LB |
|
Chapter 18 |
| My friends started going out to clubs, not to see bands, but just to go and listen to music. That sounded awful
to me. I went along when they did go see bands, but had no interest in going out to sit somewhere and do nothing.
I stayed home and wrote to Taunia. Or wrote crappy poetry that forced its way out of me time and time again. Poetry...
I write it and even I can't stand to read it. I started spending a lot of time at the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum. Not because I believed their teachings, but because I felt the warmth and welcoming of the grounds and found peace there. It was the only spiritual place I could find in San Jose. We went there often when I was a child -- on school field trips, with relatives visiting from out-of-town, sometimes just because. Now I returned there to get away. Then Taunia asked me to move from California to Ohio, which made me laugh and laugh and laugh. I moved to Ohio on October 16, 1987. Ak-ron, Ohio. The place I hated when I was little. Why? Because my mom used to put our cereal in coffee cans once they were empty. These were the neat painted cans. They used to really decorate the suckers! When empty, they were good for storing cereal or crayons (Mom also kept cookies in one, on a high shelf by the back door -- I always knew where the cookies were, but I could never get to them). One coffee can that kept our crayons safe was red with a gold paisley design on it. The one I remember best from the kitchen was covered with state flags. Theresa and I used to laugh our asses off over the Alabama flag. Since Mom was from Alabama we'd ask her why it was just white with an X on it, like maybe she'd had a hand in the design work. We teased endlessly, "That's the best they could come up with"... "People in Alabama need something simple because they're dumb". A couple of real sweeties, we were. We weren't allowed to call people dumb so we did it when Mom wasn't in the room, making it even more funny since it was "off limits". We ate cereal just about every morning in the summer. All it took to make milk appear out of someone's nose was a slight turn of the can and a point to the Alabama state flag. But back to Ohio... According to the only source of flag information available in my small child's world, the coffee can, Ohio had the only flag that wasn't rectangular. I thought at the time that it must have been because they couldn't match their shapes very well. It actually pissed me off that it was different from the others. I hated them for it! I'd sit there looking at it, getting mad... why couldn't they just have a regular fucking flag? I'm from California, I'm supposed to be cool. I'm not, but I'm supposed to be. Odd perhaps, but I wouldn't say cool was the word. Anyhow, Ohio was just geeky, their flag was like a snake's tongue, and the person I couldn't live without was there. I wished that she would have lived anywhere other than Ohio - Montana, or perhaps Idaho. But it was Ohio. After I thought about it, it didn't seem to matter much. I mean, why would it? I'd have moved to the moon if necessary. But Ohio is cool -- you name it, they've done it. John Glenn is from here. John Glenn had the balls to be shot up into space and to orbit the earth in something the size of a Volkswagen Beetle. How cool is that? Don't even mess with John Glenn. There are four seasons, and Ohio celebrates them all. I had no idea there were four -- I thought there was just hot and not-so-hot. Ohio lets winter linger a bit longer than most people here think it should, but I adore winter. I like being chilly for a change. I love to watch the snow fall, no matter if it's a few flakes here and there or a vicious white blur. Once we hit October, I just wait for the day when I need to grab a jacket. The air gets crisp and cold, smells different -- more piney and less floral -- and the trees are ablaze, putting on their finest, most colourful coats. Even the rain tastes different than it does in the spring. Ohio is not for the faint of heart. You have to be pretty tough to live here. California is sort of... foofy. I see the Ohio flag a lot now. I look up and see that red, white and blue snake's tongue flicking through the air and I have to grin every time. Why couldn't they just have a regular fucking flag? Why should they? Taunia and I eventually merged our Pretenders collections. It was a slow and sometimes painful process, but it had to be done. For years I had little tags in my copies of the albums and singles that identified them as mine. I laugh now when one falls out of a record. I toss it in the trash. My parents hadn't wanted me to move so far away. My father tried everything he could think of to talk me out of it without making it look like he was trying to talk me out of it. At one point he asked, "What if the Pretenders play here?" I laughed. They weren't even on tour -- where do parents get these crazy ideas? Nice try, Dad... About two weeks after I moved, my father called. He was laughing so hard he could hardly speak. "Hey smahtass (Dad's from Massachusetts)... guess what? The Pretenders are playing here!" I shot back, "No they're not!" We went back and forth until he really did have me worked up over it. I said, "Put Mom on the phone... Mom? They aren't really going to be there, are they?" She said, "Yes, Hon, we saw it on the news last night. They're opening for another group... Russ? What's the name of that other group?" "U2." I could hear my father hooting in the background the whole time. Moms don't lie to you. Dads do, to get the best of you, but Moms don't. Fathers teach you how to survive in the harsh world, mothers comfort you when you can't. Dad got back on the phone "You always manage to outsmaht yourself, don't you?" It's something I still hear in my head all too often. He delighted in taunting me for my impatience and unwillingness to listen to anyone else. Not even that... unwillingness implies that I would have the ability, but not the desire. I have always been unable to listen to others. I call the shots and they follow. I just usually end up shooting myself. |
