I took some days off last week on bereavement.
And this was good, and I traveled some.

Went to Cornell to see my sister.
Stayed at my folks house for a couple nights and took care of some stuff there (Grandma arrangements, etc).

Played the last show with the band last night, and it ended appropriatley in oblivion. No further comment.


Anyways, this is the cool part: Across the road from my parents house is a corn field.
But in the middle of the field is the old farm house and barn that burned down 20 or 25 years ago.
It burned down, but it was just left the way it was. So its been decaying back to nature, but there is stuff that is just a snapshot of the way the house was when it burned.

I used to go over there as a little kid, until someone told me there were rattlesnakes over there.
Then I would hang out over there as a teenager, half out of my mind and angst-y.
The silos were where I was going to put my antenna for my pirate radio station that (a) had no transmitter and (b) had no content.


So here are the good ones:







And the silos:

I found an old tape (cassette) today. I made it in high school, maybe 9th or 10th grade.

It was Descendents Milo Goes to College on on side and Angry Samoans Back From Samoa on the other.

Dude that took me back. It was awesome to listen to the Descedents again, haven't listened to that album in years.
But I also thought about what I was doing as I made that tape, and in the subsequent years.
At the time I had a pocketful of greasy dollar bills from my under the table dishwashing gig. I used to watch the sunset all the time and I always had time to think.

When I'm old I hope I don't make the mistake of thinking the 1990's were a special time. They were just as shitty as any decade, the only difference was I was a young kid.



(e:Robin) had an innaresting post.
Dude was a creep though, she wasn't wrong thinking that.

(oh, also I changed my user sound to a Screeching Weasel song: Going Home. Lyrics are related to the discussion at hand.)
[edit: I just listened to it and it sounds like shit. Sounds like a CD that wasn't tracking right. darn]

Once, last summer, I was cruising to work through the city. It was a damn hot day, and I had the AC cranking. I noticed this girl walking out in the beating sun.

I wanted to give her a ride, because damn, it seemed right. But as I thought about how it would be considered creepy, I kept driving.
And that sucks. I guess I should have at least offered and let her say no.


Right. At any rate, annihilate all weeks kids.

I had a boss that would call you into his office and say "[a] couple things..." That was always scary hearing that. He was so stupid and "couple things" always meant he got yelled at by upper management and he wanted to dump it back on us.
It was mostly disjointed and non-connected. Great management style, not only did he not know how the fix our problems, he didn't know what our problems were!

So, without further adieu,
A COUPLE THINGS:

[1] Cremains: No, I am not going to say cremains, nor creamains nor
any other spelling/pronuciation.
That stupid word sounds too close to 'craisin' for my taste.
(Mm tangy taste of craisons, also raisons)
I'm not "down" enough with the mortuary scene to be using lingo. I don't get Funeral Weekly nor do I want to fit in with funeral directors, undertakers, or morticians. Furthermore, I don't use 'cremetory remains' enough in my daily conversation such that saying 'cremains' will save me an appreciable amount of time, thereby making me a wiser, wealthier, healither man.
How about just 'remains' then

[2] Dudes, I totally gotta get back on the road again. Haven't traveled since New Year's. (Washington DC)
For me its not "in vino, veritas," but rather "in transit, veritas." Boston looks like a nice target.
Need tuneup on truck and I can drive out. JetBlue adds a direct flight to Boston in May or June though.

Toronto could be a good temporary fix. Whatever, I gotta do something, I'm driving me nuts.
Sometimes I get into ruts, boring ruts of routine. Then I travel, and I realize that I'm not boring, I'm pretty cool. I'm just a dumb bastard that gets into ruts. Of routine.

