She assumed I was a junior in college.  My littlest brother Galvin is a junior, for god's sake. I don't think I look that young.  She said she was doing something like exterior design, which she said basically qualifies her to do department store window displays.  She said she's probably transferring. One of the other interns at the magazine who goes to FIT is also transferring. So I'd say if you're considering that fashion institute, don't go.  Anyway, she seemed nice.  This other older guy and some other college freshman chatted it up the whole way back. The guy seemed fairly creepy, but the kid didn't seem to mind. He seemed kind of creepy too, in a really wholesome kind of way. You know the type.
    So I'm looking forward to being home for a while. though I know boredom will set in very quickly. I asked that girl on the bus what she did around here while she was home, just to see if it was just me who could never find anything to do. I told her all I do is drive around back roads, and she said that's about all she did as well.  So there really is nothing to do here.  So that's what I'm planning on doing.  Then again, I'm feeling sort of inspired to write right now.  If you recall, I wrote a bit for Insound.com about three weeks ago about how music will be better under a Republican regime. Well, today, Caryn forwarded me a bit from Salon, quoting Marilyn Manson, who was saying he thinks music will be better under conservatives because it will make people push more confined limits.  And as much as I detest him as an individual, he's right.  But I was right first, you fucking freak show.  I've been trying to write a more serious version of this piece, and I think I'll use this time at home to develop a few other story ideas and try pitching them to magazines. Who knows, maybe something will come of it.  Like fame and fortune. Or satisfaction at a job well done, even. Boy, it's been a while since that's happened.

Mail to G-Rock

DA&R home
Past Aggravations and Regrets
previous  |  next
South Pole Home

©2000 Three Match Breeze