tackling tough topics

going through some latent subject matter

2009-12-02T13:42:00.001-08:00

lauren

alright so basically, vivek died and i slept with this girl. watching that episode of house i felt like i was watching a reenacment of what went down. two miserable people gutted with those holes in their souls just drifting in space because that misery was so strong so blinding and we both felt absolutely empty so we came together and made our presence known each to the other thereby stemming the said vacancy and making each of us feel like we weren't alone. we kept each other company, we steered ourselves ever onward and kept ourselves from falling into the abyss of just pure misery. in that sense, we had someone there to comfort us, we weren't alone in our experience of the events. and it just so happened that sex was involved. but the thing was that just was a step too far because i wasn't prepared for it, and to have my first sex under those circumstances are weird, or perhaps you could say they're the most worthy circumstances ever. in a sense that basically what more could you really ask for from a sexual experience. I wasn't just simply "doing it" but doing so much more. it was a healing process for me and for lauren. and in saying that looking back it isn't so regrettable after all. although perhaps it was too much for me to conceptualize or even understand at that time.

but yeah at the time i couldn't just let her go and think sex was just sex and not a longterm relationship. i was brainwashed by conservatives and perhaps kept away from anything real and reailstic when it comes to people and getting together. so in a way it was just a sum of all the failings and lies and misguidings i'd been put through that put me right there on the floor pleading with lauren figuratively to go out with me after we slept together because iw as in some way convinced that we had something. but perhaps we never did and always had. like a friendship and then the sex was a moent of healing but not necessarily one of lust so much like yes thats apart of it but basicaly maybe not. like yes there's an attraction but also it was about opening yourself up to someone else who basically had gone through something terrible thereby making you feel like tey got it when you did the same thing so you had the ultimate comforter basically sitting there across from you putting your pieces back together which was a powerful moment after also years of having nobody or feeling like nobody wanted me being painted a black sheep by my mother and father and the like. its pretty amazing that now i sit in their basement given their treatment of me.

but back to the crux of the matter. lauren comes up alot between anita and me. she either brings her up, or i do. anita doesnt like that basically when it comes to my first sexual experience it was this like semi magical moment of converging situations and emphasized importance whereas maybe for her it wasnt but i think thats not where the envy comes its more that she feels like she's attempting to get into laurens shoes and she doesnt like the fit. but honestly i think thats maybe a silly way to look at it because basically anita isnt lauren never will be and just like that the moment in time we shared will always be there but that doesn't mean that lauren and i are together. it was a one time deal its not something im actively going for now and also it was just that brief moment. in the times ive spoken with lauren after you can tell there's like no remnant of that point left, except for perhaps on my side where i do feel like there is a bond between us. i mean its more like the bond you get around someone who truly knows you, in ever way. gory and all. and after knowing you they still embrace and accept you. thats a powerful thing and a beacon of light for me in that sense for many months while my parents still had the clampdown on me for the hair cutting, their shunning disease.

but today we never talk and we couldn't even if i wanted to. the reason being she doesn't check her phone ever or even call people back. and we don't live in the same city. but yeah i would love a friendship i would love something but its basically by her own choosing that nothing can really be done she's really made the effort to hole herself up and i know its not only me she does this too but the thing is im the kinda guy that would decide not to put up with it and move on and so i do but others, her closer friends, theyre still stuck in more hardcore. for me lauren was a moment, where something magical and healing happened, but she isnt an ever present being. because if you ever visit lauren you oughta be prepared for a disappointment as she's just not anywhere near as much as that powerful moment was. she's just a hman being after all, and i think you can say that that moment was larger than any of us and its the circumstances and the moment itself that has the draw, not lauren. lauren was just a tatty junkie with a penchant for fucking friends. and me i was the chained down son of a conservative who had no concept of what lay beyond his basement. i was discovering the world. she was satisfying her needs. and we both fell into an unexpected and magical moment. it was the moment that was worthy not her

current questions

2009-11-25T07:21:00.000-08:00

- what is a conservative
- why dont i want anita to go to the club without me
- be willing to allow your typical treatment of others be what you yourself go through as well for the sake of equality. is this a good philosophy?
- why do i seem to give unequal treatment to the topic of race with regards to indians, and is this an earmark of conservative thinking?
- why do people put up walls?
- why do people become self destructive?
- do whatever the fuck you want - is that a good countercall to conservatism?

