Thank the Baby Jesus
So, last night at 2 AM I made a decision that removed approximately thirty-seven kilograms of weight from my shoulders. Namely? I decided not to buy a house. Not this year, at any rate. Next year, maybe.
Take care of yourselves, kids. If you find yourself becoming so stressed out over a situation that you stop worrying about the situation and start worrying about how you’re ever going to cope with it… Then it’s time to get out.
Next year I’ll have more money and better credit, and more time to search. And, if not? Then I’ll know for sure that it wasn’t yet meant to be.
Like magic, another solution to my housing/schooling dilemma appeared before me. A much more manageable solution, that is. So I’m happy now.
Words About My Dad
I don’t talk about my family members very often on this blog, because that would remove the focus from me, of course. But, in honor of tomorrow and my increasing ability to think outside myself, I’d like to tell y’all a few things about my dad. (For the purposes of this entry and for anonymity’s sake, I will refer to him as Daddy.)
1. Daddy had some jacked-up stuff happen in his life. He was a sergeant in our Vietnam War, for one thing. People ask me where he was stationed and what he did, and I don’t really know because he doesn’t like to talk about it. All I know is a few details.
2. The scar on his foot is from stepping on a sharpened stake in the jungle. It went all the way through his boot. (I found that out when he’d had a few beers and then tried to watch a TV show about the war and it made him have a flashback.)
3. He used to play the saxophone, the flute, and the recorder before the war. Now he doesn’t.
4. He saw his best friend die.
5. He wasn’t drafted. He says he volunteered in the hopes that people who really didn’t want to go wouldn’t have to.
6. He learned some Vietnamese. He used to speak it with the convenience-store-owners in our neighborhood. One time he tried to ask for ice (“frozen water”) but instead asked for urine (“yellow water”). Vietnamese, as we all know, is hard to pronounce just right.
7. He won’t come with us to the Vietnamese restaurants.
8. But he’s always very nice to my boyfriend, who was born in Vietnam.
9. Daddy has survived the war and other tragedies, and sometimes I think that’s what’s made him a very cynical man. And yet, at the same time, he’s cynical in the wittiest way you can imagine. It doesn’t matter what annoying, awkward, or boring thing occurs – my dad will always come out with a scathingly hilarious sentence that knocks us all out. There are things my dad has said that I’ve repeated over and over again, to friends and strangers alike, for years after the fact, and with no need for poetic license. He is an endless font of cutting perceptions of his fellow man. And yet, at the same time, I can’t help but sense that he loves his fellow man, secretly, despite everything.
10. Daddy would give me anything I asked for: money, shelter, food, an unbending ear. But I don’t like to ask unless it’s an emergency. Usually, knowing that he’s there for me is enough.
11. Daddy taught me to value people for their actual personalities and strengths – not for their money or social importance. Sometimes I wonder if this tendency has made it harder for me to become filthy rich. But even if that were the case, I’d never trade my dad’s value’s for anyone else’s.
12. My dad gives me the best book plot ideas I’ve ever heard in my life. But I don’t think I’ll ever use them, because I probably couldn’t do them justice. Maybe if we’re lucky, my dad will take up writing…
13. Daddy knows how to read Tarot cards. He doesn’t think they’re a game, though. So don’t ask. Unless you’re me. And, even then – don’t ask too often.
14. When Daddy, who is single, plays pool with ladies at bars, he gives them a good game, but still lets them win. (I only saw it happen once, but my brother filled me in.)
15. Daddy, although Mexican, can pass for Iraqi or whatever Muslim ethnicity is in the hated vogue. Daddy, although well spoken in English, can pass for a man who speaks no English at all. Although these situations enrage me, Daddy keeps his sense of humor when they occur. He even has a treasury of phrases at the ready. For instance, if someone asks my dad, “Do you speak English?” he might say, “I have a smattering of the local dialect.”
16. Some people think Daddy looks nothing like me, but they are wrong. I have his eyes, his nose, and his mouth. It’s just that he’s brown and I’m beige, and he has wiry black indio hair, while I have my mother’s brown Breck Girl locks.
17. One time, before I was born, near a college campus not far from here, Daddy serenaded Mommy with Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven”. Her response was not appreciative, but he managed to marry her, anyway.
18. Daddy chose not to baptize us because he wanted us to be free to make our own religious choices. I still haven’t made any, but I’m grateful for the freedom.
19. Daddy, more than anyone I’ve ever known, can pull philosophical themes out of the worst TV shows and movies in the world.
20. Daddy taught me to speak in tangents. The older I get, the more I appreciate his.
21. Daddy reads this blog every day.
Happy Fathers’ Day, y’all. Feel free to make a meme of it and tell me about your dads.
