Our Childhood, Our Home...

So, I've been dealing with my normal fear that my current state is going to stick around for a while.  Which is fine, I suppose, as most of my free time has has been taken over by the job.  I've been taking work home with me and going through it all manually, which doubles the time needed and increases the general frustration and ennui I have for calling customers and getting yelled at by them, then the sales people, and then the overlords in the mid-west.

I've taken to daydreaming about a few of the nicer aspects of the job.  This amounts mostly to a paycheck and insurance, but it's something(s?) to focus on while the Trip drifts farther away.  I was even thinking about fixing up the basement, upping the rent to my folks, and having something like my own place.

Then the storm came.

One foot of water across 1/8 an acre and twenty hours later, and a lot of shit was gone.  All of the books I had read between middle school and my first attempt at college.  90% of the CDs.  56% of the DVDs.  Clothing.  All of the furniture I inherited from previous generations of the McGovern family, to be used once I have my own place.  Cherry wood, almost perfectly suited to my visual preferences - glossy black with dull red centers, a dining room set.

A large chunk of my past and one possible future are now in various stages of being chucked out.

The picture of my grandmother and I...

My parents have had crying fits.  I've had dreams where I'm drowning and unable to exhale and just die.  I have a three day weekend of writing and hauling memories out of the basement, and moving the salvage up to the attic.

I don't really know how I feel about this.  Depressed, I suppose - but I honestly don't know.

Defend the River End (On Brothers)...

After the match on 8/22, my brother and I walked to the metro station. The whole weekend had been a series of misadventures and groan inducing strangeness, and my normal habit of leaving somewhere just before it goes to hell was in full swing. We were fairly quiet on the ride back to his apartment - The Union had lost to D.C. United, and I wasn't really looking forward to the multiple state drive home. But it was a pleasant weekend all the same, as most of our meetings have been recently.

At some point, I guess, every set of siblings goes through the shift - the dislike of youth gives way to amiable companionship of adulthood or vice-versa. Yeah, there are still the moments when we look at each other and wonder how in the hell we could be related - but those are only during moments when...well, when I don't know. I know he wonders at it whenever I let some of my demons out and let the reigns the modern world slip off a little. For me, it's every time I look at him.

I am short where he is tall, slight where he is broad, and steam like where he is a rock. I have few friends, he has various groups of drinking buddies, gym spotters, and roommates he gets along with and watches shows in the company of. I don't think I'm funny or smart - he thinks he's hilarious and knows that more often than not he's the smartest one in the room (and failing that, he can fake it). He's Catholic, I'm...who the hell even knows anymore? He remembers me as the weird kid. I remember one time when he ended a brawl by sitting on my head and farting.

In our youth we fought to the point of putting hole in walls, broke furniture, and one of us threw the other off of a eleven foot gravel mound behind a neighbor's garage. We also sang together, tossed pop-culture references, and went to Phillies games. We watched each other's backs during legal and mental troubles. And we've both given up things for the sake of the other that they'll never know about.

I've accepted all of those things, and consider it all as needing not to be spoken between the two of us.

Which is why I was shocked all to hell when Rick said that it's nice being able to hang out. This was on 9/4, at the match between the Union and the K.C. Wizards, as we walked across PPL's parking lot to where the Sons of Ben were holding the tailgate. "It's cool, you know? We never got to do it before."

I said "yes" like I always do when someone's right. "You mean the first twenty years of your life." A cruel thing to say, I know, but go back and read the part about him farting on my head - some things leave scars. But, yes, it is quite nice, entering a stadium shoulder to shoulder with my brother, and standing in River End with him and chanting for ninety minutes along with the rest of the SOBs in the Snake Pit. There's a lot we don't say. Family, you know. It's complicated. But then, there we were, making Son's of Ben history by chanting "99 bottles of beer on the wall, 99 bottles of beer! Peter Vermes, give us your keys! 98 bottles of beer on the wall!" all the way down to "No more bottles of beer on the wall".

During the next game we'll be wherever we are - he in D.C., myself here. We'll trade texts about the game, and the Phillies games, and the Eagles once they start back up. And then, at some later point, one of us will take a trip, and we'll end up talking about comic books, movies, and then chanting at the River End.

The Touble With 'You'...

My house has a visitor. You. Obviously not you the reader, but 'You' the cat. Currently, You is making its home under our deck, and our attempts to catch it have usually ended in MASC (mutually assured slapstick comedy) of people in varying degrees of out of shapeness - be it dad's inability to move beyond a cantering limp, my own smoke addled lungs, or [deleted due to fear of mother taking comment the wrong way], or You's problem with spatial relationships - oh, sure, the little bugger can slip through a crack in the deck, but get it near a fence and I'm pretty sure it'll be concussed in five seconds.

We've guessed it's age at about six weeks, and I've named it 'You' because of my affection for the Discworld books...and also because it' probably the only nice thing I've said while chasing it (names of 'Fucker,' 'bastard,' and 'whore-spawned piece of shit - we're trying to help!' were ruled out en mass). Also, the family has taken to leaving out cat food (for kitten ages!) and either water or milk in an animal traveling box. All of this in the vague hope that at some point the cat's head will be so over taken by the concept of a meal that it won't notice one of us flipping the box up right and closing the lid.

Yeah - we're not very good at this. We're dog people by nature - literally, the only one of us that can't stand cats (dad) is also the only one who isn't allergic to them. The rest of us like them well enough - or, as is my case, have a standing detente with feline kind - but have trouble breathing around them, our eyes get watery, and we die. If it weren't for the fact that we taking it upon ourselves to protect little things, we would just leave the food out of a weird sense of pity. But as it stands we're warding off owls, hawks, foxes, and our own dogs in hope that we can catch You and it to a vet, or at least keep You alive during the summer months because sweet Maria it's hot if you're wearing a fur coat.

It's the dogs that worry me most, frankly - they're greyhounds, trained with factory like efficiency to chase after small furry things. And they're good enough to occasionally catch birds, let alone turning my back yard into a bunny abattoir. So, I'm thinking that unless You has got claws like Wolverine, and the placidity of a moose staring down a Mack truck, I'm not making it's odds out to be that good.

Then there's the other question, that of "What in the hell are we going to do with You?". Even though I'll admit to growing fond of the thing, we can't keep it. Our new tenants have expressed an interest in You, (wonder how they'll react to the name) but beyond supplying the occasional tin of Fancy Feast, they aren't really taking part in the grand quest we've undertaken for You. Yeah, yeah - it makes sense, what with You living on our side of the house, but my point still stands.

But hopefully I'll have some pictures of You, or maybe even have a picture of me and You by the end of the Summer. Hopefully the poor bastard gets wise. Or I have a fear that this time next year there will be a mess of Yous romping through the yard, in which case I'll be herding cats.

Which some how fits in eerily well with my life.