My Imaginary House

About a year ago a friend and I were fantasizing about moving to a beach house or buying a vacation home together when we're not poor, so hopefully in about a decade. At the time I found a house that's about an hour away from the beach in my mom's home town. It's pretty centrally located between several larger towns in Eastern North Carolina.

Recently I was looking at houses in that area again, and found that the same one was still for sale. It's been for sale for about two years, and I doubt anyone will scoop it up anytime soon. My mom's hometown is pretty decrepit. It had a textile mill and a Pepsi plant in the 50s and 60s, but once those moved the only industry left was tabacco, and that's not even as prominent anymore.

The median age in the town is 44 and about 50% of the population lives below the poverty line. The crime rate is close to twice the national average, though most of those crimes aren't violent.

My mom has told me that this is a terrible idea and that I don't have money anyway, though, "If you really want it I suppose you could buy out the owners."

About two years ago I interviewed several of my mom's relatives. I have a bunch of letters and copies of deeds and other similar documents, and have this outrageous idea to write a book based on my mom's dysfunctional family -- she's not exactly stoked about the idea, there were a lot of alcoholics, lots of infidelity, and a few of them dabbled in the Ku Klux Klan. Ideally, I'd like to do this in the house I'll buy there.

I'm going home next month for a visit and have plans to road-trip down to see the house with a friend. I figure if it's awful in person, then I can forget about the idea for awhile. But even if the house is terrible,   I'll find another, and moving there will still be part of my plan. After school and after I pay off my loans, hopefully I'll have a solid portfolio and will be able to freelance and can live wherever, including The Middle of Nowhere, North Carolina.

The more I think about my imaginary house, I think of who I'd like to be there. I've always been somewhat environmentally conscious, but I've become more-so and I'd like to have a home that's completely self-sustained. I want to make everything I eat, and put on my body, and use in my home. I want to bike the flat land around it, and I want to teach kids to read, and I want to be a girl scout leader, and to have strangers over for dinner.

The person who would live in that house is much better than I am now. She's more compassionate and less selfish, and patient. I know I don't have to live there to accomplish these things, but I suppose in my head once I've achieved all those things, I'll be able to make there happen, and maybe start something to lift up that wretched little town.

Written with Writer's Block

My school is on a quarter system, so we have classes for ten weeks followed by a three week break. It's a portfolio program and hopefully by the end of it I'll be a decent copywriter. I'm closing in on the end of my second quarter and all my final projects are due this week. I'm busy and totally blocked.

I keep beginning things, deleting them, starting again, and making lists. Nothing is getting done. I keep hoping that maybe if I can get some time by myself that I'll be more relaxed and will be able to organize my thoughts. That hasn't happened. 

I think I started this post about six times. 

Everyone this quarter seems to be on the fritz. I felt that way last quarter. No one is sure if our program will be worth it, or if moving here was the right thing to do, or if they should be closer to their families, and a million other things. I do miss my family, and going out and knowing people already, and living by myself, but overall my anxiety levels are down - I haven't had a single panic attack since I moved here, and I'm finally somewhat content, approaching happy, with most of my life. 

I go out more now than I did when I first moved here, but significantly less than I did in Richmond. I was really concerned about meeting people when I got here, and getting along with the people who are also in my quarter.  They have degrees, some multiple degrees, speak other languages, have travelled, some are married, some have worked in ad agencies before, and overall I felt like a fish out of water. I don't feel that way anymore. 

I'm starting to feel more confident, though more critical of my work. I'm finding it easier to manage my feelings, and I know that to manage my sanity I can't stay home all day just because I don't have class. This was hard at first, but has become easier. When I start to feel overwhelmed I go for a walk, or to a park (luckily I live really close to two). Despite not being able to write in this moment, I feel more focused about my life. 

Focus is a strange thing to have. I've never really had this kind of direction before, or drive - I've always wanted to succeed, and I think of life as some absurd competition, but being around other people who were cut from that cloth is new for me. I like it. 

