What I thought would happen

Yesterday I made Alex go to the Bronx. Alone. She tried to use that as proof I don't care about her. "You're sending me to a dangerous place all by myself?!" Yes. In broad daylight, with a cell phone and pepper spray, at the same age I was when we lived there and I walked around all the time by myself. It's no more dangerous now than it was then. 

You think Aunt Elaine is so great? Fine. Go visit and ask if you can live with her. Enjoy living in Mott Haven with a filthy hoarder.

Alex thought she should bring her something. "Then go use your money to buy her some boxed shit. No way in hell is that woman getting any of my money." One box of No Pudge Fudge Brownies later, Alex headed out with a final warning. "If I get jumped, you're going to be sorry." I'm already sorry about this whole thing. It's still hard to wrap my head around her remembering things so differently than they happened.

About three hours later Alex was back without the brownies. I'd gone to work so wasn't home and didn't talk to her, but Danielle did. Alex lasted for 20 minutes wandering around our old housing project before she gave up, spooked, and fled west back to the city. Danielle (who keeps switching loyalties) told me the best thing was Alex's, "I've never been so happy to be in Harlem!" statement. 

Yeah, Aunt Elaine moved. Alex couldn't find her. Some crazy crackwhore demanded the brownies. Good. There you go. That's how much she cares about you - so much that she kicked you out, never told you when or where she moved, and couldn't care less that you can't find her. I hope that totally fits in with your fantasy of the reunion.

Killing plans

I know this girl from when I lived in the Bronx. Her mother was always sick - that's what I remember about her. Liver failure. Last weekend I ran into Jazmyn. Her mother's going to die. Two years or less. Jazmyn always smoked way more weed than me, and did tons of hard drugs on top of that. She doesn't look good. Like, unhealthy. Like a junkie. Because she is one now.

Jazmyn was always super close with her mom. When she told me her mom's dying Jaz got tears in her eyes which caused me to also. She told me her plan. She's going to kill herself after her mother dies. She has a boyfriend, but said she's not all that attracted to him, the sex isn't good at all, and they never do anything or go out. Jazmyn's never had a real job.

I am not really sure what to do with this. I asked Jazmyn to get in touch with me before she kills herself. Hopefully by then I'll have thought of something.

Being an alcoholic

A high school friend sent me a link to another friend's Twitter page to see something we were talking about. I noticed in another spot she'd written something like, "If I don't drink for more than three days I start getting skitchy." If you can't go a certain number of days without feeling it physically, then you're an alcoholic. We talked with her about it, and she was very ... unconcerned about herself. There's all this stuff about alcoholism and genetics and stuff but she really made it sound like a total choice. But who chooses to be an alcoholic? Her boyfriend drinks even more than she does, and used to be a hardcore drug user. She used to do as much weed as me. I have a very take it or leave it attitude about it. If it's around, maybe I'll have some. I never seek it out, don't grow my own. Haven't bought since 10th grade. Now she won't even leave the house without lighting up first. 

What is wrong with everybody? I'm not saying everyone should be going to Yale or anything, but having your kid taken away? I mean like that's really totally failing at parenting. Publicly saying you're an alcoholic and then when friends express concern claiming it's better than your mom who was a waitress who sold drugs on the side? Better than that is not good enough. Pointing out you're better than someone else should not be your standard.

If everybody acts like they don't care about their lives hurtling in a downward spiral then why should I? So I won't. Don't call me to help find out if you can mail your daughter shit at her new foster home. Don't ask me to call and wake you in case your alarm didn't shake you out of your drunken stupor. I have two sisters to wake up, that's enough.

I just don't understand. Why is everyone I know a fuckup?

Prom, geek style

Danielle is going to her prom. She got asked by two boys at school, but they were too geeky even for her. She decided to ask the boy who is the dog-walker for our neighbors. He is a freshman in art school. He's like Matt Saracen in hotness. Alex is so happy Dani's going with a legitimately hot boy that she is being supportive and has been donating all the money she earns towards prom. Josh asked if he can give Al replacement money after the prom, so I am thinking about it. I don't want her to turn into someone who will give away her money just because she knows someone will replace it.

Here is why Dani is a geek: she has a prom spreadsheet. Oh yes. A fucking spreadsheet. For the prom.

Spiral down

Today I was talking with a girl I was friends with in high school. Um. Life is not really going well for pretty much everybody we know.

This one girl had a baby in 11th grade. So the kid was at camp on Friday and the girl, her mom, overslept by two hours and didn't pick her up, so CPS took her. We didn't have time to talk a long time so we're going to get together this week and I hope she explains more because right now it's hard to understand. How do you go from being severely late to having your kid taken away by CPS?

