Cheesy Musings

When small things get in the way of big things, and futures become slightly hazy, it makes you really think about what it is you really want in the future.

I want a library. A home library stocked with my favorite books, all of which I've completed at least once, and organized in some way that I love and is confusing to everyone else.

I want the library to be a sanctuary against all the clutter my personality won't allow me to not make. I want the walls (that aren't already lined in shelves, of course) to be covered in things I love. A wall of significant newspaper headlines, a wall of vintage propaganda posters, maybe my favorite records, and some antique typewriters that I've always been fascinated with. Frivolous things that look immature in living rooms will come together to create a space that only I'd put together.

And more than that, I want to be able to sit in that room and write things that people want to read. Maybe not a lot of people, but a few genuine ones.

I often find myself focusing on the school and career parts of my future, but there's definitely more important parts that I'll need more than anything else.

I'll need great friends that will hop into a ditch I backed into without hesitation and friends that clip perfect cartoons from newspapers and carry them around in their wallets so I can see them and friends that don't mind when my brother needs to tag along.

I'll need family that supports my frantic panicking and doesn't get mad when I call at random hours freaking out even though they're on vacation and laughs at me with more love than amusement.

These things are what make the bad parts bearable. Whether I'm teaching people who don't care at a brain dead community college or guiding vibrant and curious students at a prestigious university or writing magazine articles with topics I know nothing about or living on freelance writing and a prayer, I'll be okay.

An Apple A Day

Why won't people go to the doctor?? I'm always saying how much my dad, grandmother, and I are alike, but in this respect, I defiantly break from the pack. It's the 21st century! They aren't going to bleed you with leeches, or mush around in your brains Abraham-Lincoln-post-assassination-style, so why do you still think they're incompetent and are only out for money?

Okay, maybe a lot of them are out for your money. But let's think this through. If they say, bleed you with leeches, or give you medicine that makes you worse, or are somehow counterproductive to your health, and assuming you're a logical person, you're going to switch to a hopefully more competent physician. And pay somebody else. And they are losing money. So even if, when the smiling middle schooler on career day asks why they became a doctor and they reply for the bundles of cash, you can bet they still want to help you out so you will continue to provide them with said bundles of cash. So get over that! I'm looking at you, Grandma!

And Dad. Dad who thinks he's invincible. Oh, my arm's broken in three places. It'll heal itself in a week. No, no it won't.

So that's an extreme example. But he has this weird growth on his head (yeah I know, mental images) that has been there for quite some time and he REFUSES to get it checked out. He has a family history of skin cancer and spent more of his childhood with sun poisoning than without AND has a bald spot right there allowing the sun an all-access pass to his poor little scalp.

Would it really be so terribly hard to go the doctor, get it looked at, and probably just have them lop the thing right off? If I'm being as paranoid as he says and it's not skin cancer, at least he'd be rid of a growth on his scalp, which has to be an improvement by any standards. And if it is something worse, than they can take care of it before it's really bad. I'm not seeing how any of the logic here points to the "wear hats and ignore it" philosophy.

Fine, Grandma, your generation isn't so doctor dependent. Fine, Dad, you're an impenetrable force with an immune system of steel. Fine. Don't do it for you.

Do it for me. Do it for the ulcer developing in my stomach, and for the fact that I need both of you, alive and healthy. And even if I'm not enough, do it for your husband (who ironically goes to the doctor TOO MUCH) and your three children and five other grandchildren. Do it for your wife and your other son who really needs a father figure who can admit he's not invincible and seeks help when he needs it.

An apple a day is not enough.

The House That Built Me

My parents often casually throw about the idea that they're going to move away from this place after my brother leaves home (which might be never, making my worries moot! ha). I always protest. Is it selfish that I don't want other people living in what is the closest thing I've got to a childhood home?

All my life, when we visited my grandma in the house my mom grew up in, I would sleep in Mom's old bedroom and play with Mom's old toys and read Mom's old books. I hugged her old worn-out-with-love teddy bear and looked through her yearbooks. My brother and I played her old board games and admired the pictures she'd hung up when she was our ages. As you can tell, my grandma never throws anything away.

I want my kids to have that.

