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another survivor
Sep. 10th, 2008 08:52 pmMy cousin Jeff blew through Seattle, this past weekend--first time he'd been out here, and first time I'd seen the guy in years. Truth be told, we've talked maybe a dozen times since we were both teenagers. Now he's this tall, slick professional dude. Also, balding. (He didn't exactly draw the lucky genetic cards on that one--his hair started falling out in his twenties.)
Jeff and his partner (of fourteen years ...!) Dennis did the usual first-time Seattle weekend things: the Space Needle, Pike Place Market, Post Alley, Underworld Tour, etc.
Saturday night, we all sat down to a four-hour dinner at Dragonfish--all on Dennis' dime (over my strenuous objections, I assure you! Please pass the sake ...). Jeff and I rewarded Dennis' generosity by raking over three of four generations of our family's* Deleware Valley Gothic, stories of truly tabloid white trash dysfunction going back to the Great Depression.
Why? Because you have to have lived through some of that crap to believe it, and after all these years it's kind of validating to talk to another survivor. Looked at from the right angle, aspects of the experience even manage to be funny, in retrospect.
When we realized what downers we were being, we changed the subject: How about that Underworld Tour? And all that craaaaazy architecture, downtown, huh? Philadelphia's not an armpit anymore? Really? Non-gothic stuff like that.
*Jeff's a cousin on my mother's side--relatives I've been estranged from for a long, long while. So they're not to be confused with the "family" I usually talk about--i.e., my five half-siblings and their kids, whom I'm related to through my dad. The latter group are a lot more ... functional.
Jeff and his partner (of fourteen years ...!) Dennis did the usual first-time Seattle weekend things: the Space Needle, Pike Place Market, Post Alley, Underworld Tour, etc.
Saturday night, we all sat down to a four-hour dinner at Dragonfish--all on Dennis' dime (over my strenuous objections, I assure you! Please pass the sake ...). Jeff and I rewarded Dennis' generosity by raking over three of four generations of our family's* Deleware Valley Gothic, stories of truly tabloid white trash dysfunction going back to the Great Depression.
Why? Because you have to have lived through some of that crap to believe it, and after all these years it's kind of validating to talk to another survivor. Looked at from the right angle, aspects of the experience even manage to be funny, in retrospect.
When we realized what downers we were being, we changed the subject: How about that Underworld Tour? And all that craaaaazy architecture, downtown, huh? Philadelphia's not an armpit anymore? Really? Non-gothic stuff like that.
*Jeff's a cousin on my mother's side--relatives I've been estranged from for a long, long while. So they're not to be confused with the "family" I usually talk about--i.e., my five half-siblings and their kids, whom I'm related to through my dad. The latter group are a lot more ... functional.