For the first time in my life things seem to be happening. 

Birds have it made.

Last night I had dinner with a friend. We had Thai. I never get Thai food. It was delicious. So, I'm having it again tomorrow for a different friend's birthday - her choice. He was telling me all about all the things in his life that are currently bothersome, and I of course did the same.

He told me that I had to stop feeling guilty about things, which is true. For example, right now, I could be writing for school or a publication, but I'm not because right now I need to do this. And later I'll probably write some really terrible poetry and attempt to play the piano and become frustrated because I'm not nearly as good as I used to be.

I saw my parents this past weekend. It was only for an hour or so, and I needed my dad to sign some stuff so that I can hopefully move into my own place. So, my mother was sitting there with us and started going on about how her children don't like her. This isn't true. We do like her, but as with my father, we prefer small doses. I suppose this may seem mean or ungrateful. I can only be around them for so long before I start feel like a terrible person. My mother will first ask me about school and why I'm not done yet. Then she will tell me about some people at church that I don't know or care about and how they're getting married or having children, two things I am in now rush to do. And then she'll ask me about my job and tell me about how another person is making so much money doing something different. This will all lead to politics, something that we will never agree on.

I finally told my mother that it's not her that I don't like, it's the fact that she constantly puts herself down and then blames her children and compares us to everyone else. Life is hard. We're just trying to make it. I'm young, I have the rest of my life ahead of me and who knows what that means. I can only listen to what a disappointment I am so many times.

Going to a community college and getting an associates degree in court reporting in the sixties is hardly comparable to going to the largest university in the state and then flunking out. I feel terrible about all that wasted money and time, but at the end of the day I know that I'm much better on in Richmond than I would have been had I stayed in Lake Ridge. Anyway, I get like this after having those kinds of conversations with my parents.

I'm trying to get myself situated enough so that I can save up and after I finish my own associates degree in Liberal Arts, I can go somewhere for a year. And between now and then I'll hopefully find a way to get over all my qualms regarding writing. I mean, I just wrote all of this. I'm sure that were my parents to see it they wouldn't exactly be happy, though it's not my job to make them happy. I have the beginnings of things written that ideally one day will be published that I would like to spend more time on. And I'd like to spend more time writing music, and maybe attempt to get over my stage fright; grow up. Growing up seems an impossible thing to do.

Geneology

(This was written in reference to the Sunday and Monday of this past Labor Day weekend.)

I mentioned awhile back that I was going to write a book about my mother’s side of the family. This past weekend, well Sunday and Monday, I started it. The research.

Growing up our family would go on what my parents called vacation, but was anything but relaxing. We would drive around North Carolina in a beat-up Plymouth Voyager with fake wood paneling around the side and visit my mother’s relatives. I am the youngest of the children in my immediate family and extended family, so visiting was never something I looked forward to, as it meant that I would probably be in the way, be bored and only have dogs to play with. All of my relatives have dogs. Sure, we would have a couple days at the beach, but mostly not.

So, understandably over the years I’ve developed this negative feeling towards North Carolina, except for the beach. And there are two types of North Carolinians, Beach and Mountains. My mother comes from a long line of beach-goers. And her hometown of Kinston is only about an hour, maybe two, from the beach.

Kinston used to be an industrial city. They had cotton, tobacco, Pepsi and Coca-Cola plants, a t-shirt factory and were surrounded by farms. Today it’s a collection of tattered, wood boxes that are this close to falling over, drugs and gangs. But among all of the ugly you can see what used to be. All the tobacco warehouses are still intact, but with broken panes and graffiti, the theaters now house other businesses or are closed, the old high school that my mother attended is now an assisted living home and the people that do live there don’t give a damn about making it nice. Among all of this are larger homes that resemble doll houses that once belonged to the wealthy, but like everything else the paint is peeling and many remain vacant or condemned.

