cellini's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Raised by Wolves In roughly 2 weeks I'm going to Missouri. This is significant because it will be the last trip for the new book that brings the whole thing full circle. More importantly, I'm going to see Jenny. The head of the organization that booked me to come speak at the conference in Utah recently happens to work for the state of MO. He invited me to come out for a few days and he and a biologist are going to get me everything I need for this final chapter. Its going to be a good time. This will be the final trip in a long, strange odyssey. For the last year I have been traveling to strange corners of the US and the Caribbean in order to hunt and fish for inv@sive species. I have lived a life that a very many people would give their left hands to experience. I've done and seen incredible things. I smashed the sides of the glass aquarium that so many humans live inside of and I crawled outside of it and lived like a free predator that hunts and kills and breathes the air as intended. Whatever else comes, I will have had that. Imagine it -- forget your career as an IT professional or a lawyer or an accountant or a customer assistance specialist and one day you stand up and say 'I'm done' and you walk outside and breathe the air and go out and kill something and eat it and know that beyond all doubts you are now at the very top of the food chain. Yes, that is what I did! Literally! And I'm not done yet. I could stand in front of a train tomorrow and wait for the hot wind and the heavy smack of the engine into my chest and I would still know that I had done the impossible. In about two weeks I go to Missouri. And after I catch some carp I am going to KC to see Jenny. Jenny and I were badly mismatched in time and fucked over by the universe. In an alternate universe, we are happily married. In this one, our timing was horribly off in several ways. I should count my blessings. At the very least, it is good that I have nothing to hide on this trip. Trish knows that I am going to see Jenny and that whatever happens happens. Trish and I are past the point of jealousy or fakery now. She hasn't complained or given me any shit about it. She seems to perhaps be genuinely happy for me to see her. ____________ Anyway, this article finally made passing notice of the fact that we are fraternal twins. It might have also made mention of the fact that our mother is a 2-time award winner from the VA press association during our respective career rises; though it certainly didn't mention my father's multiple first place medals in marathons these past few years. My poor sister. She has a good career and a distinguished education and gets paid far more than I do, though she still seems to live in the shadow of the fame earned by the rest of our immediate family year after year. Not exaggerating at all: watch 'The Royal Tennenbaums.' That is my family.
The week that I spent in Miami, with a few days in South Beach, certainly didn't help. It was 1994, I think. Oy. What a time. I was working at a newspaper doing layout and copy and whatever needed doing and I saved my money to fly to Florida for a week or 2 to visit friends from a summer writing workshop. I was 16 years old, I think. 16 or 15. I got to do pretty much whatever I wanted. My parents were fairly uninvolved with my life. They paid for nothing. I bought my own food, clothes, glasses. I paid my own health insurance deductibles. It wasn't an easy life for a kid. The funny thing is that when I was working at the newspaper in high school and was being raised pretty much by wolves, my boss was the same editor who ran the piece about my brother today. I wonder how much he remembers. 12:50 a.m. - 2011-08-11 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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