Things Seldom Openly Admitted

I’m going to deviate a little from the norm here and not talk about myself. Okay. I will talk about myself, but mainly, this is about my sister. Explaining exactly how she is my sister is too convoluted, so just take on fact that magpies collect their families more than they are born into them.

            I have always admired her – her strength, her generosity of spirit, her energy, and, probably most of all, the ever-present grace she exudes (I know she’ll laugh at that one, but it’s true). She’s the princess of the family – and by that I don’t mean some helpless girl in a puffy pink gown. No. She is the princess who can charge in and fight when she needs to, but sees the wisdom in diplomacy first; she is benevolent and just. She is the leader you would have complete faith in to make the right decisions.

            Those things I learned about her very quickly, and they’re all qualities I hold in high regard. Truth. Loyalty. Fairness. Compassion.

            I also knew, on a cognitive level, that the things she was doing and achieving were not easy things to reach, and I admired that, too.

            Over the past few months, though, I have gained a whole new perspective on exactly how challenging those things are, and how remarkable she is – as a writer and as a person.

            Native English speakers take a lot for granted. We very rarely have to worry about not being able to communicate in our own language, even if it’s at the most basic level. Our cultures are pretty well dispersed throughout the world through media, food, the internet. Our names are generally pretty easy to pronounce (says the kid whose names are constantly mispronounced just because they’re spelled a little funny). I think most of us learn one or two other languages at some point, but very few of us bother to stay fluent (or even get to that point) once the obligatory educational demands are met. We meet non-native speakers and are astounded that they can interact so easily in a foreign language.

            (I’m sure there’s going to be some (English-speaking) person out there reading this thinking, that’s not true. I know 47 different languages and am fluent in all of them. Good for you. I’m making a point so shush. And yeah. I did just do a parentheses within a parentheses. Deal with it.)

            My sister has done her MA and is doing a Ph.D. both (and did quite well at that). And that really isn’t even scraping the surface of all the projects, networking, and creating she’s done alongside those things. And, over the years, I’ve looked at all her accomplishments with a sort of envy at the amount of energy she has to put into all of them. I knew they were hard-earned, and results that I (because ‘I’ is always the main reference point; I’m allowed to be egocentric in my own blog) would have to work equally hard to earn.

            I did not once take into consideration the additional challenge of accomplishing all these many and amazing things in a foreign language (because her foreign language is my native one, give or take some vowels), which is exactly what she did.

            A while ago, I was sitting with a group of people discussing the experience of being living abroad (which most of us are and/or had been doing), and (I’m going to paraphrase and it will not be as eloquent or succinct as it was originally said), one person said that as great as being abroad is, it’s nice to go home, because home is easy. No matter how long you live in another country, you always have to work a little bit more, you always have to be on. At home, you can just stop and go with what’s happening because it’s familiar, you know it. You don’t have to think about it. When you’re abroad, some days you just want to not think because it’s tiring.

            And it is. I don’t say that very much, because I’m an English speaker living in an English-speaking country, and for some reason people (of all sorts and cultures and languages) seem to think that that alone nullifies the foreign element.

            It doesn’t.

            Anyway, moving on. Living abroad is tough, and my sister and I had talked about this. My first year in Newcastle, actually, I’m pretty sure she saved me. Here I was this naïve little Southern boy thinking it was the thing to do to smile and say hi to everyone, and not understanding why I kept getting met by looks that indicated I might be a crazy person. I felt isolated and self-conscious, and presumed the problem was me, because no one had told me exactly how big the culture gap between the North East of England and the South-east US really is (it is a wide, gaping chasm that you will never find the bottom of, in case you’re wondering). And then she told me. No, no. I had the same experience, and this is what I learned. And suddenly, while I wasn’t necessarily happy with these new social rules, I no longer felt like a pariah. Which helped.

            This summer I broke out of my rainy little island and went to check out some other parts of Europe. Like the other aforementioned native English-speakers, I used to be fluent in French and German, but the ten years of not using it for anything at all reduced my knowledge to a smattering of basic (but useful) phrases that, coupled with the reflexive Southern smile (try it; go find a Southerner, make him/her uncomfortable and see what s/he does first) and an incredibly nice man in Paris who translated a lunch order, got me through the trip unscathed. About the third week, though, I had a mini break. A lot of the trip responsibility (namely navigating cities like an expert off-the-cuff) had fallen on me, we had a lot of long days and early mornings, and I was starting to get sick. We came back to the flat after a particularly long and very hot day, and then we had to eat dinner. No big deal, right? Food is food. But that day, the idea of going outside and fumbling my way through what was and wasn’t vegetarian-friendly seemed like an overweight behemoth perched on my shoulders. I couldn’t do it. We had to eat, obviously, but I could not make myself go back out and face that. I would have cut off limbs for something familiar and easy, even just five minutes of not having to think about everything.

            And I thought, in that moment: this must be what my sister feels. It was such a simple thing, such an obvious thing, but it had never occurred to be before because I’d never experienced it to that extent. With that little epiphany, all the respect and admiration and love I have for her just magnified. So I asked myself what she would do, then I pulled myself together and went out and fetched dinner because it needed to be done. I spent quite a lot of that trip attempting to channel her (I say attempt because she’s much more patient than I am, and nicer, and generally positive).

            Last week I had another one of those moments. I’m starting a new thing, in a new place with new people. I expected it to be harder, but the truth is, for most of my life, quite a lot of (academic) things have come easily to me, and, generally, more easily than to those around me. So I’ve done a lot of coasting. A few teachers have called me out and demanded I actually work to my full potential, but most were too busy helping those who needed it to come up with extra challenges for the kid who was already doing above average. Basically, it’s made me lazy. Yes. I am a lazy perfectionist. It is possible.

            I don’t write standard fiction. I like playing with form and structure; I’ve never been happier than when my supervisor gave me free reign to dive headfirst into experimental writing. And I’m a huge advocate of the genre-and-literary-fiction-aren’t-mutually-exclusive-camp. Which means that 1. I do still feel embarrassed when I talk to “proper” literary people about my work because their eyes sort of glaze over and you can see them just writing you off before you’ve even finished your first sentence and 2. Because of 1, I also have to work that little bit harder to be taken seriously; I have to fight for my monsters and nonlinear narrative and multiple tenses and perspectives.

            And I’d gotten comfortable. In my last life, I’d won that fight already. I could babble on about alternate timelines and supernatural powers and zombies (I don’t write about zombies, oddly, as frequently as they feature in my every day discourse) and no one questioned the least bit whether or not I could pull off a literary anything. I’d proven it multiple times so it was just taken as standard.

