thinking, but mostly talking: July 2019

went to ohio this weekend. i spent it with my younger brother and my friend of 14 years, Hayley. i've always had an array of close friends, all rotating in and out and in again. she's the only one who dates that far back and has stayed in. Hayley is a gemini with almost every other planet in Libra. she can be a fucking psycho bitch and is one of the only people who has ever been able to bring out a hysteric, blindly illogical version of myself when in an argument. we laugh at nearly every thing that either of us says when we're together. i love her a lot. when she told me she was marrying her then-boyfriend of less than 6 months, Devin (a kind soft spoken professional skateboarder slash sober person who works as a mechanic on the huge machines at a huge brewery and cute boy from Kentucky) i told her she was dumb as hell. i was one of the bridespeople in their wedding, i got to wear a pink suit. i love Devin now, too. they're having a baby early this fall, a boy. Hayley has been practicing various kegel-esque exercises in hopes that she can keep the baby in so he will be born 8+ days late and be a Libra instead of a Virgo. i think that's mostly a joke but i wouldn't put it past her. i'm going to be his godfather, a role that part of me feels so well cut out for i may have been put on this earth to play it in someone's life. i went to the baby shower, and i bought small versions of clothes that i currently do or would like to wear. they loved them. we threw water balloons at one another, bobbed for apples, drank cans of beer and cans of la croix. everything about the event was completely new and foreign to me—in the past hayley's usually been one to "go as hard" (inflict pain on oneself via reckless alcohol consumption and equally reckless behavior) in a party setting as i do. at 7 months pregnant she's obviously not drinking, and i didn't get drunk either. i've also never had a family member or good friend who is close to my age have a baby, or get married. despite those details the whole affair was familiar, went down easy, and felt right. a couple days before the shower we spent what felt like 2 and a half hours in Home Depot arguing over and eventually agreeing upon four paint colors. hayley's opening a barber shop/salon in northern Kentucky later this year and we painted a wall of the bathroom in four thick horizontal stripes. somewhere between a rich eccentric persons bathroom in the 1970's, and the way that the interior of Taco Bell looked when i was a kid. i did practically all of the work and we never finished painting the stripes before i left town. i'm really proud of her.

my brother Clay and i went to a little town called Yellow Springs to take a hike and dick around. Yellow Springs is likely the least "Ohio" town in Ohio; it consists of a handful of farm-to-table restaurants, more than two stores in which to purchase crystals and spell books and incense and sculptures of fairies, a "little art theater" (currently showing Pavarotti, Rocketman, and a 1960's movie i forget the title of), yoga studios, gay flags hung here and there, etcetera etcetera. my friend Caroline grew up there and told me about a rite of passage womanhood celebratory ceremony that she and the other girls her age in town participated in where they were given flowers to wear and ran underneath an arc formed by the arms of all of their mothers. unlike Caroline i spent hardly any time in Yellow Springs. as a tween, only when i would tag along with my mother when she made the 40 minute drive there for a specific manuka honey or whatever it was she needed before there was Amazon or a Whole Foods near the hyper-developed suburban area where i grew up. my brother works at the local whole foods now. and as a teen, only when my friends and i drove up to smoke our booty ass shitty mid weed more freely and to take hikes. the limited time i have spent in Yellow Springs and it's paradoxical environment to the one where i grew up (think like, an outdoor mall, vibe-wise. but it's neighborhoods. well, there are also a lot of actual outdoor malls. i graduated with over 1,000 kids in my class and the high school was in the same parking lot as an IKEA. a quintessential midwestern mediocrity capitalism mecca!) didn't cross my mind this past saturday. walking around those twee streets and wooded hills, drenched in sweat, with my brother, i felt more at home than i have in a long time.

