Christmas rundown
This is the deal with my trip home to my parents' house, which is ending in less than 12 hours if I have to drag myself out of bed kicking and screaming.
-I bought a CD boombox and batteries with which to power it on my way out of town, for $46 (that includes boombox and batteries). It has been invaluable. Without it I would have had no music in the car or at my parents' house (unless I wanted to listen to my Walkman, which is incredibly cumbersome when I'm not out for a walk or something of that nature). As it is, I've been playing the first Moby Grape album quite a lot, and have discovered that it has several other songs that are at least as good as the opening track, "Hey Grandma". Bands shouldn't make songs that good start their albums--it makes every other song seem a disappointment.
-The night I got here, my brother and I had a two-hour conversation that completely ruined my mood for most of the rest of the trip. I have, between then and now, posted multiple melodramatic Myspace bulletins and message-board posts in which I lamented having ever come here in the first place. I blamed most of this on my parents, but really, about 90% of what upset me came from what my brother said to me during that conversation. For starters, a direct quote: "You're a chore to deal with." He came very close to making a statement along the lines of "no one wants you here, we get along just fine without you." What I believe he actually said was "everyone gets along fine except when you're here. The only time Mom and Dad get mad and fight with anyone, it's with you. When it's just the three of us, we get along great." He further picked on me for my insecurity in social situations, saying something about how it makes me seem like a snob when I don't easily jump into conversations with family members. This led to him saying that if I should be able to feel comfortable around anyone, it should be my family.
-All of this blew my mind so badly that it took me days to realize that the reason I was feeling miserable this time out was NOT because of my mom being bitchy and snapping at me too easily. It's certainly true that she does this, but the only time it really flagrantly occurred was on Sunday, a couple of hours before the 18 relatives we were expecting got here. She was in the process of getting everything ready, which always stresses her out. For her to only pop off at me once, and then in a really stressful situation, is pretty remarkable, relatively speaking. It was my brother that really fucked the whole trip up for me. Basically, I feel like he's gone over to the other side. Let me explain further: I always felt, when we were younger, that our parents put us through a lot of stress, and honestly, behaved like dictatorial authority figures who were able to take out their arbitrary mood swings on us with impunity. I thought he understood how fucked up this had made me, because he'd lived through it too. I honestly think he did when he was younger. But a combination of two different factors--the fact that he has a higher self-esteem than I do and is therefore much better equipped to not give a shit if our parents express disapproval and other negative emotions toward him; and the fact that he never moved out of the house, and is still living with them at the age of not-quite-26--have permanently changed his viewpoint. I think these days my parents treat him as an adult on a daily basis, the kind of treatment I never got from them and pretty much still don't get, and as a result have earned a great deal of his sympathy. So now, he's got an "if I made it through childhood just fine, you should be fine too" attitude towards me, and has not only no understanding but not even an INTEREST in understanding the differences in perspective and motivation between us. He thinks I need to "get over it" and feels that Mom and Dad's inability to even try to understand me or give me an inch in any situation is justified. What's more, he takes basically the same attitude towards me now, and even managed to unselfconsciously bark orders at me multiple times over the course of the weekend. Upshot: I have three parents now, one of which is younger than me. SWEET.
-I was bugging out so bad by day 3 of my trip here (Monday) that I left the house for hours and drove into Warrenton, which is something like 15 miles away. It never fails to blow my mind to see how much this town has changed in the 22 years since I moved away. Of course, towns change a lot in 22 years, so it shouldn't be a surprise, and strictly speaking it's not, not on a rational level. But nonetheless, on a deeper, more emotional level, it feels fucking weird to see huge housing developments on plots of land that I remember being occupied by woods and fields. Old town Warrenton is much the same, however, and I wandered around it for about an hour, taking in everything that I took for granted as a child, being surprised by ways in which my memory failed me, and other ways in which it brought back details I never would have expected to be retained. I realized that I first heard one of my most hated songs ever, "Rosanna", by Toto, while riding shotgun in my mother's car down Ashby St. I can remember that my brother was alive, but still young enough to be in his carseat, which makes me somewhere between 6 and 8 in the memory, but most likely 7. How the hell do I still retain any of that? It's fucking weird.
-Not so weird, in fact quite cool: wandering around Old Town gave me an idea for another novel. Granted, I have one plotted out in a notebook, which I first sketched out a year ago and have done very little with since, but if I have another idea that doesn't mean I should ignore it just because I haven't finished the last one. Hopefully I will write both eventually. They both express different elements of my own desire to write autobiographically but also mix in elements of genre. This one is either crime or horror, I'm not sure. The other one is alternate-universe-style urban fantasy steampunk, or something. I really should write them both eventually, but right now I only know the first few chapters of the new idea. I need to have books plotted out entirely before I really pitch in on writing them. I'm going to be figuring out the rest of this one over the next few days or weeks or whatever, I guess. I'm planning to take a side trip back through Warrenton on my way out of here tomorrow morning, so that I can wander around some more and make notes on a couple different Google maps that I printed out on my dad's computer.
