2001-05-07 - 10:09 a.m.

Indiana from California Eyes

Thursday I flew to Chicago for my second oldest cousin's wedding. He is about my age and a nice guy, so when I was invited, I told my parents that I'd like to go.

However, as I'm getting older, I'm finding it harder to relate to either side of my family and I find my trips east across the Rocky Mountains to be stressful. Imagine this, you are stopped in O'Hare (one of the largest international airports) because you are the only person with non natural looking hair.

No other pink heads, green heads, blue heads, or even spikey haired people. And my dress was toned down to your basic black (something not too far different from clergy members and old women).

On the flight to Chicago I saw the movie Miss Congenality staring Sandra Bullock (sp?). What a terrible movie. I went ahead and watched it, because generally I find a 4+ hour flight to be long and I wanted to give the free movie flight a chance. It didn't insult me, it just wasn't interesting.

When I landed with my family, whom I flew with, my sister and I went to my rental car. The rest of the family went to their own car, but before we parted ways to head to my grandmother my father kept trying to give me directions. He grew up in Chicago, technically Northern Indiana, but it really is just a suburb of Chicago. However, I didn't understand why at midnight on a Thursday night we wanted to take toll roads that loop around the city, instead of driving through the free interestates that run through the city.

I picked my own path to my grandmas.

Gaga

Everybody has cute names for their grandmothers. I have a grandma and a gaga. Apparently she got her name when my oldest cousin (who is about 3 years older than me, but acts like he is 40+ going on 6) couldn't say grandma, so he called her "gaga". It sounds like baby talk, and really was, but it is cute and it is everybody's name for her, save my dad and aunt. Everybody else just calls her Gaga or Gags.

I managed to get to Gaga's house long before the rest of my family. In part it is because I tend to drive with a heavy foot, and also because I knew generally how to get there. I do have an honest knack at finding places or people or lost things. She was still up, and not soon after my sister and I arrived did the rest of my family arrive. We all stayed up late talking (which was nice).

It also was nice that Gaga didn't care about my blue hair. Or at least didn't think to say anything to me about it. I really appreciate that.

Cemetaries

Friday morning, after breakfast and a few games of pool, we went to my step-grandfather, great-grandmother, and grandfather's graves. They are all burried in a cemetary in Illionis, which is only a few minutes away from Gaga's. On the drive there I was shocked by the condition of the buildings. When I was a kid, Hammond, IN was in so much better repair. The city has really fallen apart. And the people are glum too. In California people tend to be fairly trim, and certainly alive looking. I just didn't get that impression from the people I saw. Many of my local relatives and their friends, either were stick thin (which isn't trim) or needed to cut back on the polish sasuages.

Anyway, I always enjoy going to see the graves of my relatives. I knew my step-grandfather and went to his funeral the last time I was in Hammond (1996). In fact, back in that day I was a closet goth. I dressed in greys and wore a trench everywhere, but nobody really suspected then.

I had met my great-grandmother when I was very young. She was missing a leg and arm, and stuck in a bed for years. :( Her health was so frail for years and years, but at least I did get to meet her. But I have no idea what she was like. Nobody talks about her much. My dad's family is like that, they don't talk about people that much unless it is bad.

Now I never met my grandfather, he died in 1968, shortly after my parents were married. In fact, he died when he only 48 years old from heart failure. My father has the same heart condition and is older, so naturally I went in large part to see my grandmother and be there for my dad. I did watch my dad closely as we looked at his father's grave.

The stones in that section were all placed down in the ground. Nothing stood up. So we had to hunt across all the names. I was the one who found the grave, which was interesting. It just is weird seeing your family name (my name is unusal) sitting on a tomb stone. My grandfather and great-grandmother were the only two people with our family name that I saw.

And the cemetary I was at had the best chances of finding my name. Every name there was Polish or Slavic, with an occassional "Nelson" or "Sanchez" mixed in. My grandmother explained that those people were Polish girls who married an Englishman or a Mexician. Yes, my grandmother and most of my family is ballantly racist.

