i wish i was going to mom's
So, here I am, in my little basement, trying to get all my junk ready for my trip to visit my dad's family in Georgia. I leave early Thursday morning (early = a cab will come get me at 6:15am = holy shit = I get off work at midnight the night before = I will feel like total shit when I wake up after four hours of sleep = that sucks = what's up with all the equals signs?)
I cleaned my car out for SK to borrow while I'm gone, I cleaned the dead and dying things from my fridge (more or less), I straightened the piles and piles of papers (old newspapers, magazines, notebooks from school, books from school, pamphlets from school, many other things from school) around my desk, I got some things together to mail, I shaved my legs. *Gasp* I shaved my legs which is a big deal because I don't generally shave my legs, but I often sell-out when I go visit my family because it's a lot easier to wear shorts in the summer in Georgia when you don't look like a scary-hairy dyke. Will I regret these compromises some day? I don't know.
I keep confusing myself by imagining I am on my way to Florida to visit my mom. A visit to my mom would be *much* more fun than a visit to my dad, but ultimately both visits would be equally emotionally damaging, I mean, challenging. And either way I would've shaved my legs, but still, a trip to mom's would involve swimming in the ocean, playing with her dog Buddy, eating lots of really good food, watching lots of weird shit on tv and having always surprising and enlightening conversations about: aliens, mom's conspiracy theories, mom's conspiracy theories about aliens, old family drama, bizarre ideas about christianity (Bible codes? the Nag Hammadi library?) and stuff about ghosts and spirits.
Not to mention, mom just settled a long-in-the-works lawsuit and has a chunk of change in her pocket nowadays, so a trip to mom's might also be more fun because she'd feel more free to do more fun stuff with me. Usually we're both pretty broke, but with some money, mom might want to actually go out into the world and do things besides shop at Wal-Mart and walk around the mall. Of course, she's got a messed up back and can't walk very far or very much, so she might not want to do anything fun after all. Who knows.
Instead, I'll go to Georgia and see my 88 year old grandmother who will (even though she knows I'm a lesbian) remind me that she'd feel so much better if I just found myself a nice man to take care of me. I love my grandmother and it won't be all about finding me a husband and a church to start attending, but that'll be in there with all the other stuff. The best thing about visiting Margie is the family gossip she always unleashes on me. She always swears me to secrecy and then, for good, measure, tells me how bad it is for her to say the things she's going to say and how she shouldn't say them at all, and how maybe she'll just shut up now before it's too late, but well, I'll just tell you and you can't breathe a word to anybody else about any of this, now, this stays between you and me, ok?
Ok. Just spill it, Margie. Then she lets loose about the latest thing my sleazy cousin did or the way my dad's feud with his brother is tearing her apart or, more likely, the most recent terrible fight she and my stepmother had. They've been having terrible fights for the twenty-plus years since my dad built his house on the hill above Margie's and moved his family there. Well, my stepmother is a wicked, crazy bitch, so it's only natural that she would fight with my slightly selfish and manipulative grandmother. Then I get to hear about it all, first from Margie, then from "up on the hill," as it were. The official version of whatever happened according to my dad and stepmother. I'm usually sympathetic to both sides, even though I can't stand my stepmother, and in the end I always side with Margie anyway because I love her.
Wow. I'm just procrastinating. I have too much to do.
I cleaned my car out for SK to borrow while I'm gone, I cleaned the dead and dying things from my fridge (more or less), I straightened the piles and piles of papers (old newspapers, magazines, notebooks from school, books from school, pamphlets from school, many other things from school) around my desk, I got some things together to mail, I shaved my legs. *Gasp* I shaved my legs which is a big deal because I don't generally shave my legs, but I often sell-out when I go visit my family because it's a lot easier to wear shorts in the summer in Georgia when you don't look like a scary-hairy dyke. Will I regret these compromises some day? I don't know.
I keep confusing myself by imagining I am on my way to Florida to visit my mom. A visit to my mom would be *much* more fun than a visit to my dad, but ultimately both visits would be equally emotionally damaging, I mean, challenging. And either way I would've shaved my legs, but still, a trip to mom's would involve swimming in the ocean, playing with her dog Buddy, eating lots of really good food, watching lots of weird shit on tv and having always surprising and enlightening conversations about: aliens, mom's conspiracy theories, mom's conspiracy theories about aliens, old family drama, bizarre ideas about christianity (Bible codes? the Nag Hammadi library?) and stuff about ghosts and spirits.
Not to mention, mom just settled a long-in-the-works lawsuit and has a chunk of change in her pocket nowadays, so a trip to mom's might also be more fun because she'd feel more free to do more fun stuff with me. Usually we're both pretty broke, but with some money, mom might want to actually go out into the world and do things besides shop at Wal-Mart and walk around the mall. Of course, she's got a messed up back and can't walk very far or very much, so she might not want to do anything fun after all. Who knows.
Instead, I'll go to Georgia and see my 88 year old grandmother who will (even though she knows I'm a lesbian) remind me that she'd feel so much better if I just found myself a nice man to take care of me. I love my grandmother and it won't be all about finding me a husband and a church to start attending, but that'll be in there with all the other stuff. The best thing about visiting Margie is the family gossip she always unleashes on me. She always swears me to secrecy and then, for good, measure, tells me how bad it is for her to say the things she's going to say and how she shouldn't say them at all, and how maybe she'll just shut up now before it's too late, but well, I'll just tell you and you can't breathe a word to anybody else about any of this, now, this stays between you and me, ok?
Ok. Just spill it, Margie. Then she lets loose about the latest thing my sleazy cousin did or the way my dad's feud with his brother is tearing her apart or, more likely, the most recent terrible fight she and my stepmother had. They've been having terrible fights for the twenty-plus years since my dad built his house on the hill above Margie's and moved his family there. Well, my stepmother is a wicked, crazy bitch, so it's only natural that she would fight with my slightly selfish and manipulative grandmother. Then I get to hear about it all, first from Margie, then from "up on the hill," as it were. The official version of whatever happened according to my dad and stepmother. I'm usually sympathetic to both sides, even though I can't stand my stepmother, and in the end I always side with Margie anyway because I love her.
Wow. I'm just procrastinating. I have too much to do.
posted by reasonably prudent poet at 12:37 PM
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