My dreams the past few days are really giving me quite a show. There is a school I often dream of which has parts of Sioux Valley (a building that is elementary, jr. high and high school in one, and where I attended sixth through ninth grade), parts of my elementary school Henry Neill (which has been torn down and now the lot is occupied by an Arby's and a video store; gross), and nothing of my high school in Montevideo. Mostly, though, it is not like these places I know at all. Great arbors of trees, long perfectly angled sidewalks, impeccable green grass. In other words, the school is far more well-to-do than any place of education I've ever attended.
Of course, I was thinking about matters of learning and inferiority yesterday; I come from such a working class family (my father's side of the tree is significantly more middle class, but I was not raised with their artful, intellectual pursuits, I was raised on fart jokes, mockery and bigotry; well-mocked for my own, independently artful and intellectual pursuits [I remembered the other day how I read The Age of Innocence and a biographical book on Anton Mesmer when I was fourteen and felt I deserved a metorphorical pat on the back for that]), that recently, with my accumulation of a small cadre of friends who come from a far more leisure class existence, I think it's bothering me significantly. I was raised on Velveeta in the spaghetti sauce (sauce made from a packet and home-canned tomato sauce), Cool Whip or pistachio pudding made up the bulk of desserts at holidays, and I didn't have butter until I went to college. I used to be amused by this, but lately I feel sick. But then that thought makes me sick. My childhood, my upbringing, with it's glorified white trash dichotomy of love and fucked-up-ed-ness, made me who I am. And I love who I am. I am comfortable with me. I suppose I'm just engaging in some useless, fruitless, frustrating "what if" thinking. I think I'm just angry that I keep hearing about the tween-aged versions of people I know galavanting about Paris with their only marginally older siblings and no adult supervision, getting drunk on rooftops eating McDonald's (yes, in the last month, I've heard this tween-run-free scenario TWICE).
The idea of meeting Andy's family fills me with a powerful dread; my ex, Dan, came from similar background and his mother absolutely HATED me and let me know exactly how inferior I was to her son every time she saw me. I get the impression Andy's family is wonderfully warm and lovely so I'm not sure why I'm wrapped up in this right now, especially since it's highly unlikely it'll ever happen that I meet them. And then there's the idea of Andy meeting my family; it makes me feel like it would be like stepping into an episode of Roseanne for him, which also fills me with dread. My family has done increasingly well financially over the last ten years, but I'm sure they're still eating Velveeta. We do have butter now at holidays, though.
The dream I started to speak of, well my intent was to simply describe how there was a taco bar on the lawn in it. And that one of the girls I used to date was there, and when I undressed her, her breasts were impossibly long, flat, pointy pancakes that tasted like sweat. I had to apply some decorum to the situation and not gag.
Because really, I came here to write about another dream. Which now seems less important.
Suffice to say I was a man wearing an oil cloth duster and I had a collection of various sizes of crucifixes under this coat, one of which was a silver-plated filigree shotgun that I'd "rented" and showed up to a college lecture with it in tow. There was murder on my mind. But I was a little dorky. Probably wasn't gonna murder nobody.
(post-posting editorial note: obvious as all get out, but everything in the crucifix and gun dream is an item of protection. I'm a man--strong, theoretically impervious; I'm dressed basically as a cowboy; I'm covered in crucifixes, and I have a fucking GUN that's a crucifix too. I know Andy was in this dream, I can't remember where or why. It wasn't him I was aiming to kill. I knew I wasn't going to kill anyone.)
I miss you Andy. I think you're in a place now which means we can never return to the place that was ours.
4 years ago
2 comments:
sweetie, i understand this financial rift that you feel between those who had more versus those of us "working class" folk raised on bologna sandwiches on white bread (i usually topped mine with doritos....but that's another story).
i spent all of high school feeling this difference (poor kid on scholarship, working off my tuition by vaccuuming classrooms and washing dishes during lunch hour while others were eating <--that was traumatizing/humiliating to say the least) at a rich private school. it was "pretty in pink" only with uniforms.
but it's shaped who i am now....spike has accused me of being a classist....which i don't think is true....but i am still aware of those differences between us middle class folk and those who spent their summers in paris.
i'm not sure what my point is here, but whatever. you're amazing. and so is velveeta.
-Kari
What's funny is that I started out as the rich kid. In Aberdeen, I was one of two in our group of friends who lived in a house who had married parents. The others lived in trailers, or apartments, with their single mothers (who had also never been wed). I was the "wealthier" of the two of us; my clothing came from JC Penney, not Kmart and thrift stores, and my mother made my lunch every day whereas my friends were eating "free" lunch subsidized by the government. By sixth grade, I had befriended a new girl, who actually had money; comparatively, they were probably doing as well as my parents are now, which is far from weathly or even truly comfortable. My parents are working TWO full time jobs each to have the life they do. What it's taught me is that is what I never want. To have to work that much. But here I am, struggling on nickels and dimes with epicurean tastes.
I used to love american cheese and yellow mustard on white bread. And beans and weenies. Doritos gave me heartburn, I'd have to lay on my tummy for three hours and sip milk. ha.
p.s. you made me cry, but it was the good kind. I love you Karl.
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