I’m constantly fascinated by the amount of assholery I see in the world. Although I don’t know why… I mean, I’m the biggest asshole I know.
I mentioned - in passing - that I had a Ukrainian lesson this morning. (The first one in five (FIVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) years.) And I was told that I shouldn’t be wasting my time on a ‘trendy’ language since nobody speaks it in Florida.
Sure.
There isn’t a Ukrainian community in Miami.
There isn’t one in Orlando, either.
And even more importantly, I don’t have an emotional or a biological connection to Ukraine.
Nope.
Also of note: “Why do you have all this Ukrainian crap all over Facebook?” / “Your bio didn’t say anything about being Ukrainian until the war started.”
Whatever.
I was listening to a YouTube playlist the other day and this popped up. I can’t say it’s my favourite OE song, but I might have repeated it once or twice… or seventy eleven billion times, but who’s counting? What I could understand of the lyrics pulled me in, and then Lyrics Translate filled in the blanks.
Which is a nice segue to a recap of my Ukrainian lesson…
I told the teacher that I was basically starting from scratch, but it turns out that’s not exactly true.
I can remember the “first chapter” stuff - greetings, how to read the alphabet - but once we get into the meat of the language, I’ll be totally useless. Then again, I’m getting better at reading. A lot of words stand out and I can put together a simple translation of a paragraph or a headline.
I’m also listening to more music than ever before and trying to translate the lyrics, sometimes with absolutely hysterical results. (Remember AND YOU DON’T EVEN BLOW YOUR MUSTACHE, YOU ARRANGE YOUR LIFE!!!!!!!!! I still giggle every time I hear that line.) I’ve been on the lookout for new bands for a while now and I found KALUSH prior to this year’s Eurovision competition but I didn’t put two and two together for a while. It wasn’t until they started getting a lot of exposure that I recognised the rapper’s voice. This song has been on repeat for-fucking-ever during my commute. One, because Slava rapping is a kink I didn’t know I had (I don’t know if it’s rapping… more like over enunciating? Don’t know. Doesn’t matter.) and two, what the fuck is the guy in the pink hat saying?
I like learning songs that are hard. (ha. I said hard.) Guns and Ships from Hamilton. It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine) from R.E.M. Диагноз from Бумбокс. The speed of the lyrics. The cadence. Even the way certain words are accented. It’s challenge I love. And one that I’m not all that great at in Ukrainian.
So. KALUSH.
If some of their videos didn’t have the lyrics, I think I would die. He hits certain words weird to make them fit better in his rapid fire style. I maybe understand one or two words each time he goes off because he’s just so fucking fast. Maybe if I was fluent, maybe if I could at least read quicker, if I could speak faster, it wouldn’t be quite so tongue twisty…
Example 1 (a quick teaser of the Eurovision winner because it has the lyrics):
Also.. watching him live? Fuck me. How much did he have to practice?!?!?!
(I love this video because it was filmed in Площі Ринок (Market Square) in Lviv. I walked that cobblestone street and I know exactly where it was filmed which makes me happy in ways I can’t explain. Too bad the quality isn’t the greatest.)
Example 2:
(And no. I don’t know what’s up with the “carpet guy”. I should probably google it, but I kind of like not knowing.)
So. Yeah.
I would apologise, because I had a blog set up specifically for my Ukrainian posts, but I don’t like it over there. I’m actually going to shut it down whenever I get to it… I had an idea for a different Ukrainian themed site, but we’ll see where that goes. Probably nowhere right now.
hold on to your sombreros, amigos… here we go again
I’m STILL cleaning out that damn bedroom because it is so hard to go through all that stuff.
And yes, I know that green folder holds love letters from MJR, blue from JH, and red from ML but I’m still going to read all of them. Actually, that’s a lie. I threw ML’s out without even opening the folder. He’s not The One Try 1, or The One Try 2. Yeah… JH became one of my closest friends after we broke up and I kind of wish that DS had written letters to compare them with. (And that, my friend, is a long story with lots of the weirdness that has come to be the norm in my life. All that to say, I’m friends with both of them still and those friendships are very different.)
