Saturday, June 21, 2008

ode to an onion

so far....

GIHYB and lil Gil are in VA for the weekend. I am alone. Had envisioned all sorts of projects that I would complete and meaningful introspective journeys. This is what I have accomplished thus far:


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And I am considering going back to bed. What a loser.

Thursday, June 19, 2008

The Housatonic River




I just googled "Housatonic River", the name of the river I grew up on, and lo and behold, a picture of the exact area where I played (in all sorts of ways)for 2 decades pops up. This is the boat ramp down the hill from my elementary school, Sunnyside Elementary. There is a long, very steep road about 300 yards to the left that we used to ride our bikes down and ride straight into the river, rust be damned! I once rode in a shopping cart with two fat girls down that hill and it didn't end well. At all. Still got scars.


Anyway, here is my funniest story about this picture. It was January or February circa '76. I rode my bike full speed down the descent and veered to the left at right speed to avoid a wipeout. This was a skill that took some perfecting, because if you did it too slowly you wound up in a ditch, too fast and you wound up splayed and bloodied on the concrete just before the ramp. I had mastered this long ago and made the turn. I saw my 'boyfriend', staring toward the water. I approached and asked what he was doing. He told me that a few big kids had thrown his bike into the river and was trying to figure out how to get it, as he was kind of 'dressed up' and couldn't get dirty. Being the kind of boy that I was, I stripped off shoes, socks and pants and walked straight into the frigid water. Grabbed at the bike and pulled it out. WT...(back then, not as many F's)? It was a busted up piece of crap. As I turn around, he is doubled over laughing, riding away on his bike and screaming....."sucker!" I still have a valentine from him with a picture of a blonde tarzan and a brunette jane swinging from a vine. Ah, love in the 4th grade.


This river used to freeze over very frequently back then, but it becomes an estuary just a few miles from where I lived, which resulted in tides in the river. If the river froze at high tide, there would be gaps between the ice and the water, which made weak points in the ice. We were all forbidden to go onto the ice, but as we were thoroughly unsupervised, we didn't pay the warnings much mind. You couldn't truly ice skate, as the top was too bumpy, but you could walk across to the other side or shoe skate all over the joint. As a result, I fell through the ice into the water many times. The scariest time was when I fell through the ice and was carried by the current, under the ice roof for what seemed like forever, but was probably only 1/8th of a mile. My head popped up just directly to the left of the boat ramp in the picture. Scared, bruised and cold, but fine. My friends running along the bank to keep up with me. Naturally I was not going to go home with my clothes frozen stiff to my skin, so we go to my friends house. Her parents were never there, and we had full reign. Lit a fire in the wood burning stove, with my clothes ON the stove and started a fire. My clothes burned up, but we managed to keep the fire from burning the house down. I went home in her baggy clothes, got a few looks, but dodged a bullet. Looking back upon it, I dodged quite a few that day, and it's hilarious that the only bullet I was worried about was my parents being pissed. I hope Gilly is never as retotted as me.

Thursday, June 12, 2008

thoroughly amused/back on the horse

Haven't spent a lot of time on roller coasters in last few years. Got my fill today. Used to be absolute daredevil, nothing scared me. Today? Scared as the most scaredy-scaredy-pants could be. Instead of hands-up, eyes-open, I was eyes scwintched, hands palsyied. Even on the easy ones, I started off SCARED. A totally new me.

Most memorable: Kingda Ka. This shit is absolutely sick. I can't believe i am still alive. WOW. This footage does not really depict it's fright factor. Throughout the one minute ride I just kept screaming, "NO, NO, NO..........................................!" And my whole body continued to shake for about 20 minutes after. Awesomely terrifying.

http://www.sixflags.com/greatAdventure/rides/Kingdaka.aspx

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

on needles

My dad is from a messed-up, low-rent, irish-catholic family of nine kids and a hefty handful of parents and extendeds. Every single one of them is more of a character than the next. Most tragic, some just colorful. Some so stupid that I should be embarrassed to even mention any of them, and some so witty but 'esprit d'escalier'* , that I should post every-crazy-thing they've ever said more regularly. My Uncle Mickey was the youngest boy, 8th ( i think) in the long litter.

I cannot say how it was that Mickey got fucked up specifically, but I'd bet that his recipe was everything I've said above.

One summer day we were having a backyard bbq. I really don't know how old I was. Somewhere between 6-11. I went upstairs to my bedroom and Mickey was on my bed lying down. I went in and saw he was struggling to take his sock off. I helped him take it off. He then took out a hypodermic needle and stuck it into his ankle/foot. I asked him what he was doing. He said he was sick and taking his medicine. He said to me, with a crying face, " I hope you never get this sick". I sat next to him for a little while, upset that he was sad, and then went back out into the sun. I never saw him the rest of the day.

My mom was crying the next day because he supposedly had stolen her wedding ring. (I heard all of this by picking up the receiver upstairs, which I always did). Mickeys mother, my grandmother was defending/arguing on his behalf. My grandmother was wrong. I'm certain now.

Mickey continued to be a drug addict and cruised the parking lots of fast food restaurants on the CT portion of I-95. I moved to Ny in '91 and was on my way to CT and ran into my Uncle Mickey at a McDonalds rest stop. Right now, I don't remember who recognized the other. But I do remember that our bond was just as strong as it was with his crying face on my bed many years before. He died shortly thereafter of AIDS.

*(this is a new term that i am in love with, brought to me through a long series of events, more on that later)

another needle

The principal of my school really hates "ghetto" school trips. By definition, this includes trips to amusement parks. But, another AP and I managed to persuade her to allow a trip to six flags on thursday for the kids who have earned it. She agreed (the way a cult inductee in a small room for 12 hours, 'agrees') provided that both of us attend. KG has agreed to meet me there and ride the rails all day. Stoked for all the gulliness that an amusement park has to offer, and so happy to ride the rides with kg like i haven't a care in the world.

trying to find the needle in the haystack

After a deluge of all kinds of shit running downhill, I decided to re-entertain the ww thing for real again. I hit the scale and realize that since January of 2007, I have lost 30 lbs. I had lost 30 between sept '06 and jan '07. I now have 10-15 more to go. So this is something. Not much, but something.

Tuesday, June 3, 2008

I wish

I wish that i was such a great writer that i could describe how hollow and sad i feel in a few beautifully written sentences. i just don't know the words, or do not know how to string them together in the perfect way that accurately portrays my inner me. Sad and trapped in a clamshell. Envious of happiness.