2001-07-17
I just found out my uncle has lung cancer. I don't really know him. He just moved to Victoria 3 months ago. That was the first time I met him. My family is having a crisis. My grandmother had nightmares for two years and cried daily after her poodle died.
My sister is pregnant again. She had a miscarriage about six months ago. We're really hoping that this one sticks in there. I was pregnant shortly after my step-brother died. Life comes with death in my world.
My trip was fabulous. Ani was her usual self. So crazy and lovable. She sang mostly songs from the new album and I don't know them but it was still great. It was outside and at a park and it was amazing. There were mountains, and ocean and driftwood and seaweed smell, a fabulous sunset, ponds with ducks and reeds. I could have stayed there forever.
I visited my Dad and stepmom for three days and then moved on to Big C's sister's house. It was his mom's 60th birthday so we had dinner at the fancy restaurant, drinks at the Legion, The Terminal, and then on to Mugs and Jugs where we watched some strippers. Nothing like watching the objectified women in her element. From Ani to the strippers. It was a full spectrum weekend.
My Dad's house is upper class. Everything matches and everyone is proper and polite. It makes me feel inferior. How can you be good enough when someone else always has something better. And they only have something better so you will feel inferior. I realized this weekend that I prefer a house of poor people. Where you help yourself to whatever you want in the kitchen, the towels never match and no one puts on make-up before they come out of the bedroom in the morning. It's real. Instead of drinking martinis on a $3000 deck you drink Kokanee out of a can around the back end of a rusted-out Chrysler. And nobody gives a rat's ass what you look like.
Some boys came down from the reservation with 74 Salmon they had caught that morning. They stayed for beers and a couple hoots and some fried fish for dinner and then drove back up North. There were dirty kids flying around on tire swings and ambulances at the house next door. And everyone seemed content and not one inkling pretentious.
Middle class is not such a good place to be. Judgement sits at the dinner table where you can't eat too much for fear of looks from across the table and always make sure your napkin is on your lap.
I love my family but sometimes I wish they were poor.
