One More for the Road...Good-bye Holidays 2009.

I have an inclination that 2010 has to be better than the past 12 months, I mull it over time and time again. Yet, I confess that before I can call this New Year clean and fantastic in the making, I must tell all the Holiday skeletons to stop using my closet like a bus station bathroom and scram.

Some who read already know that from my past blogs on such prestigious sites as MySpace have given my family stories an interesting spin. For those that remain unfamiliar with these long gone entries, let me say, that all you need to know is that one word should stick out in your mind, unconventional. It's a simple word, and I've used all sorts of descriptive phrases in my past to describe my family dynamic, but my New Year's resolution is to paint them (at least for me) in a new light.

I did not spend the traditional days of Thanksgiving, or Christmas with them, instead my sister and I opted for a 4 day stay during the first week of December. The deal was we would cram all the goodness and "fun" of the holidays into 4 glorious days, Thanksgiving dinner, Christmas gift exchange, my Father's Birthday, and all the goodness of the hours in between.

I thought as we drove from Los Angeles to Arnold, that a positive cloud hung over the trip, I bopped along to pop music, laughed, my sister and I took turns driving.

We arrived around Midnight.

DAY 1

This day began like any other, nestled in my bed the sound of a fresh television screen popping on in the living room below me, woke me like the sizzle of bacon. Instead of scrumptous fatty meat products waiting to greet me on the couch, I found the Trinity Broadcast Network (TBN).

If you've never watched TBN then I don't suggest starting, the daytime hours are filled with pretentious holy-rollers, and the nighttime is filled with religious films, that although bare a contemporary release date, the production looks as though they've been stuck in the late 80s.

At 8am I had the first religious reference uttered. This was quickly followed into a long, and epic story...

"Did you hear anything last night?" My Mother uttered to me.

"No."

"No scratching, digging noises from the walls?"

"No." The concern on my face grew.

"You didn't hear anything from inside the closet? You didn't open the door did you?"

"No. Dear God what's going on!?"

"Well there's a...something...I mean, I think it's a chipmunk that's stuck in the wall of the closet."

The rest of the story, although horrifying, seemed typical. Small furry woodland creatures "of some sort" being trapped in the walls and not finding their way out.

"It was a family." she continued, "I could hear the babies crying, I think they died in the walls, and now there's just one in there."

At this point my sister and I begged for story time to end.

"Don't tell you father, he didn't want me to cut a hole in the wall to release it, but I did. So now it's hiding in the closet somewhere."

12:30 my Father arrives home early from work. We sit on the couch and stare at the flat screen.

"So you're almost done with school?" he says.

"Yep."

"Gonna find a job?"

"Yep."

"Maybe you could work on a cruise ship."

Let me explain, for some reason, and this dates back years in my memory, ever since I've worked in theatre my parents believe that working on a cruise ship would be the best environment for me. Along with the fact that my father for the past 8 years that I've been a stage manager cannot seem to remember what exactly a stage manager does, he does however know that entertainment on cruise ships use stage managers, and has persisted each time I see him to acknowlege this fact by hassling me into agreeing to at least apply.

"You could travel like you always wanted to." my mother pipes in.

A clear picture forms in my mind, a large abundance of people flood the decks, two years go by, and the dinner theatre crowd still howls at the musical sing along show, a comedian blubbles with old jokes rephrased, and to top it off my on again, off again, love affair with the ships ventriloquist, goes slowly bust when he informs me that he's jumping ship in Cabo San Lucas for a younger and slightly more enthusiastic massage therapist he met on last months singles retreat, her names Chastity, but "not for long" he says as he leaves me in the windowless and groaning belly of the beastly ship.

"I've already applied and been rejected." I say, unfortuanatly this is true, my last resort had already been used.

I look at the clock and realize the hours would soon approach when Glenn Beck would grace the television. I decided to make my exit early.

"I'm going to take a bath." I wander towards the hallway.

