How I met Cristin

I'm a very shy person. I've never really liked big groups of people, and I've been trying to work on both of those problems for as long as I can remember. In 3rd grade I had one friend. I guess I never really thought I needed more than that. I would spend a lot of time at home because when you only have one friend, you only go to see them so often.

My brother, of course, always has been very social. One day he came home and said that a girl moved in across the street and that I should go knock and say hi. The odds of that were pretty much non-existant. My brother went over and talked to the woman who lived there another day and said that he was going to bring over his sister, because she was about the same age.

Since I'm such a shy person, the chances of getting me to volunteer to partake in this was not likely, and not easy. After a lot of coaching and some demanding, my brother realized that it was hopeless. He picked me up, literally, and carried me across the street. We fought the entire way over there, I tried to wrestle free, but there was no escaping his grasps. I think that part of me was just fighting because I was scared, because I imagine part of me was excited at the idea of having a girl my age living right across the street.

We entered the house, and my brother dropped me. After recovering from the embarassement of being carried into someone's house, I met Cristin. She is a beautiful woman, but when we were that young, we both looked pretty dopey. Short blond hair, so light it looked almost white, and skin so fair that I thought that she must never leave the house.

As Cristin and I became friends I learned that she was albino, which is why her skin and hair are so light. She went to a special school for the blind, and didn't get home until almost 5pm because it was so far away. I would sit on my front lawn and call her name until she came outside to play (I said I was shy, I didn't go knock for her for a while). Since Cristin and I became such good friends, my mom talked to her mom, and they decided to sign her up at the elementary school that I went to. We've been friends ever since. She moved from across the street, to up the street, and now she lives in Baltimore, but we stay in touch, and we're still very close.

Bobby (mostly likely just part 1)

Bobby is the love of my life, I don't think I could put it any other way. He's perfect. I love everything about him, and I love to be around him. We've been together for two years now, almost two and a half.

Bobby and I met in the usual way that couples meet these days, on the internet. I never thought I'd be the kind of girl who would date people that she met online because I don't have a problem meeting people in person. I may be chubby, but I can still pick up a guy.

We didn't meet on one of those dating website that they have these days, where you fill in everything about you and then find a compatible match. We're different, we like some of the same stuff, but we're not carbon copies of each other either. We also met on myspace.com. It was random because Bobby sent me a message asking to be my friend, and then we ended up exchanging numbers. One day we decided to meet up because he had just been stationed at the naval base by my house.

The entire ride over to the dive dinner we met at, we talked on the phone. I almost quizzed him endlessly on what would happen if I was fat, and he responded sweetly, that he'd already seen my pictures, and thought I looked great. When I got to the diner, I jumped into his car and we ran and got cigarettes. It was really sweet because he opened the door for me, and then gave me his sweatshirt because it was raining.

We spent a long time at the diner, talking, smoking, talking. Eventually he asked to see my cell phone, and he wrote a little message on it that said something like, he thought I was very pretty and he wanted to kiss me. We did end up kissing by the end of the night, and we've been pretty inseperable ever since. I really love him

Daddy Dearest (Part 1)

Growing up in my house could only be described as a living hell. Well, most of the time. I can’t claim my life was always miserable, because that would be a lie. My dad had an interesting view on parenting, because his parents did such a great job with him.

My dad’s dad, who I guess I could consider my grandfather, but I never knew him to call him anything, was an alcoholic. He would beat my dad relentlessly when he was a kid. My dad hated his mother for never sticking up for him, but she didn’t really know what else to do. My dad had a brother, who I also never knew, he was in the military and after coming home and having a couple of kids, he killed himself. He was an alcoholic, and I’m ashamed to admit that I don’t know the names of either my uncle or my grandfather. I have a rough idea of what they could be because we’re big in naming our kids after other members of our families.

As I was saying, my dad got his butt kicked as a kid; his mom ignored it, and then sent him away to private school. I can only assume that for these reasons, my dad has no idea how to be a parent, nonetheless a good parent. On nights that my mom would work late were probably the worst. My dad would yell at us a lot, send us to our rooms for no reason, and then right before my mom came home make us come downstairs and clean up his mess. If there was any argument with any of his unreasonable commands, he’d hit us. I’m not just saying, oh, parents spank their kids when their bad, I mean, he HIT us.

