Tuesday, January 29, 2008

I have noticed in recent months that my entire family is pretty much useless to me. Yeah there are a few of them here and there that I would pee on if they were on fire, or heck, even claim them as my own, but not many. Just to start, the entire paternal side of my family is pretty much expendable. I mean, honestly, I have an aunt and uncle that are both very prominent in their careers, (one is a former vp at coca-cola, and
the other is a big-wig at IBM) and they both live less than 15 minutes away from me, but the last time I saw them was August of 2006. My paternal grandparents visit them regularly, along with my other aunts and cousins, and although none of them have seen my child or my husband (and not even me in YEARS), they never reach out, I never get a visit, a birthday or Christmas card, or even a phone call to let me know they are in town. So I say loud and proud, SCREW THEM!!!

Now my mother's side is something else altogether. These are the women and men that took advantage of and stole from my grandfather, no, not in his elderly age, I'm talking about after he passed away in July. One aunt openly took all of the money and credit cards from his wallet, while another used the 'stolen' card number to buy things for her new house and plane tickets. Another aunt merely stopped paying the money that she borrowed from my grandfather (that was also paying the mortgage on one of the many properties that my grandfather owned in his healthier days) because she just didn't want to anymore, and this isn't just a few hundred or even a few thousand, but rather a few hundred thousand (no my grandfather wasn't rich, just very generous and would give his right arm to you if you really needed it and he could cut it off alone). These few horrible, horrible women are not without their male and child counterparts, but to type the foul and disgusting things these people have done would put on many more national watch lists. I will give you one example, I have a cousin, who has told me and other family members, not in fits of rage but in normal daily conversation that he would take pleasure in killing me, my son, and my husband. This stems from a childhood of jealousy and an adult argument that my husband (nicely and respectfully) tried to break up (I mean honestly, this cousin of mine is easily 6'3 and upwards of 350 to 400 pounds, would you want your wife fighting with him over washing dishes?).

In having a family that is in retrospect, not worth the carpets they rode in on, I have come to adopt my husband's family as my own. His cousin Nolin became my cousin Nolin, his cousin Randy became my cousin Randy, his mom and dad now claim me as not only their daughter-in-law, but also their daughter. It finally feels nice having a family full of people who actually care about my happiness and well-being, and while I know my family is not the worst there is out there, I as a decent person and a good human being deserve to have a better lineage of ancestry behind me.

Posted by ME at 1:20 PM

c2mments!
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Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Strange and Different

I have a host of strange hobbies which include knitting small afghans, crocheting doilies, and searching the internet for information on the kkk. Now this may not be so strange if I were an 80 something year old southern white woman (not that its correct for 80 year old southern white women to be interested in the kkk, but much more believable and I suppose slightly more understandable than a 22 year old black woman scouring the net for the same information) but I am not. Why then do I live my life as a series of vast contradictions? Becoming interested in reading the George Bush autobiography while at the same time spewing reason after reason for why he must be not only impeached but also burned at the stake (that one line just put me on an FBI watch list), Seeking information on the KKK while also sporting my black power shirt with my fist held high and my water drenched, and dog attacked ancestors right behind me, Trying hard to understand diferent organizations and lifestyles such as NAMBLA, Al Qaeda, Peta, and other such groups ranging on the vast scale of controversary from nearly non-existant to mind blowing. I'll tell you why, because in our life and times, we live in a culture so based on magnifying our differences and similarities for everyone to see and examine and never truly trying to get to know anyone or anything. It is so easy to hate something or someone that you don't understand, and so hard to put your animosity and bad feelings aside and take the time to understand or get to know someone who is different from you or whose ideals and culture you may not truly agree with. I like to think that this is my own little form of "being the bigger person." Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. Either way, it satisfies me.

Posted by ME at 12:53 PM

c1mments!
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