            In my new life, I have to go through all of that again. And I did/am. And when it happened, I felt that pudgy little behemoth climbing up my back and just the idea of waging another battle in the name of literary genre fiction made me want to just sit right down in the middle of the path and not move (I didn’t; I do know how to fake at being a grown up sometimes).

            But on that excruciatingly long walk back, I thought of my sister, who has had to fight for her work to being taken seriously every step of the way because. She doesn’t do normal things, either. She does different not-normal, but it’s outside the status quo of the literary canon, so that’s enough. I thought about how hard she’s had to fight for her work, and that she’s had to do it without anyone physically in her corner to fight with her.

            I have no idea how she does it.

            I came home and promptly called my mother (I only have to pretend to be a grown up in public) to tell me I was being ridiculous and that I am, in fact, capable of doing this thing I’m trying to do, and she did. And then my neighbour came over and did the same. And I felt better about it. So I have to prove myself a little more than the standard guys. It’s okay. I can. I will. I’ve done it before.

            But I kept thinking about my sister – every achievement she’s made, every fight she’s won, every bit of progress she’s accomplished when everything else is pushing against her – and I felt that same encompassing awe at the person she is. I know that, in her place, there would have been many times I would have just given up.

            I may never have the same patience, wisdom, and certainly not the grace that she has, but she is, nevertheless, someone I aspire to be like. I will keep trying, even if I don’t ever fully succeed. Watching her these past few years, the perseverance she has and her ability to remain undefeated – and this isn’t there haven’t been hard struggles or close moments, but, for me at least, going on through those times takes a lot more than being able to skip them – shows me that it can be done, whatever else is saying no. And, here in Zaleshkaland, all that’s needed is the faintest glimmer of a possibility to take off running.

Esse Est Percipi.

A year ago today, my father died.

In reality, he was gone a long time ago. Sometimes I'm not entirely sure he was really ever there to begin with. For a majority of my life, he showed symptoms of dementia. It made things difficult. Really difficult. For most of my life we didn't know what it was. A lot of the time, I just thought my dad was a massive asshole.

What teenager doesn't?

After he died, I found journals he'd written to me when I was a kid, which is the only reason I know he showed symptoms that early. I spent a long time trying to puzzle over whether knowing that changed anything. I still don't know. Because not all of it can be attributed to the disease. There were choices he made that impacted other people. There were secrets he kept that we'll probably never know, and the scary thing about that is I was one of those secrets and it wasn't until the end he was able to come clean about it, so what secrets didn't he ever tell?

The problem with grieving for my father is that I saw him as he was, which gets in the way of being the dutiful son. Around his family, around those who loved and respected him, I feel like a fraud because I don't foster the belief that he was some sort of saint.

My father was a deeply flawed individual who never learned from his mistakes and never seemed to make the right decision, regardless of his intentions. I've been told he had good intentions, and maybe he did, but I'm equally aware that there was a good amount of selfishness directing those good intentions, too.

I remember sitting beside his bed day after day and the only thing I could think of to say to him - no, it was more insistent than that. I had to make sure he knew Jinks.

A year later I still can't reconcile how I feel about my father or his death. I still can't wrap my head around it. And just like a year ago, I don't say much about it. But it's there. Something broke in me last October and it hasn't been put right yet. I know that much.

But life doesn't stop. So you pack it up and keep it in its box and you go like nothing touches you.

---

FREEDOM
[Not exactly true, but not entirely a lie.]
I watch your mouth move in silent incantation.

          I want you to know about Sam. I need you to know about Sam. Out of everyone, you would probably understand our relationship. You would probably be able to explain it to me.

          You’d like him.

          He’s just like me. But good at all the things you wanted me to be good at. We’re even the same age, so you could pretend.

          Do you know that this is it, this is your last chance to say all the things you never did? Are your secrets finally coming out? All those things you planned to tell me. One day.

          They left me alone to talk to you, but alone is relative. The room hums and beeps with machines whose functions I can’t even guess. Beyond our curtain of privacy, George watches Antique Roadshow. An orderly puts Ralph back in bed. The son of the man (whose name I don’t know because he wasn’t here last time) next to you talks about his wife and their plans for the weekend.

          I look at your unfocused eyes.

          I watch your lips move.

          I don’t know what to do.

          The words stumble and jerk from my mouth, trying to be normal. Like this is any other conversation we might have. Except you don’t talk back. Except I don’t know if you’re listening. I feel raw and exposed inside our curtain of privacy.

          I talk about school and my friends.

          I talk about the things I’ve read.

          I talk about Sam.

          I’m supposed to tell you it’s okay. I’m supposed to tell you I’ll be fine. I’m supposed to tell you that you can go. That’s the phrase they keep using. Like you’re just going on a trip somewhere.

          It’s not true. There are truths you haven’t told and things I haven’t learned. There are questions.

          You always hated my questions.

          Why do you always have to ask why, you’d say after the tenth or twentieth round. Why can’t you just accept things the way they are?

          Because I want to know why, I’d say.

          You could be speaking a language we’ve all forgotten. You could be reciting the secrets of the universe. You could be describing the face of every angel and we’d never know.

                   The last time we talked about faith I was nineteen and it was raining so thick the wipers couldn’t keep up. You kept picking at every thing I did, but you couldn’t drive in the dark by then and it was my car. For God’s sake, put that out, you said about my cigarette. God can fuck himself, I said back.

          Do you still believe in those things?

          I’m not sure I do, but sitting here, I need to.

          Two days before I landed, you still squeezed the nurse’s hand when she asked. I’m afraid to touch your hand because it might break. Every vein shows through the translucent skin and swollen knuckles spasming against your chest. I place my hand beside yours and for once yours look smaller. Cold. Dry. No matter how many times I ask, it never moves.

          I get the irony, but I need to know you know I’m here.

          Beyond the curtain, a priest asks the orderly if someone’s in with you. The orderly tells him he thinks it’s a nurse. I know I should tell him it’s okay to come in, but I’ve run out of words.

          I hold your hand.

          I will you to squeeze it.

          I watch your lips move.

          It could be complete gibberish. You’ve been off the feeding tube for four days. You haven’t spoken for six. God knows where you are because you’re not behind your eyes and no one knows why you’re still alive.

          I can’t remember the last conversation we had.

          The priest talks to George about the show. They talk about sports and how the Steelers are doing this season. The priest asks how long ‘the nurse’ has been with Father Anthony. George doesn’t know.

          I still can’t speak.

          I’m desperate for someone to break our silence.

          I’m terrified someone will.

          Your body jerks. Your mouth moves.

          It could just be muscle spasms. The neural paths in your brain finally broken down after twenty years’ decay.

