29 November 2007
PREEMPTIVELY FLINCHING
I’m having much trepidation over going home for the upcoming Christmas holiday. Perhaps we’re all too stubborn — I know I can be — and even belligerent at times, but we all love each other. It just seems that we put it to the test when everyone congregates the one time of the year we get together.
The drama got so bad that I wanted to pack up and leave, except my car was in the shop and I’d have nowhere (or nobody?) to turn to other than a hotel. Or back to New York.
If the drama comes my way next time, I’m just going to walk away. I really have better things to do than air my grievances about family members which — in the grand scheme of things matter not one iota — only to further perpetuate the nonsensical dramatics everyone takes to when the night begins and the drinks come out.
I have better things to do like live my life. To make something of myself, to follow my dreams. To stay out of everyone’s way and get stuff done. I just wish I wouldn’t have to do all that and still not look forward to going home for the holidays. It’s horribly depressing.
Considering how somber this journal’s taken since turning thirty, I wonder who reads it. Come and say hi and comment! Or offer me distractions when I go home next month.


I’ve still been checking in on your journal. You’re one of the few people (actually the only one I think) from High School whose web presence I’ve found and remember to check from time to time.
As I’m coming up on the big Three Oh next year; I hear you about the whole somber feeling. It feels like once you hit 30, it’s time to finally be a grown-up, to be established or on your way to respectability, or something.
3 December 2007: 10:01 am
Yo Adam. I still remember our crazy 5 min drive from Rome to Utica. In that little red Plymouth Horizon. Remember that? I think I made that car do things it wasn’t designed to do. I think that was my senior year…
Turning thirty really affected me. It was a very frustrating birthday with me coming to terms with feeling some pull to grow up; and to become more responsible for both my actions and my words. It was spent in the hometown, which is already rough for me as I’m trying to come to terms reconciling my life here in New York with the world I left behind — which is never really behind.
Confusing stuff.
Glad to see you’re checking in from time to time. Maybe over the holiday I’ll look you up. My email address is the same it’s been for a long time. Look me up.
3 December 2007: 10:48 pm
Oh man I’d forgotten about the 5 minute trip from Utica to Rome! How did we not end up pulled over or killed? The second time we tried it we did almost rear-end a truck. I guess that was the universe’s way of telling us not to go to the well one too many times.
Depending on when you’re “home” over the holiday I should be around. We’ve got some family obligations of course (ahhh the large italian family I married into) and some standing plans, but like I said I should be around.
4 December 2007: 9:40 am
Haha Adam, you say “we” as if you were the driver. You were the hapless passenger with the crazy sixteen year old driver. It was probably winter too. Did you know my other friends called me "Toetag Bill?" Wow.
I’m a much better — and safer — driver these days.
Ahh large Italian families. Congrats on getting married, though I’m sure it’s rather belated. I came across Jason’s site (or his wife’s?) and we corresponded for a little while but that communication fell through too. So it goes.
4 December 2007: 10:32 am
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