The Devil's Rose's blog

I’ve been gone a long time.

Life’s been quite crazy. I’ve had to lock this without notice, and only now have I gotten around to writing up an entry, to sending the password to this journal out to anyone.

I apologize. I suppose an explanation is in order.

I suppose I should start at the beginning.

Mostly what got in the way was coming home for summer. After an entire year of idealizing my home life, missing my best friends and my family, my cats, dogs, frogs, and chinchillas, I got distracted away from writing. I kept putting it off. I told myself it was okay, I’d get to it tomorrow. Now I have to reconstruct most of a summer in my mind in order to put it down before the few things I can recall with perfect clarity fade to sepia film dust like everything else.

It was a long drive away from school. I was up all night packing, and I thought that the steadily warming temperature in my dorm was because of all the energy I was expending to fit my entire life into a few small boxes and parcels, but it was really an encroaching heat wave. We left the Santa Cruz shore of Monterey Bay in 95-degree heat; in Santa Cruz, 80 is an unusually high temperature. Back home in Los Angeles, that’s almost nothing for summer weather, but I hadn’t been living there. Still, I was looking forward to being back.

I like moving; it reminds me how little my life actually boils down to, how much I can do without, and how the most important things are really those which I carry in my heart.

My dad and I crashed at his house for about two days, so I could see all of my seven dogs, three cats, (then) six chinchillas (we now have eight), 227 frogs, and one stepmom. Both of us were wiped out from driving home in heat and humidity, but after that weekend, we headed down to see my grandmother.

Nana lives south of LA, south even of Riverside, which is the next major county down, and partway inland. I suppose San Diego is the nearest major city, but it’s too far west to really be called close. She lives at the base of some hills, but I’m not sure what the city in them is called. There, you’re lucky if the temperature only hits 110 in the afternoon. Still, it was cool in her house, and we were ready to listen to all of her old stories about my grandfather (whom I’ve never met, he died eleven years before I was born), relax, and just generally veg out. We left her house on the fourth of July, since I had a pool party to go to.

Every year since my group of three best friends and I solidified into a cohesive whole, we’ve celebrated the fourth of July at the home of my friend Amy’s grandparents. This year was the last year for that, however, since both of them passed away whilst she was in Santa Barbara for school this year. Next year, we’ll find somewhere else to have it, but we’ll worry about that bridge when we get there. The fourth of July was the same as ever, lots of battles for the pool against Amy’s little brother and his gang of videogame-playing goons. Then we turned the pool into a wave pool with the help of some of those floaty rings. When that got boring, we got out for our barbecued lunch (complete with delicious sushi on the side, since Amy’s mom is Japanese). Then we watched her brother and his friends do indecent things with Super Smash Brothers characters (literally, during certain attacks it looks like certain characters are molesting others, and they pause it at these points and laugh as they examine it from different camera angles). When we tired of their inappropriate humor, we decided to ninja our way into the elementary school across the street. Once there, we played on the jungle gym and slides, decided that swings are not wide enough for teenagers, and wandered about looking for something to do. Eventually we headed back to the pool. There were no fireworks this year, since last year they managed to set our hills on fire, and that was terribly disappointing, but just over the wall Amy’s neighbors were shooting illegal ones off, so that was amusing.

That weekend, I went out to my friend Autumn’s apartment on the campus of her Christian university. We hung out in her apartment and talked all night about life, the universe, why men suck, our beliefs (or lack thereof) in just about everything, friendship, love, happiness, and why the last three are really all the same, while we made props for our friend Amanda’s sixteenth birthday pirate party which was going to take place that Sunday. No, I am not making these names up. I am the only girl without the first initial being A, but my middle name is Alexandra, so I can still join in on the confusing of other people. My first name, really and truly, is actually Sarah, but let’s pretend I never told you that so that once I unpassword this, it will stay as relatively secret as possible.

Amanda’s party was a lot of fun. Autumn and I were exhausted, having been up for three days prior running only on coffee and energy drinks (thank you, Red Bull and RockStar). It was a dinner mystery style party in a park across the street from my old high school. There was some sort of carnival thing going on, too, so there were more people in the park than we would have liked, which kept us from using most of the props she and I had killed so much sleep over, but that was okay. Even the weather was perfect. The sun was warm, but not hot like it so usually is, and a fresh breeze flowed through the park for most of the afternoon. The plants were so vibrantly colored it was like living in Technicolor. And we were all in our costumes, which we had put on at Autumn’s church so we were already prepared when the others showed up. All we had to do was start the discussion and the accusations, and see where people took the game. There were many inside jokes created that day, much to everyone’s delight.