My mother has two older brothers, one of which she has asked to write their family’s history, or at least their personal story of the three being raised by their aunt and grandmother. He, like me was a journalism major and later earned a master’s degree in English and was one semester away from receiving his PhD in English Literature. He doesn’t want to do it. So, I am.

My mother has relayed stories of her childhood to me and my siblings over and over for as long as I can remember. And earlier this year her oldest brother was visiting in Northern Virginia and I stayed up until about two in the morning listening to them reminisce about their childhoods. All of it. The good, the bad, and the parts that they would probably like to forget. It was then that I decided to do it. I’m not sure exactly why, but it’s something that I’ve felt I’ve needed to do since then.

And this is coming from someone who up until six months ago saw no reason to go to North Carolina unless there was a birth, marriage or death in the family.

And let me tell you, my mother’s side is all about those three things. This weekend proved that more than ever. The Mills’ liked having babies - my great-grandmother had nine of them, they liked getting married and in most cases divorced and then remarried, sometimes a few times, and they were obsessed with dying. I found a life insurance policy that my grandfather and his two sister bought when he was twelve. TWELVE. Twelve years old. And it only cost ten cents a month for a $1000 policy. And then there were the pictures of dead people and pictures of all the flowers that were sent to the funeral – apparently this is a status thing. I don’t really get it. But I’m trying to.

I made my first stop my first-cousin-once-removed (my mother’s first cousin) Robert Earl’s house. He and his wife, Judy, have known each other since she was fifteen and have been married forever. I have never really had the chance to get to know them. Robert Earl is several years older than my mom and so they were never close. But because they’re family they have invited us to everything and we have done the same. I went to their daughter’s wedding when I was about nine, and I’m pretty sure I had never met any of them before. However, Robert Earl’s mother, (pay close attention, things are about to get confusing) Evelyn, I have very early memories of. She is one of those old relatives we used to visit all the time. Her house was awful. She had lived in it forever and instead of moving along with all the other’s to the non-black parts of town she stayed and bolted her windows shut. And didn’t have air conditioning and didn’t let her animals outside. And it all smelled so awful and we weren’t allowed to touch anything, nothing, except for of course that dry rotted couches that she had for forty years.

Robert Earl need a lot of encouragement and seemed very hesitant about giving me too much information. I get it, he doesn’t know me, and my immediate family has a reputation among our relatives as “the Yankees” given we’re from the DC suburbs and don’t know how to operate a tractor. So, he started off listing all these places he had lived. It was an incredibly long list, and I finally had to stop him because I don’t care about that, I care about what happened while he was living in those places, what made them memorable. He started to open up some, but Judy was willing to divulge more information than he was. Thank God.

I had made plans to stay with a friend in Greensboro, but then decided it would be easier to drive to Grifton rather than drive the next morning. I still got lost, but it was nice being done that night. I had picked up a bunch of stuff at Robert Earl’s including a trunk that belonged to my other cousin-once-removed-Marie’s father, my great-uncle Hubert.

I never knew Hubert. My grandfather was the youngest of the nine kids and Evelyn, was number eight. (If this does become a book, I should probably not worry about names and just number everyone.) Hubert is the one that has the most going on as of right now. I’m not so sure Marie was as excited about finding all this dirt on her dad, but we know that he had lots of lovers before and after he got married, had at least one illegitimate child, and was an alcoholic.

One of this first things Marie said to me was, “you don’t come from money. You know that, right?” Of course I know that. My mother has spent her entire life making sure that we all had everything that she never did. Mills’ were tobacco and cotton farmers from Ireland and Scotland; all the men were alcoholics and most were in the KKK and the women sobered them up and pretended not to notice when they were off fucking everyone.

It’s making out to be a pretty good story. And my mom grew up with it.

*Mom, before you email me berating me for not saying “nice” things and using the F word, please be aware that I am doing exactly what I told you I would to – telling the truth. And it’s not always pretty.