Racism

That was the hardest part of this wedding. Seeing just how white and racist ... no, just how conservative my family is. I'm really lucky that my parents haven't disowned me. I've been good to them. Hell, I became an engineer for them and this weekend I missed a lot of things while driving my grandmother around chasing after her cane or teeth (she tends to leave them places).

But to hear my cousins, uncles, grandmother, and other family complain about black people and Mexicans only strengthened my dislike for the Mid-west and my resolved to be one of the best fucking engineers there is. I figure as long as I have a respectable job and show tolerance that I can be a model to others.

How fitting it was that on my flight back last night that the movie "Chocolat" was playing. It really is a film worth seeing. It may be a fairy tale, but the setting was nice, and the message of being opened minded was well recieved.

But it also troubles me that people can watch a movie like that and miss the message. Worse yet, that I can try and bring the same message to my family, only to have them miss it as well.

White Castle

For the love of your body DON'T. My dad figured we needed the White Castle experience. An experience it was. We ordered a stack of 30 burgers (keep in mind they are about the size of a silver dollar) and their fries. My father, brother, and I packed them away ... but Friday night we paid the price. I never shitted as much in my life and god did it stink! I rarely fart (I'm no stinker butt), but White Castle?

Eeewwww, no, I'll give them only to people I hate.

The Wedding

My dad's family is Catholic. Very Catholic. Catholic as in condoms bad, sex evil, apologize and confess your sins, etc. Naturally most "very Catholics" I've met tend to ignore most of these things. My oldest cousin had a child out of marriage, and I would be shocked if the cousin who's wedding I was at wasn't banging his wife.

His bride was shy. In fact, at the parties before, during, and after, I noticed she didn't have many friends, but hung around my cousin's friends. I was shocked by how tan she was (but I shouldn't have been ... a common topic of conversation with that family is about where you can go to get tans ... they just don't understand how nice smooth white skin is). The bride never really talked to my family, but I can't fault her. She probably never saw anybody dressed in all black with blue hair before.

In fact, nobody there knew what industrial music was. A second cousin from Michigan, whom I happen to respect, even though it is clear she also sits in a tanning booth, asked why I wasn't dancing to the country and pop-dance music being played at the wedding reception. I tried to explain to her that I like industrial music and nothing being played really struck me as something I wanted to dance to. OK, it might have been rude, so I did promise her that I would dance to something. She did ask what was industrial. As usual I asked, "Have you heard of Nine Inch Nails." Her response was "no". I gave up that.

And I did eventually dance. There were a few late 80s dance tracks that I could at least get out to. So I rivet danced, which was the first time anybody in the room had seen that. A few people commented on my dancing and how they actually liked it. Apparently it was different. Many others really hated it. And I was again toning it down.

The Actual Ceremony

OK, so the reception after the ceremony was actually very boring. Speeches I didn't care about, meeting people who mostly didn't want to talk to me in part because of my hair and in part because of my degree (I'm the spooky engineer who went to graduate school that doesn't hunt or fish, which in this family means I've got a problem). The food was just food (which only means I'm not big on food to begin with). The music started with the country song "Amazed". My brother said my cousin's first song would be "Amazed", no surprise there. My cousin listens to country so naturally a lot of that was played.

However, the ceremony was done in his wife's Lutheran church (something that my aunt and grandmother weren't happy about being good Catholics they want Catholic grandchildren and greatgrandchildren). The church was fine, and there was no communion, which I'm happy about. But the priest (pastor as some churches seem to call them) was terrible.

He got the wife's name wrong! And he barely looked at her nor talked to her. The ceremony really seemed more like he was counciling and giving advice to the "man", my cousin. In fact, the wedding reception focused on my cousin ... everything did. Granted he is a ham and outgoing, but I also felt like the sexism card was being played.

If I ever get married (and after this week I'm doubting it), I don't want a ceremony. The whole church thing really seems like it is to appease people. I don't like that.

Chaning your name? I don't like that idea either. I would never ever ask a girlfriend if she wanted to take my name. If she asked, then I'd suggest maybe both of us changing our names, but I just really hated to see how the bride seemed like she was literally being given away.

I understand it is the tradition, but it is something I'd like to change. I could never go with anything or anybody so traditional.

-=-

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