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2002-02-16 - 3:14 p.m.
In case any of you were considering finding yourself a fantasy boyfriend, I will tell you
rule number one. He should not be someone with whom you might find yourself
hanging out with at 1 am. Seeing someone with the effects of a nighttime bar binge
festering in their blood does nothing to increase the fantasy flame and therefore destroys any benefit of having a fantasy boyfriend. A fantasy boyfriend should be someone you don't see in your personal life. He should be someone who you can make into the perfect boyfriend in your mind. When potential fantasies come into your personal life you risk having your ideal squashed. Peach
Pancake and his entourage showed up last night somewhere around our second bottle of
ridiculously expensive French wine. He may or may not have made eyes at me for a brief moment until he
became suddenly horrified to find out how old I was. And strangely I was empowered by
my age, instead of wishing I was 22, I was so happy being 28. He would be lucky to have
the fortune to have me. Women my age are past the petty stage, getting past the insecure
stage, we are growing into ourselves, knowing ourselves and we are still not old enough
to look, act or feel old. It is a wonderful age. I suddenly felt as though I was in my prime.
Anyway, I was also very put off by Peach Pancakes age because he was acting it. He
wasn�t that cute little bookworm, nor was he the same dorky chemist who shared a beer
with me on a dusty couch a month or two ago. He was a college kid last night. And the
possibility for his application of fantasy boyfriend was declined. I sat the rest of the night with my feet comfortably tucked under Eric's back without even the slightest trace of attraction towards Peach Pancake.
Before the arrival of the Pancake group Eric, his uncle and myself were engaged in
conversation. We started talking about our childhood�s a little bit. What I found was that
we were all raised in neighborhoods. I mean, real neighborhoods. The kind of
neighborhoods were everyone on the street and surrounding streets knew each other, were
friends, looked out for one another. The kind of neighborhoods where young couples
bought houses, raised their families and stayed until death. The kind of neighborhoods
where the house and the area were part of the family. This doesn�t happen anymore.
People move to subdivisions now. There is no history. People don�t talk with their
neighbors anymore. Kids don�t really hang out in packs in neighborhoods anymore. You
don�t hear people SAY �neighborhood� anymore. I think about my Grandparents house,
how it was a grounding factor in my family. My Mom and all her siblings were born and
raised there, my Brother and I stayed a lot of weekends there, holidays were celebrated
there. It was the source of constant for us. It was the one thing that remained in my life,
the one thing that never changed. It was a comfort. After my Grandmother died
things changed. No one came home during the holidays and our weekends there never
happened again. But even so, the moment I walked onto that front porch and reached
inside the rubber galosh next to the door for the key, the moment the ever present smell
chlorine and must reached my nose from thirty years of pool towels draped over the chairs
reached my nose, I felt like I had come home. It was where my roots were planted, and
that is the one thing that has maintained a sense of comfort within my blood. It is sad to
think that future generations will not have that. These subdivision houses will fall apart
before that can happen and todays society is filled with unplaced, wandering souls. No
one seems content to stay where they are. People either buy a house and sell it a couple
years later to buy a bigger, better house, or they just move and move trying to find a spot
where they feel comfortable. My Grandparents never cared about selling their house to
make a profit or selling their house to move someplace �better�. It was home. It was an intrinsic part of our "family." How many
people can say �home� and mean it these days? There are times when I get so sad, when
tears spill down my face, when I just sob and I always catch myself saying, �I just want to
go home.� And then I pause because I don�t really know what I mean. Most times I am
in my own living room saying that I want to go home. Will I even know home when I see
it? I doubt it because none of seem to even know what that means any longer. All I know
for sure is that my children will have a home, my children will know what they mean when
they catch themselves with tears in their eyes saying, �I just want to go HOME.� Yes,
they will know. |
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