Full Moon Fever

When I returned to the Bronx from 8 years of crap in Atlanta, I was confronted by a plethora of nosy neighbors who never ask me how I am. They are only interested in how my grandmother was doing. I finally figured out how to answer them.....and that was to talk myself into oblivion about a million other things. To which they mostly looked at me and said "So, what do you do for fun?"

I am 36 years old and my priority in life is to enjoy myself. I want to have fun. I could care less about work and the material things I have in my life. Is my car fancy? No, but it gets me where I need to be. Do I have an iPhone? No, but my phone works and does what I need it to do. I care about enjoyment, my friends and family, and being a good person on top of it all. When I leave this planet, I will not leave wishing I had spent more time with friends and family because I worked too much. Since I moved back to New York, my life has not been fun. I've been filled with anger and frustration toward certain family members, not to mention feeling conflicted with my own plans for the next few months. Watching the only grandmother I have ever known (my paternal grandmother passed away when I was 4 years old - I have very vague memories of her) deteriorate at a blinding speed wears on me at an alarming rate. Cleaning an enormous amount of junk out of a 60 year old apartment is taxing. I can't imagine not being here, though. 

Dealing with my parents has never been an easy thing for me. Now that they are getting older, I believe that they are slowly going completely insane. My father is hard of hearing, my mother's childhood polio has her about 98% paralyzed, and they do not understand the world at large. They are from the generation of work all your life, retire and do as you wish. They are in denial that that world no longer exists, and would prefer me to work a job that I hate, with a boss that I loathe, which effects my mental health, than no job at all. When I returned to New York, all we did was fight. We fight. A lot. Their comprehension of me, of my grandmothers' illness and of life in general lacks a nurturing aspect that has long since been lost.....it is as though they decided at some point to stop being my parents. I cannot write enough about the dynamics (or lack of dynamics) between my parents and I, so I will stop here. 

So what's a gal to do?

Go to the city as tourist, do the Katonah Avenue pub crawl, meet some Irish guys. Have fun for a minute and then go back to a grey life.

Katonah Avenue

30 Rock

Seeing my friends and family on a somewhat regular basis is fabulous. I keep in touch with a few of my friends in Atlanta. I exercise poor judgment on a semi-regular basis, even when my gut is screaming at me, "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING, KAPLAN!!?" All for a moment, then that moment is gone. 

At times like these, I yearn to be somewhere else. Escapism has been my downfall for most of my lifetime. Now more than ever I find myself wishing I was at the farm in Alabama, in the dirt, feeding chickens, duck and goats. I plan to spend a few months there in the summer. I also plan to spend three weeks in South America in April.....I don't know. I think about it and I don't even know if I really want to go anymore. Then I meet Irishmen and other men and I think I could settle down and get married and be happy.....and then the bottom falls out. I am a bum magnet, a messed up person magnet, a bad luck charm. I meet people, everything is great, and then it crashes and burns to a fizzle. After 36 years, it is getting old. 

This entry isn't about sympathy. It's about human nature and how I am weary of dealing with the crap that is handed to me every day. I have very little sympathy for others nowadays. And with good reason, methinks. Or, maybe it is just the full moon.