          I wish you could’ve met Sam.

          I stand over you so I can look into your eyes. My eyes. My nose. Even the hands pinned to your chest are mine.

          This is what I’ll look like.

          Evelyn is beyond the curtain, talking to the priest.

We won’t be alone much longer.

You move your lips. I search your eyes.

I don’t know why I never told you about Sam. I didn’t tell anyone for a long time. Maybe because all I know is secrets and holding them tight. Maybe because it always took too much explaining, like I knew it would. Maybe because they all want to put us in a box, and I knew that would happen, too.

We are what we are. That’s what Sam says, and that sums it ups. Tied but not bound.

What would you say?

What would you say…

You should love your friends, you’d tell me. There are many types of love.

I wish you would speak. More than anything. I just want you to speak.

In three weeks when it’s all sinking in and I’m lying on his floor, Sam will ask: What do you want to talk to him about?

I don’t know. I don’t know, I’ll say. Anything. Everything. Stupid shit that doesn’t mean anything. I just want one more conversation.

I put my hand on your forehead. It’s hot against my palm. You close your eyes and your mouth stops moving. There’s just the heave of your chest and the twitch of Parkinson’s in your arms. The machine keeping oxygen in your lungs.

Do you have a boyfriend? you asked, last time I was here. I didn’t tell you I’d already answered it the day before.

No, I don’t have a boyfriend. The question made me feel tired. Like the effort of strapping myself to a person, a place was a physical undertaking beyond my means. Like the effort of explaining that to you again was even worse.

A girlfriend then?

No. No girlfriend, either.

What about that Charlie fellow?

He was my roommate.

He’s a good friend?

Yes.

That’s important. As long as you have good friends, you’ll be all right.

Evelyn peeks around the curtain and smiles. Her cheerfulness is a force I feel guilty for clinging to. ‘Father Tim is here,’ she says. ‘Is that all right?’

I nod, but my mouth is empty. You keep stealing my words with your silent incantation.

That was the day you forgot my name. The look on your face as you looked at me like I was anyone and no one. That’s the look I can’t forget.

I cleaned you up and left you in the living room of your sister’s house and dodged past relatives I barely knew and questions in a language I no longer grasped. Cousins chasing after me in childish fascination to giggle at my strangeness.

I inhaled an entire cigarette in one breath.

I called Sam.

He told me stories until I laughed. Until they called me back to the frontlines because in that house full of good intentions no one ever did a damn thing.

You kept apologising and the look on your face was even worse than the one that didn’t remember. I smiled and said okay. I told you it was okay to forget me.

Fr. Tim clutches a smile that says he doesn’t know what to make of the tattooed and pierced man with purple nails to match the purple hair having a private audience at Fr. Anthony‘s deathbed.

The last time I visited, my hair was blue and you told the nurse we were going to dye yours, too.

None of them know what to make of me.

‘Tim, this is Zee,’ she tells him. ‘Tim visits all the TORs.’

I just nod and take his hand. I don’t know where to look.

‘That’s an unusual name,’ he says. ‘Are you named after that actor? What was his first name…?’

‘The author.’ I lose some of the syllables, but at least I make a sound.

He looks confused, but the smile stays. He reminds me of a bulldog.

‘He wrote westerns.’

‘That’s right. So are you a fan of westerns, then?’ Like he’s the first person to ever ask it.

‘No.’ I hate that question. I’ve never told you that. ‘I just watched them with him.’ I give you a half-nod.

‘It’s really good to meet you, Zee. Obviously, not under the circumstances, but I’m sure Fr. Anthony appreciates you being here.’ He still hasn’t let go of my hand. ‘Have you known him long?’

You lie between us.

Your mouth moving.

Your arms twitching.

‘Yeah. Awhile.’

‘Oh?’ The smile warms, like this will explain everything. How many kids did you mentor in my lifetime? How many in your career? ‘You’re from the parish?’

‘No.’

The handshake is no longer a handshake, but a tether holding me still. ‘My mistake. How do you know Fr. Anthony?’

I’ve been your secret for so long I don’t know how to answer. This should be your job. Your confession. Not mine.

Evelyn nods. ‘Go on.’

‘He’s my dad.’

‘Ah.’

We hang there while he tries to decide what to do with that. I wonder how many times I’m going to have to do this.

‘It’s good you’re here. Shall we pray?’

He anoints your forehead and we all join hands. A priest on either side of me. I can’t get over the way your hands feel. Tissue paper. Plastic. Something not human.

They close their eyes and bow their heads.

God of power and mercy, you have made death itself the gateway to eternal life.

          I watch your mouth move in silent incantation.

Look with love on our dying brother, and make him one with your Son

          If I could decipher what it means, I would have all the answers.

in his suffering and death, that, sealed with the blood of Christ,

But even after a lifetime of reading other people’s lips, I can’t read yours when it really counts.

he may come before you free from sin.

I murmur my way through the Sign of the Cross without hearing the words. Two decades out of the church and I can still recite every prayer in my sleep. 

Amen.

          Fr. Tim shakes my hand again. He leans over and clasps your hand with more bravery than I’ve managed. ‘I’ve got to go now, Tony. I’m off to see Richard. Do you want me to deliver a message for you?’ He looks at me with that standard-issue smile. ‘Your dad and Richard are old friends from the TOR. I always stop and ask if he wants me to give Richard a message.’

          I nod. I’ve heard this story. Last time I was here, you told me every day I was in town. It ended every phone call.

          You kept saying you were going to visit me when you got out.

          We’ll see, I’d say, knowing you never would but lacking the ability to actually say no. Not when you called it a prison. Not when the nurses were guards divided into Good Guys and Bad Guys.

          ‘He always gives me the same message, don’t you, Tony?’ He pats your shoulder and your gown slips down over painfully articulated clavicle. ‘Freedom, that’s the message, isn’t it? ‘Tell Richard ‘freedom’! Is that what you want me to tell him, Tony?’

          I never was sure how much of that was a joke and how much you really believed. It’s always been like that. We just have a name for it now.

He pats your shoulder again.

          Your mouth makes it shapes.

          She walks him out and I’m left standing over you again. I pull up your gown and straighten your blanket until it’s a perfect line across your chest.

          I try to find you in your eyes.

          I think about the last time you visited. Your eyes were going then, and your balance. I held your hand every time we crossed the street.

          I can do it myself, you said as we made our way down Oglethorpe. You used to say that all the time. Just a little thing. I’d try to help, but you’d just stamp your foot and cross your arms. I can do it myself, you’d say. I feel like that sometimes.

          I know, and I feel sorry that you can’t. Help me cross the street.