I turned 19 on the tenth. My friend April, who works at the movie theater here, refused an extra shift for the only time ever that day so we could party. She and Amy gave me a card with a UFO abducting cows on it which said “Keep partying, because the cows ain’t coming home anytime soon. Happy birthday” which they had both signed, and a chocolate chip cake. We snarfed cake, reveled in the air conditioning inside of our mall, and went frolicking off to see Harry Potter which was, of course, coming out that day. I was stunned and amazed to see that doing Equus had done Daniel Radcliffe good, because all of a sudden, I didn’t find him nearly as unattractive as I had before. He’s gotten into very nice shape, I have to say. I must admit, though, that I felt a bit pervy checking out Harry Potter, even though he is my age.

Oh, well, c’est la vie.

The next day I went to visit my gay boyfriends in the makeup store where I worked all last summer. We talked and laughed and joked and everything was merry. I tend to visit them a lot when I’m upset, though they don’t know it. It was nice not to have a cloud hanging over my head for that.

I went out to my dad’s again that weekend, needing a break. That was the first time I’d meant to update but hadn’t. He has wireless Internet which I can connect my laptop to, my mom doesn’t. There aren’t any free connections around either, only ones that are ripoffs like at bookstores and coffee shops. Alas.

When I got back, I went to go see Wicked again, this time with Mom and my sister. I love that show. Elphaba is probably my favorite musical character, for her sheer willpower, although she’s closely followed by the other role originated by Idina Menzel, that of Maureen in Rent, for her sheer insanity. Or maybe I’m just a fan of Idina’s. She’s certainly talented; I wish I could sing like she does.

Spent most of the rest of that week going for midnight coffee runs with April and sleeping all day. It’s been boiling in my apartment, and the balmy, heavily rose-scented air is vastly preferable to the sauna with its vague smell of catboxes and body odor overlaid by my brother’s cologne and dishsoap that my apartment becomes in the summertime.

I once again ventured out to Christianland to see Autumn, and we decided to head off to Disneyland then. The heat was starting to pick up again, but it didn’t matter. Disneyland is where I spent my childhood; my father being one of Mickey Mouse’s slave minions for over a decade beginning just before I was born got us free admission into the Disney parks for every birthday, holiday, visit from relatives, or simple celebration of a simple triumph. She grew up in a similar condition, but while my dad has escaped the rodent tyrant (believe me, Disney is not the cute, cuddly plush toy of a company people think it is), hers is “Loyal to the mouse.” Not that it will reward him much, but still…

Thus, Autumn and I have grown up with a rather cynical perspective on the whole thing, for all that we enjoy it. It’s the first place we played pirates as children, after all, for all that we didn’t meet until we were eleven. The pirates ride caught us both into the world of piracy long before we met; now that we’re friends, our love for the history of these seafaring marauders is one of the many bonds tying my group together. So she and I went together, since Amy was in San Francisco with her family and April had gone the day prior with some of our other friends and her younger sister, and was working at the AMC that day. We wore our pirate costumes, even, just for the sheer thrill of behaving in a way ‘appropriate’ for someone half of our age.

Once I got back from Disneyland, I went straight to Barnes and Noble to sit in line and wait for the release of the final Harry Potter book at midnight. I first picked the series up when it came out in hardback in the States - I think I was all of nine - so it was strange to see the series come to an end after investing ten years of my life to it. I can only imagine how JKR must be feeling. I damn near chucked the book across the apartment, though, since she killed or maimed all of my last four living favorite characters. Gotta love that. Still, the ending worked, even though I was a bit disappointed by it.

Lest I forget, it is a children's book, so I suppose I just had expectations that were a bit high. I think the series probably would have worked better as a teen series, actually, because then there could have been a lot more exploration of psychological issues and character interactions. But I digress.

August was spent boiling in my apartment, reading books, and planning for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) in November, and convincing the amigas to join me in the adventure.

And then September came, and stole my life away with it, yet again. Autumn returned to school first. I went out to visit her on her first weekend, and we spent loads of time just messing around. It wasn't as fun. It felt desperate; we both knew it would probably be the last weekend I saw her, and that made it difficult to let things really flow. We played with my tarot cards and learned things we didn't really want to know, we had a swordfight on her lawn which her RA made us stop because she wasn't allowed to have any 'facsimiles of weapons' on campus. We laughed and yelled and did all the things we would typically do, but it wasn't as lighthearted and fun.

Separation tends to taint things.