tough topics i want to tackle in the future

2009-11-19T02:02:00.001-08:00

tough topics anita's bringing up

- lauren
- the haircut
- your dad's reaction to the haircut
- your mom's reaction to the haircut
- your sisters reaction to the haircut
- going to college for the first time
- the hospital situation with kirby
- life in america

death

2009-07-06T16:23:00.000-07:00

so anita just posted a nice post on death. i figured i'd try and rival hers. well... what do i think about death? well... i don't know. i had a friend die, and then a few years later, i literally saw him sitting next to me. he wasn't a skeleton, but a whole human, i didn't see his face, but i saw his suit, and black shiny shoes. he had his leg crossed over the other, and he and i were just sitting there together listening to the band at the open mic. i glanced away then glanced back and he was gone. but i knew what i had seen, and i felt greatly comforted by this. i think the vision of someone you know is dead gives you a feeling that perhaps you are being watched over. if not watched over, then at least that people do go somewhere when they die. i remember vivek used to talk about how he had a cousin who he felt watched over him, and then to have vivek die and then for me to get the feeling that he was watching over me... well it was interesting. i mean to think that there's people watching over you and stuff, it's kinda weird. to think that people once dead can still float around watch people and stuff, it makes you wonder what exactly these dead people are capable of. im pretty sure nobody else in the bar saw vivek except for me, and of course part of me says my mind was playing tricks on me, only i saw the guy so vivedly it was hard for me to just discount it as an optical illusion. at the end of the day, what i saw next to me was a spitting image of my deceased friend, in the flesh, wearing a suit, and he seemed in good health, just chilling out and giving a serious listen to the music being played at the place. i mean to me it was just really comforting to see the guy again because of course the last time i'd seen him was in his casket. and then of course the picture they ran in the MVS notification of his death. but yeah. see anita tells me vivek was my real best friend, like of that time. im not sure, but i sure did learn alot from him. like when he was alive, he gave me cakewalk, yeah he got me into some drugs, like weed and stuff, but it was always a positive thing when we used drugs, with kirby it was always a chance to just get all spazzy, but vivek actually had a lust for life and was upbeat and all that. maybe he just had the bad fortune of doing the wrong junk. i dont know. i dont really know why vivek died. i dont know if he wanted to die and intentionally shot himself up with too much. i dont know if... well... instead of that he like... i dont know... perhaps was just using a small amount, but the junk was somehow tainted? i dont know. see one of the things about vivek was he refused to ever use in my presence. so like, i dont know exactly what he did. if he shot in his arm, or what. but like, the thing was, i knew he was doing it. he told me is the thing. i wouldnt know otherwise. i didn't have that kindof insight into it. and i think he knew it. which is why it was so good of him to even tell me. i think i might have been the only person he did tell. the guy who dealt in his apartment, i think he might have just dealt in pills. i dont know for sure. but i dont remember him actually buying heroin from the guy. just pills i think. but yeah. i dont know if that guy actually sold him heroin too. i dont know if i asked him. but i think it could have been that i did and he said the guy did sell it to him. but its been so long i dont even remember anymore. i do remember sitting in his final apartment and listening to his stuff, and just marveling at how amazing it sounded. i mean he really did get alot better over time i thought, he was really onto something, and it was pretty brilliant. but the thing was, it never really did get its own like place to be played. but yeah. it was a sad thing how things went. i didnt expect him to die. of course i had just wrapped up some studio sessions with him. so to me it was a big surprise. it was a surprise to jason as well. apparently he had just thrown vivek a party. and i guess vivek asked me for some help at chipotle. he asked me if i could talk with him but i told him i was busy. i should have recognized the sign. i feel like maybe he was reaching out to me because perhaps he might have been feeling suicidal. but i didnt know enough about it and all i felt was like i wanted to be away from vivek because i didnt know how to understand him or how to handle him. and then i guess he went to his birthday party maybe that day maybe not and yeah he went to it and i guess he left saying he was going to take his meds and thats when perhaps he decided to end it. but then people soemtimes say if you commit suicide you wont make it to heaven. but of course i saw him at the open mic maybe a year or two later. so i dont know about that. i dont know if vivek was visiting me from heaven. i dont know if his spirit was wandering around and found me at that open mic. i dont know if he was watching down, keeping an eye on me from time to time, and decided to stop in that one time because he thought the music was neat. but it was a profound experience for me. i mean i had never seen someone i knew had died before againsince then. there have been a few people ive known that have died. uncle bob is probably the first. and then avid's dad who was a guy i actually liked alot. and then vivek would be the other. vivek was definately a good kid. but it was the drug use that i think did him in. i guess they found him with a needle in his arm. and i mean you can only assume that the drugs are what killed him. the drugs that might have been in the needle before he injected himself. i dont know if maybe he had a cardiac arrest. thats when like your heart stops. reading about heroin it sounds like pure heroin rarely kills, that its tainted heroin or a mix of drugs that can doa person in. drugs such as valium and i know that vivek was taking antidepressants occasionally and also painkillers from time to time. i think perhaps he took a mix and that overwhelmed his system. i dont understand exactly what it does to the body but it cant be good.

