read the last post. do YOU think i made her look like a bitch? as i recall, the only judgement i made of her is how good she is at using hair product. the first part was entirely self-hating, how i can let her get to me so much, have the things she says fuck me up so much, let her influence my feelings and general state of well being. for instance, how i felt like SUCH SHIT in the airport, for making the poor girl look like a bitch on my blog after she's had such a bad week and can't even walk, for goddesssakes. so i sent a mean TM back to her, so she couldn't hurt me anymore. because that's apparently what our relationship is now. she hurts me, and instead of me apologizing profusely for it, now i hurt her back, and we just take turns being hurt, offended, and cruel.
so back to the narrative, then i realize my uncle's flight is NOT coming in when i thought it was, and i panic and make my mom check my email, and i learn i scheduled my flight to arrive an hour before his DEPARTS, not ARRIVES. so i have another 3 hrs. to kill in the philadelphia airport. i'm just a mess with all of this- a huge wreck. i call a, and wake her up, and her new piercings have oozed all over her pillow and created hives all up and down her neck. not exactly the comfort i was looking for. my mother tells me to eat something and charge a book to her credit card. i promised a i wouldn't make contact with s again, but i end up sending her a TM- and she responds. her phone's been at her aunts for the past 2 days- she hasn't been ignoring me. so that and my salad totally changes my day around. i sit in the pedway between the terminals, rocking on a rocking chair (i love philly) and watch my uncles plane pull up to the gate. i decide to tell no one about my scheduling error. no problems with meeting my uncle or the drive down to rehoboth- we make it in under 2 hrs.
it's so interesting to me, this place so familiar yet so foreign. this place i have never lived, never been anything but a vacationer, yet a place filled with childhood memories, filled with family. all is as it should be when we arrive- poppop's watching gameshows on tv, my cousins are being loud and brown and beautiful, putting together the week's jigsaw puzzle. my aunt's in the kitchen, with her plates of veggies and cheese and ring baloney set out. dad and z arrive, and we all all who we are supposed to be. i am still awed and honored z and i are friends- it makes me feel so much like i have a place in the panorama. both of those feelings happened at the same time, and i wonder if that is just coincidence, or if they influenced one another?
we ate dinner, played games, were noisy enough to have poppop worry about the neighbors. a lovely typical night. and then the next day at the beach. the ocean was eerily calm the whole time i was there. waves no bigger than lake michigan in winter. there were terrible rocks right where they broke, however, which would have been trecherous had the waves been any more powerful. there were jellyfish the first few days, but they seems to be innoculous- no one got stung, people threw them around and made breast implant jokes. i love the ocean, like my dad and the entire party in a box family. i am facinated by how the world can be split into the ocean lovers and the ocean fearers. now, don't get me wrong, i was taught as a small child how powerful the ocean is, how i must have respect for it. but there are so many other aunts, second cousins, new girlfriends, who are so squeemish, so scared, and it's so interesting to watch. most everyone went in this week, cause it was so calm- and the beach was so hot. i know fears aren't logical, but i guess it's how spider lovers look at arachniphobes. is that even a word? am i making any sense?
the quality of my cameraphone pictures continues to be bad. i took my film camera to the beach one day, so hopefully i'll have some good shots when that's developed. you know i'll be posting them. this one was just such a nice composition- sarah between the umbrella poles- i wish i'd had the equipment to do it justice. what i REALLY should have done was a painting. i carried my watercolor set with me the whole time but never did a single painting. i was sorry about that. and i spent too much time reading- a necklace of kisses by francesca lia block, fun home by allison betchel, size 12 is not fat by meg cabot. all wonderful, just superb. the first 2 books to savor, to roll the words or pictures around in your mouth, to discuss the boquet and such like my sister and uncle talking about wine. what i wanted most from them was to share them. all were fabulous beach books.
we did all the neccesary beach things. z and i spent a morning shopping down rehoboth ave, the whole fam walked down the boardwalk one night. i didn't use any of my ride tickets- i guess a night at the rides was replaced by a night at tijuana taxi, the supposed best margarita joint. it was fun- it was the night z and i were unchaperoned, between parents, and dad had left us some cash. we were all lined up all around the bar, but then sarah and her boyfriend, z and i moved to a table behind the bar, and the vegan anarchist cousin and her fiance and brother and father joined us, and it made for a totally fun bunch.