"You're going to miss BECK!" they call out, "Glenn Beck speaks the truth, have you seen how many books he's written!"

"I, uh...the tub takes a while to fill...I'll...." I wander down the hall and out of earshot, I can hear my sister stir from her nap. Poor Bastard, I think to myself, she should have timed it better, as I turn the tub on I can hear from the living room "YOU'RE UP! You're just in time for Beck, he speaks..." The sound of running water drowns them out, it drowns it all out...

Two hours later I emerge, a little soggy, but happier than I would have been. I get there in time for dinner. We decide to use the formal dining room, we haven't done this forever, and I really couldn't remember why not, there's no television present, nothing but pictures of dead ancestors on the walls and the company of some that are still living...

The dinner starts off where we left off...

"Los Angeles, that's working out for you, you know if you live there for too long you get asthma."

My sister, ever resilient, decides to talk over these comments and inform them of her job and life anyways...the conversation dead ends when after the meal is over my father proclaims...

"If I had known I was going to raise two liberals I would have strangled you in your cribs."

My sister and I, we erupt into laughter, he said this with a hint of comedy, but sometimes the best rule is to laugh, somehow laughing makes the moment seem funnier that it really is.

The first day home tapered off into nothing after this, I crawled into bed around 9:30, and having decided to write about this experience I began a log of all the events of the day, in summation I wrote this at the bottom of the first day's entries.

"Love present, yet any kind of realistic compassion is lacking-Nothing New-Must learn to curb anger, due to 1st day encounters and fear of wrathful out bursts & awkward time spent during next few days-Love present but world view narrow-must stay away for longer periods of time in next two years- Embark on adventures- Will never return home-Lack of interest on parentals part in knowing children unable to be corrected-Seek out zen demeanor/empathy for them."

Day 2

Day two went by faster, the days blur together in many ways, we went out and about, stopped in the towns below, and then saw New Moon, because it was the only thing playing at the little movie theatre in our county. The theatre was empty, half way through my mother says, in response to the lead female trying to date a shape shifting wolf "She should just have him neutered."

Day 3

This would be Christmas, we would open presents and try to act cordial. Half the day was spent on the internet. My sister on craigslist, but I had to wait to check my accounts so my parents weren't watching, they use their giant flat screen as a monitor, and the idea of an audience does not appeal to me, as I try to update my facebook status to "Chipmunk Genocide".

My mother comes in half way through my update.

"You have to make a trap."

"What?"

"We need to get that chipmunk...er...whatever it is out of the closet."

"How is this my responsibility." I ask.

"You know how to build things, can't you make a trap, look it up on the internet."

Ten minutes into searching "Chipmunk Trap" I find that most of the entries end with the phrase "Scrape dead chipmunk from bottom of box."

"You should get one of those humane traps from the humane society."

"I don't have time, come on, you have to help me." my mother squeals.

At this point my sister abandon's me, she quickly decides to run outside and scrape pine needles. Dad notices her and runs into the living room, "Hey the girls are scraping pine needles!" He then notices me, sans rake, and and says "Oh, nope only one's scraping." He exits.

"Fine, get me a box and I have string and just leave me to do it."

"Well good, your stuff you left here is in the closet that it's trapped in. You're gonna want to get it out before you have to pack."

"If I find a dead chipmunk in my shoes, I'm not going to be happy." I take the box and head upstairs.

After pine needle raking, and unsuccessful chipmunk trappin' we head to an after dinner movie. My sister gets to pick, this is where we find out that my father has cancelled my mother's subscription to STARZ!, you know that family friendly premium channel not so bold as HBO, and not as raunchy past midnight as Cinemax.

This is when the rage happens, we sit and watch as my mother and father battle over cable prices, the coup ends with a simple phrase.

"This is all I f#*%@ have!" My mother yells.

Next we only hear the sound of a dial tone as my father get directed to an automated operator at the cable company.

"I'd like to reinstate my subscription to STARZ!" He mutters.

