you’re stuck in my mind

I am a real life Drew Baylor. And my family is just like the one from the film. I really, honestly felt/feel that way about my last 50 or so hours spent on planes and with my family. In about a half hour I’ll be boarding a flight to Milwaukee. From there another flight to Kansas City. It was entertaining though, how I paralleled so much with that movie. The entire trip each and every person from my family commented on how I had come so far from Kansas. Which I always corrected by saying Missouri, however, it didn’t make much difference, it would be a replay in about 20 minutes.

Every thirty minutes I heard at least one comment about how much I’ve changed. How they all would have walked by me on the street. How no one liked my black hair. How I had gotten so many piercings and tattoos. I had this small hope that maybe, just maybe one of my cousins had went punk or gothic. But I was to be disappointed, every single one of them is just as innocent and normal as the last time I saw them. In fact, only Daniel is regarded as slightly off. Probably only because he’s an artist. Once while taking a nap I overheard someone telling another member of the family that I came home, “Amanda came, she’s sleeping right now. It doesn’t look like Amanda but we love her anyway.”

I’ll have to come back in a week or two for a funeral. I really hope that I can. I do truly love my gramma, she’s amazing, five kids, 12 grandkids and she’s still lucid enough to remember small details about us, she never stops telling us how much she loves us. We all just sit with her. Hold her increasingly decreasing figure in our arms. Feel her bones beneath that thinning layer of skin. Hear every breath in her lungs. She weighs 55 pounds. She won’t eat. In fact, my favorite moment of the entire trip was when I walked into the living room eating a banana, she remarked on how good it looked so I offered her one, to my (and everyone else in the room’s surprise) she accepted and ate almost an entire banana. This is shocking because the woman has been somehow surviving on maybe one spoonful of apple sauce a day for almost three weeks. She refuses food and barely drinks water. It was so delightful that she ate with me, it might be one of the last times that she does.

The incredibly hard thing is that she just thinks that she’s sick. That she has caught the flu. She leaned on my arm and told me that she really needed to get better. So we could go out, and do things. So she could go places with us. What else could I do but tell her that she would get better? And when I said goodbye she said she wanted me to come back for the holidays, I held her hand and told her that I would love to. That I would see her soon.

And to think that my gramma dying is just half of the family drama. My grandfather (same side) has been dating this woman for 12 years or so, and slowly but surely she’s been taking all of this money and possessions. There’s nothing left in the bank, the house is but a shell and his kids (my mom and her siblings) lost power of attorney years ago to her. She’s insane. And she tells him that he’s said things that he hasn’t, which I suppose is only possible because the poor man has dementia. As if the family doesn’t have enough to worry about, they have watch their father be swindled. It’s repulsive. Oh, but she saved all the family photos for the kids, she has no want of them. Only the money, not the memories.

And for me. This has been just bizarre. I haven’t been here since I was 14. Nine years since I’ve seen this place and these people. I got flown in on a whim, only to leave just a fast. I drove to get coffee yesterday, took the car and just figured I would find something if I drove far enough. It’s odd, my dad’s family and my mom’s live in the same town. It’s not terribly large, so I ended up close to my grandparents house without even realizing it. I drove past all these places and just had freak flashbacks. It was like being in a old dream that I had since forgotten, everything suddenly was real and in front of me. I went to the ice cream place that my grandparents always took me to. I visited them and raided the fridge downstairs at the wet bar (which, hilariously, is always fully stocked with chocolate and soda….not beer). I had breakfast at the table with my grandparents and we watched the news together like it was the most normal thing in the world…and it felt like it was.

And now I’m going home for two days, then to Omaha in two days for three days…or two…or four…I don’t know anymore. And I have a midterm tomorrow and a conference on Thursday….away we go.

let’s get along famously

this has been a decidedly rough season. i spend most of my time just hoping that my phone will ring and the voice on the other side will deliver good news. i’ve been hopeful for two months but the job hunt has been fruitless thus far. i’m so behind in rent. i don’t think b would through me to the streets but things have been surprising lately.

it’s rather cold in kansas city. a bitter sort of cold that reminds me of being home. when we would drag every coat from the closet so we could smoke one cigarette. shoes two sizes too big to wear two or more pairs of socks. baggy hats and exposed fingers. we talked a lot to ignore the cold. our conversation duly noted by the warm disruption to the cold air. huddled in circles. i remember when we started to go into the parking garage. through the underground tunnel and up into the glowing garage with the cars that warmed in minutes as opposed to hours like ours. we could stay in there forever, the wind would never defeat the walls. we hung around in the stairwells like the bad kids that never did anything wrong.

in kansas city they’re keeping track of how long the snow is on the ground. i believe the record of days straight is 44. right now we’re at 16 (17 if you count the final few hours of christmas eve). somewhere minneapolis is laughing at us. it’s bizarre. truly. we watch the news in awe as they cancel schools left and right when it snowed days ago or hasn’t even begun to snow yet. the roads still aren’t plowed (which, personally, i think they need to keep a count of how long they can go without doing it).

i was reading an article the other day (yesterday, perhaps?) and there were photographs from some of the new years parties that recently occurred. the photos were not what caught my eye. the headline for the photos and poorly written accompanying article was “the last party of the decade.” how strange. we talk about it but then it actually strikes you. and when it sinks it, well, it’s still strange. i’m an 8o’s baby. 87, so it’s not as though i actually remember much of it but it’s still attached to by birth date. my roommate was born in 9o and we all still talk about how young she is. i think one of my biggest fears is still that i’ll wake up and realize i wasted my youth. there is still time, there is still time.

time to go.