One Old Cigar

I settled into adolescence without assistance. Even if I didn't understand something, instead of instinctively asking for help, I would rather leave it blank. It wasn't pride, or that I thought I was weak. It just never occurred to me to require anyone else's expertise.  It started with homework, 5th grade. My father would refuse to do my math for me, as I'd heard so many other kids brag that theirs' had. "Figure it out yourself, you're smart enough," he'd say, not looking up from the newspaper or occasional WWII memoir. I would trudge down from my prison of a room like one of the soldiers in those memoirs for the tenth, eleventh, twelfth time that day. "Is this right?" I'd ask, not making eye contact because I knew it wouldn't be. He peered at my scrawl of an answer: "Nope, try again." Christ, it was taunting. Even when I did ask for the problem to be explained, he poked at me over his glasses.

"Dad, I need help on this."
"On what, be specific."
"On this." Pointing, exasperated.
"I'm not a mind reader, ask me a question and I will do my best to help you."

He's always spoken like that. Canned, artificial, as if reading from a telemarketer script. He's always been frustratingly calm and rational. Sometimes I just wanted to provoke him into screaming profanities at me. Maybe his tight, woolen sweaters prevented any fresh air from getting to his lungs. Maybe one too many tobacco pipes had finally shriveled his brain-stem. Maybe raw feeling was raped away by periodical haircuts and old Clint Eastwood films. I had experimented once with a leftover cigar I had found in the garage. As I inhaled slowly, I could feel the flavor of 40 years' apathy slithering into my mouth. The feeling was familiar, not one I had already felt but one I would grow into. I wasn't fooling anyone, I was going to be just like him. A turtleneck.

Merry Christmas

Hell for your heart is when a hero dies. Not expires, but disappoints. The person goes on living but the concept is no more. The power goes out in your soul forever, it seems. And then there are those moments afterward when you try and revive her, try and attribute that last broken camel-back event as a surreal dream. An old woman frantically climbing stairs, dirty rosary beads draped over one arthritic claw of a hand. Her elephant skin slung around bones, holier than the blood itself. But you know. It's just you now. Alone.

And I've watched from a distance, seen you thrive in your environment, seen you make your surroundings one with yourself. I've tried to work that into my own persona, but the variables have changed. I question myself, you are completely confident, completely happy. You aren't loud about it, your song is quiet, but saturated with relevance and art. Every fiber struck gold in your manufacture. Your golden flow just makes me emphasize my own flaws.

My Newfoundland

The whole town is chasing December and impatience is on the sweatshirt strings of all so anxious to shed them for winter coats. I am heavy with the task of producing my own caffeine for the day and don't notice much else. Where's the snow? Where are the goosebumps as I undress. That trembling I've grown into? Where's waking up to my father making breakfast to Pat Metheny on Saturday morning while the roads are being cleared? It's been post-poned and we have nothing but sticky humidity to stew in.

I thought about him while shaving my legs in the shower, drizzling conditioner over my legs like gasoline on dry logs. I thought about him and his pout when I joked to him about his hairless chest. It was a soft spot, like his solar plexus was to his heart. He made music sound more triumphant and sunlight sweeter and calculus tolerable without even being there. He was the ray of heat in the microwave defrosting my cold stares.

My heart fluttered out of my chest, through my esophagus, and into the foggy world. I saw him as I rounded Lap 4, chest heaving 7 feet out/7 feet in, mucus in my lungs, anvils strapped to my knees. I took his grin into consideration and 2 more laps wasn't so bad. Wouldn't you know, I was finished 10 seconds sooner that last week. That's one thing to be happy about.

One of many, I'm finding out every day. Which is totally ruining my arrogant, unsympathetic teenager look by the way. I find myself speaking more than when spoken to, smiling at strangers in the dog park, so frequently that I didn't notice Henry getting frisky with a 200 pound Newfoundland. Dream big, I guess.

He was my Newfoundland. Just... not as heavy.

Italians Love Walmart.

I love Thanksgiving.

During this weekend in late November, my Thanksgiving is spent surrounded by Italians who are forever nursing the "When in Doubt, Make Pasta" philosophy. Surprisingly enough, I am comforted by the casual yelling, the chaotic 8:5 kid to adult ratio, the endless questions of "Are you hungry? Would you like twelve more meatballs?" Maybe this is only born of the fact that I've been around it my whole life. Otherwise, how could one explain my tolerance of my huge Italian family, which unsurprisingly enough, pure-blood Irish Dad can't handle?

