NG Comment +
Much like Shar's little questionnaire roused too many memories, this question at NG did as well. Rather than make people who don't give a shit suffer through my answer, I figured I'd simply post the rest of my ramblings here. Anyone who thinks I'm worth the air I use should probably take a peek. No intermissions in this one ....
At 10/14/04 11:28 PM, TripN wrote:
:
: So my question to you is do your parents know you drink or other things if not how do you keep it up? and if so how did you get caught?
Mommie Dearest (everyone in the family calls her that, go watch the movie if you don't understand the allusion) used to lay into me to not have sex, drink, etc., until I was X age (usually 19 or 21), "because what are you going to do when you're that age since you've already done everything else?" Of course, since I was already 15 when these conversations started to occur, they didn't mean much. The only reason I didn't move out and apply for emancipated minor status at 16 was that I wanted to stick it out until I graduated from A high school and it looked like they were going to not move (again) for a change. I graduated high school on 22 June, 1986. On 1 August, 1986 I had a lease on an apartment. After that, there was no need to "hide" anything ... I just kept telling them to bugger off and never had them over.
Their protect/control instincts came to a head with my why don't you leave me the fuck alone in February. Since then we've spoken twice: 27 September, when she told me my grandmother (her mom) died, and at the funeral on 2 October. A healthy parent-child relationship this is not. I do hope, for everyone else's sake, that this is not "normal."
We actually lived in a house long enough for my dad to go and get replacement filters for the heater. He brought the old ones in with him so he was sure to get the right ones as replacements. The guy asked why he wanted new ones, as the old ones were fine. "Well, we've lived here for two years and they're supposed to be replaced every two years." "Don't get me wrong, but does your wife dust and vaccuum every day?" No, she dusted and vaccuumed every day in all but the bedrooms ... those were our job.
As to the "hiding" of crap beforehand, they were fucking clueless about anything I was doing until I rubbed it in their faces. I had to be dumped on the lawn at 17, spittle-drippin' drunk, before they even discovered I even drank. I caught a ricochet and bled all the way up from the driveway to my room and back to the bathroom, cleaning myself up but saying "fuck it" about everything else. I got grounded for a week for "being late." Mrs. Clean (see previous paragraph) miraculously never noticed the blood trails leading to and from my bedroom window. I'll never forgive them for not bothering to ask enough questions to find out that the ricochet that caused all that came out of the back of my best friend's head. As I've looked back on it over the years, I can only conclude that I was trying to get attention from "Daddy Dearest." At that point, even a reprimand from him was an acknowledgement that I existed ... or maybe just that he did.
My niece (Stacey) had a guy (Beau) trying to replace her boyfriend (Sean) ... like the guy moved from Texas to NY (and lived with Sean in Sean's parents' house) on the off chance he could pull it off. As soon as I heard he was coming up, I knew he was a waste of air, but neither she nor Sean listenedas he was this "really nice guy from the RP." One of Beau's claims of "grandeur/save me" (apparently there were several, this is the only one I recall) after his arrival was that he had been shot in the shoulder and hip. I've since discovered that this kind of crap was ongoing ... the reality being that they were merely an attempt to develop sympathy from, or control over, her.
Last year, about this time, I was going through an extremely rough patch ... every one of my psychoses chose that particular couple of weeks to be predominant. Stacey's now one of two people (gee, I'm the other) alive on this planet who knows virtually all of my background ... ~shrug~ it's my nature, I even held back from her. Everyone else who was involved either died those nights or they have subsequently done something silly, like gotten in the way of a bullet or landed on a shank, so I'm not overly concerned with those cold cases suddenly getting solved. Anyway, I was the one person she knew to ask how it was possible for someone to be shot and not have a scar. I raised my left sleeve. "That's a bullet track from the ricochet. That's a hack and so is that. That and that are slices. Those two are slashes. That, that, that, and that are blocks. The rest are mine. There is no possible way anyone fired a gun at him that hit and didn't leave a scar. At minimum, he's got scars from the surgery to repair the shattered bones."
Punk, nowadays, is just some random category slapped on shit music by record labels. Punk was never really a movement, musical or otherwise, in the States ... anything that took actually hold quickly evolved into hardcore. What there was of punk, I was in the SD/LA/SF area for. Back in 78-79 & 82-83 I was sneaking out and getting picked up to go to warehouse shows down off Hollywood. Every band had a "gang" that followed it. Ever heard of the Suicidal Tendencies? Their gang was full of people with them. Ever heard of stage dives? Every night STs would "stage dive" off a 3-5m speaker tower ... and everyone would move out of the way. Warehouse = concrete floor. They usually left in an ambulance. Fear, FFF, Circle Jerks, Suicidal Tendencies, Black Flag, etc., etc., etc., I saw them all and I saw everything that went with that scene.
By the time I was 15 there wasn't a damned thing Mommie Dearest could talk to me about that I had not already seen, done, seen worse, or done worse ... and she grew up in the Bronx. Certainly not '20s era Chicago where she grew up, but drugs, murders, prostitution, gangs and whatnot were all readily available to anyone who gave enough of a damn to open their eyes. The only reason I even have a score on the Purity tests is because I've simply chosen not to participate in a lot of the shit I've witnessed. According to her, she never saw anyone do wrong ... ever.
Mommie Dearest "found God" with some Baptist Church, right after my brother was born, and preaches the joys of conversion to us heathens, most especially me ... my sister at least does a good job of pretending to be a "devout Catholic." I've never been able to reconcile the image of this person espousing the "Prince of Peace" with the exact same person screeching at my father, or me, or my sister, or my brother for "molding the clay wrong" or "drawing like an idiot" when we play a family game of Cranium or some such. I've (35, single, sworn to never, ever breed) run as far away to the north as I care to while remaining in the US, and I'm going home to Germany as soon as I can get my finances solid enough to support it. My little sister (34, married, with twins and a boy on the way) is as far south as she can get in the US from them, after having lived on (yes Shar, this is a dig at you and your silly survey) four continents (two more than I), and hides behind her "other" family obligations whenever possible. As for my little brother (22, dating, virgin), he's never been subjected to the moves my sister and I were. He goes to college in the same city in which he was born and is a born-again Christian. Actually, the college he goes to is why he's still alive, after being born 11 weeks premature. Even now, twenty-two years later (he was released from ICU 22 years and 2 days ago) I still bolt awake when I hear alarms that sound like his apnia monitor.
If anyone has truly escaped her, it's Rob. He believes in something. In contrast to what he's got, Julie and I are just clutching at straws.
Now here's your quiz. What's missing?