          I think about your night terrors and wonder if that’s what traps you now.

          The idea terrifies me.

          I smooth the last of your hair into some sort of order. It never really stays, though. I got that from you, too.

          I’d pray if it didn’t feel like a lie.

          ‘I’m okay, old man,’ barely louder than the mysteries on your tongue, but my skin wills it into yours. ‘Just go.’

You can't stand on the sidelines forever, kid.

Fuck Chick-fil-a.
Fuck Oreo.
Fuck Christian gay straight liberal conservative male female whatever.

Look me in the eye and tell me I'm not a person.

Tell me I don't deserve respect.
Tell me I don't deserve love.
Tell me I'm not good enough.
Tell me my voice doesn't matter.

Do it.
And then fuck off.

Because what I choose to do with my life has nothing to do with you.

---

I am so... disgusted with humanity right now. I'm sick of the proliferation of blithely stated hatred - the celebration of that hatred, like oppressing another group of people is someone's idea of a good time. I'm sick of my friends and family being treated like what they're asking for - what we're asking for - is completely unreasonable. I'm sick of feeling like I want to go find a fabulously queer hole to crawl into and never leave because they're the only ones who can really be trusted. I'm sick of religion being used as a shield that's meant to conceal a multitude of sins - oh yes, that's right, all you Bible-wielders, because there is nothing even remotely Christian about the things coming out of your mouths these days - when religion shouldn't even be dragged into it.

I'm sick of everyone forgetting that beneath all the names, slander, propaganda are real people who actually aren't all that different when it comes right down to it.

Mostly, though, I'm really sick of being shown exactly how many people I have respect, love and admiration for evidently have none of those things for me.

---

"I try my best to ascribe to the 'live and let live' philosophy when it comes to the increasingly prickly arena of religion, politics, lifestyles, etc., but there are moments while watching people show their support for various opinions by happily clicking 'like' where I wonder if, that in the span of that mouse click, the friends, children, nieces, nephews, and cousins personally affected in their daily lives by that opinion cross their minds, or that by supporting that opinion they are effectively saying those friends, children, nieces, nephews and cousins aren't entitled to certain rights - in fact, deserve to be treated as less than. It's not about abstract concepts or philosophies. It's about a real, living, breathing, thinking, feeling human being that you go on vacations with, celebrate with, grieve with, love and are loved by. Maybe more people should think about that rather than competing for who gets to be the most right." 


"Those same ignorant bigots can stand up and say anything they want about my life... but they do not have a right to make me change the way I live my life to suit them. If the worse thing someone can say about me is that I LOVE someone... well then... I'm doing alright. [...] It comes down to most people never having had to worry about hiding who they are from others. Never having to worry about whether or not they or their significant other will be allowed in a hospital room should something happen to them. Never having to worry about someone trying to deny you the right to see your children when they are hurt. Never having to worry about society suddenly deciding they have the right to rip your family apart. Never having to worry about simply being denied that you exist, that you even have the right to exist. It's a good thing that many people don't know what it's like to worry about being killed, beaten, or raped simply because you were seen holding hands with your loved one. But it's deplorable that ANYONE has to feel this way. These things do happen, they are real, and they are a disgusting part of humanity. It needs to be eradicated which can only happen if people are taught to respect diversity. "The gays" are not out hunting down bigots and vandalizing their homes, screaming hate speech at their children, trying to take their children away from them, killing them or raping them for being who they are. There's nothing about this that I can smile and do nothing about. If anything people need to speak up more. Get louder. Because this is not something I want my kids to grow up and have as part of their world."


"In the case of (god I'm so sick of that fucking company now), they are specifically attacking the LGTB community, and I see everyone wondering, do they have the right? They should have the right to hate us, and voice that opinion all they want to, but no one, I mean no one, should try and mandate who I sleep with, fuck, kiss, and fall in love with, I mean no one. And that's what that company was using their money for, to actually fund organisations that take away our rights. So in the case of LGBT community, are you telling me that us homos, lesbos, bisexuals, and transpeople don't have the right to stand up and protest this? Well, that's is just stupid. Any rights, civil liberties, and laws that give us rights should always be defended and fought for."


"Do you think that "we", as a society, will ever learn that disallowing all people the same rights, regardless of skin color, sexual orientation, gender, what-have-you, will eventually lead to an uprising by those being repressed/oppressed? I mean, is it cliche to say that this is the same thing women went through, that blacks went through? I'm not saying that it's not good to fight. It does make you stronger; it does make you more appreciative of the victories you earn (even though within a generation or two, all of the battles, frustrations, hurt, etc. are completely forgotten by those who enjoy the fruits of your pain and endurance). BUT... If you ask the same people who fight so hard to (for instance) "uphold the traditional definition of marriage" if they believe that black people should still be enslaved, they would be shocked that you could even suggest such a thing. Well, why not?"


"Stop being afraid of things you do not know personally. Stop being afraid of 'them', whomever 'they' are. They are you. Human with a need for love and support and family, whatever that means to each individual. I'm tired of humanity continuing to act like an amoeba scared to death of its own shadow because its 'different' or they don't understand it. Evolve. Think for yourself. Understand what base instincts are and think beyond them. It's really that simple."


"I mean, no one chooses to be gay, straight, bi, or trans. I can't imagine any one of us just woke up one day and said, "oh, I think my life would be easier if I just changed my gender," or "I think my world would be greatly enhanced if I were gay". No!! We already went through that argument back in the 80's and 90's. No, it's not a choice, and it makes your life more difficult, especially because rights are taken away. [...] Our forefathers wanted us to have the freedom to express ourselves individually, and then these fundamentalists are all like "well, you can, just don't do it so loudly", and then they turn around and they are ten times as loud as anyone else. Well, I'm sorry I'm going to scream back "fuck you" with a giant middle finger because I can and I will defend myself and my civil liberties and rights. Right now there are still transgenders being murdered and gays that are being denied any access to healthcare, [...] and believe me there many more things I could list. [...] There are even rural parts of the U.S. where you can kill someone for being gay and probably get away with it. Usually, as well, when you start saying things that people find hard to hear, they chalk it up to [your] anger and not to their own fear."


"You spend your whole life getting kicked in the face and taking it with a smile. Sometimes it's just one kick too many, and you get really fucking tired of turning the other cheek, especially when it doesn't matter how tolerant you are. You're always going to be the one who can't talk about certain things because it's "upsetting", or can't go to a family function with your partner, or have to bite your tongue when a relative cracks a joke about hunting season on liberals because you might hurt his feelings, or another relative cuts you out of her life completely just because you point out that religion and government are supposed to stay separate, or the police won't protect you because you're just the butt of their joke, or you don't get hired for a job you're more than qualified for because who you date makes the employer uncomfortable, or you end up pretending to be this watered-down, superficial copy of yourself because other people apparently find it too much of a strain to do what you do every damn day for a few hours every couple of months and be as tolerant of you as you are of them. So... Yeah. Sometimes, you stop and look at the real double-standard and think: why the hell do I bother? They don't."

