This Kind of Machine Only Takes Quarters

The days have been busy lately. Busy and then not so busy. One of those dichotomies. Last week I got off the train at Union and, having skipped breakfast since I was running late, I went to get a Jamba Juice. Then I had to go downstairs against newly delivered pedestrians and then out through the Great Hall. But before I got very far, I passed the Corner Bakery and they have a patio-like thing even though its not outside and there were two people talking at a table. One was a middle-aged man and the other was of unknown features. The second person was wearing a dinosaur costume head. Like on the show "Dinosaurs" from about 10 years ago, it was twice the size of a human's head and seemingly made of foam or plastic. The whole thing was on the person's head, and he/she was not simply trying it on, but was wearing it. And nodding along with the person he/she was talking to in conversation. As if the head was not there. There appeared to be no eye-holes or a mouth-hole so it must have been suffocating. But the wearer didn't seem bothered. I hung around for a few minutes pretending to wait for someone while stealing glances at this strange and surreal sight before me. I still can't figure it out. It's like something Mary would do.

On a different note, I got a letter from my older cousin Emily yesterday. She's 27 or 28 and just started back at UIC this semester. She was valedictorian of her high school and intially went to U of C, but dropped out after half a semester. Her roommate's name was Melvina and her boyfriend's name was Melvin. No joke. She bounced around UIC and Columbia for another year or so and then went to Paris for six months to work as an au pair for a friend of our aunt's, who was the head lawyer for GE and had to do some deal in France. After that, she never went back to school and pretty much just temped and got odd jobs. She worked at TWA for the two months before they were bought by American (I think) and was downsized. She worked at Poster Plus on Michigan for a few months and most recently at the Art Institute itself, in the gift shop. She said she has a graduating gift for me still, but its too heavy to mail. I saw her at Christmas, six months after my graduation and she didn't mention it. I wonder what it is.

She opened the letter saying she hopes my parents aren't controlling my life and keeping me from doing what I want/should be doing. Then she asked what was with my dad's obsession with our cousins, the Bakers. I don't know what has information has reached her, but what she's referring to is my dad helping my cousin Ray get into college and taking Matt to see some campuses (something he talked about but hasn't done yet) and becoming a surrogate godfather to Timmy, the trouble one. Kevin does well enough on his own for a twelve-year-old I guess. I don't see this as being obsessed with them, but just part of what families do. Matt would have gone on the college visits my dad took Michelle on had he been able to go. We were planning on taking Matt to Duquesne University in Pittsburgh next month because our Irish cousin's brother-in-law is second-in-command and Shane was supposed to be in town to go to a rehab specialist. That plan looks scuttled in light of Shane's recent death, but we'll see. My Uncle Pat works at Columbia and gets free tuition for his kids at a network of sister schools around the country. Ray goes to Evansville in SW Indiana, which is on the list. They hadn't paid their dues to the list until my dad called down and had them pony up. Thus, Ray got to go to his #1 choice, for free.

As for Tim, he got the short stick when it came to godparents. His godfather, his dad's friend, couldn't care less, lives in Texas, has hardly ever met Tim and plays no role in his life whatsoever. His godmother, our Aunt Maureen, was forced upon him by our grandma because Maureen was the only one who wasn't a godparent to anyone (and for good reason). She's also nonexistent in his life and looks down upon his family. So my dad thought he would fill the void, since he's around and Tim could use all the help he can get. Pretty much all he's done is take him out to dinner, which he couldn't eat because he was training for wrestling at the time, and bought him a fishing pole for Christmas. I wonder if Emily's getting snide remarks from her mom about it. Strange comment to start a letter with I think.

Later on, after sounding like a twelve-year-old talking about her classes and how she has a crush on her forty-something ex-hippie prof, she posed the question, "What's going on lately with marriages breaking up?" She was referring to our Aunt Maureen and Uncle Rick divorcing, but then she mentioned her parents. Her dad either quit or retired from his job as a public defender for death-row inmates on appeal last year sometime (he was the lawyer of one of the four whose convictions were overturned when Gov. Ryan left office) and moved to Pittsburgh where he's from ostensibly to care for his Alzheimer's-afflicted mom and to be near the rest of his family. This information never really was clear to rest of the family, but little-by-little things are coming to light. Uncle Frank then came to Christmas, which was normal. But I learned that my Aunt Kate lives in the condo she uses for work instead of their nice Oak Park home, which Emily and her Brazillian boyfriend occupy (all to themselves, apparently). She mentioned that they're moving out of the house at the end of March and that they're all splitting up mementoes and all of their stuff and that she's getting used to her parents splitting up. She didn't come right out and say they are divorced, but it doesn't take a genius to read between those lines. She wrote this as if she thought I knew they were divorced, which no one in the family knows but everyone thinks. Its like this big secret.

So suddenly I find myself without two uncles and its very strange, since before this we had been a family untouched by divorce. My uncle Dan had been divorced twice before, once in the seventies and once in the eighties, but none of us kids knew the wives. I met and knew Donna but I was four or five when they divorced and they lived in Colorado at the time, so its almost as if she never existed.

Michelle is especially upset because our Uncle Frank was her all-time favorite uncle and she said he'd better come back just to see her. She was kidding, but she's definitely worried she'll never see him again. As for Uncle Rick, well, its unfortunate and sad but he was always a fringe relative anyway, since he was married to the isolationist Maureen and he maybe said five words to you when he saw you. I liked him, but since I never saw him much anyway, I'm more focused on the word divorce than the human quality of that specific one. But I will definitely miss my Uncle Frank.

My mom thinks that Maureen has met someone else, someone richer. She's as deep as foot massager and is entirely focused on appearances and material things. My mom thinks she met a doctor through my Aunt Barb whose eighty-year-old husband is a vascular surgeon and Maureen does his office finances. She filed for divorce and my Uncle Rick refuses to leave the house until it's finalized. Through splitting everything up, she has to give him half the house's value, I guess, which would be roughly $300,000 and my mom said she seems to think she can come up with the money and keep the house at the same time. And there's no way on earth she could do that without some rich new guy in the shadows. My parents are great conspirators. If you ever want to divine a story, take a meeting.

Anyway, long post, but I'm procrastinating at work and hadn't written in awhile. On to the next.