the loneliness that you call freedom

well, its been ages since i have been able to sit down and write a bit about the life happening around me. most of it has been family things. i went to my aunt carol's 50th birthday, then shopping with my siblings for pictures, a small pre-christmas with my mom and stepdad, christmas eve with the family on my stepmoms side, christmas day at my dads, and then the day after christmas at a surprise party for my grandpa. a whirlwind of family activity.

and, unfortunately, not much excitement. i guess i wasnt really expecting any kind of excitement. mostly the times have just been good family time, something that i havent had given time for in years. in between these family things i cut off all of my hair, and met up with my old friend becky again.

the most surprising thing about being here, without much notice, for christmas was the amount of gifts i received. and this was a strong reason for me not to want to come back here for the holidays. i think stopped celebrating the holidays about 10 years ago, basically renounced the season and the gift giving and things like that. at first i was pretty militant about it and actually got upset at the idea of people wanting to exchange gifts. i remember sending my sister an email when she was 15 describing all the reasons why i dont choose to participate, mostly because of the rampant consumerism and the automatic reflex, unquestioning devotion to this holiday.

over time my views softened and just last year i sent gifts to a number of people in my family. those gifts were macrame plant hangers and owls, crafts that i made by hand. this year i didnt put enough thought or time into it and i was somewhat embarrassed coming to the three functions where i received gifts and didnt have anything to really give in return. well, i was part of a group gift at all the functions.

on the walls of my moms house the most recent picture of me is from my sophmore year in high school - pretty embarrassing. my dad has more recent pictures, but the last 'family photo' that he has is about 15 years old. also embarrassing. i was - at the time - a rebellious kid and didnt take to following orders from anyone. in the picture i am the only one not dressed up, i wear a dumb expression and am generally untidy. my sister had the idea this year that us four kids and our nephew would go get professional pictures and give them as gifts to the family. this worked out wonderfully.

i dressed in my best clothes (which still werent very good) we went to the mall and had eight shots taken of us. one with my brother, me and our nephew bryce, one with me my brother and my sister, one with all of us, a funny one, and some others. we got frames and gave these as gifts to my mom, the aunts and uncles on my stepmoms side, and to my dad. they went over well.

on the day after christmas, at my grandpas surprise party, i got to hang out with a number of my cousins that i havent seen in years. at these functions i generally cringe. i prepare myself for answering the same questions over and over again. i live in oregon - not "warshington", i have been traveling for seven months, i am unemployed, yes it rains alot, those types of questions. i dont feel that there is much i have in common with these people and my prolonged separation from them has led to me thinking of them more as strangers than as family. thats sad, but true.

so i was surprised when my cousin josh spotted me and made to talk with me. josh is like 38 years old, so he was always older than me and growing up i didnt know much about him. but at this event he came to talk to me and felt that i was a kindred spirit. he started talking to me about his ideas on life how capitalism is fucked up and that he would want nothing more than to walk around the country with a backpack. and that he wants to just have a bit of land somewhere hunt and fish for his livelihood and raise a family outside the bounds of what society has become.

then he got metaphysical on me and started talking about religion and his life experiences and these things. if i didnt have such a wall built up for the people in my family i wouldve been more inclined to pursue these things with him, but we were both at the mercy of the rest of the family and mingling that we didnt get to expand very much on these topics. i did share some stories of my time in the anti-globalization movement and my desire to be self-sufficient. we exchanged numbers.

after this event my brother and i left. he wanted to continue going out, as he always does, and i was the designated driver. being the designated driver in my family does not mean that you cannot drink, it just means that he cannot get so fucked up people can tell you shouldnt be driving. luckily i dont get this way often, so being the driver wasnt that big of a deal. however, i was ready to call it a day and just head back to my dads house. he convinced me to continue being out.

