Messing around

Random thoughts from my holiday trip back east:

My mother and her wife drink a lot of milk. For some reason, this seems odd to me. Not that my mom has a wife, but that they drink a lot of milk. No one else I know does.

I had only one bad moment with my mom. I made the mistake of telling her about my new zen approach to dealing with my parents (no, I didn't phrase it like that). It's this easy: I don't let the little things bother me. That would've been okay to say, but then I gave an example of when we were in New Haven this summer, and Denise was trying to parallel park and my mother had her redo it six times, even though three out of the first five were fine, and I just looked out the window and tried not to get angry because it didn't matter. It was their dynamic, and if Denise wanted to be bullied, that was fine. Well, my mom stormed out the room, saying we were picking on her. She sure is sensitive, that one.

You know what should be outlawed? That thing where you have to hold hands at dinner and say something you're thankful for. Especially when your step-mother's nice-if-mildly-homophobic brother is over, and you just know he's going to make bad jokes about having to hold your hand.


My 20-year-old brother Gabe was home for the holidays. He had been out in LA until his program ran out of money. Apparently, girls were flying all the way across the country to sleep with him. Which isn't much of a surprise. When he came to visit at 15, he was already 6'3" with a big white-boy afro and clothes all of orange, and he was stopping cars dead on Market Street. While we were waiting for a bus, this beautiful Brazilian woman screeched to a halt and invited Gabe to compete in a teen modeling contest with a $250,000 grand prize. "You're exactly what we're looking for," she said. He didn't go, because he's a small town boy and it seemed weird to him. Yes, a quarter of a million dollars is weird. No, hot Brazilian women aren't. (Just ask 25-year-old brother Joel, who married one last year.) Oh yeah, and Kristina and Kathleen still talk about him in a tone that is a little frightening.

Anyway, upon my return east, I discovered that Gabe had changed. For one thing, his "death stare" had blossomed.


The death stare is one of the many fine features our father passed down to us. It is an intense, unwavering, slightly unnerving eye-lock that bores down upon its recipients. It is not malicious in intent; in fact, the user is usually just paying close attention to what the speaker is saying. But something about that gaze is a bit too much for some folks. Hell, even I find my dad's stare disconcerting at times.


I used to have the stare. Back in the mid-90s I remember a few girls telling me that I made them all squirrelly with my intent gaze. (Secretly, however, they seemed to like it.) But then I must've stopped or maybe the girls got hardier, because no one mentioned for years. Only recently did a friend bring it up. Maybe the death stare has returned?

Well, I relayed this information to the whole family, and everyone got excited about trying on their death stares. This is what entertainment amounts to in snowy Western Mass. (Secretly, I like it.)


Some Strachotas haven't quite got the stare down yet.


My dad told me two stories about him and my step-mom, Ellen. At a Christmas many years ago, when they were first seeing each other, my dad opened a present he didn't like or he owned already. And he said exactly that, which led her to think, "What the hell am I doing here? Who are these horrible people who tell the truth about their Christmas presents?"

I also asked him about how exactly he'd approached Ellen. Because at the time they first started seeing each other, they were both married (him not to my mom, but to wife number two, Gabe & Joel's mother). I wanted to know how he'd taken that leap of faith, considering that she also worked with him at the same school. It could've been a real disaster. But he explained that he always liked to jump into things -- whether it be relationships or work or piles of leaves -- because even if it turned into a mess, it would be an interesting mess.

So, I decided to take that as my mantra for the new year, and maybe you should to. I here proclaim 2008 the year of the interesting mess.