Two minutes later, the channel pops back on and we enjoy or premium selection of "Waterhorse", exclusivly on STARZ!

At gift exchange we sit for a moment, and thank each other, and then my sister hands my Father his birthday card.

The birthday card is specially made, made by the transvestite that me sister does make up on, the exterior is a picture of her, and the inside reads,

"You can have your cake and Sheila, too! Happy Birthday Big Boy!"

My father looks confused.

"Who's this woman?"

"Oh, you know Sheila!" my mother tweets.

"Is this the tranny!" my father's eyes get concerned.

"Did you know it was a man when you first saw it, Dad?" my sister asks.

"Yeah! of course I did! I was....uh...you couldn't have mistaken it for anything other...than a...than a...man." My father leaves the room.

Day 4-41/2

The rest is history, those final hours wasted away on television, and earthquake preparedness speeches.

"Are you prepared for when California gets hit by the big one?" my mother asks.

"I'm prepared to ride it out, or die, one of the two." I say.

I think about the refugee chipmunk, I think about the chipmunk trap, still without a chipmunk waiting to be released. I hope that it at least makes it out of the house.

On the morning of departure, we hug and kiss good-bye, not so much out of sadness, but more like a celebration of survival. We wave and head out, we remember a forgotten cell phone and turn back, we repeat the good-byes.

On the way out of town we stop at a gas station and fill my clunky red jeep, smell the fresh mountain air, and buy 3 bottles of wine. Somehow, in some kind of way we made it, 2009 is almost over and we made it...now we wait for 2010.

Happy Holidays! and may the New Year be bright for you and all the days ahead from me to you!

Terminally Internal

I've had this nagging sensation, its like one of those pit of your stomach reactions you learn from a young age. A reaction similar to the first time you have to repeat your one line in the school pageant about cuddly bears that learn the evils of pollution and decide to fight global warming. Except this isn't a pageant and you're not slowly guilt ridden about throwing your juice box into the wrong colored waste bin.

It's the nagging sense of impending failure. That little voice and pit that bores into you every time you try to climb out of the low self esteem well you fell down at some low point in your life.

If I'm trying to look inward, trying to seek a way out of the well, I've had enough experience. It seems natural that once in a well your apt to imaginational sprawl and long nights and days filled with tumultuous epiphanies. 

I once was told that the tarot card that was most expressive of who I am was The Hermit. This became proof positive of a suspicion that maybe I hadn't so much as plummeted down the well I may have been born down there. To an extent of realizing that over half my family dwells in the same musty corridors. 

My hermit ways have trained me well, instead of walking in an external daze of the day to day, I find myself as an intrapersonal voyeur. 

This is probably why I sense the need to write. Like a cerebral masochist, I walk through day to day life making new friends in the form of non-existent entities, taking space up on my memory. Are they brilliant, maybe not so much, are they endearing...not to me. They exist like the noisy neighbors that throw parties on a Monday night.

I get to document their actions safely, at a distance, copying down all their midnight drunken revelations. This makes all the things I write sound more and more like dribble, a confessional diary.

Beyond the realm of psycho-babble exists an entirely all too familiar ground...that nagging little feeling resides there, the same one that causes a million negative thoughts each day.

It says, "you are not a writer, you will fail, rejection awaits you." and this all may be very true, I may be falling even farther down the well with every pretentious word I scribble.

So what am I going to do, what can I do?Somehow it seems all too positively simple to ignore...I'm going to throw my juice box into the blue recyclable bin this time around, because even if I've been riddled with guilt over one past action or time in my, all the choices I've made before this point, I can choose to change my direction now, I can begin ascending the well.

Instead of steadily participating as a psychological wallflower I find it easier to keep writing in the center of the party, undeniably this all sounds like a confessional of a mentally ill person, but aren't all writers working through some kind of mental battlefield when they start out?