how your parents prevent you from going to boston

2009-06-12T05:49:00.000-07:00

well this really pissed me off. perhaps in february or so i was ready to rush off to boston to see what all was there, and immediately my dad steps in and says dont go its raining / snowing. to me it was like, dude, i fucking know the road conditions, i have a sense of when its too rough to drive, and you're not the fucking boss of me any fucking more this's the key thing in this whole situation, im 23, and im geting told bullshit like this from my 60 something year old dad. fucking rediculous. shouldnt be happening. i mean like, this was my dream, my goal. and he just steps in and more or less hardcore presses me to agree with him. and the bottom line is he has not encouraged me since to go. not once has he said it was a good idea. ive already had about three or four different chapters of my life play out in ohio. im not really keen on having any further developments occur whilst in this geographic location. its racist, hostile, and destructive, much like drugs. druggies try to sell drugs upon other people, if they bring them in they do them, but if you compare the pictures, it really tells a tale. drugs destroy the body. i recently lined up two pictures of lauren, and itjust showed alot about the destructive nature of substance. and then think there were people who wanted this to happen to ME. and then i realize my parents are in a way peddling drugs too. they're peddling the addictive-thought that everything is fine and i should stay here until im physically destroyed. this is a fucking terrible thing and to me its heartbreaking that my parents would wish such a terrible fate upon me. in my life, ive got many barriers and difficulties. most all of them come from the result of my parents management of my life. i feel like its high time i managed it myself. so really, thats my intention. i'm fucking going to boston.

the situation between you lauren and damien

2009-04-26T14:17:00.001-07:00

so i met damien when rob emailed me a date and time to meet up. it was at robs house that i met damien. i also met lauren in the same house. i was rehearsing with damien and rob and lauren appeared one night in my periphery. i was surprised, i didn't know the girl. but she was listening to my playing, and i was flattered. i later learned the girls name was lauren. to this day i still don't know her last name. i began to crush on the girl, i thought she was attractive and i like what she had to say. i had heard that damien was crushing on her. long story short, i kiss her, sleep with her, once each, but i don't manage to keep her around for a long term relationship, damien manages that, and he becomes fiercely protective of her, to the point where he became hostile towards me, and i became very bitter because of his foolishness.

the reaction of your dead friends mom

2009-04-26T14:13:00.000-07:00

when anita and i came to the door it was crazy the reaction we saw from the mother of my dead friend. i was surprised and i recognized her, she recognized me and opened the conversation with some welcoming words for me. i mentioned i had brought a book of vivek's, that he had given me it years ago and i thoguht i'd give it to her because perhaps she'd get some use out of it. and then she began to panic when i mentioned the songs that she'd told the studio not to give me. i was surprised when i heard her flippant attitude to my own hard work. i was angered and it was all i could do to keep her at the door. but she slammed the door in my face but not before i managed to call her rude.

