heat wave stupor

liz & liz
Originally uploaded by Liz.

Thanks to Liz Ditz... we spent the 105' heat wave day in a shady spot, in and out of her swimming pool... endless watermelon, chips & salsa, delish chicken salad which I long to try to copy... It was really nice! I felt sluggish, torpid.... not exactly sparkling with wit and charm... in fact was finishing the 4th book in the Ukiah Oregon series so didn't want to talk at all for at least an hour or two.

Liz has a lot of cool books and one of those rolly ladder things that goes along them.

As we drove home I felt a little bit tearful as I thought of the relationship she has with her daughter. I mean, clearly one has tensions... and yet... it's so amazing to me to see people who are involved with their kids' lives, who care about what they care about, parent/teenager who make an effort to please each other and to have a relationship... Without huge hostility. I kept just sitting there with my mouth open realizing, "oh... L. wants her daughter to stick around and hang out with us... and though she has plenty of teenagery things to do and her own car (a funky painted van) she is sticking mainly to be nice to her mom." And that her mom goes to all her shows, and ... jeez. Then to hear her talking nonchalantly about aikido competitions and her fights and how she's going on this overseas trip, and and and. Er, not to mention her horse. Whoa! A bit different from my teenage years? Like "Oh btw mom i need to go shopping for my trip.. and will you cook me a steak? By the way I'm going out. And tomorrow I'm going to the beach. " *boggle* I believe when I was her age, my longest conversations with my parents went like this:

"Whore! Cunt! Fucking little whore! You're not going anywhere!"
"Fuck off, I hate you, I'm not your prisoner!"
Run for door
Hideous physical struggle
I run outside to where I get in some fairly random high school guy's car and roar off in a cloud of Joy Division, because anything is better than dealing with these fucked up people who hate me

Anyway.

I love my parents and it's like a fabulous miracle to get along with them now. I want to be around people who have teenagers and who do things relatively right. Why do people go so insane about their own children, damaging them in the name of overprotection? Specifically... their girls. As I know, know, know, that if I had been a guy... none NONE of that shit would have ever happened with my parents. I don't dwell on it... I swear... but then I hang out with a nice-acting family and it comes right back to me and I think, WTF!!!???

Anyway again.

Hot, hot, hot. sweaty. I can't stand to have any part of my own body touch any other part of my own body. I have taken about 5 showers (cold ones) in addition to dips in the pool.

Estivating. Doesn't that sound good?

I think it's still 100 in my house. there's no breeze! I'm outside on my foam-cushion futon, getting mosquito bites in the dark. In only my underwear. Rook commented that there was a lot of hotness in our neighborhood, flattery which I'd appreciate more if we were in Alaska or Antarctica and I wanted to go anywhere near another person...

Comments

[mysterious traveler]

I agree with you completely about being in amazement about healthy families. I grew up in a family where it was so clear to me (at an early age) that my parents would have gone ballistic about nearly everything that I thought or did that I never shared a thing with them. As a teenager, I was one person at school and with my friends, and someone quite different at home, where I had a polite, totally false relationship with my parents. I left home at 18 and moved as far away as you could get and still be in the continental U.S., seeing them only for brief holiday visits. My father died pretty much ignorant of who I am; interestingly, he wrote me a letter at one point in which he acknowledged this and said he loved me anyway. I think he was grateful that I had spared him the stress of any confrontations with my mother; he was hen pecked and would do anything to keep her from freaking out. On the few occasions in which she and I fought (usually over something very trivial, such as a hairdo or skirt length) he would go out and get gas for the car! As an adult, I have attempted to share some of my life with my mom at various times, but she just pretends she doesn't hear me. Her delusions of being in control of everything are more important to her than her daughter -- not that she's conscious of it. But, at last, I've gotten to the point where this situation leaves me shaking my head rather than my fist. Unfortunately, this upbringing made me reluctant to have children of my own.

[wired]

I had a freakin' Norman Rockwell childhood. It took me until college to realize how odd that was, that my parents believed in me, and encouraged me, and set rules with love and not control.

What's really given me insight is watching them deal with my much-younger brother, and sit on their anxieties as he makes bad choices. Currently, his plans include walking from Vermont to Princeton when he graduates next year, and maybe becoming an Army chaplain. They are not excited about the prospect of him getting killed, but cannot bring themselves to argue against it, because it would be hypocritical.

On the other hand, I do think 21 is a bit old to be polling your family on how to handle your romantic entaglements.