My brother took the brunt of the abuse because he was the oldest, so I would protect and/or hide my little brother. There were a few times when after a beating we were sent to our rooms, and we would all huddle together in my room waiting for my mom to come home to save us. She never saved us. The second we would see her car pull into the driveway we would sit at the top of the steps and wait for her to come in the door, because we wouldn’t dare go back downstairs without her in the house. When she would enter we would surround her, crying of all the things that dad made us do, and how he hit us, and how a wall got a hole in it, or a door broke during the battle. She would just emotionlessly say that whatever happened, we probably deserved it.

I remember two events that may have led to the end of the abuse. For me, one day I was standing against my dad, and he was threatening me, and I said, “Bring it on, it doesn’t even hurt anymore when you hit me, I’m used to it.” He ended up just looking at me, and then walking away, the fight was over where we stood. My brother on the other hand, had a more interesting turn of events with my dad. After a battle between them, my brother sat, beat and broken, and through the tears said “Go ahead Dad, walk away in your father’s shadow.” My dad went to his room after that and cried. We were never hit again, though there were a few occasions where it was threatened.

Ironically, like my father, I blame my mom for the abuse. I somehow hold her responsible, and for what I’m not completely sure. I have an amazing relationship with my dad now, and can barely get along with my mom. I know that she didn’t know what to do in the situation so she would ignore it, or hide from it. I understand that, I just can’t seem to forgive it.

Tim (Part 1)

The Lost Trailers
Album: Trailer Trash
Song: Favorite Friends
Copyright 1997 G. Stokes Nielson/ Two State Brothers Music(ASCAP)

We couldn't leave the woods 'til the bottle was done,
Then we'd all go fishing in the dusk bitten sun.
Not old enough to drive, but we knew if we could,
We'd have all the women in our neighborhood.

But we never thought that one of us would go away,
No, we never dreamed that we might cry on teenage graves.
The fairytale ends with the loss of our favorite friend.

Well, the funeral was nice, or that's what you're supposed to say,
We all sat together staring out into grey.
It was hard to believe that out of five faithful friends,
Four were left broken while one rode the wind.

And the nights out on the town fell few and far between,
Cause all we talked about was how great things used to be,
Our innocence ends with the loss of our favorite friend.

It seems like the best of us always fall to early grace,
And the road will keep rolling on, but angels are hard to replace,
I guess it was crazy luck, to have someone like that to lose,
But he couldn't stay long, God must have missed him, too.

Now Charlie is in college, and I hit the road,
And Al is building churches in New Mexico,
Steve is running from the law, but that's nothing new,
We all say we'll meet back home but we never do.

And the woods burned down long ago, the old neighborhood is gone,
And I can't get drunk no more, cause I hate drinking alone.
But I know in the end we'll get back to our favorite friends.
Cause life is much better when it is shared with our favorite friends.

I'm at work, listening to my ipod when this song came on. The first time I heard it I cried, it still evokes memories of Tim when I listen to it now, and brings tears to my eyes. I can talk about how much I love Tim another time; this is more about what happened to Tim.

At college I lived with Tim and Scott, Tim and I were friends with Russell and Ryan (who is a girl) and we spent a lot of our time together. Scott was my boyfriend at the time, but he wasn’t much fun, he spent a lot of time at home. We all graduated in the same class, and I met Tim’s parents for the first time that day.

The night before graduation, the snow was terrible, I guess that’s upstate New York for you, and Tim’s parents were on there way in on the train. They called him for a ride to the hotel, and I lent him my car, because I was the only one with four-wheel drive. The next day, the first thing they did was thank me for letting Tim borrow my car, they are from New Orleans, and they weren’t big on snow.