MJR’s though. Those hurt to read… not like I wasn’t expecting that. Our relationship was… difficult. He was fucked in the head. I’m fucked in the head. He cheated on his girlfriend at the time with me. Then, he cheated on me with her. Yeah, yeah, ‘once a cheater, always a cheater.’ We haven’t spoken since then, but he used to check out my LinkedIn profile so much that I cancelled my account. I don’t know if LinkedIn stalking is a thing, but it certainly bothered me. And I just found him on Facebook. Because, of course, I had to look for him just now. He’s changed a lot (I barely recognised him with the beard, but his eyes! His eyes gave him away… they took my breath away back then and they still do. And THAT was unexpected, although I should know better.) He’s married to a woman whose name is oddly similar to the one of the woman he cheated on me with. Honestly, I hope it is her. Looking back, I was just a distraction from a relationship that wasn’t ready to click. It was so clear in retrospect - the way he’d bring her up and compare her to me even though I was supposedly the better choice. I still read every single letter and cried over every page.
I threw out a box of letters people had written me. People that I don’t remember even writing to, referencing things I’ve forgotten. I didn’t even read letters from my supposed best friend at the time. Wasn’t worth it. They can I say all they want about me, but they were just as bad. I don’t care what you think as long as it’s about me. The best of us can find happiness in misery.
But that stretch of memory lane, while “fun” to walk down, is not what spurred this entry.
I keep finding photos in the oddest places. In a box filled with bills to shred. In a box filled with letters from people - where the photos have abso-fucking-lutely nothing to do with the letter writers. It’s like I’d just randomly shove shit in a box. Which I probably did, but whatever.
I found this amazing photo of my cousin and her father. He died several years ago and well… let’s just say that I wish had a photo like that of myself with my dad. I took a picture of it and sent it to her with the offer that I would mail her the original. Crickets. So I threw it out. Technically, if you want to split hairs, they’re NOT my family any more and therefore, fall under rule #2: thou shall not keep photos of people who aren’t family. I stick to the labels because it’s easy and I’m lazy, but honestly, they’ve been reduced to people I share a bloodline with. And that’s fine.
What’s not fine is that my aunt blocked me on Facebook. I mean, I can see her name on M’s posts but I’m blocked when I click on it. I see posts with multiple comments where it looks like people are having a one-sided conversation.
I’ve known she blocked me for years but seeing that photo of M and J hit me like a fucking boulder. Everything my aunt took from me just hit me all at once… I’m fucking crying again. It hurts. That’s a wound that will never heal and I have tried. Therapy. Journaling. Blogging. More therapy. I don’t know. Maybe I don’t want to let it heal. Subconsciously, of course. Consciously, I want that bitch out of my head.
What the fuck is it with that generation on that side of my family tree?!?!?!
It was so easy to get rid of my father’s side. I barely ever think of them, although I just did a quick google search. I couldn’t find anything but names and cell phone numbers and street addresses. (Privacy, much?) Oddly enough, no Facebook accounts to be found. Then again, my dad’s side has pretty generic names.
But that’s neither here nor there.
Context: I was never close to them growing up. Even though I had two cousins on that side. We were close enough in age that it should have been the three of us against the world. They could have been like my brothers… my dad wanted that for us so desperately. He adored them and would do anything for them.
Ike wanted to see me, so I invited him to Ohio. And it was so fucking weird. I can’t remember if my father was alive or dead at that point… but either way, he was concerned about me and wanted to see me. He’s blood and I felt like I had an obligation to make him feel better about things by being there for him.
Yeah. Obligation. Not love. Not even like.
Blood calls to blood, right?
At some point after my father’s death, I wrote a blog entry about… everything. Every thing negative about my father. Every thing I loved about him.
Chris called. Said they’d read it, and what the fuck was I thinking, airing my dirty laundry to the world.
(Oh, sweetheart, if you could only see me now.)
That was the last time I spoke to anyone on the Gee side of the family tree.
If I had known it was that easy, I would have done it years earlier.
