Home Coming

Returning home after a long time away feels much the way I imagine it would to be a ghost. The rest of the world keeps spinning but I feel like I’ve stepped back in time. Or at any rate, expected nothing to have changed. I suppose that nothing really did change, except the seasons.
In the great scheme of things, I really wasn’t away from home for all that long. Six months isn’t that long, but to me it feels like I’ve returned to my boyhood home after growing into an old man, and finding the town and it’s characters still doing the exact same thing they were when I left. Its an odd feeling, and I can’t help feeling like I’m just drifting through here and tomorrow I’ll wake up back on the west coast in that piece of shit apartment with no damn job again.
Maybe the time spent away from home feels like such an eternity because the experience has aged me considerably. Maybe I feel old just because California was so thoroughly exhausting, both mentally due to the stress of impending failure/homelessness, and physically because its so damn hot that five minutes in California feels like a lifetime of hard labor and poverty.
It amazes me how much of Cape Cod I took for granted, never taking the time to stop and appreciate the little things that make this place great. True, pretty much every person living on Cape is a douche or an alcoholic, but the air is wonderful here. Its sad that you can’t smell it anymore once you’ve lived here long enough, but coming over the bridge we rolled the windows down and that smell of saltwater and beach plums filled the car. I love that smell.
I also missed the sound of crickets. This one I actually did bother to appreciate, its a sound I’ve always loved, and I mentioned many times in California how badly I missed it. Apparently I underestimate how badly I missed that sound, because every time I step outside I take a few seconds to really listen to it. There are SO MANY of them. Trying to imagine the sound of crickets, I’d picture three or four of them, and even that was splendid. In reality though, there are so many that they make their own kind of atmosphere; a less tangible one. A blanket of noise that surrounds you just like air.
Later this week I’ll walk down to Week’s pond and let the peepers sing for me too.
Another thing that California simply doesn’t have is stars. Auburn wasn’t a huge city, and if you looked up you could certainly see that the stars still existed, but it just wasn’t the same out there. Looking up from my parent’s driveway, you can really see the depth of space and the distance between each star. The longer you look, the more appear. In California, the stars are there, but really with none of the depth or majesty you get here. Its more like someone left little pinpricks in a black ceiling. They aren’t even all that bright, more a smattering of dull grayish spots.
The smell here, as I mentioned earlier, is fantastic. Not just that beach smell, but the night smell too. You know, that night smell? Its like air, except you can’t breathe enough of it and every breath leaves you feeling freer and more elated. California smells like dust during the day and car exhaust at night.

Aimee and I have quite a few things to look forward to here. I plan to resume floor installation where I left off, and Aimee hopes to resume her career at CVS where she left off as well. I hope she gets the job, but she is amazing and will figure out something to do either way, I’m not worried about it at all.
My parents advised many times against living with Shawn and Carrie, and although I think it’d be cool for the first few days, I must admit they are right. I don’t want to impose either, but we didn’t have much choice. Anyway when it became apparent that we weren’t changing our minds about the living situation they decided to let us live here again, however briefly and with a few ground rules. We have to be on our way out, no setting up camp and staying indefinitely as we did last time. No wasting money on crap and not working consistently. We have to be constantly searching for an apartment and should set our sights on being out in a few weeks.
While it is difficult to hear so many rules and regulations from my folks, I understand completely and am glad they’re being hard on us this time around; its so easy to let yourself get complacent.
Apparently they also took out a life insurance policy on me when i was born, and have been paying extra into it since then. They took all the “extra” money they’ve put into it so far and will be giving it to us to get us started. Its nice they found a way to help us, considering that my dad spent most of the year unemployed, though they did warn that if i kick the bucket tomorrow i’ll have to be buried in a pine box, crackhead style. Thats alright with me, pine is relatively weak and if I’m buried alive or come back from the dead, I want a coffin that won’t be too hard to claw through.

All that being said, I’d like to rant briefly about the aggravation involved in driving 3300 miles in five days. Many apologies to Peter Parkour, who i’ve never met personally but seems to be a good guy,but I’ve officially had about enough of truckers to last me a lifetime. Why is it that a trucker feels its alright to nearly kill someone cutting them off in the passing lane at the last possible second, then spending the next 20 miles creeeeeping past another trucker? Can’t they see that I’m doing 90 in a corolla and that if he/she waited 2 seconds I’d be literally miles down the road and out of sight? I’d also like to point out to everyone else that passing lane means PASSING lane. If you aren’t PASSING anyone then you don’t need to be in the PASSING LANE. Thats why its called the passing lane and not the drift-along-like-an-asshole-stupidly-unaware-that-there-are-40-cars-tailgating-you-and-you-are-causing-a-massive-obstruction-in-traffic-lane. Maybe they should call it something else, since no one uses it the way its intended to be used anyway. Every state and it’s drivers have their own attitude/demeanor as far as ignorant jackass driving goes. In New Jersey they could call it the Fuck You Lane. In Indiana they could call it the skipitty-doo. If you’re visiting from out of state you could call it the Default Lane, or the Too Chickenshit To Move Over Lane.

Alright then, thats enough for now. I go back to work tomorrow.

I’d also like to apologize to anyone whos comments I haven’t responded to, I’ve just been busy and will get around to it tomorrow most likely.