A Momentary Pause

Living in a single location, living in a house, town, city, county, is like having a love affair. Some are good, others are bad, but like all affairs the fantastic and terrible memories last a lifetime. 

It's easy to characterize a period in our lives by the places we live, the people we love. We grow up there, we love, we hate, there's tears and laughter. Sentimentality is always a companion once we leave a certain place or person. Or we can become the "other" when we find those places that we can only inhabit for momentary weekends, sliding through the streets like secretive mistresses.

But it's the long term love affairs that mold us.

Sometimes we find a love/hate relationship. There's positive and negative things about all the places we inhabit. But the difference comes with absence. 

Absence makes the heart grow fonder.

That is the test of love. I once met a lighting designer. Recently divorced, and happy about it, he looked like a lone outlaw. He was good at what he did and loved his job. He had been married five times. In casual conversation a question was asked, "How do you know if love is true? That love will last?" To which was replied, "When you miss all the little things that annoyed you."

Those nagging things, the stuff that makes you roll your eyes, that is the true test. If you leave and miss the little things that used to drive you crazy then you know that you honestly love that place and or person.

Personally, I can't speak to the person side, but as for places, like Calaveras County, like Los Angeles, they have the potential for a life long love affair, a potential for a million new beginnings, and a million new annoyances. C'est la vie.

Scene Four: Piss, or Get Out of the Kitchen

Our kitchen has a life of its own. For many years I have believed that all the bad energy has collected within its space. Things have a way of combusting on their own when placed on the kitchen counter. Metal forks have been left in the sink and upon reexamination they are found with their tines bent. All of this happens when no one is in the house, or when having just turned your back for a moment.

Besides the paranormal, the kitchen it quaint, unless, you find yourself backed into a corner. My family has a habit of congregating there.

  Yesterday, I found myself in this situation. Late in the evening, after I had come in from my jog, and after an unfortunate incident (involving me, breaking a large glass terrarium and scattering glass all over the foyer) I noticed that my mother had cut up a large watermelon for dessert.

I stood in the kitchen, ignoring the charismatic Holy Roller that screamed on the television in the other room, “YOU NEED TO ASK JEEEEEESUS, YOU NEED TO ASK HIM FOR FORGIVENESS, TO BE SAVED.”

  I picked up a piece of watermelon and began to eat it. I ate a good quarter of the melon, it was not a large melon to begin with, and then my father came into the kitchen.

  “Eat more watermelon.” He said.

“I just ate a quarter.”

“Eat more!”

  This conversation persisted for three minutes. I then gave up, preceded to eat more watermelon. Meanwhile, I had put two of the small frozen burritos in the microwave when I began my watermelon fiasco. The heating cycle was half way done when my father opened it up and preceded to manhandle my burritos.

I was almost done with my melon, and I watched as he flipped the burritos and rub them down with his hands. (I’m assuming that he was testing if they were warm)

  “Could you stop manhandling my burritos?”

He closed the microwave and started it again.

“I wasn’t!” His voice sounded shrill.

“You were, I clearly saw you rub them.”

  Then out of nowhere my mother piped in.

  “Larry, stop touching Jessica’s burritos.”

“I wasn’t”

There was a pause, and then the horror show began. My mother piped in again.

  “Jessie, you know where his hands have been, he’s always scratching his you know what.”

Dad laughed, “Actually my hands were in my butt!”

  At this point, I was pseudo-retching like a cat in the corner.

  “I think the watermelon is coming back up.”

  He assured me that he had not had his hands anywhere, but that can't erase a million childhood memories of watching the man scratch his balls more than a monkey in a zoo.

  The microwave buzzed and flashed the words FOOD READY.

  I then proceeded to watch my father open the microwave and steal my burritos.

  “Thanks!” he laughed as he wanders out of the kitchen and back to his bedroom with glee.

  This is why all business in our kitchen should be done at lightning speed, you never know when you will be harassed into eating half a watermelon or your burritos vandalized.

