caught him in some hole w/ a pistol somewhere. he looks a lot like mr. krause--hair was all over the place, beard was like 5 miles long. they keep showing video of them givin him a medical exam, lookin all in his mouth. & it looks like they checkin him for lice or some shit, all in his head. he looks so feeble & weak & humiliated. if it wasn't for the whole crazy evil inhumane dictatorous crimes against humanity stuff, i'd feel bad for the way they plasterin this on my tv.
guess this means bush is finna get re-elected, huh?
life just keeps gettin crazier, both collectively & personally.
boy, have i got a rant/story for u.
i'm @ home. got home thursday evening, & i guess im glad to be here. @ least im not at school, which is definitely a good thing. but man, u remember all that mess w/ my granny bein depressed & my mama tryna make some moves w/ the house & them fightin all the freakin time? it's so much worse now. & u remember my cousins that passed & how hard it's been to get over them? it just keeps gettin worse. im makin no sense.
let's start at the very beginning, a very good plaaaace to staaart (c) whatchacallit in 'the sound of music' (<-- i need to watch that soon, btw)
so we lost ty & dee i guess, 2, 3 yrs ago. they were brothers. they were my cousins & my brother's childhood friends, best friends even. i'll tell their stories in full one day, but the important thing to remember regarding them & this story is that my brother was devastated, as was my granny, cause losin 2 grandkids can't be an easy thing. we're all still hurt and very very confused about it all. & just when i think that maybe we're startin to heal, we lose another one.
my brother lives in innanapolis now, & we've got some family there. DJ & some other folk i don't know. all cousins. one cousin, Brian, was shot & killed at a nightclub a few days/nights ago. over a parking space from what i understand. now-
take a 28 yr old blk man who still hurts over losin 2 blk men he loved not 3 yrs ago. take away from him another blk male cousin, friend & confidant, taken by another blk man. imagine what he hasta be feelin right now, man. imagine the disillusion that he must feel w/ life as a blk man. my mama said she talked to him the day he found out about it & he was really, really upset. i spoke to him yesterday & i cld still hear it in his voice.
im so fuckin scared for him, man.
im so scared of losing him & anybody else i love. the way ty & dee went out showed me that the thought that "it'll never happen to us" is complete bullshit, so i always fear the worst. evrytime my mama tells me she's gonna hop in the car to go to the store or sumthin i fear that she won't come back & i pray feverishly til i can't see the car anymore. i do that w/ evrysingle person i know & love. even the simple shit like walkin down the street. im scared my ppl are gonna be taken from me in some other crazy way.
my granny cried a bit. she was upset, but nowhere near like when ty & dee passed.
brian was the grandson of her sister-in-law, catherine. that, of course, makes catherine the brother of my grandfather who me & my mama nem have no contact with today. i think its great that even after my grandaddy ran from granny & her kids she still stayed close to catherine & her brother marion.
marion died yesterday.
my granny was very very upset.
an old girlfriend of marion's called and told her over the phone; i wld have rather she told my mother so we cld tell her and be ready for the emotion to follow. we were in the basement, me & my granny. my mama came down & once she heard what happened she cried a little too, then said she was goin to my aunt pauline's to tell her the news. i freaked out, man--when she found out that dee had passed we had to take her to the hospital because she was so overcome, hyperventilating, clutching her chest. i was scared that was gonna happen again & i wldn't know what to do.
but she was okay.
i sat with her on the couch as she cried, holding her hand while she turned her head & face away from me. i aint know what to say, so i just sat with her for about 5 minutes, probably even less than that. then she got up and continued doing whatever she was doing when the phone rang, sobbing quietly. i told her that maybe she shld sit down & rest a minute, cause i aint want her knees to give out or anything.
'naw, baby, i cain't sit right now. i gotta keep movin.'
then it hit me that that's why she's been the trouble she's been these past few yrs, w/ overexherting herself and climbin on shit & walkin to the store alone when she K N O W S she's got bad hips & legs & degenerating spinal disks in her back. she's still reeling from losing two grandsons and her last living brother, uncle claude, like a year ago. i guess idle hands breed idle minds, & idle minds give way to thinking and remembering all the stuff u'd rather forget.
i understand a little better now.
but my mama doesn't.
they still go at it every.fucking.day and i'm so sick of hearing it.
im caught in the middle again. especially since my mama's renovating the kitchen, getting rid of all the old stuff & bringin in new. of course all the old stuff belongs to my granny, who is a little too used to being in control over everything. in her old age she can't do the stuff she used to, & i can understand that getting rid of all her things, stuff that was once beautiful, stuff she worked so hard for to get on her own, is like getting rid of her. telling her she can't live anymore.