This guy, a friend of Hector's is getting sentenced to prison tomorrow. Based on how long, I think it's for drugs. She was like, "Do you want to go to court with me tomorrow?" Um no. I just said I have to work. She wants to go to show support. Has he done anything to show support for her? She has been going to community college part time and working part time - has he studied with her? Has he gone where she works and told her manager how good she was? No. So why is she doing it for him? I'm scared it's just because he's cute.

It just kept going on and on this way. Each person we brought up is doing horrible in a different way. It makes me sad. Half of me wants to go back to the Bronx tomorrow and half wants to move farther away and change my name and never go back.

The other, real Little Italy

This morning I got stuck behind tourists who were arguing about where Little Italy is. They were wrong and right all at the same time. They were right, both sides, because yes, it's both Mott Street and Mulberry Street. They were wrong because there's sort of a better Little Italy. Not the tourist one everyone knows near Chinatown. The real one. In the Bronx. I happened to live in a shitty section of the Bronx, but not all of it is shitty. There are a bunch of really beautiful parts, with fancy homes and safe neighborhoods and stuff.

Anyway, the Italian section of the Bronx is the Little Italy I like - it's like Little Italy without tourists. On Arthur Avenue in Belmont you can get all the real Italian foods, without all the crazy tourists. You know what I just realized? There is not enough of a break between when the summer tourists leave and the holiday tourists start flooding in. Watching them crank out the pasta this morning makes me want to make it myself at home, laying the sheets across the backs of chairs like my grandmother did.

Danielle was telling me about how much Italians make fun of American tourists. They think all Americans are like that. I'm amused by the idea that you could be normal, living in Kansas or wherever, but then when you decide to travel you pull on your capri khakis with big white sneakers, click your fag bag around your waist and begin talking loudly while waving around your camera/map/bag of overpriced shit with an apple logo. Dani said she laughed the hardest watching Italians do their imitations of American tourists.

It's beginning to look ...

I spent a lot of money this week, on cabs and flowers and eating out and drugstore stuff and presents. Since November I have been trying to save extra money for Florida - I need to get my sisters presents and want to do something nice for Josh while we're there if I can figure out what there is to do, maybe take him out to a nice lunch or something.

Tomorrow we are going ice-skating in the frigid cold and then after that I am not spending any extra money at all until Florida.

My aunt doesn't celebrate Christmas, except for eating some of the Christmas foods and watching Miracle on 34th. So on the first Christmas Eve living with her, my sisters and I went for a walk to look at all the lights, and for the first Christmas morning when we lived with her, I made Mickey Mouse pancakes and plopped the plate on the table, merry Christmasing my sisters. We laughed at seeing them plop from the drop and that was pretty much it. We got Lisa Frank stationery and hand-me-down clothes from fire families, and just dealt. And it was okay. I mean, it sucked - don't get me wrong. It totally sucked. But not because of the stuff, because we missed our people.

Maybe it was just because my mom and nana weren't too into doing tons of stuff for Christmas. We had lights to put around the front door, and the front windows, a wreath for the front door. We didn't do a Christmas tree because my mother felt like a real one was cruel and we didn't have the space to store a fake one. They cooked a lot, and my nana played old-lady Christmas music, and there were always a lot of random people around at Christmas for dinner slipping me candy or quarters or sips of their wine when nobody was looking. We did one present for each of us, from each of us.

On one hand I am sad for people who are too poor to celebrate Christmas with trees, decorations, presents, fancy hams and everything else they want. On the other hand though, it bothers me a lot to think of people who actually go into debt for Christmas and get so wound up in giving presents and candy and all that.  People go places like the Container Store to buy tons of ... well, containers to store all their decorations that are only used for a month or two each year. That people go nuts trying to create their Christmas dream instead of just telling their family, "You know, we're going to skip it this year."

Of course each of my sisters are getting Christmas presents from me, but I refuse to go nuts. Even if I were a billionaire I don't think there'd be a tree that reached to the ceiling with expensive ornaments and hundreds or thousands of dollars worth of gifts. Though I might be tempted to do some fancy food stuff.

We have a white tabletop tree from Borders, and a string of blue lights. We tied silver string around those chocolate coins for Hanukkah and tied them like ornaments to the tree. So not really, but it's the most Jewish-friendly Christmas tree it could possibly be. I like that the tree fits in a corner of the top shelf of a closet (next to the electric menorah) that would otherwise be empty, and we can eat the chocolates each year.

I made snow(wo*)men, winter, snowflake and Hanukkah and Christmas sugar cookies and eggnog ice cream today. Josh looked over my shoulder when I was putting the cookies on the tray to go into the oven, and he separated the Hanukkah ones from the Christmas ones, saying it felt sacrilegious. I did the cookies by hand with a knife though, so they don't look that great. After separating out the winter ones that came out best, I put those aside to give Laurie and John.

*Alex was offended by the idea of snowmen, so we gave ours bows on their heads and called them snowwomen.