do people just keep moving around life because they haven’t found a place they want to call “home” forever and ever yet? seriously, do we tell ourselves we’re moving for a “job” or a “change” or something, but really what we’re moving for is a place where we belong, and we’re not going to stop making up excuses to pack our shit up into a u-haul every few years until we find it?
there were a couple dozen baby boomer couples who occupied most of the houses on the last block where we lived. they had all lived there for 20+ years, had been in their houses long enough that they had had the time to set everything up the way that was perfect for them (oh, how my husband would cringe if he were reading that run-on stream-of-consciousness sentence. almost as much as he would cringe reading the even longer and more splintered parenthetical thought that followed it!) and they talked about how that was why they stayed, because they didn’t want the physical upheaval of rearranging things to fit ergonomically in a new space. i think the real reason, though, was the neighbors. they had known each other for that same 20+ years, and it was just a huge, nearly immutable social circle where each person felt completely comfortable around any and all of the others, in any situation, talking about any subject, period. i could throw out the ol’ “like family” cliche, but i think something simpler says it better: it’s really rare, and it’s really good.
so while all of the other couples in their generation kept buying and selling houses, taking new jobs in new cities, retiring here or there, this group of people stayed. and i think they did it mainly to stay together.
my point? i had none. no moral to this story… i just look around our current neighborhood, and wonder if it has the makings of another one of those cosmically good neighbors things. it’ll be interesting to see if they do the same thing in 20 years. if we can avoid any of the current crop of kids knocking one another up or putting each other in the hospital before the age of 18, maybe. hey, it could happen!
anyway, i promised to expose some of my dirty laundry to your scrutiny a few paragraphs ago, didn’t i? here it is. even in how they stain their clothes, MonkeyBeef and PositiveRoleModel do things surprisingly alike.
some things just don’t come out in the wash… like when daddy falls asleep on top of a plate of hotwings he was eating in bed. (did you know spray-n-wash, hot water, tide and clorox bleach don’t really get hot wing sauce out of cotton at all? now you do! and you should see the unfortunately-cream-colored sheets. looks like he deflowered a few sister-wives on them.) or like when MonkeyBeef pounds a bowl of macaroni and cheese snack crackers (have you tried these yet? because they are fucked up… MonkeyBeef loves them, of course.) in 4 bites. okay, i know, the stains have completely different etiologies, but the exact cause of the dirty laundry doesn’t matter… it’s still like father, like son.
and besides, i wouldn’t be surprised if MonkeyBeef wouldn’t pass out facedown in a plate of hot wings if he were only given the opportunity. for that matter, i would only be slightly surprised if PositiveRoleModel jammed 43 mac n cheese crackers into his mouth at once. and the only reason i’d be surprised at all is because he doesn’t like those damned crackers.
