This is the third in a succession of failed blogs that I’ve attempted
to write since the last time I posted in… (dear god, was it January?) It’s not that I haven’t been writing, it’s
just that I haven’t been happy with anything I’ve written. I’ve got summer coming up soon, and I’m not
working summer school this year, so I may find that I have more time on my
hands than I know what to do with. I’m
toying with the idea of getting in the car and Kerouac-ing my way around the
country for a week or two this summer.
It’d be nice to just get away, all by myself, and write whenever and
wherever I felt like it.
But anyway, the failed blogs.
One was a list/open letter to my future kids. I’m a twat, I know. Another was a incoherent jumble of thoughts
that I wept out onto the keyboard the day my uncle passed away. The third is some of my favorite “teacher
moments” that I’ve had at the Woods. But
none of those came out the way I wanted.
They haven’t been completely scrapped yet, just put on hold.
Tonight, I’m hanging out in the glorious air-conditioning with Tosh.0
muted on the 55 incher and my cousin’s radio show playing on my MacBook. I’ve wanted to write something about my
cousins for a while and I kind of started to in one of the aforementioned
failed blogs, but I got a second wind when I started listening to Kyle’s
show. I talk about my immediate family
all the time, so you all know how big a part of my daily life they are, but my
cousins are a little different. Even
though I don’t see them every day (or ever year, in some cases) they remain a
major part of my life. I can’t say for a
fact that they feel the same way about me, but that’s how it’s always been for
me. We moved away from New York when I
was 6 and to this day, it’s still a major source of yearning, that I’ve always always wished I could be as close with
my cousins (all of them, not just the New York ones) as they are with each
other.
I have a generous handful of cousins, and I look up to all of them in
their own way, even the ones who are younger than I am. Ari is a glamourous buyer for Henri Bendel,
Josh has the most adorable family, Dave is seriously the kindest, most
well-adjusted person in the world, Corinne’s my humor/sarcasm idol, and Kyle
was the baby of the family and now he’s all grown up and hosting a damn radio
show! (And graduating college, but that’s
not important.)
My Minnesota cousins are the bomb, too. They’re all awesome mothers, awesome
atheletes, or what have you. My cousin
Teresa is like an extra sister. I can talk
to her about whatever. I’m also looking
forward to traveling London with her! I
also have a small brood of young boy cousins (young men, now!) who are smart,
sweet and just fun to be with. My cousin
Derek in particular, I can’t even begin to say how proud I am of him, for
dealing with everything that’s come his way, and emerging strong and smart
because of it.
I could go on and on, but I have a lot of cousins. The best thing about all of them is that
being family gives us a free pass from that haven’t-seen-you-in-a-while
awkwardness. Whenever I do get to see
them, it feels like I never left. And
that means a lot to me.
I just texted Kyle and asked him to play me some Foster the People on
the radio. He did
not disappoint. Seriously, how
good is Houdini???
I’m going to wrap this up now, because I could seriously talk for
three pages about how awesome my cousins are and how much I miss them, but I
know we all have other shit to do. For
example, I’m teaching tomorrow. My last
teaching experience before student teaching in the fall. Everyone at work keeps asking me if I know
where I’m going to student teach and the answer is a resounding NO. I appreciate that they’re all interested, but
I really need to impress upon them that
Ottawa University is pretty much run with the organizational expertise of a
pick-up basketball game. I’ll be lucky
if I get my student-teaching assignment a few weeks in advance.
But everything else is good.
Great, actually. I’m nervous but
excited about the future. Going to miss
Indian Woods. But I’ll save all that for
another blog.
Thanks for reading. I hope all
my dear readers are well!
