Summer night
Today is Alex's birthday, and what a fun, delightfully bizarre day it has been. I'm ripping off the adverb from a book jacket on which was a quote from a critic describing the said book as "delightfully odd." Of course I had to buy it. I may in fact cut it as Speech piece, but who knows. It's funny, when people have said my family is identical to the Osbournes (minus the drugs, more of the swearing--in good humor, naturally), I've always nodded and laughed, but I swear, moments today were pure comedy. I'm feeling really sad all of a sudden because in a year, I won't be living at home. I'm not quite sure where I'll be living but it will not be near "tha bed." It hit me in an especially biting way today when I realized that Courtney will go through her entire time at high school without me living at home. I won't be there for her first homecoming, her first exam, her first real boyfriend, her semi-formal, all the good stuff she and Alex have watched me go through--I mean, I won't be there to teach her how to drive (though that may be a good thing lol). I know, I know, I'm a mega dork, but this summer has been funny.
I mean, Dad and I are kind of, sort of, maybe getting along after what was absolutely the biggest, most tense blowup we have ever had just a month ago. And Alex and I are getting along. And Courtney is Courtney. And Mom. Oh, mom... In our "world travels" I have learned so much more about her than I ever thought was possible, unearthing little family mysteries and secrets, hearing explanations for things she did, hearing her regrets, her dreams. I mean, I kind of want to just keep traveling with her and laughing and being a huge goofball. I have one year left to live at home and be taken care of--and then what? I don't know why all of a sudden there's this sudden affinity to home--maybe because what has always been a constant won't be in not too long? And it's funny, I spent the past half hour or so looking up my uncle on the Internet, going to Amazon and listening to clips from his CD's, reading these user reviews calling him a "genius" and "the true master of jazz" and "up there with Miles and Coltrane," and reading the biography about him. Hearing his voice in a recorded interview freaked me out completely--I don't even know if my dad knows what he sounds like since he died before my dad was born.
I mean, I knew my great-grandmother was the "master of the piano" and taught some cool people but I didn't know she was a Mayflower descendant nearly banished from her family for marrying my great-grandfather, a Jew (and taken off the social register or whatever). Or that she dabbled in silent movies in Hollywood. All these fascinating little things that I just never knew.
Maybe I'm not totally ready to leave yet. I've got one more year to spend at home before moving off to some place new--I'm hoping it's a good one.
No, I know it'll be a good one. Ack, as a character in my favorite book puts it, I am "grotesquely sentimental," but maybe that's okay.
Happy birthday, Alex.
Love,
Your brother,
Scott
I mean, Dad and I are kind of, sort of, maybe getting along after what was absolutely the biggest, most tense blowup we have ever had just a month ago. And Alex and I are getting along. And Courtney is Courtney. And Mom. Oh, mom... In our "world travels" I have learned so much more about her than I ever thought was possible, unearthing little family mysteries and secrets, hearing explanations for things she did, hearing her regrets, her dreams. I mean, I kind of want to just keep traveling with her and laughing and being a huge goofball. I have one year left to live at home and be taken care of--and then what? I don't know why all of a sudden there's this sudden affinity to home--maybe because what has always been a constant won't be in not too long? And it's funny, I spent the past half hour or so looking up my uncle on the Internet, going to Amazon and listening to clips from his CD's, reading these user reviews calling him a "genius" and "the true master of jazz" and "up there with Miles and Coltrane," and reading the biography about him. Hearing his voice in a recorded interview freaked me out completely--I don't even know if my dad knows what he sounds like since he died before my dad was born.
I mean, I knew my great-grandmother was the "master of the piano" and taught some cool people but I didn't know she was a Mayflower descendant nearly banished from her family for marrying my great-grandfather, a Jew (and taken off the social register or whatever). Or that she dabbled in silent movies in Hollywood. All these fascinating little things that I just never knew.
Maybe I'm not totally ready to leave yet. I've got one more year to spend at home before moving off to some place new--I'm hoping it's a good one.
No, I know it'll be a good one. Ack, as a character in my favorite book puts it, I am "grotesquely sentimental," but maybe that's okay.
Happy birthday, Alex.
Love,
Your brother,
Scott