So, I know I never wanted a blog. I know I had planned to just forget about this account and let it die and such, but for some reason, I remembered my password and guessed correctly at which email account I used when I heard this news over Facebook that made me laugh so hard I couldn't breathe.
Well, not quite literally. But I did laugh really hard.
And I figured that this blog would be the best place to go, especially given that the first half of this story (maybe more than half) was chronicled right here as well.
As you may remember, six-ish students from the 2009/2010 Creative Writing class took a trip to Whitewater for a creative writing thing earlier this year, myself included. As you may remember, my friend Rose had quite an adventure there with a guy named Joe Montoya. I wrote a summary of all the Joe Montoya events from that day, and, as I indicated might happen, he did indeed find Rose over Facebook and add her as a friend, even though he goes to school in Milwaukee, as it happens. Ashlee and I added him as well, being the stalkers we are. :3
However, life in "paradise" didn't go quite as planned for Rose. Despite Joe Montoya being pretty hot, having a great style, being nice, and all other things she likes-- and, hell, he was even Mexican like her-- whenever she'd try to talk to him, he'd log off, or the conversation wouldn't be all that exciting. Eventually she got so frustrated with him that she deleted him off Facebook. I did not. I may be a hot head, but I had no reason to dislike him (or reason to like him, really; he didn't talk to me either), so he stayed on my friends list, as well as Ashlee's.
Today, as I procrastinated on putting part of my story into the computer, I was on Facebook, and I happened to see his status.
"three more days of high school, which only means that i must not be straight :D"
Once I got around the awkward wording of his status, I couldn't believe it. People being gay is not a big deal to me. I know many, many gay people. I have uncles that are gay, many bisexual aunts, gay/lesbian/bisexual friends, and my own father is bisexual. At this point, I'm starting to wonder if I know more gay people than straight ones, and it doesn't bother me. I've grown up with it; to me it's more normal than someone having red hair. It's not even an oddity to me. You have to understand this; my disbelief at his status was not due to any sort of feeling of being appalled over him being gay, or denial that somebody could be gay. My general reaction was similar to if someone who dyed their hair constantly suddenly posted their true, natural hair color over Facebook. "Okay. I didn't really care a lot about that."
My stunned feeling was at the fact that a Mexican scene boy from Milwaukee (not the best combination of things to be) was announcing publically that he's gay. Is this really a good idea? Is this something that he'd actually do?
My immediate reaction was no. People in Platteville stay in the closet. Platteville is a small town with just about the optimum mindset for being different. There aren't herds of thugs roaming the streets with guns and knives that would kill you because they don't like you or what you stand for like there are in Milwaukee. I know that it's not like that everywhere in Milwaukee, but still.
Then, I looked at the comments and replies from his friends. Figuring it was a joke, I expected light-hearted remarks or a few shocked comments, but generally the feel of a joke.
No.
His friends commented things that indicated that they already knew. I kind of silently chastised myself for being surprised at it, but I proceeded to click to his profile and check to see if anything had changed.
It had. He'd even went so far as to change his "Interested in" from "Females" to "Males" and keep the "Looking for" set to "Relationship". That made it pretty clear.
Joe Montoya, the guy that had given Rose the weird cold shoulder after an interesting first meeting with her, had come out of the closet.
There's your explanation, Rose. The guy's gay.
It sounds a lot more rational typed than it did in my head, but the effect is still the same. Joe Montoya, the infamous man-beast Avi and I taunted to no end, just doesn't roll that way.
I don't gossip, usually. However, Avi and Ashlee will definately get a kick out of this. Tomorrow, I'm definately telling them. When I told Rose, she laughed even harder than I did.
And I'm probably going to tell Kies tomorrow, if she doesn't read this before then. I mostly posted this in case anybody was still using their blogs and was interested.
Monday, May 31, 2010
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
You'll Be in My Heart
When I was little, I went through a phase of watching Tarzan all the time. I even learned one of the songs-- "You'll Be in My Heart" by Phil Collins. I learned the song at Mom's mostly, when we still lived in the apartment. My parents were already divorced by then.
Two years ago, November 17th, my dad found his sister Janelle's body in her garage, several days dead. It was suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning. I know this is an abrupt sentence here, but I've tried to place it elsewhere and this is the best place for it.
My Aunt Janelle, who was one of my dad's five older sisters, used to do Movie Nights with us, where we'd pick out movies we wanted to watch, and she'd take us to a store and we'd each (my brother and I-- brothers once Tommy and Sean were born) pick out 2-3 movies to watch and we'd buy them. We never really thought about it; we were really young and it had always been a tradition with us. Once a month we'd have movie night, and it was at Dad's every time. We went and bought movies and candy, then that night we'd stay up really late and watch all the movies we bought and, if we ate a good dinner, could eat the candy we picked out as well. Aunt Janelle had always had a good job and could always afford the movie nights. She'd done it at her own insistence.
