Thanksgiving and family, or "I apparently forgot I had a blog for a month"

Yea blog vacations!?

It got cold. I didn't want to go outside a whole lot. I spent some time at home, I spent a lot of time relaxing and playing video games. I didn't feel like updating and didn't have much to update anyway. I got sick. I got better. I got sick again. I got bored. I got sad. I got happy. I decided there was nothing wrong with playing video games and enjoying my unemployment without having to prove something by going out and doing stuff all the time- my, how seasons change attitudes...

BUT, I'm coming back. I recently talked to a few people who I rarely talk to who are huge fans of the blog, and they yelled at me or at least gave me a "what the hell man?" It's nice to find out that people you don't know that well are honestly bothered when I don't contribute my endless pictures and babbling to the internet. Thanks guys, I really appreciate the love, and please call me on it when I pull my next disappearing act. 

But I'm back. I've recently made some music, have plans (and most importantly a place) to record A LOT of music good and bad, and art has actually been happening. Christmas busy-time is nearly over, and I am finally going to start on some of my projects that I've been putting off forever. So, things are looking up, there are more posts coming, and I'm hopeful for a the least hide-in-my-room-being-miserable winter in quite awhile. 

I guess I'll pick this up where I left off and blast through some stuff. The last post I was going to do before I fell off a cliff was Thanksgiving, so here you go, read about the last holiday 1 day before the current one. I went home to Maine, where it looked like this:

It was so weird leaving dry, snowless NH and driving an hour and 15 minutes north and suddenly there being 4-5 inches of snow on everything. But it was pretty. In fact, I'm in Maine now, and once again, there's snow here and none in NH. Wait- back to a month ago. I spent some time with the 'rents, mostly watching tv and relaxing. Thanksgiving dinner was fantastic. I don't know why anyone would bother eating anything other than turkey, mashed potatoes and stuffing. I only did the squash to make Mom happy. So good.

In true Alexander household form, we ate at our fancy dining room table, but with a tv at one end so we could watch football. Why be classy when there's football on tv?

I think my favorite thing about Thanksgiving (other than the food) is this retarded meth turkey I made in kindergarten (at least I hope its that old):

miserable monster

I love this turkey and I love that my mom, without fail, always digs it out and slaps it right in the middle of our fancy table. It's the ugliest and best centerpiece ever. Apparently that's what I thought turkeys looked like in 1st grade or whenever I made it. Poor thing.

I also went to Thanksgiving at my Grandmother's house, which I haven't done in something like 10 years. I saw most of the people there at a Thanksgiving luncheon thing like 5 years ago, but I hadn't been to the official Thanksgiving meal in 10 years. My Uncle's daughter (which makes her a cousin? -never understood that stuff) is like 11 now, and the last time I saw her, she was sleeping in her crib. Insane. "Hey complete stranger, we're related."

It was nice in a way to reconnect, but also incredibly awkward and uncomfortable. I got lots of sarcastic "what's it been, 10 years?"s and "hope to see you again sometime"s, but everyone there seemed genuinely happy to see me. It was kind of nice to share some laughs with people from my past, but it was more weird than anything. There wasn't a lot of catching up. It was more just small talk- like we were forced into a room together and were just trying to pass the time. The only questions I got were "where are you living now" and "are you looking for jobs yet?" My Uncle did support my vacation though, and said that he got to do the same thing when he was around my age, and it was amazing for him too.

But it was mostly just quietly uncomfortable and weird. I think, if I'm honest, I only went to make my Dad happy, and to prove that I didn't have to hide from them forever- that I wasn't just going to delete myself from my family.

A lot of people think it's weird that I have zero contact with anyone in my family other than my parents and brother (who I talk to like twice a year), but I think it's really pretty simple if you take the whole "family" label off of it- I have very little in common with these people other than the fact that we're related and I saw them 2-3 times a year while growing up. I didn't chose to see them, I was just carted off with my parents. And after the christmas presents, birthday cards (and parent-forced thank you letters) stopped and being away at college or working weekends in retail meant the visits died out, it wasn't hard to lose all contact. It just kind of happened. I guess the very fact that I'm talking about it means that I somewhat agree that it's odd, but at the same time, spending time with people you barely know twice a year just because you know them is pretty weird too. I don't know. I guess I'm just not that big on family- if you have little in common with a friend, do you continue to try to be friends with them just because you've known each other for a long time? Sure, you do for awhile, but eventually it stops, and if you only saw that friend 3 times a year, how long would it last? I never want it to sound like I don't like these people, it's just always been kind of weird to me how much we hold onto relationships because of the "family" label. 

But anyway, going there meant I got to explore some places I used to when I'd visit there as a kid- from the woods that divided grandma's property from the neighbors, to seeing the neighbor's dogs in their cages, remembering their first dog (that I loved and wanted so bad growing up- a beagle named Spike), to seeing the garbage washed up on the shore of Sandy Pond, to Sandy Pond itself, which I nabbed a beaaauutiful HDR shot of (and only really edited by turning the saturation):

to the creepy basement and it's tiny corner rooms of terrifying darkness, to the awesome TV set up in the living room:

life standing on death

to the Hoarder-esque upstairs that scared the crap out of me when I was a kid. 

Now that I'm an adult and watch TV shows about ghosts, I finally jumped right into the darkest part  of the upstairs that terrifed me the most, and yea, I can see why it scared me so much:

what better thing to have under a tiny light in the farthest corner of the darkness than a doll staring up at you with lifeless eyes?

I also got to check out this painting, which also, for no reason I can figure out, also terrified me as a child. I apparently was scared of this place a lot.

demon child stealing eggs

Back at home, I had an odd night of looking through my college yearbooks too. It's incredible how many people I had completely forgotten about. I only mention this because I also forgot that I made the graduation section. Here's a picture of a much younger, much skinnier, goateed me with a labret piercing, looking pissed/miserable with Kevin looking stoned behind me:

guess they didn't take a lot of pictures on graduation day

The other big thing I did at home was take pictures. All with my iphone of course (as the Instagram obsession continues- lifeofdirtymike- follow me!). So, here's some pretty pictures so I can have my return post be even longer and have even more pictures. 

At the end of my driveway on a walk:

The view from our living room window- Sebago Lake at its glassiest:

I love this shot- I grew up running along these rocks, and few things are prettier in winter than when snow collects on them (and you can catch a sunset).

I went down and took pretty much the same shot 40 minutes later:

For some reason, I really love this shot too- just the ugly grayness of it mixed with the texture from both poor light and a camera phone mixed with an instagram filter. I love the scuzz on the bottom of my Dad's long abandoned dingy boat and the leaf gunk against glassy water. 

currently listening to: Bad Santa on Comedy Central