My greatest regret is that after seventeen years of being submersed in this language, I still have not picked it up. My immigrant grandparents sport a mix of English and Italian when they speak, the production of four decades in the states. I can understand the general concepts but everything else is a big Italian blur. Instead I focus on the braccioli, italian stuffing, cannolis, granita, and home made espresso. So good.

"Dobbiamo andare a Walmart per ottenere tomato sauce piu, perche abbiamo persone troppi per alimentare."

What's worse is my grandfather's incessant need to yell at me in a language I do not understand in the least. I doubt he could keep himself from such disapproval if I was Gandhi. 

Despite the circumstances I derive comfort in high-stress holidays. I even enjoy the airport.

^^ sample from yesterday.

I'm not Naive Enough to Say I've Won

Stuck in solitary this weekend, so here goes.

It went on like that for 14 minutes... we both stood opposite each other and took turns flicking on and off the light switch.

"It's 2pm, why do you want the lights off," I screamed at him. It felt like I was calling down a long tunnel, on the other end of which he was standing.

Every couple of switches I punched him in the chest for good measure. An 18 wheeler cascading down the tunnel. I didn't want to hurt him but  I had run out of ways to show him that I care. If a fist to the breast plate was the only way to revive his crashed web pages then so be it.

Every time I turned them on another memory of us came to light in my head: the kayak in the Appalachians, badminton in the backyard over a torn net, tutoring me in math late, late at night. All burning up with the bulb filaments. If only he could direct his anger at his fear of success, instead of at me. My biggest fear was that he would mistake my anger for the fact that I didn't care about him anymore.

Eventually I just took the bulbs out of the overhead lights and hid them under my bed with the rest of my inhibitions.

Mercy Killing

After all, is it so awful to replace a lack of skill with discipline, with perseverance, with raw power? More admirable, sure, but is it the same? No. Of course not. If that was true anyone who showed the least bit of effort would get everything they ever wanted. Perseverance is enormously important, but so is succeeding.

Annual legality debates in English class. Ugh.

Which are justifiable? (The ones I said yes to are bolded, but remember to read my disclaimer below)

1. Capital Punishment
2. Abortion
3. Revenge for murder of a family member
4. Mercy killing
5. War
6. Treason
7. Human experimentation to find cures
8. Eliminating a harmful person in society
9. Killing an intruder in one's home
10. Eliminating an unproductive member of society

 I try to force every fiber of my being into justification of abortion when I think all murder is evil. What about war? And mercy killing? Can murder be necessary but still damnable? That's just unfair. At the end, I'm just left confused and poorly graded for lack of participation. I try to blame others but I know it's my fault. If given all the time on the planet, I would not be able to organize my thoughts on this subject in a succinct yet coherent if-then statement.

All I'm left with is a disclaimer:

"All of this DEPENDS and I'm only answering because I'm being forced." bratty. and evasive.

Also my "Murder is justifiable when..." statement goes a little something like this. Notice how it doesn't even start with "Murder is justifiable when...":

"Any instance of killing and its justification (or lack thereof) depend on the situation AND ONLY this situation (cannot be influenced by past situations, however similar) and must be decided by all and only those involved."

Why can't I get off this fence? Hopefully I'll be able to make up my own mind before I die. Or before I decide to murder someone.

I'm waiting for this to happen to the world.

This Cloud Above Me

Horror movies don't scare me. They used to. They used to give me awful nightmares. Cold, sweaty, jerky nightmares. I never screamed though. I woke up silently, so no one came to comfort me. It was sick irony. Like a flower that can only thrive in the Winter. Or a miscarriage.

But now I sleep. I realize that each artificial Hollywood sequence is devised within a set of uniquely bullshit circumstances, and my own life is too fucked to accommodate them, so there's nothing to fear. It's a hollow reality I exist in, not one of wet and exciting plot lines. It only scares the viewer, never the character.


Her face rises to show eyes squinting. Ink black hair whipping around her head in the wind. Fat drops of sweat wander down her skin like rats leaving a sinking ship. They mix with the rain. Tongue slips out between chapped lips and jaw expands, clenches, releases. She imagines her teeth shattering into a million pieces and getting stuck in her throat. Somehow that would be better than going on. She sinks back into the grass, glistening in the dark moonlight. The rain is over now. Sweat becomes one with the dew and she is entangled in her own despair, guitar solo echoing around her addled brains. Nothing compares with the amped snow. And the Stardust.