re-invent elopement

Maureen might remember. Is aunt anne still alive?

Like Bastard out of Carolina

starts with her mother's life. Even though narrator wasn't there. Heard it all from aunts and uncles.

Polish/Italian
Nat'l Catholic/Roman Catholic

first and last brave thing they ever did?

not to call them cowards, by brave here I mean dashing against the rules. After breaking that one big rule they became the keepers of the rules.

like Babci. If, in effect, she "raised" me after my mother died, I should have been more affected by her Alzheimers, involved in decisions. I hardly saw her. I had no interest in where they kept her--I trust them to figure out the best thing to do.

There's always been someone to figure out the best thing to do. But...

who am I? Back to the everlovin, motherfuckin I
Hello? is there anybody out there?

We are all unique, caged inside the outlines of our bodies. No way to meld. We cry for the other who does not exist. Once again: I, alone.

Some men are islands.
This is a quotation from John Donne (1572-1631). It appears in Devotions upon emergent occasions and seuerall steps in my sicknes - Meditation XVII, 1624:

"All mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated...As therefore the bell that rings to a sermon, calls not upon the preacher only, but upon the congregation to come: so this bell calls us all: but how much more me, who am brought so near the door by this sickness....No man is an island, entire of itself...any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."

also sneaking a bit of Key West in there via Ernest Hemingway. Conch chowder.

gifts should not have strings attached. if they do, they are grants, not gifts.

learned that writing about the traveling medi-van that couldn't give out condoms because they depended on a grant from Catholic Charities. I wrote an article from the pov of the medi-van trying to stay open to help however they could...Connie thought I should have written from the POV of patients being deprived of life-saving devices because of stranglehold catholic church has on the charities it funds.

Today  I might write from the idea that even without catholic charity funding, there should somewhere in the county be a big pocket willing to take up the slack without such demands or worse ones. But everyone has demands when they grant you something. Would you allow the NeoNazi party to fund a county health-care project?

GODWIN

I said neo, not nazi.

same difference. This blog has been Godwinned.http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/godwins-law
eom

Childhood parodies. sick humor

[spinning on the Davenport] the phrase came to mind as I was watching What's Eating Gilbert Grape?
(we'll need the National Guard to get her out of There...uh, sorry)

thinking what would happen to a child like Leonardo DeCaprio in my household. (the NOISE)...splat, spinning on the Davenport.

Poor codependent Gilbert Grape. Like Tom in Menagerie. Escape or self-sacrifice for love.
Self v Non self; a price to be paid.

There's always a price to be paid.

House burning down at end of Gilbert. Blow out your candles, indeed.

I was 13, or, my dead mother is better than 10 live mothers

That's a tender age, they say. I guess so. Plus I was weird anyway. I was way in trouble while my mother was still alive. I don't know that her staying alive would have helped me any. Look at the mothers still alive. Some of them are awful.

I wouldn't trade my dead mother for any of their live ones.

So there.