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Saturday, January 1st, 2005
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12:00a - There should be no hesitation when the coast is clear.
See there's food for me, there's food for you
There's gold that's in the air
There's oceans deep and wide and there is love beyond compare
current mood: delighted
current music: Apples in the Trees -- Mirah (comment on this)
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2:41a - Someday you will ache like I ache.
I've had three wrong numbers on my cell phone tonight.
Hell.
Anyone else want to call me?
630-234-8517
current music: Doll Parts -- Hole (3 comments |comment on this)
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12:58p
My mom is mad at me again.
For a good kid, I sure have a well-turned ability that allows me to easily piss off my mom.
I don't care.
She's mad today because I claimed sickness when the rest of the family was ready to leave this afternoon. They are going to John's brother's house. My step-uncle. I am not really sick, which is okay, because my parents didn't believe me anyway. What they don't know- they don't know the reason that I did not want to attend today's family function.
I am afraid. I am a big pile of wimp and I am terribly scared.
Of what am I scared? I'm scared of my darling little stepcousins, the ones who have climbed into my lap every time I see them for the last five years. I am afraid of my step-grandfather, who tells me every time I have to squeeze past him in the kitchen that he's really proud of my schoolwork. I am afraid of my funny step-aunts who are semi-confessional to me when neither my sister, the younger generation or my mother, the older generation are around. I'm scared of my other step-aunt, the beautiful one, the one who sent me a delicate black and gold scarf for Christmas two years ago and jewelry from South Korea this past year.
It might be a little too late for this, but I'm afraid of loving them and I am afraid of losing them. Why am I thinking of this now? Why five years later? Oh, I was afraid in the beginning too, but then I let my guard down. Because of the kids, mostly. Mostly, because of Jenny.
Jenny is eight now, I think. She's very young, younger than I was at eight, younger than Ali, too. I remember sitting on her parent's couch two years ago. I was in the crook, she was under my arm. One of my hands was stroking her forearm. She has very fuzzy forearms. Anyway, we had a mutual admiration society forming. She was kind of cool to me at Christmas, though. Maybe that's what spooked me.
I just went dancing in my living room to forget. Chris Martin was singing about bones sinking like stones and our beautiful world. Now Elizabeth Elmore is singing-
He goes, won't you please bring it back? just bring it back to me
Wake up some senseless day, and realize he'd never recognized what you became.
And I'm lying. I'm lying by omission. I have a history that I'm not sharing. I'm not sharing because I don't know where to start. Do I start with the airport or the cemetery? Or do I start somewhere else?
I had another family. This is not my first other family. I had another dad, I had grandparents and great-grandparents. I had a great-uncle. I had crushes on his sons. I had a cousin who was my age. I had another house that was mine. I had an airport and airplanes. I had an entire wood and it was mine.
I wasn't born with these things. I was gifted with them. Blessed. My mother was involved with a boy. He was just getting out of high school. She had a daughter who was three, who was me. His name was John. His dad told my mom that he didn't want to get close to me. He didn't want to love me because he was afraid of losing me if John and my mom ever stopped dating. He loved me anyway.
He was my first grandpa. My mom's dad isn't good for much and my dad's dad died ten years before I was born. But John's dad. John's dad loved me before Ali was even alive and he kept loving me the same when she was. He didn't love me any less when he had a real granddaughter. His wife was a good grandma to me, too. She didn't like my mom, but she was good to me. A little better to Ali, but women are like that, I think.
The family ran a business at the town airport. I had to drive past it the other day to get to Aunt Amy's house and then to get back again. Breanna saw me swallow hard when we passed it. What's wrong? she asked. I shook my head.
The business is called Lumanair. They charter small airplanes. They also have a lot of mechanics who can work on other planes. I think they offer hangar services too. I used to have complete access to their buildings. I would sit behind the front desk and talk with the receptionists. I hung out in the mechanic's lounge. The parts manager was an older man named Walt, who was as warm to me as if he too were my grandpa. I had more family than I knew. When I think about it now, I think I was the Princess of the Airport. I ran in the grass around the traffic control tower.
John's dad's name was Bob, Robert Jr. I always knew about the Jr., but for some reason it didn't strike me that meant his dad's name was Robert, too. I took early to calling my great-grandpa Grandpa Jo- because his wife's name was Josephine and she was everyone's mother at the airport. Everyone either called her Ma or Jo. I didn't think Jo could be a woman's name, so I thought they must be a pair- Grandma Jo, Grandpa Jo.
Everyone called him that. I was ten when he died. He was buried as Grandpa Jo. I made that impact on his life. I came in late, but I made a difference.