Steps to taking over the world

Yesterday my new roommate, Anthea, and I made a trip down to my leasing company's office to get her put on the lease.

I have not been involved with this at all until yesterday. My previous roommate, Jessica, moved out so dealing with the paperwork has been her deal. I wasn't aware that They would try to make me sign another lease with Anthea. We were under the impression that while sub-leasing was a breach of contract, that you could turn your lease over. So, Jessica was supposed to be able to have Anthea take it over.

Well, They "don't do that." And They are trying to make me and Anthea sign a twelve month lease that would push our move-out date to next August. Ugh. Apparently they only deal in increments of twelve months for all parties. Then another They informed us that we could sign an eight month lease for an additional $50 a month.

After talking to "my lawyer" aka Spencer's mom, and a my parents and a couple of others, I have been advised by all to go with what I was going to do anyway - not sign anything and not pay anything extra.

I spent last night and a good portion of this morning reading the Landlord Tenant Handbook for Virginia and my lease. And because they didn't inform us of all of their procedures for "if"-situations I am fairly certain that what they are doing is illegal. Dealing with things "as they come up" is hardly feasible.

And if our light fixture starts leaking again this month we are totally going escrow.

In other news, I called my cousin Robert Earl today. He is my mother's cousin and I will be interviewing him in early September. I am writing a book about my mother's side of the family. She has been asking her brother to do it for years but he doesn't want to. Understandably. Their side of the family has everything you love about Faulkner in it. All the uncles were in the Ku Klux Klan, alcoholics, infidelity, the whole thing. The aunts were all very polite women who cooked, cleaned and knew when to keep their mouths shut.

My mother keeps asking me if I'm going write "nice" things about her family, and I keep assuring her that I will write the truth. She is not comfortable with that answer.

Duh.

Yesterday I got a call from an editor apologizing for all the confusion lately and with permission for first dibs on events that need to be covered in the near future. Of course, this was after I sent an email and refused to deal with a certain level of unprofessional behavior.

This person and I are also fairly good friends and we bicker like your grandparents. My sister, April, has been encouraging me to write them off for months and last night when I told her the good news she had an epiphany.

"Amanda, you're going to make it...."

"I know."

"You're ruthless..."

"I know."

Slackertastic!

I am an indignant, self-righteous, hypocritic, self-indulgent, know-it-all, snobby bitch. I know this. And so do you. But if you're reading this, and you've met me, you also know that I am capable of being sweet, kind, compassionate, etc. And if you've known me for more than a week, you know that I am the biggest slacker of all time.

My sixth grade science teacher was the first to call me a slacker when I started turning things in late. Since then I have been called a slacker by just about every teacher that I developed a personal relationship with, so every English teacher and about half of the others. I don't know exactly what happened, but as much as I enjoy learning, I just can't seem to fake interest in things that are "required." You will notice that I was not interested in most of high school if you were to look at my transcript.

This semester I am on "academic warning", it's pre-academic probation and it means that I didn't do shit last semester. As a result I have to attend required tutoring, meet weekly with my advisor and all sorts of fun things like that. This surpises people. I'm not sure why, I mean, I like to read, but I don't think anyone except for maybe my roommate that one time has seen me touch a textbook, let alone open it. And if it wasn't at all evident in my older posts (see September/October 2008) that I was manically depressed last semester, I was, and it was awful.

I'm better now - ish. And today I got my first essay of the semster back and I got an A. Thank you very much.

It seems that I am capable of exerting some potential in areas that do not particularly interest me and because I know what's good fore me, I'll continue to do so - and be very bitter and tired while doing it.

if i have to

Penny's is my favorite part of Richmond. That, and my bike. Isn't that sad?

Today I went with a couple of other guys from the radio station to Bagel Czar. It used to be a venue called Nancy Raygun, and they're trying to maintain it as a venue. WVCW, the radio station, is working with them to book some gigs and promote it as much as possible. And after talking with Landis, the guy in charge of booking at Bagel Czar, I got to thinking about how perfect it would be if I could do that all the time. I could be an agent, manager, publicist, whatever, I think I might be alright at it. But then again, I don't know if I'd really fit into that world.