The last week I was in town, I very nearly didn't get to see all of my best friends. I got Amy to go to Barnes and Noble with me, where I bought a stuffed raccoon and named it Fred (my friend Nicole, here at school, has since renamed it Federico) and we talked about our the impending year. About how much the separation sucks, because we're all so closely tied to one another.

April was harder. All that week she was working, and I worried I wouldn't get to see her. Finally April and I went for midnight coffee and that was the end of that. I gave her her birthday card and bought her coffee, and we talked for a bit. It was cloudy all that day, and as I walked home it began to rain.

That rain ruined everything.

Normally I love stormy weather. It makes me happy and free, and everything's right with me when water is falling from the sky.

But it brought my brother home that night. He and I are a bit estranged. It was his birthday the next day, and he hadn't been planning on coming home, except that it began to rain and he hates walking in the rain. I was on the phone with Autumn, tossing clothes around the living room as I packed, when he and my mom and my sister arrived home. He was drunk enough to not be censoring any of his thoughts, and he and I got into a huge fight over how he treats women.

He then ventured to tell me exactly what he thought of the way I live. Not that I cared, I'm perfectly happy being a straight-edge prude. My peers don't understand it, but I don't care. The only validation I've ever needed I have. My best friends all understand and live the same way I do, and by that we keep each other focused on what each of us really wants from her life.

So, my mom and sister got in on this and it turned into a fracas quite quickly. My brother didn't care; I was just sort of generically pissed, but I'd expected a fight anyway and it was helping me to blow off some steam; Autumn was giving me sarcastic suggestions of things to say to him and keeping me tied loosely back to what little sanity I have; but Mom got pissed.

Long after everyone had crashed, and I was still packing, trying to focus, and talking to Autumn about all the things on my mind at the time, Mom came out to confront me.

And we had the fight to end all fights.

I don't really want to go into it too much. Basically, I'm not supposed to ever go back to that home. Not that I really want to, the only reason I've been returning is because I love my brother and sister, fucked up though they are. And I really love my friends.

But Mom was just yelling, convinced that I "don't understand her" and "don't care about her" and "have always been out to get her" because my dad "poisoned me against her". I've heard all this tripe before, and have been able to effectively block it, but when does it end? So finally I hung up with Autumn and told her I'd call her back since we both knew we'd both be up all night. And Mom and I had it out.

It finally ended when I rendered her speechless - speechless and crying. I don't even remember what I said exactly, but it was loosely along the lines of telling her exactly what she has done to my brother, my sister, and I. She'd somehow not realized, or something. But she went on the defensive, and insisted that that was the other side of my family talking.

I cut her off again, and told her that was bull. I told her all the shit she'd done, and then told her the last thing about myself that I would ever tell anyone (and I blame this on the anger of the moment, making me lose my typical control): that I wish I could hate her; that I've tried, repeatedly, to hate her; that I can't hate her. I can't hate her because I understand too well.

She laughed at that, demanding to know what I understood.

So I told her. There's no way she could ever live a non-fucked up life when everything about her entire existence has been fucked up. Her mom abused her, and it left its mark. It's still leaving its mark, on my siblings and I. I said more, but I don't remember what it was. I don't want to.

So that was the end of that. It won't change anything. Things are still just as wrong now as they were two days, weeks, months, years ago, and nothing will ever be right there.

We're all just trying to escape, in our own ways.

I told her that, too. That I plan to go to Europe and disappear. I never want to come back. I want to go someplace where the culture, language, food, layout, everything, is as different as it can possibly be from Los Angeles, California. And once I get there, I will never come back. And most people will never hear from me again.

It hurts too much.

So that's what happened. After that, Mom went to bed, blaming herself for ruining everything. I think the last thing I said to her was that she gave herself too much credit - more things have fucked my life up than just her, starting with myself. I just wasn't arguing with them right at that second.

She'll never believe me. Hell, I wouldn't believe me.

They say children of abusers go on to become abusers themselves. Mom proved that. That's why I've chosen to live my life, more or less, solitarily. I'll have my friends, my friends who are my life, but I won't let myself have much more than that.

It wouldn't be responsible of me. And, while childish, I've never been anything if not responsible.

So there you have it. That's my summer. It started hot, ended raining, and somewhere in the middle I found madness, mayhem, and piracy, and just before it ended I found myself in the forge of fury. It's amazing how just letting yourself say things will tell you what's true about you.

I don't recommend it, though. You and the people around you, might not like what you find.

Catch you later.

So there you have it. That was my summer.

I'll be back in an hour or so with a proper entry, but I think I want to go find some dinner now.

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