how people avoid the topic

2009-04-26T14:05:00.000-07:00

its strange how those parents of mine stay quiet upstairs. they rarely speak and it doesnt seem right. but that's how they seem to do it. and i don't really know why. but that's it. and honestly, there's not much sense to it. i'd rather then talk openly about their dysfunction than just move on and pretend like none of it exists. and honestly that's more or less what i'm thinking when it comes to these guys. it seems kinda fuckin rediculous how they just kinda go on day to day and now things seem to be getting out of hand but honestly i think they avoid the topics of our past. my past with those people is a seldom discussed topic. i spent well, i was born in 86 and through 91 we remained in england. then in 91 i moved to chicago with om and sister and this si where my father and i parted ways. but in 93 i moved back with my dad, and this is when my mom and sister remained. they came back in 94. and in 95 we came out to ohio. so like, for 2 years, i missed my mom, and the year before, i missed my dad. and i missed my sister a year too. and then when i was 17 i moved off and missed my mom dad and sis til probably about 20. then i had them around for awhile but sister 16 turned 17 and moved out as a freshman in college. worked awhile in the mall and just seems miserable to me today. but thats just how she is and honestly thats fine with me. if thats how she's gonna be then that's that. but it's terrible because there's so many things we could talk out, and relate to each other over, like how things used to be in the past, the good tmies, the bad times, and the things that we regret, and the things that we hold onto. those're the things that we have to talk about, our shared pasts ARE our lives together, and when those dont enter the conversation then life becomes very banal and boring. i like to live in the past as well as the future. talking about past happenings is one of the joys of shared memory. but these people refuse to partake, and i find myself out of people who share my experience. these are the only people ive got. and its not enough for what i need. i need people who can actually talk about things. and they dont talk about anything. its crazy in that sense.

noones helped you

2009-04-05T10:47:00.000-07:00

how noones helped you get through this
not even your parents

from an early point in my life i was alone. i moved with my family to ohio. i had previously enjoyed many years at QEGS in Blackburn, in the United Kingdom. after the move i found myself in midwest america, in a place that would later be a stronghold against Barack Obama's election, a black man. you might not balk at that remark, but the reason was largely because he was black. ive found people here to be intolerable. i walk in to stores and im stared at. i walk in malls and im stared at.

left you when a good friend passed away

2009-04-05T10:42:00.001-07:00

how your friends completely like, left you when a good friend of yours passed away

so this ones about the friends, i had friends in columbus. but my friends avoided me after my friend died. i think this was crazy. i needed support and help to get me through my grief. my friends did the opposite and didnt help me. i think this was their way of showing me they really didnt care. but they picked a shit time to show me they didn't care for me. i feel bad because i liked my friends alot. and i wasn't liked much. i don't understand why my friends didn't like me. i sometimes feel like i was a worse friend to them in some way to make them feel like i wasn't good enough.

nick was a guy i went to college with. freshman year he was my next door neighbor. i drank with him many times. i went to dayton with him. i went on road trips with him. and then when i was in a difficult situation, he avoided me. he lived with his girlfriend. she was kinda crazy. she never got along with another friend of mine. but to me she was ok. nick was ok to me as well. but they seemed to want to avoid me when i was feeling bad about my friend. i think nick wanted to enjoy his happiness with his girlfriend and not get pulled down by my grief. but that was no good for me because i needed someone who was committed to seeing me through my dark tunnel. and for alot of my friends, this just was not in my head. i called old highschool friends, and i never got responses, and if i did, everyone told me they were busy. i messaged people on facebook. i never could get any of them to hang out. i called friends in columbus. i rarely got them to hang out with me. i spent most of my days alone in my apartment.

left on concrete by a friend

2009-04-05T10:33:00.000-07:00

how you were left on concrete by a friend

in college, it must have been the seocnd year because i know i was living on the 12th floor of harrison tower, i went out with a friend of mine doing some hallucinagens. my friend left me on the concrete and i was picked up by an ambulence and taken to a local hospital. it may have been the OSU hospital. i was disoriented, and i was sedated. i was afraid as well, and my friend hadn't looked for me.

this friend was kirby, and he was a guy i went to highschool with. i met him in freshman year, highschool, where we both played on the soccer team. i hung out with him in school, at lunch i'd eat with him, i'd take classes with him, and i'd hang out with him after school seeing movies and stuff.

he introduced me to DXM a drug i could buy at CVS. he introduced me to alcohol as well. as well as introducing me to mushrooms. and he introduced me to weed. he introduced me to four drugs. there is a fifth he introduced me to, morning glory seeds. and he left me on a concrete sidewalk while he walked home, and i was passed out.