Sometimes she'd have movies already bought when she came over. Once she had Tarzan with her, not knowing that we had it at Mom's. It's an easy mistake, with two very non-communicative households. I wasn't bothered, though. I was extremely happy about it, actually. I was so proud of myself for learning that song that as we were in the car (my brother wasn't with us for that trip; I don't know why) I sang it for her. I was really young and I didn't actually have the music behind me, so it was probably pretty bad, but she was proud of me, anyway.
Years later, once we'd moved too many times to count, we were in our second New Glarus house. I wasn't in the apartment anymore with Mom and I was a lot older. If I had to guess, I was probably eleven or twelve by this time. We were driving in her truck out to someplace (again, I don't remember where, but just where we were. I could drive the same route if I was there again, it's burned into my mind so vividly), and she told me that she'd found the song.
"Remember when you sang me that song from Tarzan?"
"Uhm... not really."
"Really? No? It was 'You'll Be in My Heart' by Phil Collins. Look, I got the tape for it."
Then she put it in the tape player. This was, I think, two trucks from the Hearse (as we've come to refer to her last truck, a maroon truck she bought brand new-- Ford, as usual. She used it to kill herself. My Aunt Erin went crazy again and when we went through the house for stuff left to us and things we wanted, she took the truck. Paid for it to get the battery charged and a new seat (since all the fluids and blood had drained out the back of her, as the days had settled the blood and begun decomposition in the truck itself) and took it up to International Falls, where I was born and she still lives. It's now in the hands of the husband of a friend of hers. Still driving around fully functional up there. I'm terrified that sometime when I'm up there, I'll see it rolling out of a driveway somewhere. I know I will, too. It was a good truck.
The introduction music started playing to the song and she turns to me at the stop sign and says, "Once you sang this to me. Now I'll sing it to you."
The words started and she sang along with the words. She had smoked for a really long time before this and probably didn't have a world class voice to begin with, so she wasn't perfect. And I, being the immature eleven year old I was, cringed. I didn't say anything, but I remember how I had such a childish reaction to it. It kind of makes me laugh at myself now, but I remember that moment in time.
That was the last time I heard that song until seven days ago.
My friend Teddy-- you probably know her as Hailey Prohaska-- made me a CD with 34 songs on it for Christmas. I got sick, so she didn't see me until two Mondays ago. Once I was healthy enough to not infect everyone else around me, I was out of that house. I went with Manda Martens to Teddy's house and got the CD's.
A few nights later, on Wednesday night, I was at my Dad's house. He lived in Beloit by then (a week ago). It was either very late or very early and I was listening to my iPod. I had uploaded Teddy's songs onto it the same night I got them, but hadn't listened to them since. I had opened the album with those songs on it and scrolled down without looking at the first few songs and put on a Hendrix song. The iPod was on shuffle. I was writing and not paying much attention to the music other than to calm me and focus me.
Then, suddenly, "You'll Be in My Heart" started playing. I didn't notice it at first, but toward the end of the song, I got stuck on a line in my story. I stopped writing and chewed on the end of the pencil and rolled over into a more comfortable position in the bed I was writing in. Then I heard the ending of the chorus of the song. I felt like I'd been jolted with electricity, the shock was so violent.
I just listened to the words. The chorus finished. There was a bit of an instrumental break and then the chorus played again. Then, facing my door and frozen mid-move over my story, the lyrics come clear-- they had been clear before, but these were crystal clear like bells, demanding me to pay attention.
The words were "Look over your shoulder. Just look over your shoulder." They repeated several times.
Slowly, though it was a bit ridiculous to follow the orders of a song from a Disney movie, I looked over my shoulder.
I jumped.
On my headboard, over my shoulder, was a picture of Aunt Janelle.
"You'll be here in my heart, no matter what they say. I'll be with you now and forever on. I'll be with you always. I'll be with you. I'll be there for you always. Always and always. Just look over your shoulder. Just look over your shoulder. Just look over your shoulder. I'll be there always."
Though she's been dead for over two years now, it was like she had found a way to say something to me, one last thing. It really felt like she was there saying that to me. It may sound ridiculous, it may sound crazy, but that's what it felt like.
"You'll Be in My Heart" has always been our song. It just happened that way, but even now, with her dead, it's managed to stay a song just between us.
Maybe it meant so much to me because she was my mother figure. I have never been close to my mom, even when my parents were together. Since they split up, I've been even further from her. Aunt Janelle filled that void. I'm glad I have some way to hold on to some bit of who she was. This song will always remind me of her. Even though it hurts to think about, I'm glad for it, in a weird way. That's all I had to say. It just struck me as something good for a blog.
Two years ago, November 17th, my dad found his sister Janelle's body in her garage, several days dead. It was suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning. I know this is an abrupt sentence here, but I've tried to place it elsewhere and this is the best place for it.
