podling | The vaca so far...

It's been mixed, honestly. I expected to see/hang out with, more friends, and instead have ended up hanging with/seeing mostly family. Extended family even. And this is both good and bad. Good to see people, but bad circumstances, and odd ones as well. My mom's cousin's husband died suddenly over the weekend. And since I came up early for the O.A.R. concert, I happened to be here for both the wake and funeral and did indeed go to both. Now, this has caused weirdness in my mind over it. My great-uncle, whom I was rather fond of, died a few months ago, and I was unable to be here for either service, meanwhile, I manage to be here for the services of a rather further removed cousin who I barely knew. Kind of odd. Plus, I did know the guy, but not well, and I always feel awkward at mourning things anyway, in my head there's this weird rationalization, I feel loss, I do, but you can only do so much, and move on. But so I felt weird because I didn't feel the sense of loss that most people there did. It's good to reconnect with my cousins, though it's a shame that the past few years it's only been for funerals, if even then. And I got some family gossip, and some leads on other family gossip. When I was youngish, we used to have two big family get-togethers a year, then down to one when I was in high school, then none, as the old people got older. My grandmother had a huge family, there's zillions of cousins, and it's not really feasible to get together at holidays or anything, for the most part. We had around 20 people at our house today without cousin-like people. So there's even more of a distance there, I mean, it's not that far, NJ, I'd come up for a reunion thing. No one's organized one though. One of the cousins said something about how maybe eventually there'd be a wedding, and I pointed out that Pete and I were unlikely to be the ones doing that sort of thing. I was asked about my non-attached state several times. I went with the, "Well, I don't form attachments easily" standard. It was mildly awkward, but not as bad as what most people deal with.

But so, I saw cousins that I haven't seen in years, then ran into another one at a bar (actually, every time I've seen this boy it's been at a bar, but I digress). I also managed to spend some time with my brother (also at a bar, but he works there), which... well, it's been a while... I don't think I've actually talked to him since maybe April. I remember saying hi to him when I was here on Labor Day. Anyway, we get along, but... but. That's all. He's cool, I love him, I'm not as cool. Heh. He left a message on someone's voicemail that I will probably have to apologize for tomorrow. It was funny though. But anyway, we're really unlike in many ways. People keep thinking we're twins though, which is vaguely amusing now that we're not in high school. But so we talked about some stuff last night, about family obligations and expectations, and how each of us deals differently, and how even though I like it here, and love my family, I am happy to live away for now. My brother is still cooler than me though. :)

Let's see... highlights. The O.A.R. concert was great, though I have three issues... one is that I so NEED more cds by them, I didn't know some songs. The second is that it was kind of odd being at an all ages show. 'Specially an all ages show where the average age seemed to be hovering around 18ish. Thirdly, I really do enjoy concerts more when I go with other people, so next time, yeah. Funny things... there was a lot of singalong portions that were actually kind of fun, and had more participation than is often true. They played 'sunday bloody sunday' by U2 for an encore. Oh, and the people who opened for them (who were pretty good in their own right, the Virginia Coalition) did a cover of 'africa' by Toto. That was weird. Good weird, but still.

The other major highlight... CABLE TELEVISION!!! I know. I should be over this. I've not had cable for months now. But, oh, cable tv is lovely, wonderful. My parents have BBCamerica, and all the random HBOs and vh1s that actually play videos, and other channels! And Daria is on like, 6 times a day!!! I need to get cable. I do. Marc was right, it is worth being in debt for. I'll wait until after I finish the current play, then I'll get cable. Life will be good. I mean, life is good anyway, but... yeah. My parents also have many dvds, I haven't even gotten into those yet. There aren't enough hours in the day! Though today, my cousin Eric stayed after the post-dinner activities to watch stuff. We ended up watch the Cane Toad movie (he now wants a copy of his own) and Daria, Coupling, and the Graham Norton show. Didn't quite get to Finding Nemo...

The doorbell rang. I'd hoped it was either one of my friends or one of my bro's friends, but no, it's my uncle, he's apparently not having a good night, and he's 10 hours late for dinner. Eep. He's not a happy camper. Mom'll deal with it. Um. Yeah. It's going to be a long night. Dad's up now too. This is awkward for me.

So... still up to go. Hanging with friends. Will hopefully see one or two people that I didn't *quite* manage to actually make advance plans with. Then going to spend some time learning how to make pizza dough with my grandmother. Then the high school reunion. That should be interesting...