-Christmas morning gift exchange made me feel pretty terrible for all the secret thoughts I've been harboring about my family. The first gift I opened was a trio of photos in an elaborate frame, all three of me at certain points in my life. In one I am with my parents and brother. Maybe if things had gone better I would have been touched by the gift, but as it was I felt simultaneously angry and like a shithead. Angry because my emotions were being manipulated by something that didn't mean nearly as much as all the kind and encouraging words I never got, but like a shithead because I know that on some level, my parents and my brother do care about me and are just crappy at showing it. I want to be able to forgive them, but they make it hard. The jury's still out on this one, but I guess this is a lot of why I still do keep in regular touch with them.
-I also got the "Gonzo" photobook, by the estate of Hunter S. Thompson, from my brother. I'm sure he didn't mean to hurt me like he did on Saturday night, because I know he's not nearly as sensitive to the feelings of people around him as I am (probably why girls love him and I'm still alone). This gift proves that he does pay attention to what I like, and cares enough to try and make me happy with his gifts. Again, I don't think people that giving you things should be able to make up for the ways they treat you badly, but it just shows that he doesn't hate me or anything. And I mean, I don't hate him either. I don't hate my parents either. I just wish that someone in this family was able to express love in a functional manner, rather than being withdrawn like my dad, or casually harsh in ways they don't even realize, like my mom or my brother, or being way too intense and sensitive and scaring everyone away, like me.
-Other things I got for Christmas: an 80 gb Ipod. Holy shit, that's awesome. A deluxe pedometer--reasonably cool. A George Foreman grill. Also awesome. $145 in cash, checks, and gift cards. Can't complain. Lottery scratch tickets. Amusing. I won a dollar. Plenty of socks (of which I probably have too many as it is) and underwear (which I can use).
-I spoke to Sam about creating a website for our label on which we would make all the old CD-R releases that came out in editions of 50 or whatever available for download. He's way into it, and so am I. Now to come up with the money to buy a domain name and webspace. This will be the hard part.
-Actually I talked to Sam a bunch when I was really freaking out about everything with the family. He was really cool about it. And then I talked to Jessica about it on AIM as well. Both of them were very helpful. But despite everything they said and everyone else has said, I still don't think I can handle cutting my family off completely. I'd like to believe that their positive moments excuse all the casual, unthinking damage they do to me every time I'm around them, but that's a lie. I'm really still just trying to gain their approval.
-One more thing: I called this girl that I've been communicating with on the internet on Saturday night. She told me lots of drama stories during the 20 or so minutes we talked. She has a 6 year old kid. She has no job. She's divorced. She's 23. The personalized music that I heard while I waited for her to answer her phone was a Godsmack song. I think I might not want to pursue this one. That said, I will probably at least call her once more, because I am a sap.
-I bought a CD boombox and batteries with which to power it on my way out of town, for $46 (that includes boombox and batteries). It has been invaluable. Without it I would have had no music in the car or at my parents' house (unless I wanted to listen to my Walkman, which is incredibly cumbersome when I'm not out for a walk or something of that nature). As it is, I've been playing the first Moby Grape album quite a lot, and have discovered that it has several other songs that are at least as good as the opening track, "Hey Grandma". Bands shouldn't make songs that good start their albums--it makes every other song seem a disappointment.
-The night I got here, my brother and I had a two-hour conversation that completely ruined my mood for most of the rest of the trip. I have, between then and now, posted multiple melodramatic Myspace bulletins and message-board posts in which I lamented having ever come here in the first place. I blamed most of this on my parents, but really, about 90% of what upset me came from what my brother said to me during that conversation. For starters, a direct quote: "You're a chore to deal with." He came very close to making a statement along the lines of "no one wants you here, we get along just fine without you." What I believe he actually said was "everyone gets along fine except when you're here. The only time Mom and Dad get mad and fight with anyone, it's with you. When it's just the three of us, we get along great." He further picked on me for my insecurity in social situations, saying something about how it makes me seem like a snob when I don't easily jump into conversations with family members. This led to him saying that if I should be able to feel comfortable around anyone, it should be my family.
-All of this blew my mind so badly that it took me days to realize that the reason I was feeling miserable this time out was NOT because of my mom being bitchy and snapping at me too easily. It's certainly true that she does this, but the only time it really flagrantly occurred was on Sunday, a couple of hours before the 18 relatives we were expecting got here. She was in the process of getting everything ready, which always stresses her out. For her to only pop off at me once, and then in a really stressful situation, is pretty remarkable, relatively speaking. It was my brother that really fucked the whole trip up for me. Basically, I feel like he's gone over to the other side. Let me explain further: I always felt, when we were younger, that our parents put us through a lot of stress, and honestly, behaved like dictatorial authority figures who were able to take out their arbitrary mood swings on us with impunity. I thought he understood how fucked up this had made me, because he'd lived through it too. I honestly think he did when he was younger. But a combination of two different factors--the fact that he has a higher self-esteem than I do and is therefore much better equipped to not give a shit if our parents express disapproval and other negative emotions toward him; and the fact that he never moved out of the house, and is still living with them at the age of not-quite-26--have permanently changed his viewpoint. I think these days my parents treat him as an adult on a daily basis, the kind of treatment I never got from them and pretty much still don't get, and as a result have earned a great deal of his sympathy. So now, he's got an "if I made it through childhood just fine, you should be fine too" attitude towards me, and has not only no understanding but not even an INTEREST in understanding the differences in perspective and motivation between us. He thinks I need to "get over it" and feels that Mom and Dad's inability to even try to understand me or give me an inch in any situation is justified. What's more, he takes basically the same attitude towards me now, and even managed to unselfconsciously bark orders at me multiple times over the course of the weekend. Upshot: I have three parents now, one of which is younger than me. SWEET.