My Aunt Janelle, who was one of my dad's five older sisters, used to do Movie Nights with us, where we'd pick out movies we wanted to watch, and she'd take us to a store and we'd each (my brother and I-- brothers once Tommy and Sean were born) pick out 2-3 movies to watch and we'd buy them. We never really thought about it; we were really young and it had always been a tradition with us. Once a month we'd have movie night, and it was at Dad's every time. We went and bought movies and candy, then that night we'd stay up really late and watch all the movies we bought and, if we ate a good dinner, could eat the candy we picked out as well. Aunt Janelle had always had a good job and could always afford the movie nights. She'd done it at her own insistence.
Sometimes she'd have movies already bought when she came over. Once she had Tarzan with her, not knowing that we had it at Mom's. It's an easy mistake, with two very non-communicative households. I wasn't bothered, though. I was extremely happy about it, actually. I was so proud of myself for learning that song that as we were in the car (my brother wasn't with us for that trip; I don't know why) I sang it for her. I was really young and I didn't actually have the music behind me, so it was probably pretty bad, but she was proud of me, anyway.
Years later, once we'd moved too many times to count, we were in our second New Glarus house. I wasn't in the apartment anymore with Mom and I was a lot older. If I had to guess, I was probably eleven or twelve by this time. We were driving in her truck out to someplace (again, I don't remember where, but just where we were. I could drive the same route if I was there again, it's burned into my mind so vividly), and she told me that she'd found the song.
"Remember when you sang me that song from Tarzan?"
"Uhm... not really."
"Really? No? It was 'You'll Be in My Heart' by Phil Collins. Look, I got the tape for it."
Then she put it in the tape player. This was, I think, two trucks from the Hearse (as we've come to refer to her last truck, a maroon truck she bought brand new-- Ford, as usual. She used it to kill herself. My Aunt Erin went crazy again and when we went through the house for stuff left to us and things we wanted, she took the truck. Paid for it to get the battery charged and a new seat (since all the fluids and blood had drained out the back of her, as the days had settled the blood and begun decomposition in the truck itself) and took it up to International Falls, where I was born and she still lives. It's now in the hands of the husband of a friend of hers. Still driving around fully functional up there. I'm terrified that sometime when I'm up there, I'll see it rolling out of a driveway somewhere. I know I will, too. It was a good truck.
The introduction music started playing to the song and she turns to me at the stop sign and says, "Once you sang this to me. Now I'll sing it to you."
The words started and she sang along with the words. She had smoked for a really long time before this and probably didn't have a world class voice to begin with, so she wasn't perfect. And I, being the immature eleven year old I was, cringed. I didn't say anything, but I remember how I had such a childish reaction to it. It kind of makes me laugh at myself now, but I remember that moment in time.
That was the last time I heard that song until seven days ago.
My friend Teddy-- you probably know her as Hailey Prohaska-- made me a CD with 34 songs on it for Christmas. I got sick, so she didn't see me until two Mondays ago. Once I was healthy enough to not infect everyone else around me, I was out of that house. I went with Manda Martens to Teddy's house and got the CD's.
A few nights later, on Wednesday night, I was at my Dad's house. He lived in Beloit by then (a week ago). It was either very late or very early and I was listening to my iPod. I had uploaded Teddy's songs onto it the same night I got them, but hadn't listened to them since. I had opened the album with those songs on it and scrolled down without looking at the first few songs and put on a Hendrix song. The iPod was on shuffle. I was writing and not paying much attention to the music other than to calm me and focus me.
Then, suddenly, "You'll Be in My Heart" started playing. I didn't notice it at first, but toward the end of the song, I got stuck on a line in my story. I stopped writing and chewed on the end of the pencil and rolled over into a more comfortable position in the bed I was writing in. Then I heard the ending of the chorus of the song. I felt like I'd been jolted with electricity, the shock was so violent.
I just listened to the words. The chorus finished. There was a bit of an instrumental break and then the chorus played again. Then, facing my door and frozen mid-move over my story, the lyrics come clear-- they had been clear before, but these were crystal clear like bells, demanding me to pay attention.
The words were "Look over your shoulder. Just look over your shoulder." They repeated several times.
Slowly, though it was a bit ridiculous to follow the orders of a song from a Disney movie, I looked over my shoulder.
I jumped.
On my headboard, over my shoulder, was a picture of Aunt Janelle.
"You'll be here in my heart, no matter what they say. I'll be with you now and forever on. I'll be with you always. I'll be with you. I'll be there for you always. Always and always. Just look over your shoulder. Just look over your shoulder. Just look over your shoulder. I'll be there always."
Though she's been dead for over two years now, it was like she had found a way to say something to me, one last thing. It really felt like she was there saying that to me. It may sound ridiculous, it may sound crazy, but that's what it felt like.
"You'll Be in My Heart" has always been our song. It just happened that way, but even now, with her dead, it's managed to stay a song just between us.
Maybe it meant so much to me because she was my mother figure. I have never been close to my mom, even when my parents were together. Since they split up, I've been even further from her. Aunt Janelle filled that void. I'm glad I have some way to hold on to some bit of who she was. This song will always remind me of her. Even though it hurts to think about, I'm glad for it, in a weird way. That's all I had to say. It just struck me as something good for a blog.
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