i went to my parents house yesterday. they still live in the same one we moved into upon arriving to Ohio and where i lived for the duration of junior and senior high school. soon it will be just them. my other three siblings and i have all moved out, and since Clay is 18 and going to be studying industrial design at DAAP in downtown Cincinnati this fall, he will be too on the first of next month. that'll bring their guest-bedroom tally to 4. my relationship with my mother is cordial and affectionate but fundamentally flawed and ultimately vapid. there's love there, though. i ended my relationship with my father four years ago around the time that he moved out of the house. obviously he is now back in (the house, ergo my life) but my siblings and i all still maintain relations with him that can really only be described as fragmented, with various levels of fragmentation. mine being the level on the more disintegrated end. the events that lead to the current state of affairs between my parental units and my four siblings and i were the result of semi-recent and specific events, but like most anything familial, also tied to and rooted in much older and deeper patterns, circumstances, and specific events. the specifics aren't something i feel inclined to divulge in a blog post (or at least not this one?), but the gist is that my dad always proved to be, was later exposed to be, and continues to prove himself to be, an exemplary anti-role model to the five of us. his actions, tendencies, and current reality all serve as a gleaming example of the potential long term repercussions of hypocrisy, projection, avoidance, and dishonesty with oneself and with others. for that i am grateful! most of the time. i'm still learning to be.

anyway, going there feels weird. weirder every year. there are photos of the 5 of us in frames all over the place, bible verses in frames in almost as many places. since i moved out 9 years ago when i was 17, mom hugs me and cries every time i arrive. yesterday we hugged, but she didn't cry this time. i didn't mind and am not reading into it. it always felt melodramatic (maybe even contrived?) to me anyway. i talk to mom, i don't talk to dad. he stands around, sometimes makes remarks as though he's a part of the conversation we are having. i used to be angry, for a long time, and the easiest way for me to stomach that in his presence was to pretend he wasn't there at all. now i answer his questions if he asks, sometimes. i say thank you if he offers to take my bag or clears my dinner plate. that's about it. my parents have an inclination to avoid anything that they feel to be unsavory or difficult if they aren't in the position to correct it or "fix" it. i notice it more now that we're all adults who can't be punished for disobedience. a lot of "smoothing over". like, a lot. they also have a fixation on nostalgia, and rather than make an effort to communicate or establish a relationship with the adults who stand before them, would prefer to play old videos they recorded of the 5 of us as children and ogle at how adorable we once were, when we were all too young to exercise or even be aware of our own personal moral compass and free will. i told them that it makes me feel uncomfortable when they play these videos every time i am home; there isn't the same pleasure to be found in them for me that there is for them. plus, i've already fuckin watched them all. i've told them this before, but i guess it got through to them a bit more this time since the only people in the room were the two of them, my baby brother, and myself. i went out the door at the back of our living room and laid on the porch swing on the back deck and stared at the forest behind the yard. my dad came outside an told me that he and my mother didn't mean to alienate me by playing the videos and said sorry. i said thanks, he went inside, and i followed a few minutes later. they were still watching videos of me at 8 years old with a lisp tearing through christmas gifts while my dads voice read nativity-centric bible verses behind the camcorder. i went back outside and stared at the trees from the swing again. most of them are at least twice as tall as they were when i moved into that house, and so beautiful. there are some tiny little bats that live in them, Clay built a little house out of wood and mesh for them to use and hoisted it up into one of the highest trees. my brother came out and sat by me, and we stayed there until it was dark. my parents came out around that time. my mom talked. about her current friends, her childhood, her childhood friends. i interjected periodically to ask engaging questions that made me sound interested and made her feel interesting. we are both very good at those things, respectively. i got two mosquito bites and became very itchy and said "i'm getting bug bites", and went inside. i hugged my mom and told her i loved her before she went to bed. she loves me too. my brother asked me this morning if i'm going to stay at that house when i visit Ohio in the future, now that he will be moved out. i said i probably wouldn't. it was—definitively and literally—my home. but it's not now. that's okay.

this morning my flight landed in Newark at 8:44 and i got back to my apartment in chinatown at 9:33. my snakes tank smells a little bit, he probably peed. i shaved my head, i went to the roof to read a book. julia's not here, she's at her parents house in Beacon. i love their house. she washed all the dishes and left them on the drying rack. she cleaned all of the table, windowsill, console, and desk surfaces and left the spray bottles out. her rabbit overturned his food bowl, i texted her and asked if he needed anything. she said i could give him some arugula. "nothing worse than coming home to gross apt" she said. "oh nw, it looks fine!" i replied. i appreciate her, and it does look fine. feels fine, too. pretty sure it feels like home

thinking, but mostly talking

Monday, July 22, 2019

a poem(?)

Monday, July 8, 2019

home is where the whatever is wherever