she still tries to do stuff around the house, most of which--like stealing cigarettes & smokin em when she thinks no one knows, hamering shit, dragging huge heavy iron cast furniture through the house & all around the back deck, climbing up on a gotdamn LADDER to hang stuff & clean stuff--all of this stuff she's done in like the last month, walking to the store alone w/ bad legs that can give out at any given time--can be potentially hazardous to her health. shit, it can kill her, u know? but she won't listen, & when my mother gets on her for always being in the way and not letting her work & doing shit she has no business, my granny can't see that its only cause she's worried about her health.
man, ive told this story before. retelling it is pissin me off as we speak.
the bottom line is that none of them want to compromise, especially my mama.
i dont think i blame either of them.
they fight over stupid shit.
yesterday me, my mama & my neice are on our way out to Krogers to do some grocery shoppin. my granny loves to go shoppin & loves to have her way all the freakin time, so she decides--not asks, but decides--that my mama, who was tired & didn't feel well & didn't wanna be out in the snow, was gonna drop her off at winn-dixie and then we'd go to krogers and come back and pick her up from winn-dixie when we were done. my granny can't walk too well & shldn't be doing so by herself, so she refused to take her for that reason, and because goin to 2 separate stores is just dumb. but my granny wldn't bend. nor wld my mama. so they fightin. screamin at each other, gettin mad, gettin smart. me & tiara went to wait in the car while they went back & forth.
usually id try to mediate & forge some kinda compromise but it never works, man. im caught in the middle. if i speak out on one's behalf the other feels like she's being ganged up on. when i try to tell one how the other's feeling and why she acts the way she does, it just doesn't get across. im talkin to brick walls. im so fuckin helpless and i hate this situation but i can't fix it. dave told me that sometimes u can't fix evrything, & sometimes u just gotta let things play out the way they're gonna. that's what im tryin to do. im so tired of tryna fix it & its not working anyway.
so my mama gets in the car. i sit silent, staring ahead, not sayin what im thinkin but apparently my mama can feel what's goin on in my head.
'okay, go tell your grandmother we're goin to winn-dixie.'
no. she won't go.
'she'll listen to you. go see if u can get her to come on.'
it's not gonna work. u know how she is, she's not gonna come w/ us.
'tracy, PLEASE. go tell her to get her butt out here.'
i get out, slam the door, stomp up the steps & soften my steps after i open the door, steppin light & lookin for my granny. i found her in the bathroom, sitting on the edge of the tub crying. i didn't know what to do, like earlier, so i sat next to her w/ my arm around her, pissed & tryin not to cry.
she didn't wanna come w/ us, like i knew she wldn't.
i just wanna leave.
i dont wanna be here at all.
if i cld run away tomorrow, no, right now, i wld.
i wanna go find my sweetie & lay in his arms for the rest of forever or til this shit dies down, whichever comes first. i wanna be made to forget about myself & all this shit that i can't fix.
life is so unfair. we're a good people, damnit. we dont deserve this sorta shit. i can't think of anybody who does. cept maybe george bush. i dunno what to do. we're all so hurt & racked w/ death & confused and angry at something but we dont really know what so we're lashing out at evrything & evrybody. my granny just wants to live but my mama won't let her. my mama just wants to live but my granny's standin in the way.
and here i am in the middle lookin for an escape route.
im leaving the week of new yr's eve. my mama wants to come w/ me cause she's got a bad case of escapism too. i hate that i dont want her to come w/ me, but i really don't; i dont want any reminders of this place for that whole week. whenever im w/ my granny she's talkin all sorta depressin shit, how many ppl in our family are sick or got health problems, how my mama never lets her do nuthin, how her legs hurt so bad (and when she starts that i just wanna go DUH that's what happens when you CLIMB LADDERS at 77 w/ bad arthritis and degenerative disk disease). when im w/ my mama all she talks about it my granny & the stress she's causin her. i try to listen, cause evrybody needs an outlet, but i can't anymore, man. it's gettin to me.
i had no one to talk to about all this yesterday til my darlin called at like 2. i talked his ear off a/b all this for what felt like 3 hrs straight. i felt so much better. i hung up the phone knowin that tomorrow was prolly gonna be a lot like that day was & i wanted to cry, but i didn't.
im at my wit's end, man.
stuff like this really makes me question my faith.
we've done no wrong to anyone, u know? what kinda god wld let good ppl suffer like this?
i still pray a lot.
but i cant tell if im really expectin a miracle or if i just do it out of force of habit.
i cant wait til these 2 weeks are done.
wish i had sumthin happier to report.