anita felt like this was bad because i could have been killed. i suppose she's right, ifi hand't had someone come up to me and take me to a hospital, i may very well have died. also, maybe like, it was something that required immediate attention, and instead of getting it the kid just left me there and i might've died. i think it has kinda specific importance to anita because someone she did drugs with died after ingesting drugs her girlfriend gave the kid. she felt responsible for the death not because she caused it but because it happened before her eyes. in a very real way, my case was simmilar to hers. only i was the kid who nearly died. my friend was using me as a guiney pig, and trying to try out various drugs on me and seeing how i did with them. this is exactly what her girlfriend did to their friend. he died. i very nearly did as well. i suppose anita has it better figured out than i. i should be angry at my friend for giving me some substance that nearly killed me. i know i paid for my share, but he introduced it to me, and i never did it alone, only when he asked me to do it with him. i looked up to him, i did what he asked. he didn't do what i asked, and he didn't look up to me. and while i listened to him cry while he got high, he didn't support me when i mistepped on my drugs. he was unreliable, but also reckless and irresponsible for putting my life in danger by exposing me to so many drugs. i never would have come across those drugs had it not been his guiding hand that showed me them. he knows i never would have done a single drug. it wasnt in my personality. but i was tied to him because he was someone i knew, one of the few people i knew in a city that seemed big and intimidating. he took advantage of my naivity and fed me poisons that nearly took my life. and the worst part is i looked up to him so i have a hard time getting angry at him still today because i still feel like he's a good guy but i know he isn't. he never would ahve put me in a position where i could have lost my life if he really had my best interests at heart. the truth is he never did and never will. and anita has helped me begin to see this.

they help other kids instead of their own

2009-04-05T10:29:00.000-07:00

how your parents are psychiatrists, but yet they help other kids instead of their own

this one was interesting. my father was a child psychiatrist, my mother one for adults, and neither did a single thing when i was suffering after our move to america. it just was a bit crazy that nothing was done and i was simply left alone. i guess in my quest to overturn every stone and rock i uncovered this one, and its not a pleasant thought to think that i was ignored my my parents. i feel like i should have been given some help, that when i was feeling badly i should have had someone coming to meand trying to make me feel better. i feel like if i had this i would have done much better in highschool and perhaps in college as well. instead i was ignored and the problems in my life overwhelmed me. sometimes i need hepl in this life, and when i don't get it, there is no chance for success. the problems is when i seek help out and never get it. its not that im afraid of geting help. its that i search for it in the wrong places. the people i go to never did help me out. and i asked my parents but they didnt help me. i think the thing about it is they should have been able to help me, seeing as my father was trained in treating children like i was at the time. and i think that he didnt come through for me like he should have. or like he could have. he was trained in ways that could have opened me up and sorted my problems. but i think my father for some reason resisted using his techniques on me. if iw as perhaps too difficult for him to tackle perhaps he should have reccomended me for a visit to one of his coworkers. but my mother she has never really been much help to me i feel like instead she tries to act like a victim around me and doesnt really try and help all that much. but my father long story short used to treat children around my age while i stayed at home miserable suffering from the same home problems my father saw in his patients.

the support that you didn't get

2009-04-05T10:25:00.001-07:00

so anita mentioned this as one of the topics i needed to write about.

she was talking about my music and art, and the lack of reception i got from my two physician parents. it was rediculous. but yeah, i guess i can definately talk about this, my parents just don't see the things i do as an artist as useful, only wasting my time i'd guess, and perhaps they also think it's absolutely rediculous. like they just don't think it's worthwhile to like do any of these kinds of things. but that's hrutful to me because they're like my impulses, my ideas, and the like, and you can learn to make money doing anything. there are many different ways to think and live, it's a matter of honing whatever it is you've got into something workable and doable. but that which i needed my parents ans sister never were interested in giving. thats the thing about it whichi never really liked, and i dont know if they just are incapable of being supportive and the like or if they just are completely disinterested and never really had any kinda of a drive to like learn about something which perhaps they werent already an expert in. my mom walks around depressed and my dad a workaholic. meanwhile im here trying to make something of myself and they piss in every victory i make. its completely crazy and definately brings you down when you're trying to work your way up.

how that one teacher would treat other kids like uh, like he would get excited for other kids and then when you go and do something like a performance

2009-03-21T20:41:00.000-07:00

mr... i don't remember the name.

