Fascination Nation

life in a bottle rocket

i left my phone in a cab over the weekend..my bad. it's gotten me in quite a stitch(?) or do people actually say sitch?lame. anyway, ever since that short absense of having my shit together, my aunt has been a pot, on the stove, with smalls bubbles, slowly rising to a boil. beginning with an initial constrained outburst -namely a comment as she took down the christmas tree which told me to steer clear, when i told her what had happened - she has been steadily approaching the boiling point slash motherfuckingblastoff. which, to be perfectly honest, i sorta fear. but let me give you a little background on the women in my family, my mother's side to be specific because it is my mother's sister im talking about here, for perspective's sake i.e so you understand why i might be afraid.

the morales women, as i know them, tend to bottle things up like a pressure cooker, letting out a little bit of steam here and there so you know they're cooking before the shit hits the fan and they swallow you up like a whale. but there are warning signs that start with their cleaning patterns. for example, my grandmother sweeps. although regularly, to the point that she'll be buried with a broom, you'll notice an agression to her strokes accompanied by audible mumbling that tells a tale of your wrong doings and her attempt at self control..steer clear. my mom, she's the easiest, tends to slam dishes around, vacuums, mops, doesn't brush her hair that day and is very snappy. despite you trying to avoid her, she'll catch you in the corner with the straw that broke the camel's back, shitty. and then finally my aunt, who's the nicest and according to my cousins is only nice because im around, puts on the yellow rubber gloves and scrubs anything or everything, specifically the details. she'll say something mean followed by something really nice, so you understand that her mood is a mounting tension. my point being, they'll always get you but you'll do anything they say right before, during and after that explosion ground zeros, just to calm them the fuck down or prevent it from happening. and that's the only way to make things right.
fear, good strategy eh?

so my aunt is mounting tension, and i'd like to think it's partly do to the full moon because my mom reports of similar sentiments, so maybe it is, and then another more definite factor is the pms / symptoms of menapause she complains of and curses, with a touch of my absentmindedness, which apparently i can't seem to control because it all stems from good reasoning, that is, within my own head. so sadly for alexis, in this week, in jersey city, nj, there exists the perfect conditions for a type of disaster... oh yeah and did i mention it's time for me to move out. my aunt would like me to stay, but my one rule in this game of accepting free room and board at various family members' houses until i can afford to move out on my own is: not to over stay my welcome. and one might say, im very good at sensing when my time has come to leave. meaning if i dont move now i might no longer be favored by my aunt's good graces. It's better not to taint our otherwise pretty good relationship with an explosion, on her part, of harsh truths and misconceptions.

so i've decided that i'll be taking up my uncle's invitation to live with his family in the bronx. my mom's final sibling, uh oh (just for background, this will be my completion of having lived with all three of her brothers and sister since graduating in may) what a bum. im such a bum and a punk. hey actually i paid rent in vermont over the summer ok. im better said conducting anthropological research..yeeahh.

so the good news is i start teaching a class on documentary filmmaking in Queens every saturday for the next 4 months starting the 21st. i guess i never mentioned that before, oh and p.s. i'll be getting paid mm.k . so there you go.. life in a bottle rocket.

posted by Alectrocution @ 12:05:00 AM