Scene Three: Change

In my mind the first week was always going to be the hardest to get through. It’s like waiting for test results, you sweat it out, and go through all the stages, fear, depression, anger, and ultimately acceptance. I don’t think I’ve gone all the way through that last one (yet). In many moments I have to regulate my thoughts, otherwise I end up feeling worse about leaving Los Angeles. It just rings true that you don’t know how good something is until it’s gone.

  So, what does a twenty-something do to drive away the blues? Beer. It’s true. The weekend was consumed with a building dread, a kind of worry that comes when you think that you’ll never leave the house.

That can always be remedied by a night out at the only place in Arnold where you feel like you can drink and not get hepatitis from the bar stool: Snowshoe Brewery.

 

            It was a relaxed atmosphere, and not really busy for a Friday night. My brother and I sat, ate dinner and drank two pitchers the their Apricot Wheat beer.  I remember the town as being small, but now it even looks smaller. The most excitement could be garnered from seeing how far you could get without hitting the gas pedal on your car, as you ride down Highway 4. I stared out the window, the Meadowmont Golf Course has installed a new 18 hole putting course.

 

            The small town life has never been the kind that brings excitement. It’s a good place to relax, enjoy nature. Saturday was filled with more wholesome fun. I drove the twenty minutes down the hill to Murphy’s the only thing that really has changed, is that the hotel purchased a new neon sign. It succinctly says the MURPHY’S HOTEL, COCKTAILS. Its topped off with a little martini glass with a green olive in the bottom.

 

            By the time I got home it was time to leave again. We drove out to the otherside of the county to meet up with some of my brother’s friends. It’s a funny thing coming from a small town, even more so from a county with nothing but small towns, you find yourself using the word county a lot, such as in: we had to go to the next county over.

 

            So we traveled to the other side of the county. We sat and drank beer until 3am. It’s not really any different than the weekends I spent in Los Angeles. The conversation deals with marriage and children, two things that I have nothing to say about. The beers are good and the company is great. There’s not much else that you could ask for.

 

            The big day came on Sunday. The day out to Wal-Mart. It’s a big day for all those that know what that means. When I was growing up and once Wal-Mart opened in the next county over it became a staple. A trip that had to be planned more effectively than a summer vacation, because after all, you only have a limited amount of time to get everything done. This usually involves at least four hours in Wal-Mart and another two in a grocery store.

We spent six hours there. Some things never change, no matter how many years you spend away from home.

Scene Two: Oddity in Nature

I have a great deal of memories involving nature, many take place right in my backyard. My parents house borders a National Forest land. This is not a park, very few people wander in unless they know how to get out. Parts of the land are used as private tree farms though the evidence of any human interaction in the forest is slim. It is often only comprised of years old forest service access roads and the occasional deer path. 

Today I wandered into the forest. It had been years since I visited my favorite path that I was so familiar with when I was young. When I was ten years old I took a bright pink plastic Barbie camera out on a hike with my sister. It would take me years to develop the photos, and in high school having to get rid of the camera the roll was finally rendered. The pictures that I kept were those that seemed the most familiar. Three prints of a quiet green landscape only marred by the evidence of fire on the soft bark.

In college I would do a writing exercise that would try to describe the pictures to the best of my ability and then turn that description into a short story. Here is how I described the only pictures I kept of my backyard forest two years ago:

"Here, in the cascading morning light resides a modern Avalon, it is an island of soft greenery.  The burnt incense of the forest stands, a flock of ebony cedar trees guard the virgin forest.  Their masses raped by fire and branches weeping, wind passes through their barren sticks, click-clack, the sound of bones being broken.  The forest waits to be entered, but the fire branded matrons makes eerie company."

Today, I spent two hours wandering out into the virgin forest. The sound to pine cones falling and the occasional lizard in the brush gave little comfort to the thought in the back of my head, that nagging sensation that never leaves me, "Something is watching me."

