Better Things To Do

robotkitty:

“So, this is my life. And I want you to know that I am both happy and sad and I’m still trying to figure out how that could be.”

For Christmas 2003 I gifted this book to five different friends.

I’m buying a copy for my nephew this year.

GPOYW

The jacket I am wearing in this picture belonged to one of my favorite uncles.  Well, I love all of my uncles.  They’re all fantastic, hilarious, special people who have special places not only in MY world, but in THE world.

However, the particular uncle that this jacket belonged to is now dearly departed.  All night long I was telling people that I was wearing a family heirloom.  I also incorrectly referred to him as my great-uncle.  Mistakes.  The roots are a bit misplaced on my mother’s side so forgive me.

If we’re going to get technical about things - he’s my second cousin.  My parents taught me a thing or two about respecting my elders though.  It didn’t feel appropriate to call him by his first name without a title preceding it.  Especially with such a large age gap between us.

My uncle served for the United States Army (Company C, 2nd Battalion, 4th Brigade) in the Vietnam War.  From there he went into a career with the United States Postal Service.  I’m a bit foggy on all of the numbers, but I know he worked more than 20 years for working at various positions there, the majority of his years spent as a mail carrier.  He retired, but never received his pension.  He never married.

Thinking of where I am at my age in comparison to my uncle at this age, I feel that I’ll never come close to his personal achievements.  We have certain things in common.  I know that in our lifetimes we both lived long enough to bury a sibling.  Who knows, maybe I’ll be screwed by some corporate/government entity and not receive my pension.  Maybe I won’t get married either.

I have no doubt that he led an incredible life that he never spoke much about.  I know he certainly didn’t speak of it to me.  In talking to my other uncles/his brothers, I’m not sure if they knew much about him either.  I don’t care much for the way he passed away, or the quality of his life for his last years.  I wish we all could have done more.  We all cared for him though.  We all loved him.

When I was in my early teens my parents and I visited him in Santa Barbara, CA where he lived.  I remember he took me to the (now gone) record store Down On Haley, which was run by pop-punk band The Ataris’ founder Kris Roe.  That was really significant to 13 or 14-year-old me.  That somebody gave a shit enough about me to take me to some stupid record store.  Maybe he knew that memory would last me forever.  He even shilled out $5 to buy me the vinyl 7’ Assorted Jelly Beans/Vandals split that I wanted.  That I still own.  We spread his ashes out to sea off the coast of Santa Barbara.

There’s so much more, but I don’t have a way with words.  So nothing more.

My great-nephew is fast becoming my favorite person to talk with.  I love chatting/texting/IMing all of you, but when it comes to face-to-face interaction, I’m all about little David.

I refuse to “baby talk” at him though.  I feel that babies hardly have any true freedoms and thus don’t need adults incessantly cooing at them.  That has to be patronizing.  I know that it’s (supposedly) good to talk to babies (I guess it helps them developmentally?) so I find myself having lots one-sided conversations with him.  I can tell when he’s having a hard time understanding me, so I throw him a bone and animate some of my expressions.  I nod my head “yes” and shake my head “no”, that sort of thing.

I greet him formally, addressing him by his first name, followed by the time of day.

Example: “Good ‘morrow, David!”

Then I ask him how his day is coming along.  To which he usually replies “Goooo”.

This could be gibberish and weird 4-month-old-baby-vocalizations, but I know that he means “Good”.  The only thing preventing him from proper pronunciation is his lack of incisors.  Or molars.  Or any teeth at all.

I then go onto to describe to him the outfit that he is wearing.  I swear the only stage of life that anyone can pull off the horizontal stripes is infancy.  I will then ask him what he wants to learn about, and sometimes he leans forward to try and swallow my nose, or he just spews on me.  That lets me know that he wants to either learn about different body parts, or he wants to be put down.  So I then point out and describe the functions of any visible body parts - nose, ear, mouth, hand, fingers, etc.

I could be using this opportunity to learn him all sorts of misinformation, which has always been a sort of dream of mine…  I would love for a kid to grow up thinking that zombies are real, spider-pigs exist, and that it is the utensil you eat your beans with that gives you gas, not the bean itself.

Alas, I can not do that.  I feel some sort of responsibility.  Which is silly!  He’s not even mine!  In fact, he doesn’t even belong to the woman in this picture (that’s his great-aunt/my sister).

He is hers though.  He is mine.  One day he will belong to the world.  I hope he can fill the world with love.