Tricky, Tricky, Combat Baby
Sunday, June 18, 2006
Caught
Clean with my mother this afternoon. It’s the let’s-try-giving-Yoko-Ono-a-soul film, with cameos by Metric and Tricky. It wasn’t bad. Nothing mind-blowing, but the cameos made me happy enough. I’m easy to please.
I find it so hard to show my mother that I do like spending time with her. For some reason, like some given goblin, I can’t help but feel wrong whenever we spend more than five minutes together. This apprehension of mine escalates by the second, so it usually wrecks the mood whenever we go out, which isn’t even often. Today, though, I think I did a good job of keeping the bitterness down. We had a good, civil afternoon together.
Despite her histrionics and low self-esteem, my mother’s pretty cool. She has this amazing respect for quirk and, dare I say it, seems to be more stuck in the Nineties than I am. One of her most treasured possessions is her Salvador Dali pencil case. Her ukay-ukay radar is pretty strong, and she always saves the best pieces for me. She makes her own clothes and accessories, all of which reflects an unusual sense of aesthetics. I’m very lucky that way. This can never overpower all my anxieties towards her, though, but I do love her very much.
My father’s pretty cool, too. From the few positive memories I have of him, anyway. My taste in music came from him (my first Oasis and Suede cassettes were nicked from his collection), as well as my love for photography. And because he was so anal with his sound system and SLRs, I’m anal with my own stuff, too, although I’d never go so far as to beat up my own kids over them like he did. I know what they say about repeating the sins of our fathers, so I’ll take my precautions.
I don’t know if I love my father. He’s done so much harm to me, to my siblings, to my mother. I can’t help but see him as such an asshole because, well, he is. I do know, however, that his heartlessness has helped to make me a person I actually respect. I will give him that. I suppose that when you make it out of hell, and feel more self-assured because you did, you can’t help but feel a little grateful to the person who tossed you there in the first place. Happy Father’s Day, then.
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Goodbye to, for better or worse, the most perplexing summer I’ve ever had. Mind’s been melted, body’s been bashed, soul’s been scrubbed to a frantic sheen.
Senior year starts tomorrow.
posted by marguerite @ 8:41 PM
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