-I was bugging out so bad by day 3 of my trip here (Monday) that I left the house for hours and drove into Warrenton, which is something like 15 miles away. It never fails to blow my mind to see how much this town has changed in the 22 years since I moved away. Of course, towns change a lot in 22 years, so it shouldn't be a surprise, and strictly speaking it's not, not on a rational level. But nonetheless, on a deeper, more emotional level, it feels fucking weird to see huge housing developments on plots of land that I remember being occupied by woods and fields. Old town Warrenton is much the same, however, and I wandered around it for about an hour, taking in everything that I took for granted as a child, being surprised by ways in which my memory failed me, and other ways in which it brought back details I never would have expected to be retained. I realized that I first heard one of my most hated songs ever, "Rosanna", by Toto, while riding shotgun in my mother's car down Ashby St. I can remember that my brother was alive, but still young enough to be in his carseat, which makes me somewhere between 6 and 8 in the memory, but most likely 7. How the hell do I still retain any of that? It's fucking weird.
-Not so weird, in fact quite cool: wandering around Old Town gave me an idea for another novel. Granted, I have one plotted out in a notebook, which I first sketched out a year ago and have done very little with since, but if I have another idea that doesn't mean I should ignore it just because I haven't finished the last one. Hopefully I will write both eventually. They both express different elements of my own desire to write autobiographically but also mix in elements of genre. This one is either crime or horror, I'm not sure. The other one is alternate-universe-style urban fantasy steampunk, or something. I really should write them both eventually, but right now I only know the first few chapters of the new idea. I need to have books plotted out entirely before I really pitch in on writing them. I'm going to be figuring out the rest of this one over the next few days or weeks or whatever, I guess. I'm planning to take a side trip back through Warrenton on my way out of here tomorrow morning, so that I can wander around some more and make notes on a couple different Google maps that I printed out on my dad's computer.
-Christmas morning gift exchange made me feel pretty terrible for all the secret thoughts I've been harboring about my family. The first gift I opened was a trio of photos in an elaborate frame, all three of me at certain points in my life. In one I am with my parents and brother. Maybe if things had gone better I would have been touched by the gift, but as it was I felt simultaneously angry and like a shithead. Angry because my emotions were being manipulated by something that didn't mean nearly as much as all the kind and encouraging words I never got, but like a shithead because I know that on some level, my parents and my brother do care about me and are just crappy at showing it. I want to be able to forgive them, but they make it hard. The jury's still out on this one, but I guess this is a lot of why I still do keep in regular touch with them.
-I also got the "Gonzo" photobook, by the estate of Hunter S. Thompson, from my brother. I'm sure he didn't mean to hurt me like he did on Saturday night, because I know he's not nearly as sensitive to the feelings of people around him as I am (probably why girls love him and I'm still alone). This gift proves that he does pay attention to what I like, and cares enough to try and make me happy with his gifts. Again, I don't think people that giving you things should be able to make up for the ways they treat you badly, but it just shows that he doesn't hate me or anything. And I mean, I don't hate him either. I don't hate my parents either. I just wish that someone in this family was able to express love in a functional manner, rather than being withdrawn like my dad, or casually harsh in ways they don't even realize, like my mom or my brother, or being way too intense and sensitive and scaring everyone away, like me.
-Other things I got for Christmas: an 80 gb Ipod. Holy shit, that's awesome. A deluxe pedometer--reasonably cool. A George Foreman grill. Also awesome. $145 in cash, checks, and gift cards. Can't complain. Lottery scratch tickets. Amusing. I won a dollar. Plenty of socks (of which I probably have too many as it is) and underwear (which I can use).
-I spoke to Sam about creating a website for our label on which we would make all the old CD-R releases that came out in editions of 50 or whatever available for download. He's way into it, and so am I. Now to come up with the money to buy a domain name and webspace. This will be the hard part.
-Actually I talked to Sam a bunch when I was really freaking out about everything with the family. He was really cool about it. And then I talked to Jessica about it on AIM as well. Both of them were very helpful. But despite everything they said and everyone else has said, I still don't think I can handle cutting my family off completely. I'd like to believe that their positive moments excuse all the casual, unthinking damage they do to me every time I'm around them, but that's a lie. I'm really still just trying to gain their approval.
-One more thing: I called this girl that I've been communicating with on the internet on Saturday night. She told me lots of drama stories during the 20 or so minutes we talked. She has a 6 year old kid. She has no job. She's divorced. She's 23. The personalized music that I heard while I waited for her to answer her phone was a Godsmack song. I think I might not want to pursue this one. That said, I will probably at least call her once more, because I am a sap.