Walking the Line

I am wary of activism, largely because the idea of forcing a particular way of thinking on an unwilling person conflicts with my personal morality, even if the particular way of thinking is one I support. Do unto others sticks pretty firmly in my mind in these situations. I want to be able to live my life with the freedom to be who and what I am, and follow my own beliefs and ambitions. I don't expect everyone to agree with me or like me; just let me get on with my life. And I reciprocate.

Well. I hold up my end of the bargain, anyway.

Most of my family is pretty conservative. Extremely conservative. God knows how my little pocket of nuclear liberalism came to be, but the rest are your typical Gods, God and Government. The big shock was how accepting they were when I dropped the bombshell on them ten years ago. I've brought partners to family gatherings, and not much is said about the various tattoos, piercings and hair colours I show up with (I can't speak for what's said afterwards, but while we're there it's not an issue, and a lot of times in families, that's what it all comes down to).

There is the cousin who no longer speaks to me because I pointed out that white, heterosexual Christians actually aren't oppressed and that, if you want to drag the United States' founding documents into the issue, nothing even vaguely religious should be integrated with any government institution (schools, court houses, etc.). And her father who did the same because I, as someone who would be unable to afford insurance if I weren't already uninsurable because of a "pre-existing condition" (nice double whammy there; go me!), made a rather angry post about "conservative assholes" (generalised) who don't have to wonder if they can afford proper healthcare not having a legitimate stance to opposed a medical bill that would benefit an awful lot of people currently lacking adequate healthcare.

But those are the exceptions.

Me as an individual - their grandson, nephew, cousin is accepted even if he dresses weird, doesn't go to church, spouts those crazy liberal ideas about equality and is just as likely to show up with a pretty boy on his arm as a pretty girl - is accepted.

Me as a concept - an anonymous face in the mass of alternative religions, alternative lifestyles, anti-gun, pro-socialised government programs, pro-choice, queer, etc. - is not.

It's a difficult thing to manage. On some level, I realise that in voicing their opinions on issues that I support - specifically the ones that affect me like gay rights - it doesn't occur to them in the slightest that what they're saying has a direct impact on me, both in the grand scheme of whether or not I'll actually ever have all the same rights they do and on the more personal level of having someone who claims to love me say that people like me are sub-human.

I don't agree with a lot of the things my extended family believes. Hell, I don't even always agree with my mother's beliefs. But I accept that they are just as entitled to those beliefs as I am to mine and don't persistently try to sway them to the Sashi Side.

Of course, the thing everyone is talking about these days is Chick-Fil-A. I've actually gotten into arguments with gay friends about it because the media is doing what the media always does and I don't agree with that. It goes back to my initial statement. Forcing someone to follow a way of thinking against their will never works out well. What bothers me the most about everyone flocking to stone the company, though, is the number of (gay) friends and acquaintances who up until this point said "I don't care," about the ethos behind the company but, lo and behold! The media starts publicising boycotts and protests and over night "I don't care," becomes "I'm never eating there again".

It just feels a little too artificial, with a hint of witch hunt about it.

I don't support the company - for more reasons than just their stance on homosexuality - but I don't feel very inclined to join the current fray, either. Dan Cathy can believe whatever he wants to believe - and people who agree with him, or just plain don't care, can continue to go there. I don't personally feel the need to jump  in and try to destroy their business. Dan Cathy is not every employee of that company, and, having known quite a few who've worked for Chick-Fil-A, I feel pretty confident in saying that the majority of their workforce (being the crewpeople actually working in the stores themselves) probably aren't in positions where they can quibble about who exactly is signing their paychecks.

Returning to the subject of my family, while perusing Facebook one of my cousins - one of the newer acquisitions that I get along fairly well with - posted one of those silly meme pictures in support of Dan Cathy, and, I'll be honest, it hurt. This is a woman who said I always have a place in their home, who went out of her way to get to know me once she knew I existed, who is still trying to persuade me to move back to San Antonio, who stood with me at my father's funeral supporting a man who thinks I don't deserve to be treated like every other American citizen. I sat there for awhile trying to wrap my head around the concept. I tried to mimic the thinking in my head, to empathise in a way, and I couldn't. A lot of my friends - gay, liberal, alternative, poor, marginalised left and right - don't have  a lot of nice things to say about Christians in general and even while I know the loudest and most powerful saying indefensible things, when my friends start in I'm always there saying no, no - they're not all bad. You have to respect them if you want respect, because I think of the people in my life who hold those values and know they aren't bad people. Just different. In the end, all I came up with was this:

I try my best to ascribe to the 'live and let live' philosophy when it comes to the increasingly prickly arena of religion, politics, lifestyles, etc., but there are moments while watching people show their support for various opinions by happily clicking 'like' where I wonder if, that in the span of that mouse click, the friends, children, nieces, nephews, and cousins personally affected in their daily lives by that opinion cross their minds, or that by supporting that opinion they are effectively saying those friends, children, nieces, nephews and cousins aren't entitled to certain rights - in fact, deserve to be treated as less than. It's not about abstract concepts or philosophies. It's about a real, living, breathing, thinking, feeling human being that you go on vacations with, celebrate with, grieve with, love and are loved by. Maybe more people should think about that rather than competing for who gets to be the most right. 


Of course, immediately after that, the same cousin posted another picture from an LBGT group. Trying to work out the thinking that led there completely short-circuited my brain. 

Out of Context

Someone asked me what I would do if I could do exactly what I wanted right now, erasing everything else, just the thing I want most.

My answer: No.

Because even erasing all other commitments and obstacles, it's not possible. And saying it out loud would just be... Painful.

I'm walking a fine line between what is real and what isn't, and I'm not sure I can entirely tell the difference. On one side is logic, rationale, and all those good, tangible things modern society says are all things we should pay attention to. That side is telling me very definite, good, tangible facts. Well, maybe not good, necessarily, but definite and tangible.

And then there is the rest. Unverifiable, illogical, irrational, potentially delusional but Jesus Christ is it strong and it's pulling me in the complete opposite direction.

