2000-07-24

i took a bus ride home and here i am out of the big city and its funny because every place else in the world looks like Mayberry compared to New York. Some guy told me that a few days ago, and its true. I'm becoming a snob, arrgh.

I wrote a wonderful entry for this diary on saturday. man was it good. but then i deleted it by mistake, and whoops there went all my great thoughts. Instead of sitting here, trying to highlight what went on in my last entry, I'll move on to new but related things.

This week has been a blast. I've met a girl. I can feel her reel me in, phone call by phone call. I've only just met her, but she seems intent on getting to know me. and i'm such a wuss, i wouldn't have it any other way. I need someone to take me by the hand and pull me into a relationship.

Anyway we walked through astoria and chatted and kept ourselves interested in each other.

I just spilled some chocolate mousse that i've been eating for breakfast onto my shirt. See the decadence that goes on when i come 'home' to my parent's place?

and i washed the stain out successfully.

Also i went for a poop, and just like always, i clogged the toilet. This always happens when i visit them. their pipes are too small, i guess. and i'm so anal retentive, that i've got larger garbage to dispose of, when i finally decide to dispose of it.

its funny, how this diary can be liberating. i write things that i would choose not to say to people's faces, for fear of scaring them. then i tell the same people to go read this. it's like how easier it is to write a letter to somebody than talking to them about your true feelings.

when you have the time and quiet to write alone, you can truly compose a sketch of what it is you are feeling.

no that's not it. that defeats the whole "performance is life" attitude. that i supposedly have adopted. i don't know what i belive.

yesterday i went to my grandparent's with a group of aunts and uncles. We gathered in a circle, and my one uncle tried to convince my grandfather to come to his house. His wife was not working for 5 weeks, and they could take care of them.

My grandfather (pop-pop) is now on heavy medication and pain-killers, and needs help bathing and getting around. My grandmother is recently stricken with alzeimers, and isn't much 'help'. It was the overall decision of the sons and daughters that Pop-pop go live with the uncle, instead of having some strange live-in nurse assist him from nine to five.

But Pop-pop refused to budge from his stance. he's not moving, especially to a place where he feels he's not wanted. and he doesn't feel like he's wanted at his own son's house. He feels like he's a burden.

and Pop-pop is right, in a way. the sons and daughters do think its a burden to watch him for any amount of time. after all, everyone works, or has something going on in their lives.

as i watched this discussion go on, back and forth like a tennis match, with emotions rising and crashing back to the ground -- i thought to myself, these adults don't know how to comprimise. everyone is rigid. well, maybe not true. but the most rigid of them of all are my parents. they are the loudest, and most rigid. they also live right next door to pop-pop, and could provide the easiest help.

but my parents aren't there right now. shopping for plants was imperative. so i keep thinking that i should volunteer to take care of pop-pop, in his own house. everybody would be happy. He completely wants me there. and mom-mom is crying, asking me to talk to him. or asking me to live with them; i can't tell which. and my heart soars to heights and lows at the same time. pity and pride. love and anger. (anger at my mother). i feel like a comic book hero. i need to get a grasp on reality, to go through some sort of invested sacrifice in which i really feel the pain, really know im helping some one i love. really know that im loving someone. really loving.

i keep falling into the unreality of my own little world. and every time i realize this, i make some desperate, extreme measured step to over come it. Grandiose.

so i say to myself, i am the one who is the least tied down to my job, and my life. i will take care of them, for the time being. i have to be in new york for the weekends. but i can still stay here for weeks.

john cable, my boss, will understand. it doesn't matter.

but i hold my toungue throughout the whole thing. i want to bring this up with uncle wayne first. like hierarchy.

and then i step in to the discussion finally and defend my parents, who aren't here. i'm wrought with emotion that i couldn't even foresee. i somehow losing the ability to speak. words come out with my voice cracking. funny, how your voice doesn't crack in your head, when you're rehearsing what to say. i sounded in a jumble, i was embarrassed. i spat it out, and waved my arms around with some sort of motion. e-motion.

pop-pop talked right back at me, trying to dismiss what i said with some other point, but i felt like i had him reeling backwards. he hadn't expected it.

then later the aunts and uncles thanked me for my input.

Mom-mom said she loved me. (which she has never said to me in my entire life, and if you want to dismiss people with alziemer's, your completely wrong. She is more sharp, intuitive, and reactionary than i have ever seen her. details don't matter to her anymore. it's the grand scheme that matters. and why shouldn't it? she's going to god.)

so i revere them, these old people. i revere life. i revere death. i want to help, to help them, my heart says. my head says i want to prove something to my parents. yin and yang, two sides of the same coin.

to show my parents how to take time out and alter Your life for someone else. To alter lifestyles when those lifestyles are out of date.

and i want to somehow merge the old world with the new world. to return to the old idea of families taking care of their loved ones close to death. this fast-paced american bullshit is so tiring, so un-receptive. we are all isolated in importance of the individual, and there is nothing to gain from it anymore. unless we take a step back and open our perspectives to all the possibilites between us.