January 2, 2001
So these are my cousins, Megan and Susan. This was taken at probably 3 in the morning, after we'd been at a bar. Please note: Susan is just shy of being 21. Just how shy "just shy" is is none of your business, by god! The bartender believed her (mostly..) and so shall you all!
Happy New Year!
I didn't quite intend to be gone for so long, but shit happened. Not bad shit, just family being around, spending time with them (please note: when your beloved mother, beloved oh yes, arrives in your driveway at 9:15 Christmas Eve morning singing christmas carols and you are still in your pajamas and you've just started baking the stupid holiday bread that everyone was all "Please make it, Dana! Make it!!" and your oven has just caught fire, so all of your windows and doors are open and your absolutely useless dogs don't even bark, it is an omen of how the rest of your week will be.) carting them around (bringing Angelo to emissions and to the DMV to get his Connecticut plates was, for some reason an eye misting up experience for him. "I'm not a New Yorker anymore, Dane!" "Those bastards aren't going to take my New York plates! I'll cut them with tin snips") going into New York (not with them, thankfully), seeing a play, being hung over, sleeping later than is even normal for someone of my age to sleep, hustling my under aged cousin into a bar, meeting the guy we met there ("You. Have the most beautiful eyes I have EVER seen!"), just everything, everything. It was at once the most boring and time-grabby by shit I didn't choose vacation I've had. Whereas it never felt like I was doing much of anything, I never seemed to have any free time to sit around and scratch my ass.
I got some cool shit for Christmas. Don't know how many of you are about Target, but there's a line of appliances I think are swell:
And as it turned out, every single member of my family, practically, got us Michael Graves stuff. This includes Nick's purchase of the set of Michael Graves pots and pans for me, and my gift of the little alien looking cordless phone. Our kitchen is even bluer and more funky, if you can believe it.
By far, the best thing I got was an mp3 player. 600 hours of music, people. Six Hundred Hours. That figures out to: 400 hours of rap: Eve, DMX, Snoop Dogg, Dr. Dre, Missy Eliot, 100 hours of dub and dancehall reggae, and 100 hours of Britney Spears. To you, the passenger, this translates into a great deal of sorrow and potential trauma with me flailing my arms around as I catapult my truck through snow drifts, steer with my knees, open a soda with one hand and pop the car into 4 wheel drive with the other, all the while screaming "Ya'll gonna make me act a FOOL! Up in HERE, UP IN HERE!! Get out of my WAY, motherfucker! I HAVE A PICKUP TRUCK!".
{It is definitely worth noting that last Thursday, after I rescued my cousins from my grandparent's place and we drove around, me with my 600 hours of rap, that I learned as we drove around New Haven that Susan and I have exactly, specifically and precisely the same taste in music. When Snoop Dogg started on the playlist, we definitely had a bonding moment. White girls who love rap: Bitch, shut yo trap! The first time Nick saw me interact with my cousins, a few years back, when we went to Indiana, he was amazed, he was all "It's so obvious you guys are related.."}
Then came My 30th Birthday. (I'm leaving out New Years, and the nice dinner Nick arranged for me at a fancy pants restaurant I have a great many boozy photographs from that, but am too lazy to go downstairs for the camera. Tomorrow, my sweets.) I didn't cry. I didn't get Big Head Todd. I became obsessed with Harry Potter. I found out my grandmother's open heart surgery will be this Friday. I brought her for her pre-admission testing. I didn't make any resolutions, except to really go back to the gym, but not to kick my ass if I don't.
All things considered, it was a strange and interesting and fun and boring break. I think I was supposed to go back today, but didn't. Tomorrow.
More entry tomorrow, I almost promise!
Thank you all for your email (which I haven't answered, but will. Thank you for all the cool feedback about my last entry). Thank you for the Christmas cards. Thank you for the gifts. You made me weepy with your generosity.
long, long ago | home | email | tomorrow
Your anger's real, but just beware.
It's a waste to feel, that fate's unfair.
There's no such thing as tragedy
I can't resent what's meant to be
There's only yes, only tonight
We must let go, to know what's right
No other course, no other way!
No day but today
I can't control my destiny!
I trust my soul, my only goal, is just to be!
There's only now. there's only here.
Give in to love, or live in fear.
No other path, no other way
no day but today.