But there are even more selfish reasons. I want a place to come home to that feels like home. My dad's parents are kind of opposite of my mom's and Dad's childhood home(s) are occupied by random people. Grandma and Grandpa built their own house in a totally different town. The house, while familiar, isn't home to Dad. He doesn't have a bedroom there and Grandma got rid of most of his stuff or stuck it away in the attic.

I want to be able to come home, to the place I call home, not just the house where my parents happen to live. Sometimes I think about how weird it will be coming home and sleeping in my bed as a visitor. If my bed still exists at that point...

I know my parent's happiness is what should be my priority, and if moving away is what makes them happy, then I should support it. But how can they not have any attachment to this place?

Maybe I'm growing overly sentimental since my time to move on with my life looms dangerously close or maybe I've heard this song one too many times on the radio, but I really want them to keep this house, my house. I'm afraid if they get rid of it and my room becomes somebody's home office, I'll lose all the memories attached to it. Seven years of my life, arguably the most significant ones yet, unfolded under this roof. The tangible wood and carpet and shingles tether me to something bigger, a whole person I identify with and might lose touch with later. How am I supposed to get her back if her home is gone?

Viva Las Vegas

Sitting in the Barter Theater last weekend, my dad and I made a starling discovery about ourselves.

We were talking to this older gentleman in front of us during the intermission of "Shake, Rattle, and Roll," an Elvis tribute show (which is the glorified and PC way of saying Elvis impersonator). As he listed off the the shows he'd been to and how they compared to the one we were currently watching, Dad got ready to announce that we'd also seen one he mentioned.

Then he realized this was making our third Elvis show this year. We were horrified.

At the three shows we've attended (one with my immediate family and two with my grandparents), we'd spent most of them making fun of the Elvis impersonator groupies that apparently form a disturbing subculture. At one, there was even a merchandise booth run by old ladies who probably saw the real Elvis when they were teenagers. The merchandise, from a safe distance, appeared to be your usual tshirts, coffee cups, buttons, and pins emblazoned with the familiar face of the King of Rock-n-roll, but as you moved closer, it became freakily apparent that it wasn't Elvis Presley's face on the cheap goods. It was the face of the impersonator.

Now going to see one perform is one thing, but having a man pretending be another man pasted across your chest is just weird. But far weirder is how these ladies acted during the impersonator's performance. They yelled "we love you Stephen!" with the same adoration and fanaticism as real 50's Elvis fangirls. They even threw their granny panties on stage. No, I'm not kidding. They did.

They also racketed off the names of all the "Elvis Tribute Artists" who participated in the annual contest in Las Vegas and where their precious Stephen ranked among them. "Oh the one in Myrtle Beach? He's so full of himself! Barter Theater? He's got nothing on Stephen! Just a hack."

So as we stood in this tiny, historic theater, surrounded by people old enough to be my great, great grandparents, we became shockingly self-aware. I looked down at the Elvis emblazoned on my chest (at least it's the real one and not Stephen or Scot or Bruce!), the light up purse on my shoulder. I thought about the Jailhouse Rock poster hanging up at home and the purple Elvis guitar cd case in the living room. I thought about the three Elvis shows we attended.

But I also thought of all the times Dad and I spent heartily singing along to our favorite Elvis songs, complete with dramatic hand gestures and lip quivers, and the time my second grade teacher marched tie-dye Elvis shirt clad eight-year-old me down the hall to show another teacher who was a huge Elvis fan. And I thought about all the times my brother and I had watched these two Elvis biography videos to kill time in the van, his four year old lips singing every word.

And maybe we aren't the fans who cry at the Presley grave site at Graceland and maybe my undergarments stay on during Elvis tribute shows, and maybe I don't know the name of every impersonator that ever breathed, but maybe, just maybe, we are one of those people.

Faucets and Family

Sometimes it's hard to see how strong family ties are until three generations sit around a disassembled bathroom sink for twelve hours.

My dad and I are horribly similar in personality, as my mom frequently points out in frustration, and my grandmother is just another in the set.

My dad promised her he'd replace the sink hardware in the bathroom after we got back from our trip to New York City. He began attacking the thing with several wrenches and a pair of pliers at about 9:30 in the morning.

At 9:30 that night, he was still wedged under the sink, cussing the pipes and nuts and bolts while Grandma stood unhelpfully in his way, brimming with concern and guilt. I stood by and handed him wrenches.