I'm not really sure if writer's are supposed to fit into any sort of world. I've been think about that a lot lately. I've been thinking about a lot of things lately. Salinger is a recluse. He could be dead, and we probably wouldn't know about it for a year. He has an estranged daughter, I hope if I have children that that won't happen. I will live in the city and when I die my neighbors will at least complain about the smell. And hopefully my kids will like me, even if they think I'm a kook.

But really, I know writers, and I guess they have friends, but if they're at all serious about they're craft they don't keep hours that allow them to socialize the way other people do. We don't sleep when we write, and sometimes passion overtakes us and hours go by and it's dawn. Writers like that are hard to find. And they're even harder to know.

I think being lonely is an important part of writing. It feeds any feelings you might have, and it allows for little distraction. If I end up a spinster I think I'll be okay, so long as it's in a city and I can write about my lonely life and all the grownup boys that may have been part of it.

Or, I could just give up on all the writin bullshit and be equally troubled pretending that I don't know what I'm meant to do with my life. Unfortunately that's not an option. I have to write, and I'm going to be poor, and I'll probably always feel lonely, but I suppose it's better than feeling nothing at all.

I love Sarah Palin almost as much as I love Strawberry Mentos

I was running late to Focused Inquiry today, and about halfway there when Emily (from class) texted me to let me know that our professor never showed. Huzzah! I hate that class. Afterwards Lessa called and we ended up chatting about politics among other things for almost an hour when I realized I was late for an interview.

I ran by Rite-Aid to pick up some cassettes, to record the interview, and was distracted at the checkout by Mentos. More specifically, Strawberry Mentos. STRAWBERRY MENTOS! I've had them before, but they don't carry them everywhere, and Mentos are the best candy, so making them strawberry flavored just gets me giddy! I bought a box, and a box of sugarfree mixed berry. Mentos aren't particularly fattening, but they are unhealthy, so making them berry flavored and getting rid of the sugar..Whoa! It just keeps getting better.

After suffering from a short sugar overdose, I hopped on my bike and headed to the Republican Headquarters of Richmond...to interview a Republican for Ink (the school magazine). I was worried about being late, but he wasn't there. So I sat, and waited for them to give me some information about how to reach him later. While I was waiting a woman came in, in a very large, very red shirt. Across the front it said SARAH!

I had some "promotional" bags from Images and thought I'd give her one, I really need to build my clientele. She wouldn't take it but said, "I get my hair done in my neighborhood, AND I HAVE SOMETHING FOR YOU!" And she tossed me an identical red shirt, in an extra-large.

I wasn't going to pass that up! A free shirt! That supports Sarah Palin! What more could a woman want? Nothing, that is the correct answer.

So, now I have a giant, red, tent that says SARAH! on it. I haven't yet decided what I'm going to do with it. Maybe a halloween costume? Maybe a "gift" for my mom? I don't know, but it's pretty sweet.

*Guys, look what I found, they should not be allowed to sell such large quantities to the general public.

We Are Scientists

The interview, my first - ever, I did with them is up at Brightest Young Things.

You should go read it. It's pretty awesome. As all (five) of you expect of me anyways.

This thing

So, after much thought and Mr. Brann growing tired of my e-mails filling up his inbox, I decided to start this thing. A blogspot. A weblog. A blog.

This will mostly chronicle the life of a teenage girl who's on her way to graduation and hopfully a college far far away from the depths of suburbia.

I suppose I should introduce myself; I am a dog person, cat piss smells awful. I like the colors green and yellow, and I love polkadots. I live in jeans and band-tee's, but I'm working on it. And I don't have the hang of this thing yet, so this will all probably be in my "about me" section soon.

One day I plan on being a recluse in New Zealand and writing under a badass pen-name.