[3] I drove my truck on Empty from Hamburg all the way to my place on Elmwood today. HaHa what a rush!
Cheap Thrills are sweet. The cheaper the Cheap and the thiller the Thrill the sweeter the sweet is.
Quick list of dirtbag thills:
(a) running gas tank on empty
(b) late inspection sticker!
(c) overdrawing bank account
(d) street people!
(e) stealing gas

Ok so I haven't started (e) above yet. I allready swore I would though, via siphon. But its not just stealing, its more like a Robin Hood thing. Kinda, because the concept of the Rich is pretty similar, but the Poor is a more concentrated scope, focused on on the singularity of me and my gastank. Also its fun to steal things, from people who drive silly (hummer) cars.

I left (think quit) the band I was playing in a few weeks ago
It wasn't happening like I wanted it to, blah blah, the whole story is actually longer, but not interesting or important.

But they asked me to play a show May 6 and I said 'sure.'
We played last night for the first time since I quit and that shit was hot!

It was super awesome explosive. So good to just play and not care about anything else. (recording, booking shows, dumb stuff, personalities, etc)

Just replace 'band' with 'girl' and 'practice' with '4-day fuck marathon' and the basic premise remains the same. You better call the airline baby cause all that baggage is gone.


So now I need a drummer for the new band. Everything else is set, at least in a rough way. Looking for more 'raw beast of burden, never quit' than 'talent'

um, my mom called me tonight to tell me that my grandma (her mother) had died.

We had moved grandma to a house my aunt owned, just a few houses down from my mom and dad's house a few years ago. Before that they were in a Rochester suburb, and my Grandpa had Alzheimer's. They lived too far away.
My mom and dad had her over for dinner last night, as they did quite often.

While I didn't expect this, I can't say I'm surprised.
Grandma was old. She still was better off than most old people, but she was sick of being old and having to take so many pills.
We had just recently talked her out of driving, and that bummed her out big time.
Grandpa has been in a home the next town over for a few years now. Grandma visited him and loved the drive.
Having him out of their house was a major change for my grandma.
For decades her whole schedule was built around him: in the old days him getting home from the bank, him needing lunch, feeding him dinner, etc.


My grandma was beautiful when she wasn't old. Just beautiful.

I last talked to her on Easter.
I called her and lamented that we didn't have an Easter dinner. (My folks were on a trip in the South, so none of us were home for it)

We talked for ever. I talked to my grandma for an hour, maybe an hour and a half.

It seems like we talked about everything: the world, politics, right and wrong, etc.

She said she didn't think she'd be around to see much of what we were talking about.
I told her whatever she could swing would be great by me.

She worried about money and nursing homes.
I told her it wasn't a big deal. We would figure something.

I told her that we'd get our Easter dinner in a few weeks. I guess that was supposed to be thiss weekend.




I well up thinking about how happy I am that we got that one last good conversation in.
I don't know who it is: god or buddah or allah, but I really, really appreciate the chance to talk with her.
Grandma was old and could get on your nerves about how the potatoes were "absolutley the best she'd ever had", or how the cat was fucking special.
But we got to talk, and she was so awesome! No old person bullshit.



The other thing that makes me bawl is thinking about how we are going to deal with my Grandfather.
Alzheimer's affects people in different ways. My grandpa is pretty affected in some ways (language, short term memory) but is like he ever was in other ways.


He loved my grandma a lot. They were highschool sweethearts that got married at like 18. they had their 60th a couple years ago.


My grandpa cries just seeing my grandma leave the home. So we can't tell him.
We can't tell him his wife died. He'd break down everytime he remembered.

I think we should tell him she's in Europe! My grandma took a few trips to Europe in her time.
I guess grandpa didn't like to fly, he always stayed at home.



My grandma went to nursing school after all her kids were in college. She fucked her back up (fused disc?) in middle age, carring an old person she was caring for.

A big contrast: Picking up my grandma at her home, were she could barely feed herself or change the litterbox, then taking her over to my Grandpa's home, where she would kick into gear: taking care of the other old people: helping some lost person, dementia and all, back to their room, etc.




So in the end, I want to thank my grandma for making us popcorn on the stove, and telling us about all the crazy shit she and my grandpa did.

Thanks for the conersation too Grandma

Chill out with all those people you haven't seen in a long time, maybe I'll get there someday if I'm lucky, eh?