Well, I’m not really sure what happened to the text that had been here before. It wandered off and got a drink, perhaps. Vanished into the dark depths of silicon memory, overwritten by something, somehow. Sorry about that.
Heather and I are snowed in at my parents’ house, trying to help my Dad where we can, even if it’s just emptying the dishwasher or (in Heather’s case) rearranging furniture. My Life is oddly like a movie at the moment, and I’m not quite sure how to deal with it. Mostly, my brain just feels slightly fuzzy, not really on top of what’s happening. Maybe it’s all the cat hair, or the discovery of sweaters long-lost in my parents’ basement, resurrected but not dedusted, clogging my mind and my hair and my nose with long-hidden dust.
Sunday afternoon, my family gathered for a big lunch at the 94th Aerosquadron in College Park. Good food, scary fish. I should’ve taken a picture of it but it threatened me and then Heather stabbed it with a fork.
It’s cold outside, cold and wet – like being immersed in a dog’s nose? Perhaps. Unfortunately, it’s always so very hard to focus here, I’m amazed by Heather’s ability to bury herself in her work, vanishing from the world. I’m just caught in between. I’m tired, but I can’t sleep, and I want to focus, but my brain just won’t be brought to bear. That’s probably how I deleted the text that was here in the first place. I just want to curl up and be warm! Just for a little while. It would be nice to resurrect the fireplace.
At the moment, my mom’s watching some underwater Australian SCUBA cop drama. In Australia, aparently they don’t have “bikers”, they have “bikeys” (no, I’m not sure how the SCUBA divers are going after big guys on bikes – the image of men in flippers yelling “oy mate!” comes to mind). Unless I’m just mis-hearing them. I don’t think I could take a Hell’s Angel seriously if he was a “bikey”. They’d have Bikey Boots. Hee! Ah – and they’re not a Biker Gang, it’s a Bikey Mob.
I’ve been spending a lot of time wandering my parents’ basement, taking photographs of my old environment. Lots of things that won’t mean a thing to others, but that act as triggers for my head.
For example – a photograph of a flourescent light in the basement – but to me, this was just the right shape that Lego spacecraft would dock with it just a couple of years ago. Of course, the perspective wasn’t right unless I closed one eye and squinted just right.For my 18th birthday, a couple of friends organized a surprise party for me and invited some of the Cool Friends that I would never have thought to call… My Friend Michael Fisher and Kait MacDonald (my first infatuation with an Art Chick) were two of those creatures – members of the Suitland Centre for the Arts University High School elite – and as I feared, the party wasn’t cool enough for them. They spent much of the night locked in my bathroom together, illustrating post-it notes and leaving them all over the walls and ceiling. I can’t imagine how shocked they would be to find that the things still exist…My Dad’s piano on which he was able to play a couple of rolling blues tunes. Unfortunately it has been long-abandoned and is maddeningly out of tune now that I’m ACTUALLY interested in it!
[inserted years later – it’s funny, I remember this box and loosely associate it with toys of some sort, but have no specific memory of its contents, just its exterior – rob 2/3/18]Last night I went for a walk, wandering the neighbourhood that I’d grown up in. In high school I would pass this fence every morning at around 5.30am on my way to the bus stop. That’s a lie. I’d walk on the other side of the street to avoid the huge dog that ruled this yard, barking and snarling and ripping the flesh off the bones of children less fortunate or perhaps merely less intelligent than I. As I walked past the fence, I willed myself to walk on the Dog Side. Ten years later and I could still feel my stomach still tighten in apprehension.
Monday afternoon, our plans thwarted by persistant snowfall, Heather and I walked down to my old elementary school and wandered about. This is sooo what I get for scoffing at the weather in the upDates.
