Happy Anniversary!!!
Dirk and I have been together for four years now. I can’t believe that we’re still together after all this time. I honestly think that it’s really a testament to my self-restraint, because I haven’t killed him yet. All that’s left now is for us to get married, hate each other, get divorced, and live long regret-filled lives wishing harm on each other.
Nah.
Dirk got me truffles and a copy of Dr. Mario for my Nintendo. I’ve been wanting that game for years, ever since I went to San Francisco and my aunt had it at her house. I just never had money and then I didn’t know where you could get the games.
What’s that you say? Why am I playing my old Nintendo when there are much better game systems out there, like the much-vaunted Playstation 2 and Dreamcast? Well, part of it’s the fact that I have problems with all the control buttons those fuckers have. Do you have any idea how long it took me to be proficient at my old NES? Years. I’m not going through that bullshit again. Some of the appeal is nostalgia – I’m of the generation that really remembers how exciting those old NES games were – and a lot of the appeal is price. I’ve still got my Nintendo and all of the games I ever owned, plus some that were given to me over the years. Dirk & his friend Brent found a store that sold old NES games, and they’re pretty amazingly cheap. I think my Dr. Mario game was 4 bucks.
Besides, we no longer have cable.
Aside from my mental breakdown, it was an exciting weekend. My cousin, Pia, came down from Boston last Friday and spent the weekend with us. You may remember her from the misty beginnings of this journal. She went back to the Philippines because she couldn’t handle being away from her boyfriend – well, her fiancee’s going to school in New Hampshire now, and Pia’s a sous-chef at a huge hotel in Boston.
I love Pia to death, but she scared me a little: she told me that she’s getting most of her tattoos removed because she doesn’t want to walk down the aisle with them on her. Then she cautioned me not to get tattoos. I don’t think I can convey how disheartening it is to see her cast off anything vaguely alternative/odd/original and firmly declare that she plans to be just as boring as her mother. She said that, really. I was pointing out neat stuff that she used to be bang alongside of in the thrift shop, and she kept saying that it was too weird. Too weird.
I don’t think you can understand. If it wasn’t for her, I’d be this dull little preppie shit that listened to country, never crossed boundaries, and never thought about anything outside what the television told me was important. I would have been vapid. I would have been close-minded. I wouldn’t fucking be a punk today. She opened doors for me that I didn’t even know were there. And she’s telling me about the fucking joys of settling down. Jesus.
God, I used to think I was just a cheap copy of her. She was the closest thing I ever had to a role model, given my family dynamics. But I was telling Pia about the things I’d done while she was gone and she was shocked. Oh yes, she was indeed shocked that I told my mother off when she got in my face one too many times. She was shocked that I thought my mother had serious mental issues that were getting worse. I found myself mentally sorting through my words so I wouldn’t shock her. I automatically made the mental sidestep so that I didn’t tell her about the abortion. I rose-colored what I shared. And I realized something: I’m not a copy of her; I something that she never could be – not a party girl, not a popular girl, but someone who gets shit done and organized. Someone who can take up a cause and keep going with it, even when it’s dull and mostly organizational, as long as it’s something I care about.
I don’t respect or love Pia any less. I just see her more clearly now.
But we had a lot of fun. We were talking so much on the drive from BWI that we missed our exit and had to backtrack. She came over to the apartment and politely ignored the broken furniture. We drank margaritas, played Castlevania III, and watched Labyrinth again. I almost started crying when I had to bring her back to the airport to go back to Boston.
I miss Pia.
I have a full band now. Our drummer is picking the songs up really damn fast, and we’ve got a singer. We’re trying to record our stuff at practice. I’ll let you know when we’ve got a recording that’s worth a shit. Also, if you know of anyone with a mic stand that swivels, and they’d be willing to let us use it, give me a holler. (If it requires shipping, I’m going to have to graciously decline, thanks).
Have I mentioned my cousin Shelly here? I don’t remember and I don’t feel like looking. I might have called her Tang-Tang. She and her family were my parents’ house for dinner on Sunday. Shelly lives with her boyfriend nearby, and remind me to tell you about that winner in a later entry.
We were sitting in post-dinner bliss, having gorged ourselves on rice, lumpia, something with a peanut sauce, and ribs, when Shelly announced, “It hurts when I pee.”
Much consternation ensued, wherein a lot of questions were asked to determine if she was suffering from a Urinary Tract Infection. She further informed us of the sudden existence of bumps on her genitals, and further informed us that it hurt when she crapped. (I later found out that the pain when she went ka-ka was because most of the bumps were located around her anus.) Isn’t that a tasty bit to tell your whole family, plus extended members, at the dinner table? Herpes and genital warts were discussed, and Shelly’s mother enthusiastically discussed Shelly’s -um- cleansing habits, for lack of a better term.
Shelly was finally becoming embarrassed, and I told her that this was probably something that she should have discreetly discussed with me or Pia, instead of announcing it at the dinner table. It seems these symptoms had only started a couple of days previously, and she’d only gone to the emergency care clinic, where they didn’t know what she had. They prescribed her acne medicine and herpes medicine, ran a few tests and threw up their hands. They’re not really equipped for this sort of thing.
I know she needed info, and she was shockingly ignorant about what she could have, but there’s a time and a place. I can’t imagine what possessed her to bring it up while sitting across from her mother, father and little brother, besides the rest of us.
Maybe I’m just a prude.