“We’ve heard so much about you! How are you doing?” and “Congratulations!” They are really lovely people. We talked a little bit after the graduation ceremony, but I didn’t really see them again. After the graduation I went home for the weekend because I was coming back to take another class the following week. Everyone else went home for three weeks because they were coming back to get their bachelors. Tim, Russell, and I talked about meeting back up after they started school again, but it never got to happen.

Just a few weeks after graduation, I was just waking up from a nap and checked my voicemail; I had been avoiding phone calls from my friend Ryan, for no reason in particular. To my best recollection the voicemail sound something like this…



“Hey Claudia, its Ryan; Tim and Russell got in a really bad car accident. Tim died and Russell’s in the hospital. Call me back.”



I remember thinking to myself, I know hadn’t been returning her calls, but that’s a pretty fucked up joke to play to get me to call you back. Regardless, I call her, she explains it.

Russell and Tim were on their way to the mall, in the middle of the day, sober and everything. They must have hit a pothole or something, because all of a sudden the car spun out of control. As the car was spinning it played Russian roulette with who might be the one to die, because cars were still coming, it was just a matter of which side got hit. Tim took the blow to the driver’s side of the car. He absorbed most of the impact, and died, saving Russell’s life. Russell slammed his head into the windshield and the passenger door window. The accident happened in Massachusetts, and a bunch of people were driving up there to see Russell in the hospital. I don’t remember if she explained it that well, or if those were just details I picked up over time.

I mumbled something to Ryan about how I would call her back. I slowly lowered my phone away from my head and it fell out of my hand onto the floor. I started walking to the stairs to find my mom. I started to breath heavy, and cry. Before I knew it, I collapsed in the middle of the staircase, hysterical. I was screaming and crying. My mom tried to console me but I could just stutter out something about Tim and Russell and car accidents.

No, we never dreamed that we might cry on teenage graves...

Introduction

I'm not so sure how to start this...

I'm turning 23 tomorrow. In the last 23 years I don't think I've accomplished much. I'm still living at home, with my mom, my younger brother, and my older brother (who only lives with us on the weekends). I also have a boyfriend, who I love more than anything.

I'm overweight, but I'm getting a gastric bypass. I'm currently in college again, this time getting my bachelors in something completely different than when I have my AOS in. I'm usually pretty depressed, but I don't know why, that's what all the medications are for.

I'm a liar. I don't lie to everyone. Mostly my family, to keep them off my back. I don't lie because there is something in me that gets off on it or anything, I lie because the truth is to hard to explain, especially if your mom is as crazy as mine.

I know everyone thinks that there parents/family is crazy, but mine really is.

My dad is a ex-cop, wanna be soldier, retired teacher, self proclaimed photographer, who specializes in deguerrotypes, and is a gun/machine gun collector/dealer.

My mom has what I like to call, "single mother syndrome." She is obsessed with money, and is constantly living in self inflicted poverty even though she's a lawyer. She spends her days buying and selling high-end hand bags and shoes on e-bay, or talking about high-end hand bags and shoes. Well, that is, when she's not driving me or my siblings insane.

My older brother lives in New York during the week, and comes home on the weekends. He is a self proclaimed genious/know-it-all. He'll be happy to explain to anyone how to fix their lives, but can't get out of debt, he's older than I am, and is still living at home.

My little brother is sort of a college drop out. He went away for his first year of college, bombed, really badly. Then no one would pay for him to go back. He's working part time and going to community college (only because it's free, not because he works hard).

My older sister is a saint. There is no real other way to put it. She deserves all the best things in life. She is technically only my half sister from my mom's first marriage. She has a husband (captain douche-bag) and a beautiful daughter (she looks like I did when I was little). She also takes care of the little man I call my nephew. He's actually my cousin's bastard child that she can't take care of because she's out stripping, or doing drugs, or maybe she's back in prison, I'm not sure. Regardless, he's a little hard to handle sometimes, but she does a great job with him.

There is also my various alcholic/drug addict/failure cousins/aunts/uncles. They all come into the mix in their own time.

The reasons listed are not the reasons that I think my family is crazy. It's the things they do, but I guess that will unfold as time goes by. That's enough for now.