If only you'd been an English teacher...

I am, even after four years of it, astounded by how many people say that my major was a waste of my education.  I am a proud English major, bibliophile, and appreciator of literature.  I read the words of the great people who have gone before us, and I figure out what they were trying to leave us with. 

More importantly, to me at least, I study literature to be close with my loved ones. 

Love you, pup.

My dog, Ripken, was put to sleep this weekend.  He was a weird dog, to be sure.  As a puppy he was a pain in the ass and all of my friends were either scared of him or annoyed by him.  He barked too much and too loud, he was a tad aggressive, and often, even right after a bath, he smelled funny.  Mark once used a $30 bottle of mom's shampoo to wash him with, to make him smell better.  Essentially, Mark payed thirty bucks for the dog to smell halfway decent for about four minutes.  He ate my socks, chewed on the furniture, and often peed on the carpet. But he was a good dog, he was my dog, and I loved him.  He was very loyal to the family, and once even defended our home during a break-in, scaring the intruder nearly to death (and who wouldn't be scared of such a huge dog!).  He always seemed to know, in the way that a family dog does, when anyone was sad or lonely.  If he thought you were feeling low, he'd sit on your feet (if you were on the couch) or on your lap, or just curl up with you, and lie there with a look on his face that said "Oh, I know.  Trust me, I know."  And I really think he did.  That dog was there for me during some of my darkest days when people just didn't cut it.  I got in a lot of extra cuddle-time with him when I was home last, but I still wish I'd gotten to say a proper goodbye to my pup.  He's better off now, and he's no longer in pain, but still.  I'll miss him.

So its been three days now.

Three days since I've seen Boston. I realize now that I am in love with that city. If I step back from missing Pennsylvania for a minute, I see that my life there was made for me with great care and attention, and that it is the realization of all of my youthful dreams.

Perhaps my appreciation of Boston comes from being here. I love my family and I missed them very much, but being here is so hard for me. First of all, the chaos that my home has been thrown into upsets me so much. I didn't realize how much housekeeping I did back in Pennsylvania until I got down here. All of the boys together don't seem to get the housework done that I did. I mean, the house was a wreck, but not like this. I hate it, I can't stand it, but its too much for me to fix on my own. And I don't have a single friend here to help me. How depressing is that. Maybe if I start sleeping at night so that I can work while the boys are at school, and Tony stops having six million friends over every day, while we are in the midst of a horrific family crisis, then I'll be able to manage. Maybe. But I can't live in this house like this. I'm going crazy, and I smell like a labrador.

I don't know how I'm going to survive this summer, really. I think the reason I had such a hard time getting through final exams is that I knew there was nothing remotely pleasant to look forward to once they were done. A broken family, a house full of the shit left behind by my horrible deadbeat dad, a pudgy dying dog, a mother who can't see the mess around her or get things done in the proper order, brothers who are so focused on being pissed at my dad that they don't see how much of a problem they are in the house and how much of a mess they make. Okay, yeah, I'm obsessed with the mess. This is perhaps because I'm going completely stir-crazy. In Boston I go a million places every day. I'm always outside and walking around, even in horrible weather. I go places. I have the freedom to go wherever I want with only my feet. Here, I stay home all day. I could walk for a half an hour and still not manage to leave this housing development. I could walk for a half an hour and all of the houses would still look the same. I could walk for a half an hour and not even notice I had gone anywhere. I'm going nowhere. I fucking hate the suburbs. Its the only environment I'll never be comfortable with. I mean, I love visiting the suburbs for shorter periods of time. I could do a week in the suburbs with no problem. I could do a week in the suburbs better if I had a vehicle.

So I need to get a job if I'm going to manage this. If I'm going to get out of the house. Miss LouAnne across the street, one of mom's best friends, told me that if i get my license, she'll let me learn to ride a motorcycle on Sophie's (her daughter) bike and then let me take that to work once I get my bike license. Kind of awesome but no small feat. I can barely drive a car. Though I feel that a motorcycle would be more my style.

Then we have the irony of that situation. My family has been abandoned by a biker. There is a certain irony to handling the situation with my biker dad while riding around on a motorcycle. I like it. Rob says I should write about it and it would make a helluva story. He's right. I should. So to start, I'm blogging. The stuff about my dad I'll probably keep in a file on my laptop. Don't want to air too much dirty laundry in public, you know?

Speaking of Rob, boy do I miss him. I have of course been missing him since September. Okay thats not entirely true. I've been missing him since the day he went away to college. Much more since the day I did. Missing him is perhaps the one and only constant I've had all these years.

I also miss everyone else. And myself. I feel like I've been missing myself for a while now. maybe with nobody else around I'll be able to find me. That didn't work last summer but perhaps the second time, it'll take. Self-discovery isn't exactly what I was hoping to get out of this summer, but maybe it's better.

I'm going to try and find the good in the monotony. Budget my time. Sleep at night, work out in the morning, get things done during the day, write in the afternoon, and sleep again before two a.m. It could happen. I can do this. I can totally do this.

I worry that my "can-do" attitude is just my method of shutting down my emotions. Because it is. But alas, its all I can do to get out of bed into this horrible version of my life. When I lost touch with my emotions, I don't know, but I'm not certain that I'm going to find them until I get this house in order and my family back on track. Wish me luck, I'm going to need a boatload of it.

"Carrying bags and a navy taxi man said
"Take your time love
'Cause you don't have to rush
'Cause it's your life and it's no one else's, sweetheart
Don't let someone put you in a box."
So I take all that other stuff that I said before
And I'm gonna make it work
'Cause I'm losing my mind and it's driving me up the wall "

-Kate Nash, "Navy Taxi"

I've looked at clouds that way...

..::*I've looked at clouds from both sides now*::..

• Dec. 20th, 2008 at 11:54 PM

Sitting in my mother's kitchen, adjusting to the oddity of being home with my family after so long apart and so much discovery, I expected that the growing and changing I had done without her would distance her from me. My summer spent making cappuccinos, changing diapers, working thirteen hour days, and living, relatively, on my own, would naturally affect me in ways that have nothing to do with my mother and father.

I spent my nights awake, listening to Joni Mitchell--who I discovered through Delia, a childhood friend, making me a mixed cd--and writing a play based on her music. During the day, Bruce Springsteen and the Grateful Dead, but Joni is what moved me to dust off my metaphorical pen.

Tonight, while adjusting, I put on some music. A little Joni to steady me--to remind me of that person I made all by myself this summer, far from friends and parents. As my mother walked up the stairs I heard her shout back at me, "Joni is the best."

"What, Mom?"

"Joni Mitchell is my favorite singer, my all-time favorite. My absolute favorite. Do you like her?"

And followed a brief discussion of favorite albums and songs, shouted from the stairs to the kitchen, neither of us moving to facilitate communication. We knew it would wait until the morning, this hidden bonding, this innate love of a poet who touched our hearts miles apart.

And I thought I was growing up on my own. Foolish, to think that my mother doesn't shape my heart every single moment of every single day.

"I've looked at love from both sides now
From give and take, and still somehow
It's love's illusions I recall
I really don't know love at all"