I have generational Catholics on both sides of the family, but the one I was raised in had a slightly more open-minded bent to the typical Christian interpretation of how the world works. Strange occurrences, ghosts, visions, mysterious creatures, things moving and disappearing or appearing - that was all standard fare among my maternal extended family. I learned about a much more spiritual, raw, earthy side to the world with those people, and then learned to keep those things secret because people look at you funny.

When I was younger, it was easy to tell the difference between my intuition and things my brain just made up and figure out how to integrate them with the "real" world. Basically, I used to know what the universe was telling me.

These days I spend more time second-guessing myself than actually listening.

The fact is, though, either way, for the next five years I am on a very firm, set course with no diversions, no turn-offs, not variations. I'm living in a holding pattern waiting for my life to start again. It's not the first time I've been here, but that doesn't make it any more comfortable, or me any more patient about seeing what happens when I finally get to come in for a landing.

Sometimes I think if I could just say all these things and hear them out loud I would be able to figure it out again, but it is so damn hard to get the words out and there are so few people who truly understand the language of the universe. Particularly, in my case, people who can understand it and wouldn't have some personal bias one way or the other.

I have learned, though, over the years, that if the universe tells me to do something, I better damn well do it or it will drop me into the deep end without a life vest. So I guess the real question is whether or not it's calling the shots, or I'm just pretending it is. 

Day 8: Challenge

Challenge #4

Write a story that incorporates the themes of change and forgiveness.

Note: This ties into the Never-Ending Epic of Woe that's consumed the past few years of my life. I never knew how these two first encountered each other, or what the connection between them was, until now, but it makes sense. 


A few points that probably aren't clear in this excerpt: 

• Destiny can predict people's deaths, and later becomes a fortune-teller.
• Caleb is the name of the mystery man who comes to fetch her. 
• He's a little bit immortal (but not completely). 
• He's also her great-uncle and his grandfather was an angel of death.
• The man she sees in her premonition of Caleb's death is his grandson.
• He's trying to absolve his guilt for letting his family die, hence the reference to an act of contrition.
  

---

Destiny was preoccupied with the future. Lately it was this constant drone in the back of her mind, like a mosquito she just couldn’t hit.

          She picked at the frayed cuff of her jeans and glared at thrown-together buildings that were never meant to house anyone for more than a few months, let alone a few generations. It wasn’t even like the future was worth thinking about. The fact that she didn’t have at least one screaming brat attached to her at sixteen was considered damn near a miracle around here.

          But she couldn’t shake it. The future wanted her to see something and Destiny knew, sooner or later, she was going to have to take a look.

          A commotion started up down the way, and kids started flocking out of corners to hang off porches, all staring down the little dirt road. Destiny craned her neck trying to see; she was too old to just run down with the other kids, but not old enough she wasn’t curious about the low rumble surrounded in plumes of dust.

          Then she saw it, crunching over loose stones and dried mud. Even the dirt didn’t do much to dull its shine. It was painted a deep, dark red that was almost black with sparkling silver on the wheels and around the windows. Destiny felt her spine straighten and her ears twitch.

          No one drove down here. No one who lived there, first of all, ever dreamt of having a car, and anyone else took one look at the road and the gaggle of grubby children staring at them and turned right back around again.

          She knew before it even started to slow that whoever was in that car was there for her. Her skin tingled and heat rushed through her scalp. The buzzing mosquito droned so loud she nearly couldn’t hear anything else.

          The car stopped and everyone waited while the dust drifted in slow clouds back to the ground. Whether they knew exactly why or not, the others all kept their distance from whatever the car represented. Destiny wanted to, as well, but she couldn’t seem to make herself move from her spot. More than that, she was excited.

          Finally, he stepped out. Slow and sure of himself, like nothing in this world could touch him. And God, he was like no one she’d ever seen before. Even the air around him couldn’t keep itself still. He was so clean. Skin a deep honey-brown with just that hint of gold, and straight, fine hair like wet ink. His clothes looked like they’d been made just for him, and hadn’t ever been worn more than once. He was magic personified, and he was here for her.

          He took his time looking her over, and she couldn’t help thinking his eyes were the same colour as his car, only alive. Like the last coals in a fire. ‘I knew your mother,’ he said, his voice just as silky and sweet as his skin looked. He cocked his head to one side and looked at her harder. No, in her. She could feel his eyes reaching right through to the deepest parts of her. ‘Your grandmother,’ he corrected. ‘Time gets away from me sometimes. I need to find her.’

          ‘They’re both dead,’ she said, not even pausing to consider how someone who looked barely older than her could know a woman who’d died well before she’d been born.

          ‘That tends to be the case with people I need to find.’ He nodded. ‘I was looking for her a long time ago, but… Something happened.’ He looked confused for a moment, as if trying to chase down something in his own mind. ‘I don’t remember why I stopped, and time just… Went. So I found you instead.’

          ‘Why were you looking for her?’

          ‘A feeble attempt at contrition,’ he said. Those eyes ran over her again and she felt a rush of warmth skip through her. ‘I guess you’ll have to be my mea culpa instead.’

          ‘I’ll be your what?’

          ‘It’s a long story.’ He ran a hand back through his hair, leaving one lone strand sticking straight out. ‘How did your mother die?’

          ‘Fire.’ She watched the hair, wondering how long before it fell in line with the others.

          ‘I didn’t see that coming.’

          ‘I did.’

          ‘I bet.’ He grinned, a crookedly mischievous expression. ‘I need you.’

          For the first time in longer than she could remember, the buzzing in her mind stopped. ‘For what?’

          ‘I have a house that needs looking after.’

          ‘Why me?’

          ‘It’s a special house,’ he said. He looked around the street for the first time. ‘Would you rather stay here?’

          ‘No, but…’ She tried to pinpoint the question she needed to ask. ‘They don’t have house-sitters where you come from?’

          ‘Oh, not like you, little girl.’ He gave her that grin again, and she decided she liked the imperfection on him. ‘Let’s just say I prefer to keep things in the family.’ He held out his hand. ‘What do you say?’

          There were a million reasons to say no to a stranger with an offer too good to be true, but in all honesty, what did she really have to lose? ‘What about my brother?’

          ‘Does he matter?’

          ‘Yes.’

          ‘I can work with that.’

          She slid her hand into his, and almost pulled it back it was so hot. Then she saw fire – no, just light – white, hot light consuming everything, and faces swarming out of it, then nothing but a dark street and a tired, bloody man staring back. A twin of the one actually in front of her, if the eyes weren’t so different. ‘I know how you die,’ she said before she had the sense to stop herself. She hadn’t slipped like that since… Well, since her mother.

          ‘That’s reassuring,’ he said, and he sounded like he meant it. 

