You Reminded Me

For some reason you seem like the kind of person who doesn't really like listening to things like this from people like me.  It's interesting though that something you said triggered a memory that's so dear to me and I really wanted to share it with you, because you're the person who brought the memory the light.  Weird that...  I'm fighting the urge to blurgh it out - highly personal crap - by telling everyone on my blog (so it's less awkward???).

Imagine 1994-1995 Jason...  13 Years old...  I had been home schooled up to this year and the most popular music I knew about was Mozart, Beethoven, Louis Armstrong, and Neil Diamond.  The kids in my class talked about shit like Billy Ray Cyrus because I lived in Hell.  To further frame things... I was doing college work before going back to 8th grade. The only two reasons I was there was because my father had just died and Kentucky has (had?) some bullshit policy about not allowing children to skip grades.

And then my Grandpa died.  My mom's dad.  This had a pretty big impact though I didn't really show it to anyone - or at least I don't remember showing it.  After Dad died we went to visit my grandparents and my Grandpa took me out shooting - that's what we did in my family.  He intimidated the fuck out of me and I couldn't shoot straight for shit.  He barely said four words to me the whole time.  Gave me an apple. That was it.  No moving inspirational movie scene grandpa grandson talk where he tells me the secret to life and lets me know that everything will be all right. Nope.  I got a grunt when I jerked the trigger. :-)  It was enough to spend that time with him though.  I blew the tops off some bowling pins after one of grandpa's (I dunno ass-hole) friends said I couldn't shoot.  In my head I made him smile.

So there I am at the funeral.  I know about half the people there.  The other half I honestly could give a shit about at that point.  I was really trying hard to not punch every single person who asked me who I was and how I knew Russell.  Grandma was being awesome and making most of us feel better, but this was a hard day.  Then I met one of my cousins that I had never met before.  The reason I had never met her is because she's the daughter of my Mom's step-sister. Whom I had never met before.  I'm 99% sure my cousin's name is Christi -  I'm terrible at remembering names...  I love Christi.  I hope that she remembers me and feels the same way that I do, because she is by far my favorite of my extended family.  She felt pretty much exactly the same as I did at that funeral.  And she was cool as fuck.  She said - "Let's get the fuck out of here."

And we fucking left...  Christi had a car and Christi.....had GOOD ASS TASTE IN MUSIC.  I had ear sex that day -  in the front seat of a piece of shit car.  I will never forget hearing "One Headlight" for the first time in that car.  It was like the world opening up to me.  It's like I didn't know that I could listen to music and someone was showing me that it was here waiting for me the whole time.  I don't remember what else we listened to, but I do remember that every single song was symphonic to me.  Christi and I had a real ass conversation too.  She talked to me like we were on the same level, not like she was older than me - which she was (wouldn't seem like it now).

The world definitely changed for me that day.  I became a different person.  I think that I modelled a big chunk of my personality after what I got from Christi that day too.  She was very introspective.  Very cool. And I remember several times where she said "Hey do you know what _______  is?"

She taught me what 1-800-WHAAAAAA means :-) Boo Hoo bitches.