Machete convention
I wrote this yesterday, but was hindered by a company power-outage. Now there's a company air conditioning-outage, and my hands and feet have turned into small, sweaty fountains.
A few tasks piled up for me while I was gone...so this is the most work I've been faced with in the past month. And at present, I'm too tired to spend the next hour doing anything insanely productive.
...and I've also decided that any lengthy description of my family vacation will most likely bore the shit out of anyone else aside from me. It may even bore the shit out of me.
Friday morning we caught at 9am train to Holyhead, Wales, which was followed by a raucous ferry ride to Dublin. The ferries of my childhood were primitive and rusty, with birds on the deck, poop in my hair, one level supporting a second deck. A snack stand selling pretzels and Vess soda. This particular ferry ate all of my childhood memories with duty-free shopping, Burger King, a playground. All of the seats by the windows were taken, so we had to sit in the food court. The names of lost children were constantly being blared over the loudspeaker.
My guess is that unclaimed children were thrown into the Irish Sea or sold tax-free in the gift shop.
We spent the afternoon and evening in downtown Dublin, and then walked to the bus station to claim some bags and catch a taxi. We lost my dad somewhere along that walked and arrived at the bus station with little knowledge of his whereabouts. We finally found him wandering around in our general vicinity. I put another tick on my "How many times we've lost Dad" list. The grand total was somewhere around eleven. I'd lost my sense of humor around number seven, and began to realize that this is the sort of thing that happens when someone gets old.
And my dad is getting old.
And I knew it would happen earlier for me than for other people, but it doesn't make it any easier. I'm beginning to have mental flashes of my brother Paul walking me down the aisle at my wedding, shirt unbuttoned to reveal a torn Goldfinger shirt stretched over a beer belly, small paper bells tied neatly to his fu-man-chu.
We flew out of Dublin Saturday afternoon. Upon realizing that our in-flight entertainment consisted of "Against the Ropes," "The Whole Ten Yards," and taped episodes of The Drew Carrey Show running on a continuous loop, I opted for a book. I'd finished Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim and had recently admitted my defeat when it came to Naked Lunch. I picked up Franny and Zooey out of Mary Clare's backpack read that instead. I own it, but I'd never read it. I liked it a lot. I like thinly veiled spirituality and I'm strangely fascinated with the notion of former child prodigies and their struggle to assimilate themselves into normalcy. The Tenenbaums, William H. Macy in Magnolia. Danny Bonaduce.
Mid-flight, my mom and I shared a good 45 minutes of serious conversation, the most we'd talked the entire trip. And then she ruined it by meandering down the awkwardly asked awkward questions road, a road not easily traveled in confined spaces.
We spent the night near O'Hare in order to be in close proximity to the airport chapel for mass the next morning. Logical if you're flying out of O'Hare the next morning as well. Illogical if you're flying out of Midway, forty minutes away. This made perfect sense to my parents though, so we hauled our bags to O'Hare to attend mass in a small chapel overlooking the security check. I said goodbye to my family at Midway, and proceeded home to Omaha.
I made a friend on the way home. A small, pimpled Millard West freshman. She sat next to me, and proceeded to more or less rest her head on my shoulder and read my magazine. Her name was Rachel.
Rachel: CAN I SEE THAT AFTER YOU?
C: Ummm...here, just take it.
*silence for half and hour*
Rachel: WHO'S YOUR FAVORITE SINGER?
C: *thinking about this way too hard* You know, I have some favorite bands. Not really a favorite singer per say. *silence* Who's your fav-
Rachel: CLAY AIKEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I'm all for Clay Aiken, and have friends who are all for him as well, but it was the fervency with which she said this that caught me off guard. We didn't talk again for the rest of the flight. And as I looked down on Iowa's green boxes, I contemplated whether or not my lack of a favorite singer makes me any less of a human being.
A few tasks piled up for me while I was gone...so this is the most work I've been faced with in the past month. And at present, I'm too tired to spend the next hour doing anything insanely productive.
...and I've also decided that any lengthy description of my family vacation will most likely bore the shit out of anyone else aside from me. It may even bore the shit out of me.
Friday morning we caught at 9am train to Holyhead, Wales, which was followed by a raucous ferry ride to Dublin. The ferries of my childhood were primitive and rusty, with birds on the deck, poop in my hair, one level supporting a second deck. A snack stand selling pretzels and Vess soda. This particular ferry ate all of my childhood memories with duty-free shopping, Burger King, a playground. All of the seats by the windows were taken, so we had to sit in the food court. The names of lost children were constantly being blared over the loudspeaker.
My guess is that unclaimed children were thrown into the Irish Sea or sold tax-free in the gift shop.
We spent the afternoon and evening in downtown Dublin, and then walked to the bus station to claim some bags and catch a taxi. We lost my dad somewhere along that walked and arrived at the bus station with little knowledge of his whereabouts. We finally found him wandering around in our general vicinity. I put another tick on my "How many times we've lost Dad" list. The grand total was somewhere around eleven. I'd lost my sense of humor around number seven, and began to realize that this is the sort of thing that happens when someone gets old.
And my dad is getting old.
And I knew it would happen earlier for me than for other people, but it doesn't make it any easier. I'm beginning to have mental flashes of my brother Paul walking me down the aisle at my wedding, shirt unbuttoned to reveal a torn Goldfinger shirt stretched over a beer belly, small paper bells tied neatly to his fu-man-chu.
We flew out of Dublin Saturday afternoon. Upon realizing that our in-flight entertainment consisted of "Against the Ropes," "The Whole Ten Yards," and taped episodes of The Drew Carrey Show running on a continuous loop, I opted for a book. I'd finished Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim and had recently admitted my defeat when it came to Naked Lunch. I picked up Franny and Zooey out of Mary Clare's backpack read that instead. I own it, but I'd never read it. I liked it a lot. I like thinly veiled spirituality and I'm strangely fascinated with the notion of former child prodigies and their struggle to assimilate themselves into normalcy. The Tenenbaums, William H. Macy in Magnolia. Danny Bonaduce.
Mid-flight, my mom and I shared a good 45 minutes of serious conversation, the most we'd talked the entire trip. And then she ruined it by meandering down the awkwardly asked awkward questions road, a road not easily traveled in confined spaces.
We spent the night near O'Hare in order to be in close proximity to the airport chapel for mass the next morning. Logical if you're flying out of O'Hare the next morning as well. Illogical if you're flying out of Midway, forty minutes away. This made perfect sense to my parents though, so we hauled our bags to O'Hare to attend mass in a small chapel overlooking the security check. I said goodbye to my family at Midway, and proceeded home to Omaha.
I made a friend on the way home. A small, pimpled Millard West freshman. She sat next to me, and proceeded to more or less rest her head on my shoulder and read my magazine. Her name was Rachel.
Rachel: CAN I SEE THAT AFTER YOU?
C: Ummm...here, just take it.
*silence for half and hour*
Rachel: WHO'S YOUR FAVORITE SINGER?
C: *thinking about this way too hard* You know, I have some favorite bands. Not really a favorite singer per say. *silence* Who's your fav-
Rachel: CLAY AIKEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I'm all for Clay Aiken, and have friends who are all for him as well, but it was the fervency with which she said this that caught me off guard. We didn't talk again for the rest of the flight. And as I looked down on Iowa's green boxes, I contemplated whether or not my lack of a favorite singer makes me any less of a human being.