it was really enlightening to me. cause the party in a box- they are just a phenomenon. walking down the street with them, they just start clapping, then pounding on street signs, tap dancing in flip flops, this walking rhythym section. they are life, family, attitude and energy incarnate. on the beach their 3 perfect shiny brown bodies in their interchangeable little bikinis mirror each other, as they all line up to work on their tans and read their books. and they are beautiful. so it was such a revalation to me when their mom revealed a darker side to this symetry to me, whispered tales of anorexia, cutting, cancer. stories of disconnect, tears, hugs. i am honored to carry their stories, and i am glad to see them as real humans, individuals instead of merely a phenomenon of sisters. yet it also makes me sad, that this tanned ideal is not the whole truth, that my family too i scarred with such sad things.
i came out to the oldest party-in-a-box cousin and her boyfriend. it was fabulous, cause it happened my favorite way. she was talking about how she came to the beach 2 weeks after meeting bf a couple of years ago, and he said he missed her so much while she was here. and i said, i understood, i'd just met someone i was missing seriously. and she said, oh, who is he? and i could say, well, actually, it's SHE... and the youngest one, she's apparently all into myspace, so i just asked her to be my friend. so once she looks at my profile i'll be out to her too. the homophobia can be pretty rampant in ocean conversation, but it was just bad attitude this year, no direct comments. z told me she was all ready to get up in the face of anyone who said anything specific, so that made me feel loved. at rehoboth, of course, it's always there- the story of the week was how this guy in matching orange thongs and a thong was checking out the bf (who, it must be admitted, bears a striking resemblance to johnny depp) the story changes depending on who tells it, usually with a mimic or discription of the scoping, a comment on how unaware johnny depp was, the jelousy of my cousin. it always ends with how she could totally take him on- it'd be a fair fight, but everyone thought she'd win. it's really interesting to me how attitudes mirror the bible- displeasure of boys, no mention of girls. it makes me wonder what god and conservatives think of lesbians- do they think of us at all?
oh my goodness. it's my bedtime. i've been blogging for like, 3 hours now. i keep getting distracted. i need to end this. so mom drove me to the airport for my 7.45 flight and i learned it was gonna be a little late. when i arrived at the gate it was specified an hour late- they had to make an emergency landing in IN for a medical problem. so i read my book and ate my reeses pieces and climbed on the plane, my C boarding catagory giving me a middle seat with a guy who was very possessive of the armrest and making me feel claustrophobic. so we're on the runway waiting to take off, and the FAA says we can't go to chicago= no one can go to chicago. the thunderstorms are too bad. every 40 minutes or so, we get the same message. still storming in chicago. they still won't let us take off. we're on the runway for another three hours. i'm tming, but i keep shutting my phone off, cause the battery's dying. it gets later and later. i call ch about public transport, he tells me the last orange line is at 12.55. we don't wanna loose our place in line, but we run out of water- no washing hands in the WC. so the pilot decides to go back to the gate to restock- when we get cleared for take off! so do we do. i am SO tired after spending the day on the beach. i finished my book in the first 30 min. of waiting, so all have is knitting and ipod. there is no way to get comfortable enough in the middle seat to sleep. i am miserable. we land in chicago at 1.50am. four and a half hours later than we were supposed to. no more trains to the city until 4am, so i wait in the incredibly long taxi stand line. luckily i can cab share to downtown and it only costs me $18. still, it's so expensive. i take the subway from there, arrive home at 3.45, and wake up all those who told me to call when i get home. both my mom and my dad say they are so sorry. i call work and leave a message that i'm not coming in till the cat wakes me up.
g, good old straight girl i'm in love with, sent me photos from france. here's one with her dad in paris.
it's odd to me. i guess i still know her, but she's so far away now. she's got that new haircut, she's too grown up, too thin. there's a disconnect when i look at the pics that makes me ache.have been reading all of last august, 2 august ago's archives. looking for old beach pics (damn you flickr for deleting more than 200! what's up with that?) two years ago i was meeting dana, rachel and erin. going to my mom's wedding. coming out to g. last year of course was michigan. reading last year's beach post and i'm amazed by the similarities and differences. still worship party in a box, have a very similar ocean paragraph... but self esteem was much better this year. body image was great, compared to last year. i wonder if it was simply the skirts on my new bathing suits? or perhaps the adorable androgyny of my new haircut with my contacts? i need to buy some boys pants, badly.
what i really need to do is eat something and go to bed, because i told ch i'd open for him tomorrow.
No comments:
Post a Comment