the salad.
CHAPTER 9
Yeah, I like the ham part. Cubed ham. Pretty delicious. I like the cheese part and the ranch dressing part too. But the lettuceâ
I will choke down the lettuce because I need roughage. Roughage for health. Thatâs what Grandpa says. He has to have half his calories in roughage or he canât take a dump. Disgusting, dude. Like thatâs what I want to think about while Iâm eating dinner. Grandpaâs ability to take a crap.
Itâs better with him here than when it was just Dad and me. That was pretty bad. We were dying in the swamp of despair. Dad went to work. I went to school. We got home, ordered pizza, watched TV until we passed out. Iâd wake up with my guts burning at like 3 a.m. and go to bed. At school, I couldnât concentrate because I was so tired. Last half of eighth grade, I slept a lot in class. (Code Red stopped that in high school.) And I got pulled out of the top math group and reading group and I quit swimming and track. (I always sucked anywayâI mean, I liked it, but whatever.) I could only stay awake for band, it seemed like (my savior, band). And Dad never went to bed. He slept on this broken-down recliner for like two years.
He didnât want to sleep in Momâs bed. She picked it out. Giant, king-sized, space-aged foam. Mom bought that bed as part of her freaking-out spending binge, which left us seriously broke.
Yeah. Her online boyfriendâs friend showed up in Minnekota on this Saturday morning right before Christmas. The lady took Mom to the airport in the Cities and then Mom went to Japan. Mom had been crying and stuffing crap in a big suitcase for like an hour and Dad was shouting at her. And I stood there in the doorâI mean, I had just turned fourteen, sir. I didnât know what the hell was going on. Right before she left, she put her hands on my cheeks, swallowed really hard, and said, âTake care of your father, okay?â She was totally bawling at that point.
I have no idea how she hooked up with a Japanese architect. Itâs a weird mystery. Sort of. I mean, not that big a mystery. Mom turned into a Zen Buddhist a few years ago and she did yoga and bought all these plants that she snipped at with scissors. And she refused to eat anything but rice and she got a tattoo of some Japanese character on her shoulder. She lost about a million pounds (got down to like a hundred) and then she started closing herself in her office at night while Dad and I watched TV. Iâm sure she was Skyping that Mitsunori.
I really donât know how they met in the first place.
Of course, I still like her. Sheâs my mom. I love her because I have to. I just do because I miss her. She used to be really funny and noisy. Dad is the opposite of funny. Her laugh sounded like a goose honk.
Canada goose. The house was noisy until she got Zen.
When I was little, we were alone a lot because Dad was getting his PhD at St. Thomas, so he lived in the Cities part time. I thought it was pretty great. She was great. A nice mom. We went to the playground all the time with Kailey and her mom. Even in the winter, we did a bunch of stuff outside. Ice-skating on the lake. She just got excited about fresh air, you know? The fresh air was good for me. I was normal back then at least. I didnât have to buy stretchy pants because regular kid pants fit just fine. Took a couple of years of Dad being around full time (moved up to head of accounting at the school) for Mom to get fat and tired and stupid and sad like the rest of us.
Then she got Zen and she stopped honking like a goose and got skinny. And she got a Japanese boyfriend, who she probably talked to on her computer all night. Good times. Ha-ha.
She doesnât even email me, sir. Itâs like I no longer exist at all.
Hey. Let me eat my stupid roughage, okay?
CHAPTER 10
Okay. I guess it seemed reasonable. Spunk River Days. June 14, 15, and 16, right? Right there on Wilson
CHAPTER 9
Yeah, I like the ham part. Cubed ham. Pretty delicious. I like the cheese part and the ranch dressing part too. But the lettuceâ
I will choke down the lettuce because I need roughage. Roughage for health. Thatâs what Grandpa says. He has to have half his calories in roughage or he canât take a dump. Disgusting, dude. Like thatâs what I want to think about while Iâm eating dinner. Grandpaâs ability to take a crap.
Itâs better with him here than when it was just Dad and me. That was pretty bad. We were dying in the swamp of despair. Dad went to work. I went to school. We got home, ordered pizza, watched TV until we passed out. Iâd wake up with my guts burning at like 3 a.m. and go to bed. At school, I couldnât concentrate because I was so tired. Last half of eighth grade, I slept a lot in class. (Code Red stopped that in high school.) And I got pulled out of the top math group and reading group and I quit swimming and track. (I always sucked anywayâI mean, I liked it, but whatever.) I could only stay awake for band, it seemed like (my savior, band). And Dad never went to bed. He slept on this broken-down recliner for like two years.
He didnât want to sleep in Momâs bed. She picked it out. Giant, king-sized, space-aged foam. Mom bought that bed as part of her freaking-out spending binge, which left us seriously broke.
Yeah. Her online boyfriendâs friend showed up in Minnekota on this Saturday morning right before Christmas. The lady took Mom to the airport in the Cities and then Mom went to Japan. Mom had been crying and stuffing crap in a big suitcase for like an hour and Dad was shouting at her. And I stood there in the doorâI mean, I had just turned fourteen, sir. I didnât know what the hell was going on. Right before she left, she put her hands on my cheeks, swallowed really hard, and said, âTake care of your father, okay?â She was totally bawling at that point.
I have no idea how she hooked up with a Japanese architect. Itâs a weird mystery. Sort of. I mean, not that big a mystery. Mom turned into a Zen Buddhist a few years ago and she did yoga and bought all these plants that she snipped at with scissors. And she refused to eat anything but rice and she got a tattoo of some Japanese character on her shoulder. She lost about a million pounds (got down to like a hundred) and then she started closing herself in her office at night while Dad and I watched TV. Iâm sure she was Skyping that Mitsunori.
I really donât know how they met in the first place.
Of course, I still like her. Sheâs my mom. I love her because I have to. I just do because I miss her. She used to be really funny and noisy. Dad is the opposite of funny. Her laugh sounded like a goose honk.
Canada goose. The house was noisy until she got Zen.
When I was little, we were alone a lot because Dad was getting his PhD at St. Thomas, so he lived in the Cities part time. I thought it was pretty great. She was great. A nice mom. We went to the playground all the time with Kailey and her mom. Even in the winter, we did a bunch of stuff outside. Ice-skating on the lake. She just got excited about fresh air, you know? The fresh air was good for me. I was normal back then at least. I didnât have to buy stretchy pants because regular kid pants fit just fine. Took a couple of years of Dad being around full time (moved up to head of accounting at the school) for Mom to get fat and tired and stupid and sad like the rest of us.
Then she got Zen and she stopped honking like a goose and got skinny. And she got a Japanese boyfriend, who she probably talked to on her computer all night. Good times. Ha-ha.
She doesnât even email me, sir. Itâs like I no longer exist at all.
Hey. Let me eat my stupid roughage, okay?
CHAPTER 10
Okay. I guess it seemed reasonable. Spunk River Days. June 14, 15, and 16, right? Right there on Wilson
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