we went to my aunt tina's house to pick up his girlfriends camera which was left there on christmas eve, then we went the liquor store where he bought a case of beer and some hot damn. hot damn is a cinnamon schnapps which is popular with my moms husband and my brother. then we went to his friend tatum's house and had some beers. there he convinced them to continue the night out to meet more of his old friends from high school at a bar in downtown crown point. i acquiesced.

i did take the opportunity of being out and about in crown point to call my old friend becky, she lives in crown point and i had been meaning to get together with her but a sympathetic situation had not yet arisen. i called her and she asked me to come pick her up. i dropped my brother off at the bar and then went to get her. it took me a half hour to get to her house and then she jumped in the car and we drove back to the bar. there was nothing groundbreaking about us coming together. neither of us were dressed fancy, which came as a bit of a shock when we got to the bar.

the bar, called the zodiac room, was a fancy place. the patrons were all in suits and general business attire, so i immediately felt out of place. i can only imagine how becky felt, but we sat down and chatted with tatum and his girlfriend kelly and eventually my brother came back to us. my brother is a social butterfly and his idea of a good time is going to a bar, getting as completely fucked up as possible and before leaving he is compelled to meet every single person and touch them in some way. he just walks up to tables and sets his drink down and start talking about something. it is annoying.

but it is also a family trait. i can do this - certainly not as well or as willingly - because we learned it from our father. so, he flitted about the bar while the four of us sat and talked, mostly amongst ourselves. meaning i talked to becky and tatum and kelly talked to one another. eventually joes friends showed up, including some girl that he used to date and has always ben in love with. this brought him back to the table and becky and i moved to a loveseat. an hour or more later, my brother owns the place and more people he knows are streaming in. this isnt fun for me, so becky and i decide to leave.

wait, something i forgot to mention. at some point becky and i went up to the bar to smoke and my brother was there talking to someone. he wrapped up that conversation and then turned to us and asked me if i know who the person sitting at the bar was. i had no idea who it was. and this is something that happens often, my brother wants me to remember someone and i have no recollection of them, then he introduces me to them and act like its the first time meeting them. because, for me, it really is. however, this person was someone i did remember. it was my step-brother. but, i didnt remember his name. i thought it was jason, but it turned out to be adam.

so we got joe ready to leave, but he wanted to go to just one more bar and we obliged. a pile of us left the bar to walk down the street. by this time becky and i were just making out with one another. these bars were not going to offer us anymore. we went to the next bar and it was a regular bar but it was also completely packed. we took one step inside and decided not to stay. by "we" i meant becky and i. to my brother this was mecca. i wrenched him away from whoever he was trying to meet just then and told him we were leaving. since i was his driver, i told him to call me when he is ready and i will come get him. it was only about 10:pm so i wasnt expecting a call anytime soon.

becky took me back to her house where we "got to know each other better" and that was nice. around 1 in the morning i tried calling my brother to see if he was ready to go but he didnt return my calls or text messages, so i fell asleep with becky in her bed. and that was even better. i do miss cuddling like that. i woke up at 5 in the morning and decided it was time to leave - brother be damned. mostly i wanted to leave because becky lives with her parents and i didnt want to be leaving in the morning when they were having breakfast. her family is dysfunctional enough and i had no desire to meet them just then. so i got dressed, called my brother some more and when he didnt answer i went back to valpo.

i got home at 6:am and promptly fell asleep again. my brother called me at 9:am, i got up and left to get him. i told my parents what was going on and then left again to crown point. i picked him up some house where a mom invited me inside and talked to me about portland for a little bit while joe got his things together. that was uncomfortable, i didnt want to meet the parents at the house i slept at so why the hell do i have to meet the parents of the house he slept at?! then we drove back to valpo.

and we had the frequent conversation concerning my brothers happiness and his direction in life, why he gets up to things he does and why he treats himself the way he does. the conversation is getting boring to me because he recognizes his problems and just doesnt do the work to turn it around. then we had a lazy day.

now i am at my friends alex's house in griffith, preparing to go to chicago with him tonight. first i need to buy jeans.