John and my mom divorced when I was in 7th grade. John actually moved out the weekend of the state competition for Mathcounts. I didn't tell anyone. Individually, I got 20th place in the state. That was the year our team earned first place. Michael didn't do as well as I did, but I think he was close. Adri was in the top twelve. Joe Jia was first. He won nationals that year. We were amazing. My coach found out later, from my mom, how significant the weekend had been for me. He was stunned at the way I'd revealed nothing.
The divorce didn't bother me. I was actually a little grateful. John #1 and my mom didn't belong together. They fought. Didn't respect each other. I knew the divorce hurt them both, but it was better, eventually. I wasn't going to lose my family either. I never mention that Ali is my half-sister. It doesn't feel like she is. I still think of John in my head as dad, reflexively, because when Ali was learning how to speak, they didn't want her to call him John so I started calling him dad. I wasn't going to lose my grandparents.
And I didn't, at first. When Ali stayed with John for a week, I stayed with John for a week. When she spent the night at grandma and grandpa's, so did I. They still cooked us breakfast on weekends and called it 'down on the farm.' They still lived in the house they'd built in the woods. Grandma Jo still lived next door to them, through a patch of trees. There was a big rock in that patch of trees. It was miniature forest in the bigger wood. I used to sit on the rock and pretend I was nowhere, because nowhere made me happy.
I really did lose everything because of Robin. John started dating her a couple of years after the divorce. She didn't understand why he still treated me like a daughter. I was living in three houses. Mom's for a few nights, Dad's for a few nights, John's for a few nights. Robin warmed up to me a little. She was young and I was mature. We sat on opposite couches in their living room and had long conversations while it snowed. John was working late and Ali was watching tv.
When she found out I was gay, things didn't seem to shift right away, but now I know they did. Something about my sexuality led her to not trust me. Stacy had a birthday party. Stacy liked girls and boys, I liked girls. Other kids were there. She and John assumed it was something like an orgy. They told me I couldn't spend the night. My mother told me I could. Months later, they would use that party as an excuse to lose faith in me. Robin gave me the silent treatment for weeks. She turned her face when I walked by.
John took me into the garage to talk to me. He was cutting lumber. He told me it was unfair, but I was reasonable and Robin was unreasonable and I had to be the nice one. He told me to surrender to her. I didn't know what there was to surrender, but I was supposed to give in to something. He hugged me. I had a feeling like he'd just honored me with something, but he'd also made his choice in that moment. He chose her.
It was shortly after that day that I stopped visiting their house. I don't remember how I got my furniture. Somehow the futon I'd slept on in their basement made its way to my bedroom at my mom's house. I think I was sad that day. Finally hit me that I'd lost something, really.
There used to be phone calls. John would call to talk to my mom or Ali and I would answer the phone. The silences were long, but tender. He was the man I'd called my father for eleven years. I've received a couple of birthday and Christmas cards, but those stopped some time ago.
Anyway, I drove past the airport, I drove past the cemetery where Grandpa Jo was buried. And it hit me, around the same time all the tears did, that I can't do this again. So I faked my stomachache this morning. John (this John, new John) was throwing things around in the bedroom when he heard I wasn't coming with to his family's. My mom told me how disappointed in me she was. Ali whined that I get out of everything.
When my mom called to check on me, I told her the real reason I hadn't gone with. She promised me I wouldn't lose this family. I told her she can't promise. I don't know what I'm going to do. I get grounded every time I try to shy away from his family. If I stay home, I get punished. If I go and I don't interact, I get punished. If I go and I do interact and it doesn't please my parents anyway, I get punished.
Whatever. What the fuck ever.
I'm writing a letter to Kristin. I asked her for one first. She told me it's going to be a monster. Later, she asked me for one too. I'm supposed to tell her what I'm about. I've been reading her stories this morning. Strange Heart Beating is my favorite, I think. I like that my girl is a writer. It makes me feel closer to her than I would if she weren't a writer; the writing is something we share and it gives me a place of hers in which to curl up and rest.
current mood: tired
current music: Love Is An Arrow -- Aberfeldy (comment on this)
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6:18p
*allows herself moment of silliness*
So- I love, love, love when my favorite songs are conversationally quoted.
Me: I like the way you melt for me.
Kristin: Melting has never been so fun.
Me: And I know the butter isn't melting out of habit.
Kristin: Yeah. That's because the toast is warm.
Me: Is it okay if my thighs have been involved in many accidents?
Kristin: Only if it's okay that my cunt is built like a wound that won't heal.
*dies happily*
current mood: tickled
current music: Out of Habit -- Ani Difranco (comment on this)
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