Listening to: Is This Love? By Clap Your Hands Say Yeah

Okay, okay so maybe I missed the boat with the whole Clap Your Hands thing but I am all aboard now. They're awesome!
Two fortune cookies tonight. One said "You have a natural grace and great consideration for others." The other says "You will soon gain something you have always wanted." goody goody. Guess I will have to keep you posted.
I booked my first national spot on Friday. I know that in my last post I said something about feeling like a sham. Well you know what ? - not so much anymore. Not that the voice of a coconut in a t-mobile commercial is a huge artistic opus. But it is something that I can point at and say "Hear that? That coconut is...me....I.....or whatever. I am that coconut."
Very exciting stuff.
Went to my little nephew's baptism this weekend. He has Down Syndrome. He is about 1.5 now. And probably the sweetest kid I have ever seen at his age. As you would think with his condition, his mental growth is impeded a little. He only recently started walking with some sort of apparatus with wheels. But he only really cries when he is hungry or in real pain or needs to be changed. Other than that he is more than happy to be passed around from family member to family member.
There were some real highlights to the weekend. Of course, seeing my niece and and nephews was wonderful. I also got to witness what appeared to be genuine friendship if not affection between my normally abrasive folks. I got to beat my oldest brother at pool - which is always precious real estate in future exchanges. I was on the recceiving end of my usually stoic middle brother's realtonship problems. Turns out he is a pretty lonely soul that is fed up with his options in North Carolina. I also got to see my wonderful saint-like Grandmother. I know everybody says that, but I have never met a Grandma that held a candle to mine. I had some chocolate chip ice cream, some Rhode Island Weenies, a couple of clam cakes and a buffalo chicken tender or two. It always takes me at least a week to get my gut back on track after a family outing in the Ocean State.
I'd also like to say something about my Uncle's Homily at the baptism. You see, he's a Catholic priest and my Godfather. Basically, I got an automatic in at the pearly gates. But he remarked on the fact that no matter how hard you plan, every child requires a different set of needs and cares. He likened my niece and older nephew to my two older brothers. Saying that once you have two kids you believe you have really seen it all. But then he spoke about how my youngest nephew and I represented our own unique set of problems. Now, those of you out there with darker inclinations will undoubtedly be forming some sort of ill-formed joke about me and my Down's nephew, but what my uncle said really rang true with me.
We all try to extrapolate general meaning from our everyday existence. We try to create newer and broader generalizations after more and more specific data happens to us. Of course, inevitable patterns emerge, but everything and everyone is different and each application of a hypothesis takes a certain amount of delicacy. Every person has value and weight and merit. It's up to us to choose to see it or not. There is something to be learned from everybody. Even the people we can't stand to be around. Perhaps that is where we learn the most.
As for the fortune cookies....I have always been obsessed with luck, chance, fortune, fate, etc. The past two years has been the only period in my life where I haven't wished upon stars, looked for signs, read my horoscope, etc. I am not superstitious but I have never completely discounted that sort of thing either. When I was a child I wished on a star nightly. I would make sure that I would pull open my drapes to our front yard (My room was on the second floor) overlooking our beech nut trees and I would scan the night sky for the first star I could see. Up in Rhode Island this weekend my brothers and I left a bar and I looked up and saw stars stretch for miles and miles and miles. It took my breath away. I had forgotten about them. For two years I forgot. And maybe there's something to that. Maybe the dreams that people have in the suburbs aren't as lofty as they are in the city. And because they are a little more obtainable the stars are a little bit more visible. Or maybe vice versa. Either way, the city is a hard place to make your dreams come true, and it is an even harder place to see the stars at night. I can't help but think that those two things go hand in hand.
Some wonderful people were in my bar in Brooklyn tonight. They were all making merry, clapping each other on the back, smiling and laughing, looking each other in the eye and artfully giving one another a good ribbing. I noticed that none of the camaraderie that I hold so dear at my shitty little blue collar bar ever takes place in my other high end bar. It's a sad thing. That we try so hard to get away from the parts of ourselves that let us truly enjoy ourselves. I took this job to really confront some things about me I didn't like. My animosity against undeserved wealth for one.
I haven't made a bit of difference at all. I am still the resentful person I was when I took the job. I have never understood the rationale behind dehumanizing another person or simply not treating them with the respect that every human being deserves from the outright beginning. How people manage to take themselves so seriously I will never know. Life is meant for laughter and deep feeling. It shouldn't be lived by holding up a mirror to someone you think you should be like and comparing yourself to that reflection. That's the echo of a life. Not the real thing.
One of my favorite quotes is by George Bernard Shaw.
He said "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man."