Day 7

He was her special boy, her darling boy. She ran her fingers through his fine, sandy hair and watched it fall back perfectly in place as it always did. No one would ever love him the way she did. No one would appreciate that smooth, flawless skin. Those bright, shiny blue eyes. Like glass. No. No one could ever know him the way she did.

          ‘Don’t worry, darling,’ she whispered. ‘I won’t let anyone take you away from me.’

          She straightened his small body on the bed. Smoothed the creases of his shirt and retied the laces of his shoes. He was so handsome, her precious boy. Just like his father.

          Franny! Franny, open this door!

          Irritation flickered across her features, but she pushed it away. Only smiles and happy faces were good enough for her little man. She hated that name, though. He knew she hated it. He was always doing little things like that, trying to undermine her. Why she had ever thought she could live with a man like that… He was nothing like Edward’s father.

          ‘Your father was one in a million,’ she said, rocking slowly in the chair beside Edward’s bed. ‘So smart and strong. A good man.’ She sighed and fondled the locket around her neck. If only things had been just a little different. Then she wouldn’t have to put up with That Man and his Filth.

          The way he looked at her.

          The way he touched her.

          It was horrifying. She’d had to lock herself in the bathroom on their wedding night just to get away from him, and there he was, pounding on the bathroom door, telling her to come back out.

          That Man was always pounding on doors.

          Franny, just be reasonable and let’s talk about this. Franny!

          If only he would just leave her alone with her Edward for a moment so she could have some peace… Even her Magic Pills weren’t enough to block him out anymore.

          ‘It’s alright, darling,’ she murmured, patting the stiff hand on the bed. ‘He can’t do anything to us in here.’

          He was so perfect, her Edward. The other mothers were all jealous. She saw their looks when she went out with Edward. Averting their eyes and whispering to each other. The way their children would point and stare. Some people just had no manners.

          Franny, please. Just open the door. I’m trying to help you.

          Well, that was fine. She didn’t need them, and neither did Edward. They didn’t need anyone but each other. She smiled as she settled back in the chair and began to hum. He would stay with her forever. 

Ex-Pat Independence

I woke up at 3:40 this morning with "You Don't Have to Say You Love Me" running around in my head for absolutely no reason at all. 

Vive la Revolution

National holidays are always a little bit funny when you don't live in the nation that celebrates them. For the most part, you can cobble together something similar, but it's not really the same. Like having work and/or classes on Thanksgiving or fireworks deprivation on the 4th of July (no, we don't go around calling it Independence Day; you're lucky if you even get the 'of July' bit).

I have to say, though, that this year was a bit better than last - all of the citizens of former colonies (US, Ireland, Venezuela, Scotland) waiting on the English guests in ridiculously hot weather (for NE UK); the irony was overwhelming. Though, to be fair, once the English people left, we had a great time sitting outside being distinctly unproper with food, music and general silliness.

We didn't get to do any sort of official thing because of the move - yet another thing that got postponed while we waited for other people to make decisions about our lives - but we went out to lunch to mark the occasion and returned to set about packing up the belongings we intend to take over to the new place ourselves tomorrow (official people come in to do the rest later).

Flags were thrown out the window (to be immediately rained on, thank you, England) and we declared the village conquered.

The New Toy

I also acquired a Pentax K1000 from my step-dad, which I am all kinds of excited about. Apparently he got it for his 21st birthday, so I was informed to sell a kidney before I sold it. I promised I would. The original price tag is still on the bottom and there's film in it. The film is in pretty bad shape, but I'm still going to see if anything can be salvaged from it. Then I need to go about getting the camera itself cleaned up and in working order. The whole thing damn near took me away from packing entirely, but I settled for wandering happily around the house fiddling with it for about twenty minutes before forcing myself to leave it with my Olympus Trip while I finished wrapping up my assortment of odds and ends (which included soot-stained wings, a wooden Buddha, half a plaster skull and a silver flask among numerous other items) and stuffing them into boxes.

I am also no longer sick. Or at least, no longer immobile-y sick. I can deal with not being able to taste anything and coughing fits every ten minutes; I am a smoker, after all.

At some point later there will be another bit of flashing in the form of a supernatural support group. I think. At least I stick with consistent themes. I started writing it on my phone at 4 AM and haven't looked at how coherent what I wrote is yet, so there may be some re-evaluating of my early morning genius before anything actually gets accomplished.

Day 2

PROMPT

that creepy, boarded up house on the corner is actually a portal to Heaven--but why are the angels coming and going late at night?

---

‘I just don’t like it.’

          Henry turned the pages of his paper. The house at the end of the street was a bone of contention with the Housing Committee, what with the death of a long-forgotten somesuch making it a historical landmark, and the Preservation Society deciding not to touch it with a ten foot pole. As long as they’d been on the street, no one had ever lived there. ‘Evie, love, come away from the window.’

          ‘It’s not right,’ Evie said. Henry swore the lace curtain was permanently bent from all her years of peeking at the neighbours. ‘The way they get on at all hours. It’s not right at all.’

          ‘Just leave it, Evie. They’ll be gone by morning. Oh, they’ve opened that new skate park on the weekend.’  Meanwhile a young boy nearly died from an adder bite and fishing changes threatened to impact local industry.

          ‘Oh, sod your bloody skate park,’ Evie said. ‘We’ve got hooligans practically camped out on our doorstep!’

          ‘They’re just kids having some fun.’ He turned another page and tried to remember when he started to care what the big draw at the village fête would be this year or how to grow five-star petunias. ‘It wasn’t too long ago them’s were us, you know.’ Come to think of it, when did growing petunias become something he did? He didn’t even like petunias.

          ‘We were never like that,’ Evie said. ‘Look at them. Just disgraceful is what it is.’

          ‘Come away now, Evie. Miss Marple’s on the telly.’

Evie snored. She’d never admit it, and Henry would never tell – it just wouldn’t do for a lady to snore. But for 58 years, Henry had lain awake listening to the soft rumble through her nasal passages before he dropped off to sleep.

          Tonight, this wasn’t happening.

          He eased himself out of bed, careful not to disturb Evie – not nearly as easy a feat as he remembered it being – and shuffled down the hallway to the family bathroom. Evie nagged him all the time about using the en suite but between all the rose petals, tulle and chiffon he always felt like he was taking a piss in a dress shop.

          He stopped at the kids’ room just like every night. Neither one had slept under their roof in thirty years, but he never seemed to shake the habit. Evie kept up with their daughter; they had things in common. Wifing. Mothering.

He kept meaning to phone Sam, but he could never remember what name to use, especially if that artsy-type answered, the one who went by something that reminded Henry of glam rock bands.

