Packing and Moving

There are few things in this life more hated than packing and moving. I can't think of any of them now since I'm in the midst of packing and moving....But they're out there. Somewhere. Lurking about in some lazy way.

This place is an utter disaster. The rain is in full fledge. And I have yet to find bedroom furniture that I like and/or can afford.

But after we picked Kalena up at the airport last night, Marco drove us by the new place. Really it was the side entrance to the new place. "Temescal Place" it read in brushed silver letters. Even in the North Oakland/South Berkeley dirty midnight moon it looked epic. 

New Place Translations:

My own room - True aside from sharing it with Kalena. At least it's the master.

Roof access - a garden.

Side streets - endless, unmetered parking. **

Cement floors - swanky. 

Temescal - beautifully disgusting dive bars (I may have to make another alteration to my new years resolutions), amazing food, walking to grocery stores and all sorts of shopping....

This is going to be fucking awesome. If only it didn't mean packing and moving. :sigh:


**Correction: this is a complete crock of shit. There is no such thing as endless, unmetered parking in the Temescal :grumble grumble: 

MLK

Catch up

?-2012

I've tried to think of something more eloquent. Something more than black noise to fill the screen. But all that comes to mind is "there's a funeral in my brain today," and then nothing. A gaping blank. 

My dad's sister, Pat, died unexpectedly today. She'd been admitted to ICU just after Christmas for Kidney failure. And suddenly, the women who I had never really known much - my father's four sisters - came rushing into my life just as unexpectedly. 

I had been trying for awhile now to find my in. Find a way to reach out to that side of my family that I had been so carefully plucked from early on. I know now that my father had his reason to keep them at arms length, but in the hour surrounding the news and talk of service and ticket prices, a dark and dank fog settled. Among it shards of dilapidated metal and wood. 

Some delicate bridge to my past was felled. 

I can't tell you the last time I saw this woman. I don't remember how her voice sounds, or the name of her partner of 25 years whom she'd lost three summers ago. I have no childhood memory of her that brings me warmth. Instead, she is simply a name: Pat. My father's sister. A faded image that here, in the shadow of my brother's netbook screen, I struggle to recollect. So why am I so bothered? Why at midnight, incredibly exhausted from having slept so shitty for the last week, migraine poised and ready for attack, knowing I have to drive my father to the VA hospital at 7 am for his routine tests, am I doing this?

I don't know. 

I don't know why I cried when my father took the news so calmly, speaking so only the person on the other line could hear. I don't know why I suddenly felt compelled to scream at the top of my lungs and to drive to somewhere, anywhere, because I was suddenly gasping for air in my parents tiny apartment. Why couldn't it have waited? Why couldn't I have asked her who my father was before he was my father. What my grandfather's favorite food was. What perfume my grandmother wore. 

Why couldn't I have been stronger for her? Why didn't I reach out sooner? I thought I had more time. I should have had more time.

In 3 days I'll be back in Oakland and for the first time since I've started doing this back and forth from house to home trip, I don't want to go back. I'm not looking forward to having to wake up on the 9th and go back to this sense of normalcy knowing that something is displaced. Altered. Untrustworthy. 

I know that if I don't get this job at HNU that I'd finish out my term and leave at the beginning of July. And somehow I feel I won't. So do I choose my kids? Do I choose to stay and fight for them? Or do I choose to come back here, lay low until I start again and figure out the rest as I go? 

God, grant me serenity. 

First of the year

And here I thought was being clever. Posting that song at the beginning of the year before realizing that my account is still on West Coast time. Oh well. The sentiments are still in place.

Four more days before I head back to California. I'm still waiting to hear if I got the job. Somehow I feel I won't, so I've started looking for something out here. North Carolina has been calling my name for awhile now, maybe that's the ticket. We'll see I guess. 

New Years Resolutions that start on the 7th. 

1. No meat during the week.

2. No booze. No weed. No mind-altering substances. 

3. No facebook (this is still tentative, I'm undecided as of now). 

4. A strict 3-4 days a week routine (as soon as I get the OK from my physical therapist). 

5. More Writing. More performances. Finish the manuscript.