"Those were the best days of my life."

2005-03-01

I'm home after a whirlwind weekend in Peoria for my early birthday celebration. It was hardly 48 hours so I was limited to family time only, but surprisingly it wasn't the usual humdrum weekend home.

Mom and I hit Nana and Grandad's for a hyperactive lunch of cake, ice cream, and coffee. This kicked ass for two reasons: 1. With nothing else in their systems but sugar and caffine, the usual genteel dinner table conversation was dominated by topics as varried as the hilarity of cat vomit, farting in the car, and my brother hurling in the car after attempting to eat a five foot rope of beef jerky. 2. With no lunch to plan, everybody seemed a bit mellowed out with just the desert to worry about. While Alzhemier's continues to gnaw away at Grandad - Sunday was the first time I couldn't even hold a conversation with him - an easygoing "lunch" was a true blessing for our quietly struggling little family.

After a night at dad's sitting by a fire, watching the Oscars and drinking scotch, I was feeling nostalgic. I decided to venture downstairs and brave the cold tile floor of my old basement room while digging through the glory of my BABY PICTURES.

OBSERVATIONS:

* My brother has not one, but TWO baby books. I have none. Presenting this find to my mom, she quickly said that of course(!) I had a baby book! It just must be somewhere else! She seemed panicked, giving me the impression that either she was lying and I truly had no baby book, or that the book did exist but is also the hiding place for some deservedly hidden keepsake like the body of my stillborn twin brother or a crack pipe.

* In the 80's, all men's short pants = about two millimeters from balls. I own boxers that fall further south than what passed for shorts in those days.

* Everything was Christmas this or birthday that, except for a lone picture of four or five year old me sitting on my grandparents' kitchen floor playing with a Jack In The Box. I still have that Jack In The Box.

* My mom was a pretty fine woman in her salad days. My dad? Scrawny-ass dork when Mike and I were kids. His nickname is "Skinny" and he earned it honestly, but he's since grown into his good looks. One of my brother's ladyfriends has referred to him as a DILF (Dad I'd Like to Fuck). I am lucky to be my parents' son. Chicken legs and all.

* I came across a picture taken during my Confirmation days with my mom's face scratched up a little bit. Those were sad days.

* My senior prom picture dug up the dirt of Celeste, the first girlfriend to fall victim to a small social anxiety disorder that developed my senior year which I've all but suppressed but still deal with from time to time. Leigh, my roommate, often wears Lavender, Celeste's scent. Those people that claim that smell is the most evocative in terms of memory weren't lying.

* In all of my early boyhood pictures with my mother's family, I'm taken by how openly I interract with my aunts, uncles and cousins in the days before we began to fall a bit short in bridging the gaps between distance and lifestyle. But we were kids then. We didn't understand socioeconomics and divorce, we were left out of the gossip that circulated amongst our adult relatives, and most importantly we didn't know how to be goddamn polite.

Sunday afternoon around cake and coffee, we were carefree and impulsive and laughing genuinely and it felt fucking fantastic.

* Instead of stumbling upon my own baby book, I chanced upon my mother's baby book and caught my first glimpse of my blood grandmother, my mother's mother, who took her own life when my mom was twelve. My mom has never really talked about her, but then again I never asked...

...Okay, I've been sitting here for about ten minutes trying to figure out how to develop this thought without sounding condescending and all I can come up with is that it makes me sad. I'm sorry that my mom, aunts and uncles carry this with them every day. I'm sorry that Jazzy and Rob lost their mothers and carries it with them every day. And oddly, I'm sorry that I can't empathize. I like to think that I have the answers for everything, but I'll (hopefully) always be disconnected from this one. It makes me sad, but reminds me to be humble and thankful.

My birthday's this Friday but I was glad to head back home a few days early, in most every way a person can go home.

-Andy

A quick timeout before I go back to DYING.

Remind me why I'm moving to New York again?

"Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ta-ble five! Ta-ble five! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Table fiiiiiiiive!"

"Angela!"

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