he was an english teacher, taught beowulf. was jewish. old. fat. bald. white.

anyway, he'd fuckin teach speach? mr. romeo. and like the kids'd look up to the dude. he was a hardass. he'd talk about stuff like beowulf and all that. the kids'd kinda like... well i dunno. for some reason i liked him. he seemed almost as much of a hardass as i felt. i guess i could relate to him. and like, the beowulf shit, i got into it, like i could identify with it and it meant quite a bit to me.

but yeah i ahd this show a guitar thing recital i guess it was a senior recital all kids did one senior year well if tey wanted. i did, guitar, and like... well the dude "missed it". it was fucking rediculous because like i ahd the entire school doing a standing ovation and the guy was like... oh... when i mentioned it to him totally burst my bubble like oh i never heard of that must've not been that big of a deal hah which is like fuckin nuts. but yeah the dude sucked. and i certainly fuckin didn't like how he operated because i was one of those kids who desperately needed some of the attention he was giving to the other kids. jews favoring jews im thinking.

how much you miss england

2009-03-21T20:34:00.000-07:00

i guess you could say i miss england. i moved here when i was like 10. i was born in 86, and in 96, i was here. maybe like 9, when we first visited, in 95. but yeah. i visited as often as i could. once whe i was 17 with my dad. we saw the old house. we'd still kept it by then. they sold it after.

i've gone back a few times since then, i visited in 08 when i was 22, and perhaps in 07 when i was 21. two or three times between 07 and 08. i've seen the old town where i used to live, blackburn, through the eyes of a visitor this time, by train, to the station, and then by cab, to some hotel. it was weird.

i spent a month in aberdeen. it was great.

but when i returned to ohio it sucked, nothing here, just feeling like i'd been cheated, like id' been moved from england without really any good reason and it sucked. like i just wanted to go bakc. i have no reason to be here after all. whilst my parents made the decision to come here so long ago, i didn't agree with that decision and was taken against my will. the trouble with being a child is you're reduced to being little more than a slave at times, and the law supports it. such is the way people live when they're considered a dependant.

but so many years have passed, miserable years, and after disconnecting myself with so many of those people that i met over the years under ugly circumstances, i find myself still connected with a few of the originals, people i knew before the blight in my life began. and using these oflks, i've managed to piece together a thing or two about my former country.

i grew up there, most of my best friends lived there, the best chance i had at a normal life died there. thats more or less my tie to that country. its the home of my childhood, and also the place where i feel like i belong. being there i feel like im at peace. for some reason it makes me feel complete in some way. i dont know why.

being stared at all the time

2009-03-21T20:31:00.000-07:00

the stares were something i didnt really notice until september 11th 2001 when i'd walk into a mall and get all sorts of looks from all sorts of people. it was strange, stranger still when i saw the fear in the eyes of the people doing the staring. quite crazy.

then when anita and i came down here, and like, i guess a few days ago, in the mall, we'd sit, and people'd glance over, nearly every one of them, as they walked past. some more than others. in an irish pub one particular woman stared at anita. it was strange. but anita stared back, eventually moved her chair over to face teh woman, and surprisingly she stopped.

being picked on in school

2009-03-21T20:26:00.000-07:00

black kids beating me up in the back of the bus in Chicago. just a few scuffles, pushing and the like. never anything too bad. then in ohio name calling. Squanto. all sorts of stares. questions about my religion, where i was from, what i believed, where my parents were from, all that. asking a girl out and having the entire school giving me a hard time about it.

then in highschool having people make fun of me behind my back. my differences had grown beyond my skin color, and my putka, i was also now emotionally crippled and scared to be myself in front of anyone. this was the result of the abuse brought about by having an uncommon skin color for the region and an uncommon head covering for the region. people wuold respond with stares, perhaps it would scale up from there to comments, or even beyond that to fights and name calling. some comments were questions. some asked about all parts of me. others were just jokes at my expense. cruel jokes that highlighted my differences visible or otherwise and brought others amusement to others while remind themselves of these.

in college i wasnt really accepted amongst the more popular children, clearly being ostracized perhaps because i seemed like i didn't really even want to be around those other children. having long since been sucked in by kirby and his friends i kept to their cluster and never strayed much.

after i moved home and then back and began a relationship with anita. 140 days strong. you could say i began anew.