          Lights flashed through the bedroom window from the street. Soft and strobey, like those parties the kids liked to sneak off to. He’d had to pick Sam up at one at 3 AM back when… Well. Back When.

          ‘Hmf.’ He took himself off to the toilet, perusing the collection of brightly-coloured plastic animals lining the safety-sealed tub. Evie had gotten them when Mary’d had her first, imagining this would suddenly make their house a haven for grandchildren.

          It hadn’t.

          He let himself linger on the way back. The lights were still going, but there was no tell-tale thwumpathump of bass to accompany it. Evie’s hooligans, in fact, for all their lurking about after dark, were quite considerate of their neighbours when it came to noise levels.

          Those parties Sam went to always looked like fun.

The lights came from inside the house, peeking through boarded up windows and loose slats. It built up in pulses, throbbing brighter and brighter until it would drop off, leaving the street in darkness. Just after it went out, more of Evie’s hooligans would come out. Sometimes a few would go in just before. A handful scattered around the decrepit porch, unbothered by the comings and goings of their friends.

          Standing at the end of the footpath in his dressing gown in the middle of the night, they seemed a lot less innocent than they had from the upstairs window.  Still, he’d already come this far, hadn’t he?

          A few of them looked at him as he came up to the porch. Must be family, he thought, with how similar they all looked. Nicer than those kids who’d just hang about in the city. Evie’s hooligans all had that fresh-faced, well-bred look that Henry associated with The Right Kind of People. He wondered if their parents knew what they were up to.

          One of them stepped forward and leaned on the wobbly railing. She – at least Henry thought it was a she; it was so hard to tell these days – had long, pretty blonde hair and a sweet smile. ‘I think you got turned around there, hon,’ she said.

          A group of three passed Henry and went through the front door. The light pulses started up, and this time Henry noticed a faint hum he hadn’t heard from across the street.

          ‘What’re you doing in there?’

          The girl smiled again. ‘Oh, I can’t tell you that. You kinda have to see it to believe it.’

          ‘Hum.’ Henry liked the way she talked. There was something relaxing about it. ‘Can I look then?’

          She glanced at the door. ‘I dunno,’ she said. ‘It’s the kinda trip you probably won’t come back from.’

          ‘Ah.’ That was a drug thing, Henry thought. He was pretty sure Sam had said it once. ‘I’d like to see, if you don’t mind.’

          ‘You sure?’

          Henry nodded.

          She stood up and held out her hand, leading him up the steps. ‘Well, alright then. The man knows what he wants.’

          On the other side of the door, the light kept building and building, and now Henry could hear separate chords instead of just humming.

          She positioned him in front of the door with her hands on his shoulders. ‘You ready?’

          ‘What do I do?’

          ‘Just walk through the door, hon,’ she said. ‘It’s heaven.’

I can set bread on fire with just a bit of parchment.

Yes. I am just that good.
(The oven helped.)

Cooking is something I've always enjoyed. I hosted my first dinner party at 8 (yes, a real proper one with real, proper food and real, proper people. Well. Real people, anyway). The ten years I was on my own I did all the major holiday meals for our patchwork family, and still do Thanksgiving (step-dad enjoys cooking as well so we split holidays). Probably if I enjoyed massively fast-paced working environments and other people messing about in my workspace it would have been a career path, but as it is it's just something I do whenever I have enough people around (ie more than me) to feed.

Being that step-dad has been away, I took over the cooking duties for the weekend and succeeded more or less without incident until tonight's caramelised chicken with ginger bread (which is amazingly lovely, by the way). You have to cut the bread into thin slices and toast them on a baking pan, which I did. But, in preparation for the impending move, the AGA's been turned off so I had to use the oven, which we rarely do and is somewhat perplexing to operate (probably why we rarely use it, not to mention that the AGA is lovely to cook with). While the bread was toasting, I did my customary puttering around, we took the furry escort out for a smoke and generally went about our business. At one point I thought I noticed a vaguely fiery smell, but told myself, nooooo... Nothing could be on fire. 

Then I pull out a pan of flames. With brilliant reaction skills, I took the pan to the sink, then stopped. I couldn't exactly just put the water on, or the bread would get all soggy but there didn't seem to be any other way of putting it out. La-la, fellow firebug, came over to assist, but the same conclusion was reached. Nothing to do but watch it burn itself out. So we very responsibly stood and watched every bit of parchment paper burn up, leaving the toasted ginger bread slices (which hadn't exactly burnt) with a few errant flames which were easily put out with a saucepan lid. 

Fire bread is totally the new thing. 

We've also decided the village (which we are still convinced has a Hot Fuzz-esque underbelly) is really a television show. The village itself is technically two roads, but really more of one L-shaped road because once you go beyond the L you're not in the village anymore. Population-wise, there were more people in my 9 AM lecture on Renaissance lit the last week before Christmas term. In theory, you should walk down the street and always run into someone you know. 

Not so. This occurred to me around walk 5, which meant I'd been wandering around the village with the dog pretty frequently over the past two days, encountering various people on the street and not once was it the same person. I also managed, this entire weekend, to not encounter a single person I know. And I'm pretty sure it was the same black car doing a loop of the village Saturday afternoon just to create the illusion of traffic. So I thought about it, and realised that all the main figures in the village are only seen 1. when in the pub 2. in the post office and 3. in someone's home (namely ours because we live in the big house party house). Naturally, of course, this makes sense. Why put out the money on the main cast as background when you can just pull in extras to people the streets? You don't. You only bring the main cast in to further the plot, and walking down the street (typically) isn't going to do that. Our contracts weren't renewed because the show's demographic found the occasional influx of "those odd, artsy young people" a little too unsettling for their viewing pleasure, thus we've been ousted from the house to make room for the much more conventional nephew of the lord. This weekend's episode, by the way, featured the parents' trip to London, with a brief cut-to of the fire bread incident just to show we haven't disappeared. 

Five minutes away from Darlington station, and La-la had ratted me out on the fire incident. Karma got her back when she drove past the turn off to the village and we took a 15 minute side-trip down the A19 and back. 

I have to say, it was nice having the parents back. This house is entirely too big for one person and the furry escort, or even two people. La-la and I have barely edged out of the kitchen except to sleep (and for her to watch the football match). But the rest of the evening was spent hearing about their trip, David Almond and various stories, with several interjections of bantering, anecdotes and the Sashi and La-la sideshow. As much as I love my flat (and I do very much so, just not the city it happens to be in), and am more comfortable there on a long-term basis, it's easy to forget how nice it is to have to compete with four or five other people to be heard, keep up with a group of highly intelligent and creative people and the general comfort of belonging to a pack. 

My family is a pretty awesome pack, too, if I do so say.