Every day is Groundhog Day here in El Paso. Wednesday, Saturday, what’s the difference?
This week’s post for Poetry Wednesday is a poem I wrote in 1990.
when i go home
whenever
i go back to my hometown
to visit my family
i always refuse
to go out for coffee
or dinner
or to the supermarket
because i just know
that if i do
number one: my family
will get money out of me
and number two: i’ll see
somebody i grew up with
or worked with
or something
and then i’ll have to quickly
turn my head
and pretend i never saw them
I know the feeling. I get that every time I go outside. LOL.
Wow. When you look back at this, seventeen or eighteen years later, what comes to mind? Is it any different now?
@ Little Miss – At least I’m not alone.
@ MBMQ – No, nothing changes. I could have written it today.
Guess you must be that thoughtful, generous, nice, considerate one that always offers to pick up the tab.
@David – I am, but always against my will.
Another reason why I killed my family.
Just kidding.
I was acquitted.
I know this feeling very well!!!
In the spirit of poetry wednesday I added tristan’s poem to my blog. 🙂
@ Bound and Gags – I posted a comment but it vanished. What I said was, Thank god you mentioned that you’d already been acquitted. Because somebody actually did that today and for a brief amount I was scared it was you.
@ Dragonfly – I just read Tristan’s poem and it’s just beautiful. Buck wrote this poem for me a long time ago, and he still recites it. It’s interactive performance art, so I am called upon to participate:
Who always loves you? (“You do.”)
Who always will? (“You.”)
If anyone ever disputes it,
I’ll fill his mouth with swill. (“Excellent. Thanks.”)
poetic genius!! hahaha… that was cute.
Sigh…interactive performance love poetry is soooo romantic.
haha I love Buck’s poem! Although…I’m pretty sure I’ve heard him recite it to Stella before though, (you know when I met him that time he was living on cape on the rediculously fancy cummaquid heights place… or maybe it was up by Riverview school. I can’t remember.) haha Stella would lovingly gaze up at buck and answer too. In stella barks. haha just kidding… maybe. 😉
@ Mama – Yes, poetic genius is one way to describe it.
@ MBMQ – Interactive love poetry is the only way to go.
@ Dragon – He loves Stella and I accept that.
Sorry for my briefness. We just lost the Super Bowl and I’m pretty sure I’ve gone into toxic shock. DO NOT even try and comfort me. I wish to never speak of the 2008 Super Bowl again.
Haha, I try to do that when I’m IN my home, and you can imagine how awkward it can be when you peel away to the bathroom hoping no one saw you 😉
@ Romi – I think Buck does this also. Sometimes he’s home for hours before I know it. He sneaks in while I’m not looking, and then come to find out he’s been here all day. He’s been hiding from me inside our house.
another misplaced message but tristan & I have been debating about this video on you tube… it says hospital sequence from Frida but we can’t figure out if it’s about Frida the artist or not so i figured I’d ask the only frida person I know… you.
if that doesn’t work try this:
then I found this…
I know the feeling, sometimes, even though I still live in my hometown I pretend that I don’t see people. Then I feel like a bitch.
Nice change of topic dragonfly!
[In super-loud Home Simpson “whisper”: IX-NAY ON THE OOPER BOWL SAY! ]
That first video reminded me of Street of Crocodiles by the Quay brothers. Ultra creepy. Worse than sea monkeys even.
In conclusion … I like Buck’s romantic doggerel too. Nothing like a good mouthful of swill to say “Love ya babe!”
@ David – haah… just trying to lighten the mood! The first video was a Quay brother video 🙂 definitely more creepy than the sea monkeys… HEY what ever happened to the sea monkeys?
everybody loves mouthful’s of swill!
@ Dragonfly – I loved those! The hospital sequence is from the movie about Frida Kahlo starring Salma Hayek, and it was done by the Brothers Quay. I have the movie, and I also have a bunch of Brothers Quay movies (they make little shorts that are very cool). Thanks for linking these, I never thought of looking for them on YouTube!
@ David – The first one was done by the Quay brothers. I love their stuff. Thanks for the link, by the way. I thought I had a boxed set of their shorts, but my daughter has them.
And yes, Buck is very romantic. He’s quite a poet.
I feel the same way about people I went to school with. I hate seeing them and will avoid it all costs. I know why but it always seems silly after the fact…
@ Lucky – I know, it does seem silly, but I hate to see them sooo much. I went through a phase where I hated seeing them, right?, so I’d run up and shout, “HI! HI! It’s me!” just so they couldn’t do it to me first.
HAHAHA 🙂 Not me…I hide in the clothes racks or run to another aisle. I will grab my purse and leave the buggy. It annoys me to see people I used to know.
@ Lucky – I guess that’s good. It gives validity to:
“I’ll see you later.”
“Not if I see you first.”
Wendy ~ I could have written that. (not as well) But, that is exactly what it is like to go home.
Nothing quite like hearing that someone is fixing a big dinner for you when you come to town, and then finding out you need to go to the store and buy the dinner first!
egads… But, it is all love I suppose.
@ betme – It’s kind of disappointing, isn’t it? To realize you’re a better “hostess” than your family. You know it’s bad when you drive 60 miles to see them and you want a drink of water when you get there, and discover they’d like one too and have been waiting for you to get there so you can go to the store and buy some bottled water, and bread, and spaghetti, and oh maybe just a small box of pastries for dessert.
It’s gets to be like, Well, I’d like to see my family but I’ve only $10 on me, so …
😀 I also have the relative that asks to “borrow” $20 for Christmas and then use the money to buy ME a gift.
Good grief, a better gift would be not asking me for money that you will never pay back. Obligation gift giving is such a pain.
@ betme – You expect to pay for your own gifts when your kids are small, I mean, how else can you teach them the joy of giving? And you want them to realize Christmas is a give-and-receive situation. But when grownups do it, well, that just ain’t right. 🙂
You guys make me feel better about the fact that I never went to a single high school reunion (graduated 1974)! This despite the fact that I still dream every year or three of my first heartbreak, a high school sweetheart I lost after going off to college … It would have been like Grosse Pointe Blank.
And on family, nobody but they can so fully disappoint, nor be so fully disappointed by, us. When grownups do it, well, then they’re not really grownups.
This is such a candid expression. I love it.
Unfortunately, I still live in the same town I was born in, so I “run into” people all the time. 😦
@ Brian – That’s why I’d never live in the town I grew up in. I’d be doing all my shopping in the middle of night in a big hooded sweatshirt and sunglasses. Like the Unabomber. 🙂