being locked up inside of a basment

2009-03-21T20:22:00.000-07:00

star trek episodes on an old television and old anatomy books in black and white. a treadmill and a table with corners. a strange woven plastic - thing. the laundry room, with soda. the bedroom. the bathroom.

this was the basement of my aunt jasbir. kindof a crazy place. the anatomy books were gruesom as hel llike depicting babies that were malformed and born with deformaties and shit. mostly all were born dead. then there were all the weird things that happen to people, like the growths, and stuff like that. all freakshow stuff. then there was the star trek: next generation. it'd come on tv, on UPN "power 50". i still remember that. my aunt'd make roti's for us that had potato in them. and for darsheel she'd make cheese roti. my sister rolled down the stairs once into the basement, i was blamed for it. there were tons of books on teh shelves but the only ones i looked into were the anatomy ones. there was a treadmill but im not sure i ever really bothered getting onto it.

basically raising your little sister

2009-03-20T12:29:00.000-07:00

well my mom would be out at her work, my dad'd be out overseas in england, and i was home alone with my ssiter. we'd watch tv shows, like star trek and shit. once she rolled down the stairs, whilst being at home in my aunt jasbir's place and my aunts both gave me a hard time about not being responsible. i was watching tv, and i think i was no more than like, 6 or so, yet i was being asked to be responsible for my ssiter. that was rediculous. she was barely old enough to talk, and i was basically just horrified by their anatomy books, bored as hell in their basement, and engrossing in my first reruns of star trek the next generation. it may have even been running live at that point. otherwise, beyond that, that was my life, as well as maybe playing with the ants in the yard.

or more like your aunt

2009-03-20T11:32:00.000-07:00

my aunt was called jasbir, the other ranbir. one married, the other not. jasbir was a college professor at malcolm x, so was ranbir. jasbir was more successfull, with a husband, house, and apartments she rented. she owned an oldsmobile, one that we were given eventually. she'd wear sari's alot. both jasbir and ranbir had foot problems like my mom. she had foot issues and had surgery. only it went wrong, and she had blood clots. they traveled upwards and surgery was done to keep them from going all around her body. to the lungs, heart, brain and all that. so she's recovering now. but apparently she thought she had the same thing, but really didnt.

anyhow, ranbir was divorced, twice married, and lived in an apartment, kinda small, two story with a basmment, drove a honda, and lived alone. she married whilst we were there, and divorced soon after. she was kinda strict, and kinda argumentative. perhaps a little bitter. a bit like peter's father in family guy, all conservative, and then at odd moments sentimental and loving. it was strange, but i never really accepted her the way she wanted to be, for me it was just utterly weird and i just hated it.

i used to watch seaquest and ... what was the show... the cosby show up in her bedroom and shit.

your aunts house

2009-03-20T09:57:00.000-07:00

the place was interesting, upstairs there were couches and a kitchen, the door was weshed with metal wire and the garden had a border that had a gap between the concrete and dirt the yard in the back was small and the garage full of junk the bedrooms were sread a room for the guru granth and a color coded set of bathrooms silk sofas and a tv with tons of channels we'd watch benji there looking through the window outside.

dealing with the kids in chicago

2009-03-19T05:23:00.000-07:00

gordy is the name i remember msot from my chicago days. i went to two schools there, one for a short while, and another for a good long while. i think i spent a total of two years in chicago, or should i say, skokie schools. the schools weer in a place called evanston so im told. we lived at the time with my aunt, then my other, then our own place. the schools are a vague memory to me. i do remember watching a solar eclipse. besides that, there isn't much as far as memories go

i do remember there was a large field, thati was on, covered with snow, and on a far end of this field was a museum of sorts, or some sort of building of interest at any rate, perhaps an art museum, or something fo that sort, where our teacher led us to. I remeber the library where there were a great many tintin books i'd love to read.

this also more or less spills over into england where i used to love going to the library and picking up asterix and obelix comics. and then over in chicago i'd go to the public library and get comics from their section. can you believe they actually had a comic section. i remember the front of the library vaguely. our uncle used to give us candies and the like, toffees. he used to work in a... architectural firm im not sure of his position but he had a table with the tools and apparently was isntrumental in the design for the local gurudwara.

but the kids, gordy was a kid whom i had a video of. the kid made it in grade school. i remember finding a copy of it amongst the rubble of my basement ;p.