My dad is a pretty smart guy. Straight A's throughout his Master's Degree, Teacher of the Year, plaques from the Air Force abound, etc. He is not, however, mechanically inclined and he is definitely not a plumber. But he is a good son and a determined individual and refused to give up on the sink.

My very, very cheap grandfather even told him that it was okay, to give up, he'd pay for a plumber. Dad had just emerged from the sink, his hands raw and covered in grease and filth and WD-40. His sides were almost completely absent of skin from squeezing into the cabinet. He'd just driven nine hours to New York City, spent three days navigating the streets in sweltering heat, and drove nine more hours; he was exhausted. The sink was still not installed. We were due back home at least six hours ago and Mom kept calling and telling Dad to give up. Grandma was on the verge of tears because she felt so guilty about putting her son through this.

But still, he would not quit. He started a job, and he was darn sure going to finish it. I didn't know whether to consider this stupid stubbornness, a kind of unnecessary plumbing martyrdom, or an admirable display of will and determination. All I knew for sure is that I longed to go home but a drain stopper and a hot water valve stood solidly in my way, and Dad was not going to quit.

Now, Grandma definitely considered this stupid stubbornness, but I know she's exactly where her son got it from. Just the in the preceding days, the woman had followed us all over the streets of New York City in ninety degree heat for miles and miles. Every time we turned around to check on her, she'd insist that she was just fine and kept plugging along. She's painted her entire house solo in recent years, and takes care of my whiny, self-centered, sickly, helpless, and thankless grandfather all by herself. Her 75th birthday is next week.

My dad is his mother's son and I'm my father's daughter. Even if they're determined to the point of stupidity sometimes, I can't help but hope I share in some of their strength. I have their eyes, their sense of humor, and their love of travel. I hope that, like Dad, I would also finish the sink.

Zacky-Poo

The other day I arrived at what I thought was a startling revelation: my brother is the only person that I've known for their entire life.

I remember when he made a grand entrance into this word; I remember his first steps; I remember the first time he careened over the side of his crib; I remember him crying with pure anger on his first day of school; I remember his first video game (that was actually mine); I remember more of his life than he does.

I know every nuance of his existence, simply because I've spent more time with him than any other human on this earth. I know all his favorite foods (even the crap, fake pizza from Golden Coral) and how he doesn't eat the grape Sweetarts (gives them to me). I know how he never sleeps at the same angle is his bed every night. I know how he never picks up a drink until he finishes his entire meal. I know how his hair won't lay flat in some places and how it reacts the exact same way mine does to sun, chlorine, and rain.

Even though we're about as different as two siblings we can be, there are certain experiences that link us intricately and uniquely. I didn't teach anyone else how to play every board game on the planet or the good seats on the bus or the finer points of surviving school lunches. I didn't invent games (such as the infamous "zzz zzz" that annoyed mom to no end and the ever-pleasant "Toss the Rufum") that only we know the rules to with very many other people. I didn't ride in the backseat of a mini-van, fighting over which VHS to watch or what course to play on Mario Kart ("NOT Rainbow Road!" "But you picked last time!" "But I'm older!" " But I'm winning!"), or making up extensive stories with stuffed animals (who occasionally broke into vigorous dance to whatever was on the radio) so he wouldn't ask "are we there yet?" with anyone else.

Some of my favorite weekends have been spent holed up in his room, playing massive video game marathons all day, only breaking to eat and fight. We would laugh and laugh and laugh until mom came in to see what was so funny, but neither of us could explain it adequately.

Sometimes, when I begin to feel overwhelmed, I retreat back to that place. Our marathons have grown scarce since we've both grown into teenhood, but this Saturday, we left our cell-phone-facebook-teenager clogged worlds behind, and lost ourselves to Raving Rabids, Blow Pops, and our patented "That's-what-she-said" wars.

Every morning as he exits the (debatable) safe shelter of my car and hurries into worlds unknown, in his 13-year-old boy standard-issue hobo uniform, I want to grab the handle of his bookbag and pull him back in with all the pseudo-motherly strength of an older sister. I know what happens in that place and he's morphing into a new human being, one that I don't know. One I can't watch grow up as closely from the confines of a play pen.

