notes on today's family intersections

I can't capture much of today right now but it was both nicely mellow and interestingly intense. We met up with M. and with T's family and our parents for tidepooling... not managing to get there all at the same time really but still nice... and then one of those headachy unbearable hullabaloos of when you have 14 people and no one can tell what anyone else really wants or why or what should happen next or where the food will come from. That blew over once we all realized (I think) that it didn't matter much, we could split up and meet later...

We all ended up at M. and T.'s place which is very pleasant for hanging out in outside or in. I played upw0rds with T.'s mom while other people played T1cket to R1de. Now - I had been warned that T.'s mom could not bear swearing (this, not true, but his older brother is quite bothered by it and by other things so mild I could not even figure out what was going on - like when T.'s sister was comparing leg hair with me and we were bitching about how we weren't going to shave our legs and strangely, the brother loomed over us switching his finger scoldingly and going, "Nuh-uh-UUUUU-uh!" with a stern frown - same as he'd do and say if anyone swore - but for leg hair? whaaaa? too crude? why? - In any case, T.'s mom was a brilliant and shark-like word game player and spelled "SLUT" in mid-game. I liked her. I'm afraid to play scr4bble with that lady...

So an all-afternoon and evening hang-out and bbq- which was very nice and slackery and relaxing.

Feeling v. sappy and loving about everything and everyone, vaguely.

Rook and I played hooky for an hour or so to buy him dress shoes at the fancy-ass mall in Merryville. At the "Alddddo" shoe store I was giggling at the stuff and got some pimpish sunglasses and a very butch, sleazy chain and realized that all the accessory stuff in the story was straight out of 1985 sleazy italian mobsterness, all crosses and itali4n horn good-luck necklaces and the most maf1a sunglasses you've EVER seen and these glittery whorish clothes - I can't convey it but certain relatives had it right down and our neighbors the zambonis... These sunglasses are SO my ex-boyfriend's uncle Pauly... omg I'm going to grease my hair straight back and wear them with all my best 7/16ths s1cilian pride!

I bought little jeweled and wire headbands, like tiaras but not, and matching bracelets for T.'s nieces. Because I like kids at weddings and think they should have unexpected presents. I like kids at weddings because you know they're a little bored but also having an unusual memorable experience.

I had many thoughts especially driving home about families and childhood and especially that book "Ord1nary Fam1lies" and where it fell short (the end-marriage was lame - like narrative shorthand for what should have been a whole different complicated book (and probably was). I was disappointed the narrator never was able to successfully imagine the inner life of her siblings. Well - a great book but just those flaws struck me today as I was overwhelmed by the reality of all other people and felt pleasantly invisible and inconsequential like a ghost or like a minor player in an interesting play.

I was thinking a lot about Rook's current project and how interesting and cool and creative it is and how in social situations like today and in most of Real Life all that just never gets seen. It's complicated enough so that to understand it, you'd have to listen to him talk, with diagrams, for ... well, at least 20 minutes or so I suppose, but probably longer depending on what sort of things you already know. And who in a social group is going to listen to another person with close attention and with thinking turned on for that long? It's rare - though really at parties, that is what I like is to have some Real Conversation like that and see something new in depth. I like to do it, too, to talk and be listened to, but it is not necessary for each conversation: what is necessary is for the talker to assume and show that they know, on a deep level, that I have something equally complex and creative going on even if there is not time for me to have my turn right then. And this led me to think about blogging and how much I love it because it lets me see people in depth and the gloriousness of their ideas. Books are one way - letters also - but think for a minute how different blogging has made things. Blogging makes "knowing people" a whole different game. Think of a book or a diary or a long conversational monologue like a lecture - as an opportunity to express something too complex to be expressed otherwise (with fiction being a particularly good tool to express the complexity of the truth of human relationships and social/cultural/political possibility) but also as a way for that self that doesn't get seen socially to be seen and known. Blogging takes that potential and runs with it. I think we are part of a Grand Conversation and I'm very grateful it's happened.

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[Jo]

I always want people to have read my blog already so we can cut to the chase and I don't have to "prove" myself or talk about a million things and cut through facades for weeks first.