moving to america 1

2009-03-19T05:13:00.000-07:00

so we moved to america, from england. the year i'm told was 1995. perhaps even 1996. but the story was, my folks were living with me and my sister in a place called blackburn lancashire in england, a place in there called beardwood park, in a cul de sac, down the road from my friend sammy and neena's.

so at the time i was goign to a school called Queen Elizabeth's Grammer School. It was a uniformed school, and apparently over 600 years old. the grounds sure looked it, not for lack of being taken care of, but more in the sense that the old stone looked aged, and the hall where we dined was more like a churc. there were hymns too, ever morning we'd take our yellow prayer books and sing our hymns. I remember it being yellow having found a copy of one years later. I also found an old swimming cap, in my old bedroom, when i visted the old house when i was seventeen, with my father, in my old cupboard, and on the windows were my old thomas the tank engine curtains.

these are the sorts of things you come across when you visit home after many years.

but back to the move, we moved quite suddenly. i didn't get much warning, i'm not sure iw as told more than once, andi don't think it ever really registered that most of those people i was never going to see again. so it came as sort of a sad shock to me that when we arrived in chicago things weren't quite as good as they had been in england. no more green trees, old schools, and friendly friends. gone were the old farms and our cozy cul de sac. and gone were my friends whom some i'd known since age 2, other who'd known me since birth. this was the cradle of my childhood, and it was gone, forever to be warped and damaged, never to be quite as good as it once was.

we moved to chicago, to a suburb in chicago to be precise, a place called skokie, and this is where we lived, first among one aunt, and then another, then finally with a place of our own. eventually so im told i returned to england and my sister and mother reminaed, so i was away from half my family for a year or more.

after chicago's jaunt, and the england return, there was but one major move left, from england to ohio - this would be my home for the next forteen years at it happened, though i'd never have guessed it at the time. we moved by car, my uncles old oldsmobile, from chicago, out to ohio. first in a hotel, econo lodge, then in an apartment, stonebridge, and finally a house, colonial drive. these were all moves made towards getting settled in ohio. i went through a variety of schools whist there, main for two weeks, fairbrook for two years, ankeney for one, mvs for five. again working on getting settled, only it took me a good through years before i finally did get somewhat settled in.

however three years wasn't enough time to undo the damage done in the moves prior, and i remained a quiet child, whislt having been quite the contrary overseas. i had lost too much, and not gained back enough to be what i once was.

subjects:

2009-03-19T05:11:00.001-07:00

things that i should be writing about:

movin to america
dealing with the kids in chicago
your aunts house
or more like your aunt
basically raising your little sister
being locked up inside of a basment
being picked on in school
being stared at all the time
how much you miss england
how that one teacher would treat other kids like uh, like he wuold get excited for other kids and then when you go and do something like a performance he would go oh i must've not and gone and seen it, or something like that
the support that you didn't get
how your parents are psychiatrists, but yet they help other kids instead of their own
how you were left on concrete by a friend
how your friends completely like, left you when a good friend of yours passed away
how noones helped you get through this
not even your parents
how people avoid the topic
the reaction of your dead friends mom
the situation between you lauren and damien
how your parents prevent you from going to boston
how lauren used you after vivek died
how lauren gave heroin to vivek in the first place
how she uses drugs to get what she wants
people at the open mics, like, at andymans how he's always like, he's different.
how people view you just by your skin color
how it was during the 9/11
how people bring racism into video games
how people are making kids pay for the pirate bay thing
i guess how many problems i have that i guess im pulling you into
and my little btich fits
how i can't really accept anything that i do wrong or rediculous
how your parents um are kinda still dealing with racism from like thirty years ago
how you were basically taught how to i guess avoid people by not being allowed to bring anybody over - well more like... just because of how your parents reacted to new people, you not wanting to bring anybody over
how your parents react to new things
how your parents come down here and clean the basement whenever we leave
how people treat you differently compared to how tey treat me like at chipotle and kinkos
how people are so conservative
how people compare you to themselves
how lazy people are
how discouraging people are
how we're still here in dayton in your parents basement
how your sister asked youf or 200 dollars for her birthday and got pissed off when you said no after her parents said no
how you've never gotten a paying gig, even though you've been playing music for like ever