But I don't have to be scared, because as different as we may be, we come from the same foundation. Two people made of the same substance growing in different directions. He can never grow too far away from me. After all, we'll always have "Toss the Rufum."

Everybody's a Winner

I've heard my generation occasionally referred to as the "overpraised generation". I usually hate when they name generations like that because it's so generalizing and usually judgmental. But in this case, I have to agree.

Nobody loses anymore. I think to be a well-rounded and well-functioning human being, you have to lose sometimes. After all, you can't know the joy of victory if you don't know the sting of defeat.

Even as a little kid, I hated those "everybody gets a prize" games. It cheapens the prize. Why work at all if you get the same result no matter the amount of effort? I never considered myself overly competitive, but a little competition is fun and healthy.

Why did we eliminate "loss" from our vocabularies? Because somebody's feelings might get hurt. Well, I hate to break it to all those parent-by-the-self-help-book parents, but the kid is going to come up short eventually and because they never had to deal with second place growing up, they're not going to know how to deal with it. Instead of being a little kid crying at the end of his first youth league basketball game, he'll be a grown man crying when he doesn't get a promotion at work. Which is better?

Whenever my dad's side of the family gets together, a game of 500 Rummy always commences. I don't remember ever not knowing how to play 500 Rummy. I think it's an instinctive familial gene. Anyway, this weekend was no different. I have horrible luck in cards, and I was in a very distant fourth place. I'm talking negative numbers. But I was still having a lot of fun, talking trash with my grandparents. I know a lot of kids that could not have fun in last place.

I appreciate the fact that my parents (and grandparents!) have always let me lose. Dad never let me win 500 Rummy once in my life, even when I was very young. I am bad at sports, so knowing how to lose is invaluable skill.

Family tradition states that the person that wins has to sign the bottom of the page "El Champo" and the score sheet hangs on the nearest refrigerator until the next rematch. When we left my grandparents' house this weekend, three sheets hung on the fridge, none of which with my name signed at the bottom. But I still could reflect positively on the whole weekend. Thanks, Mom and Dad, for making an expection of me, a member of the "overpraised generation."

Singing to Turn Back the Time

Sometimes, songs are like mini-time machines.

When I, as most people do, hear certain songs, it instantly zips me back in time. I experienced this very vividly last night.

As usual, I couldn't sleep, so I turned to my trusty ipod to entertain my restless brain until it decided to let me sleep. The first song that came pouring from the headphones to flood my weary head was "I'm Still Breathing" by Katy Perry. Instantly, it was last summer, and I was lying in approximately the same position in my bed, but my headphones were plugged up to side of my cd player.

I'd just spent the day with my dad and grandmother in her town, shopping. It had been an above-average day. It had been a long time since the three of us, a multigenerational group, had been together without the pressures of the rest of the family. These two are perhaps my two favorite people in the world, and if you add them up, you get roughly myself. We laughed and had more fun in a Sam's, a pool store, and a furniture place than anybody ever should. At the furniture store, a distant acquaintance of my grandma's attacked us, desperate for a sale. Dad and I laughed, sipping on the free Cokes in glass bottles that you get upon entering the store, as Grandma tried to keep the persistent sales lady at bay.

At Sam's, we impulsively purchased a gigantic jar of pickles that still remains in our fridge. Mom gawked at it for weeks, cursing our sillyness and love of pickles.

At Target, we inconvenienced the sales people to the point where we thought we'd have to make a great escape before they tied us up in the back with packing tape and price stickers and leave us for dead because Grandma tried on every knee brace in the store, leaving a trail of open packages and frustrated employees in her wake. She didn't even buy one. One girl ran the length of the store in pursuit of a tape measure that turned out unnecessary. We only found this abundantly funny, but she probably didn't.

After that long day of shopping and bonding, I couldn't sleep when I got home. Eager to listen to the new CD I'd gotten at Target, I popped it into my CD player since I didn't want to go through the trouble of turning on my computer to put it on my ipod. I used the headphones as not to awake the rest of the household.

Now every time I hear any Katy Perry song, I remember that day with my grandma and father. The events that took place probably seem mundane to anyone else, but to me it meant a lot. I'm glad I have this sort of mental soundtrack to take me back whenever I wish to relive it.