solitaire

today i rode a train back to the city from lancaster, pennsylvania. i love riding the train. lancaster is amish country. i wish i could tell a story about the amish family i spent thanksgiving with, but that'd be a lie. a good one, but a lie nonetheless. the "normal" [whatever that means] part of lancaster is good, but only for a few days. my mom's best friend and her family live there. they're like my second family. i'm comfortable with them like i am with family - help myself to whatever i need, don't have to talk/entertain each other constantly, call each other out on saying/doing stupid things. they have a daughter who's 35 and married with 2 kids. we've established that i don't like children, but hers...well, let's just say i fancied them much better before they could talk. and their other daugher is a year younger than me, but we are like night and day. even with all differences, i do love them. like family. however, after a few days of being force fed butter-soaked cuisine, going to bed at 10pm, and hearing about how so-and-so is a "neat christian", i'm ready to return to the land of smoking and drinking.

i did a bit of transcription work on the train [side job i took over moonlighting]. for some reason i decided to take a break and play solitaire, which i haven't done in probably 5 years. i used to be able to win every time, or at least that's my recollection. but today i sucked. bad. i started over probably 13 times before i won.
wouldn't it be nice if life worked that way? or does it?

ordinary day

All of my life
I’ve been a fool
Breaking myself
To follow your rules
And I beat myself up
When I can’t find the strength
When I can’t seem to change
The harder I think
Let me get this straight
Let me feel the weight of an ordinary day
‘Cause I’ve tried to heal this thing
But you let me slip away
When I run away
You just let me run
And I take it too far
By the time I am done
And I understand
I’m thick in the skull
But I’m learning to love
The sound of your call
Let me get this straight
Let me feel the weight of an ordinary day
‘Cause I’ve tried to heal this thing
But you let me slip away
I fear rejection and I up my defenses
I look for healing in the human touch
When will I learn to face the consequences?
Of trying to love you and failing so much
I’m trying to love you but I’m failing so much
Let me get this straight
Let me feel the weight of an ordinary day
‘Cause I’ve tried to heal this thing
But you let me slip away
Let me slip away
Over and over and over again
I’m biting the hand that’s pulling me in
Over and over and over again
Believe in the hand that’s pulling me in
-Griffin House

rossells [part 3]

part 3 is the part where, after enduring a chaotic hour of the dallas fenlaws packing up a suburban full of kid gear, we traveled south on I-35 to the motherland. austin. god bless austin. as soon as we hit georgetown, my mind begins to race with memories, mostly from the 17th year of my life. for some reason that year always stands out [slash haunts me]. we reached the pink brick fortress that has been the austin fenlaw home for 20 years now and were greeted by becky. i received a quick hello, then she jumped to hug/hold/kiss/smother her grandkids. this is par for the course these days. i don't mind one bit.

reid joined us the next night. i went to pick him up at the airport, as per usual. i saw him coming down the stairs, and we began making our usual dumbass "happy to see you" faces at each other. as he neared the bottom of the stairs, he barked at me which invoked hilarious reactions from those around. to say reid is the spice of our family is an understatement. everything's more fun when he's around, simply put.

whenever the three kids are in the same place at the same time, we quickly revert back to the same shit we did when we were little and living under the same roof - punching, teasing, tickling, mocking. it's as though time hasn't passed. at least twice a day i was on the ground squirming away from a double team [rossells. long story]. we just hung out, played with the kiddos, watched football, played pool, and laughed. a lot. friday night we had a party for dad's 60th birthday full of hyde park people who were beside themselves that they were getting to see all three of us at once, my sister-in-law, niece, and nephew being the icing on the cake. saturday my grandparents and my [insane former-hippie] aunt joined us for more celebrating. then saturday night reid and i headed downtown to meet some friends. anytime we're together, we must hype [booze]. it's a fact of life. but to our pleasant surprise, we were joined by our older brother and his wife. she kept bumming cigarettes off me, to which i gladly obliged. it was a funny night. i even ran into my beloved partner in crime from high school.

sunday we all went to the big baptist church together. a pew full of fenlaws. what more could you want? after some good texas barbeque, the afternoon brought goodbyes as we all went our separate ways.

family has always been important to me, but i somehow realize this more and more with each passing reunion.