Before I start typing, it’s important to note that evr0ck17.medium.com is brought to you as the result of contributions from readers like Amanda (of CA), and Meredith (of NY). My laptop charger stopped working today, and Amanda helped me get another one, so the fact that i’m doing this is a very direct result of that. I don’t blog on anything but my laptop keyboard.
More indirectly, i’m doing it in a clean environment, which I owe to Meredith (of NY) who made it possible to get the various products I needed to spend the morning cleaning.
there are of course, more folks but I figured i’d just mention what happened on this rainy day, which happens also to be my dear mother’s birthday. I hope it isn’t rainy up in Boston. obviously, my mother’s contributions who I am and what I do are infinitely vast, and deserving of many posts, and much more. It’s my intention to do justice to her as best I can, as adequately as I am able to. I think that if I continue on the trajectory that I have been fortunate enough to be put on, that it will become possible.
I was going to write about something else, but since I don’t ever know what i’m really going to write about until I write it we’re going in a different direction.
It’s my Ma’s birthday. I don’t write about my Ma that often, on here. I don’t know why. I’m a decent writer but maybe i’m not sure i’m decent enough to do justice to her. It’s heavy. There have been times when our relationship was very contentious, and when I look back, I feel guilty… not my favorite feeling obviously, so naturally i’m not going to venture to bring those feelings to the forefront through writing all of the time. I do understand that this writing thing is at it’s best when i’m uncomfortable and vulnerable. If I had to guess why people continue to read what I write (wild guess) it’s that i’ll go to that place in clear view of other people’s view.
If you have a perfect relationship with your parents, i’m happy for you. I may think you’re a bit of a pussy, also, because where the fuck is your character development gonna come from? My relationship with both of my parents has complexities, and oh boy, do their relationships with their parent’s have complexities.
But, it’s Ma’s birthday, not my therapists office so i’ll just tell you a few things about her, that you should know.
I like to think I that have excellent taste in media, especially film, which i’m getting back into lately. You’ve got to understand that my Ma was on some kind of mission to make sure that I knew which movies were worth a damn, from as far back as I can possibly remember. I made a new friend named Ray, recently who said he was into film, so I started explaining the kind of movies I was raised on (by my mother). Stuff like: Star Wars, Terminator, Alien, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, The Shining… This isn’t letterboxd, but the list could go on forever and give credibility to my claim that I was raised right, as far as cinema is concerned. Ray, by the way, immediately said “oh, so you do know your shit”. Yes, I do because my Ma knows hers. Not to mention, that I grew up in an era when movies like “Aladdin” “the lion king” and “Beauty and the Beast” were basically an annual event, and we would go to the multiplex to see them all. Now that i’m back watching flicks again, I’m more in touch with the importance of my mother’s work as a cinephile.
I’m trying to do something here that’s bigger than I could ever adequately pull off so it’s just going to be kind of random things that I’ll throw at this blank page in an effort to do something for my mom on her birthday, writing is the t hing that I can do, so… that’s what i’m doing
Go and ask anyone my age who grew up in the 90s about the Nintendo 64, see what kind of response that elicits from them, it was a big fucking deal. in 1996 during the fall of 5th grade, I was obsessed with the nintendo 64 ( as was the style at the time). Well, my mother was behind the scenes at toys R’ us fighting tooth and nail for me to have Nintendo 64 under the tree. She told me later that they had lost her preorder, or something similar to that. She told the story like that Sienfeld episode with the rental car reservation that fell through. The exchange was “i know what a reservation is sir”, to which Jerry replies “i don’t think that you do”. I’ve since worked in video game retail for both the release of the Wii, and the Switch (at best buy, and then game stop), so I grew to understand the scarcity of Nintendo hardware at launch, and the demand created for it. I know that my Ma went into defcon 5 to customer service battle for me to have that Nintendo 64, which is one of those defining experiences of the millennial generation. I think my cousin Phil and I stayed up for 3 days playing Mario 64, after that Christmas. we were so amazed that we couldnt divert our eyes, even to sleep.
I want to fast forward 15 years from the nintendo 64, and this is where i’m going to lose my composure. It’s ok.
In the winter of 2022, I had found myself homeless again after a disastrous few months in supportive housing, in which I had been stabbed by a psychotic roommate and had relapsed not only on regular drugs that people regularly do, but my weird air duster huffing habit had resurfaced. The air duster cans get really cold, cold enough to cause 3rd degree burns on the skin. I had a couple of 3rd degree burns that required skin grafting, so I was in a hospital somewhere in Manhattan. 3rd degree burns are a serious injury, so I was on serious painkillers, fading in and out of consciousness. My memory is foggy.
I do remember, and i’ll never forget that my mother was there with me, in the hospital room in New York. I hadn’t seen her in 3 years, but she came from Boston to NYC to see me in one of the worst states that i’ve ever been in. This was not a simple little day trip for her, due to her mobility issues and very limited financial resources, not to mention what it must have been like to see her first born son in that kind of state. I can’t say that she didn’t think it’d be the last time she’d ever see me, given how I roll when i’m in the kind of mindset that I get into when I think it’s a good idea to huff toxic office cleaning chemicals that will scorch the flesh off my bones.
I thought it was a hallucination, my mom in that hospital room, because that’s the kind of shit i’d hallucinate when I was without anyone I cared about, on the street in midtown or somewhere way worse, completely out of my mind.
think about that. who doesn't wan’t their mommy when they’re suffering? it’s a universal human reaction to pain.
I wasn’t hallucinating, though. My mother was there. If you wrote the sentence “it was a dream come true”, it would be quite literally accurate.
it was so indescribably powerful. More powerful than even the great Nintendo 64.
Lately, i’m happy to be in contact with her on the phone, because I wasn’t always. I try to call not just when things are going badly, or to complain about this and that but to be present, as present as I can be given that I live in a different city. I think that she knows that i’m trying to be better than I have been.
Like I said, I hope it’s not raining In Boston, and I hope she’s having a good birthday.