When I was young my mother used to try and stop me from hiking, trying to be protective, in a way her annoyance  at our hobby of hiking had to do with abandonment. We would rather be in the forest than in the house where the atmosphere is filled with negativity.

"You have to watch out for bears." She would yell as we ran out the door. "There are people and things in this world that can kill and hurt you, some poor girl just got raped and murdered last week."

To which I would reply before closing the door: "Yes mother, I'll sure be sure to watch out for those rapist bears."

A person can't live in fear. I know the pressure of fear, my childhood home was filled with an abundance of fears, and warnings all the terrible things in the wide open world.

I sat out in a clearing, listening to my tape recorder. My voice stale and distant, repeating words of a short story I had written. I let the device rewind and I began to log my thoughts as I only could in the quiet space of the woods:

"It's not uncommon to travel out into the forest and find awkward things within the ground, pieces of metal and machinery abandoned in the dirt. Sometimes its not man made but beauty in  the natural formations that make the landscape seem foreign." 

But as I sit there is one landmark that seems the most odd and unnatural, my own body. I sat on a fallen log, cut down and left behind in the midst of a large dirt circle. The land uprooted years before had not been touched and new leafy growth covered the tractor marks.

 Yet there are no trees in a large radius around me. 

And I realize that maybe I never was a piece of this setting, not meant to thrive in this kind of landscape. I can feel the eyes of a hundred different kinds of animals watching me, waiting for me to vacate the landscape. 

Still I am not the only oddity in nature, I have gone hiking everyday since my arrival and found others. Evidence of a human hand in a natural landscape. A sled and water pump. 

Even so I find that natural oddities abound, like a pine needle warped by the weather.

There are so many different oddities, awkward moments, and that is what makes each moment spent in nature special. 

And I realize that the land doesn't need me, it doesn't have any concern of me, but I am constantly inspired by its fierce beauty. And because of that I need it. Its image lives in me. 

Its menagerie of natural artifacts fills the imagination with endless possibility.

Scene One: I return from whence I came...

On June 1st I picked up the pieces of my life and moved them back to the town I was born and raised in. I have for long periods of time in my life held an apprehension to become closely reacquainted with anything that has to do with Calaveras County, besides a few friends I still talk to from high school I have bleed all the ideals and mentality from my system over the last four years in college.

It was a quick 6 hour drive up into the foothills, until the bends and dips forced me to a long slow crawl along the barely paved roads. Past the barrier of oak trees the road snakes out of the hills like a long black tongue.

Driving in the high sierra is like climbing by hand, I hold onto the steering wheel tightly, wringing it, using it like its the last safe and sturdy place to put my hands.

The roads narrows, each corner is hidden by trees as I ascend into Murphys California.
I cruise down Main Street, and round past The Gold Nugget, a honky-tonk hole in the wall bar. A crowd on the porch chain smokes as I pass. It's 3:30 in the afternoon.

It's not so bad to imagine a life without being born, its not hard to replace all those familiar places with pictures in magazines. This thought seems a little too unforgiving, so I push it out of my head.

Each mile passes with growing apprehension. The store fronts in our little town of Arnold seem dark, the economy has taken the warmth out of the windows in recent months. I wonder what would happen if all of it was erased, how would I explain to people where I came from if I could'nt find it on a map.

Yet, I always seem to be able to find my way home.

The house is quaint on the outside, but inside, that interior is like being consumed back into an airless womb.

I love my parents, adore my brother, but the past seems to be thickly coating the walls.

I have to ask myself, what does it really mean to come home, what is a home?

I watch my brother and father chain smoke, my father asks:
"How much money do you have left?"
"Enough." I say.
"Good I'm broke."

My mother watches television with great conviction.

My brother asks me:
Do you want to poke out my eyes?

Our sense of humor is unconventional.

It feels the same as it did when I left for college, some things minorly different but still the same.

Nonetheless life is moving. I know I will find things, keep things, rearrange my perspectives of my family. No transition can go without emotion.