Pilgrim in the Trailer Park

 Well, I hope that got your attention.  I took a Frontier airline flight from Orlando International to Dulles airport in Virginia. I’m not the flying type (unless you mean flying by the seat of the my pants): I’m not trendy, I’m not modern, and I’m not a “traveler.” I like to believe these things, but maybe you don’t, since I am a millennial after all. To be honest, flying scares the FUG out of me. But I did it anyway.  Flying was the alternative to a looong car ride up the good old I95, which also scares the fug out of me. Maybe I’m just a scaredy cat. Or maybe I have just become more acutely aware of how dangerous these modes of transportation are. Speeding down asphalt at 70 plus miles per hour…hovering above earth at thousands of feet…does it really make sense to do these things, and can we even prove they’re safe at all? What it is,  is normal. It’s a casual risk. It’s a dumbed down danger. People are copycats and anything through repeated repetition can be norm...

“ It’s been a long time since I rock and roll…” And by that I mean take a drink. It’s been two and a half years (sometimes it is quantity over quality), I will proudly  admit at the cost of sinning — if you can’t celebrate your own sobriety, who will? I prefer it over my birthday, it means much more, though I guess if I hadn’t been born I wouldn’t have been an alcoholic who got sober and bragged about it…ah, coming full circle.  This is what I love about writing. The death of one thing leading to the birth of another: trading addiction for the creative arts (which is still technically an addiction). Can you do that? Can you bargain with the devil? (Bob Dylan said all these years he’s been holding up his end of the deal) Can something good bloom from the seeds of the worst things? (Im ripping off a quote I read years ago, can’t take credit for that line). Jesus said you will know a tree by its fruit… Ive come to this conclusion: God is  listening (and angels ARE among us...

 It’s true. I can’t get drunk anywhere.  Ah, the complacency of sobriety. Giving up the ghost at last.  John surprised me by booking us a dinner date on the riverboat the Lady Dolphin of Daytona (I think it looks prettier in italics). All he told me was “we’re leaving at quarter to five. Dinner is at six. Wear something warm.” I just figured we were going out to eat like normal. But I had to ask “are we going someplace ‘nice?’ I’m only asking because I want to know if I need to dress up.” And that’s my logic. Any reason to wear a dress is a worthy cause to me, because they hang in the closet so desperate and full of potential. Just like the alcoholic raging inside of me, let me out! (I’m sorry ma’am but you’re doomed to hang in that closet indefinitely, and hopefully perish).   So to my dismay, most of the women waiting in line were clad in their best summer dress, and here I was in bell bottoms. John thinks dressing up is overrated, which is why he habitually wears...

 I have a memory of being very young and speaking gibberish to my grandparents. I told them I was “speaking Spanish” (hablando espanol would be the proper term). I’m sure they thought it was cute and funny. That was my attempt early on to fit in with the half of my family that hailed from Argentina. My grandparents immigrated from Buenos Aires in the late fifties and they made a comfortable life for themselves and raised three boys (my dad is their middle child). They’re not of typical “Spanish” blood: my Papu is Danish, while my Nana is full blooded Italian.  Argentina is a melting pot like America, mostly infused with European heritage and culture (Argentina has its own unique culture, and it’s romantic and beautiful). My grandparents looked “white” by all means, but they speak the language, so to me they are “Spanish” people.  This means that, yes, they danced the Tango, listened to Tango music, drank mate, and ate homemade milanessa with chimichurri made from scratch....

 This is a flashback to the Satan Stories. And it is so Florida.  I don’t know why or what entity is forcing me to write this stuff. I’ll just go with it.  So this goes back three years ago (wow) to 2023. The Year of Magical Drinking (Sure).  I was by now definitely living with John, the guy up the street with all the cats. The cat part was lovely. It was like the house was the church of the holy feline and here were all these little black monks. There was statistically more black cats than non— I guess the gene is dominant. If you were superstitious you would take this as a bad OMEN. The only bad omen was me and all the beer I was consuming (slowly but surely all the cats disappeared and I feared I really had brought bad juju here…). So I was drinking ALOT of beer, not the quickest or best way to get drunk, but the fastest way to fill up your trashcan. I wouldn’t eat all day, but then I would get very hungry at night and binge on burritos that John bought. One plate...

 Betty Guadagno says it’s a dumpster fire down here on earth. She might be right. I have a story about an actual dumpster fire, believe it or not. This story takes place in the good old days of the early 2000s, which will always be the backdrop of my teen years. And a trailer in a mobile home park in Virginia will always be the setting of my childhood. For all the “dysfunction” and hilarity, I wouldn’t have it any other way. People always claim the time period when they grew up were characteristically  the “best” years. News flash: no decade owns childhood (and everything is happening NOW, whether you realize that or not), and I think everybody has great stories and memories from when they grew up whatever decade it happens to be. It’s a magical time and a date can’t change that. This story is not very magical, unless you’re a pyro.  So we had a dumpster in the trailer park, which was called Griffith Court, out on highway 211, out of town limits, and named such because of...