Just One of the Guys.

Yesterday I saw my dad (and uncle) for the first time in years.

My dad called me a couple of weeks ago and was upset that I hadn't made an attempt to see him since I arrived in New York. He has a point. I am so use to my mom being my main parent that I sometimes forget that it is important for him to be in my life, especially since his health has been bad these last years.

After my grandma died his health started to deteriorate. Despite being in his 50's my grandma always watched over him. My dad has fifty years of being a wild, rebellious man beginning with him running away from home at 12 and his numerous indulgences with drugs, alcohol and women. She was sort of the person who kept him from falling apart and diving over some edge. When she died he lost the one thing that was constant to him. He lost the one person who could put him in his place and love him regardless of his short coming.

My dad is a man of a million stories,which is probably why I have gravitated to this field.

When I was little I use to be glued to them. He would hear a song or see a movie and then instantly be pulled into a memory he felt we all needed to hear. He is gregarious, so storytelling was never this intimate thing. He gets all excited and acts the memory out as best as he can. He would relay them in such a matter of fact way ('so my fist goes in his face, or chin, I can't remember') that you ignored the illegal aspects of them. You just watched him with some amazement and amusement because 20 minutes later you are still listening and still wanting to know more.

I am conflicted by how much I love my dad even though I don't understand the decisions he has made with his life. He's intelligent, beautiful, adventurous, strong willed and yet completely self destructive. He literally could have been anything from a writer to master salesman and yet....

I still admire him though. Anytime I talk to him or see him I become 6 again. I am captivated by everything that he does, I am tied to his words and mannerism like a love sick girl. Like he could do know wrong even though he has time and time again.

So impulsively I made a decision to see him. I called my uncle (his brother) and asked him to drive me to his house so I could hang out for a while. My uncle is a Grinch, he has been ever since I was born. As the youngest of six kids, he is mischievous and funny. We have had this back and forth banter thing since I was a little kid and for some reason it has transition well into my 20's. It's all in good fun because we simply like to argue, agree to disagree, and then argue again.

He said he would pick me up on several conditions. 1) 'you better be out there when he showed up' 2) 'I am not staying long' 3) 'Do not touch my radio' 4) 'I will smoke in the car' and 5) 'no back talking'. I broke rules 3 and 5 pretty quickly and he reminded me of this as he blew smoke in my direction. Oh, how I love my uncle. We had a pretty good conversation in between our bickering. He is no longer the aggressive ham that he use to be. For someone who always got in trouble he has calmed down a bit. I will not go to far and say there is a maturity to him now...but he has learned some lesson about life that has altered him.

He dropped me off at my dad's house and then threatened that he was not going to drive me back home. After a few punches to the arm he said I had a half and hour because he was leaving with or without me. He walked me inside and there was my dad....now grayed and a little heavier than I remember. Everything else about him was the same, the scar he has over his eye from a fight, the smell of smoke on his clothes, and that husky laugh of excitement and sadness.

There are never any awkward moments between us. I am his only girl and when I was younger I always felt like I couldn't compete for his respect because he was a macho dude and I was a little girl with pigtails. His interactions with me were always different from his interactions with my brother or half-brother. He expected more out of them, he talked to them using more expletives and told more detailed accounts of his wild and crazy days. I was the girl, nurtured and protected when all I really wanted to be was accepted.

Anyway, we spent our time together rushing stories. I told him about my time here, he told me about what my half-brother is doing now (you know, because he was in jail for five years. I'll get to that another time). I asked about his health which he evaded for the most part...and he asked me if I was happy. I wanted to say sometimes, because the truth is a little more complicated, but I didn't want him to worry so I said of course. And then after he made me practice some boxing moves "should any kid get in your fucking way" he said he had a present for me. Underneath his bed there was this huge duffel bag that contained some photos I have never seen before.

We are dreamers and for this reason memories from our past are a comfort. My mom and him have gotten into countless argument over these pictures because some of them are hers. Old age has calmed him too and he said he wanted me to mail some of them to her "you know as truce and all". The pictures are way too old for me to remember but they are stunning in what they capture. I have some of my dad and my uncle when they were really young. He is in a bar yelling at someone outside of frame. His smile is crocked but bright and you can tell there is an exciting trouble in the air.

I have one of my mom, looking demur and innocent on a stone structure overlooking a park. She is wearing her favourite outfit which consisted of corduroy pants, a white sweater and these bold red boots. Her hands are clasped together over her legs as if she didn't know where to place them and her eyes are cast down for the same reason I suppose. On the back of the picture is a note that she wrote him professing her love. Scandalous. We spent the rest of our time together putting names to some of the people in the photos and trying our hand at remembering the past.

Our time ended before he could get to the other album. And I was disappointed when I heard my uncle calling my name and threatening to leave me.

I made a promise that I would come back and I would have cried when he closed the car door if my uncle weren't sitting next to me giving me that stank eye. After leaving his house, my uncle said he was hungry and that we were going to grab some pizza before he took me home. I was okay with this, because part of it was my idea. We stopped at this amazing pizza place that i use to go to as a child. He paid, because I wasn't going to, and we talked about life. He said i would learn everything I needed to learn here and those lessons wouldn't make me a better or worse person...they would just shape my perspective and approach to things. I told he was cool, despite being a douche sometimes, he was cool none the less. He said he didn't care about being cool, but he smiled anyway.

After swindling another slice of pizza out of him he said that spending some time with me wasn't that bad. I wasn't too much of a pain in the ass ('though you still have a big mouth') and he would bring me to my dad's house more often if i wanted "you know, it's up to you of course". I think yesterday was the best day that I've had here. I was like one of the guys for once in my life. It was an easy, breezy day where I felt like me for once.

I didn't know i missed them so much until I was with them. Sometimes I feel a source of anger towards my family situation. As I have often said, my moms choice to marry my dad made my grandma very angry. She was not a fan of his wildness and inability to be tamed. He went against so many things and yet my mom liked him enough to marry him and have my brother and I. We have been the blunt of many remarks due to their union. Anytime my brother gets in trouble or I open my big fat mouth to protest something it always because of the Hughes blood running through me. But as look at the rest of my family, as I evaluate their own problems...i realize that my mom and dad were trying to create stability out of the chaos they were both born into. And though the didn't succeed they tried and loved hard and burned out quickly in the attempt to do so.

They become more magical in my eyes every day because of the sacrifices they each made so my brother and I could be more than just ordinary. They are so far from perfect it's almost beautiful. I wonder if I get my story telling stuff from him. I imagine it has rubbed off in some way or another. He has captivated me enough that I have tried to emulate him in some weird attempt to connect. Whatever it is, yesterday was awesome and it made me want to fight for something here just a little while longer. I can't throw in the towel yet.

In other news, I haven't heard anything about the internship with the production company. This could either mean hot interview guy will email me on Monday or...I didn't get it. I still have my interview on Wednesday to prepare for. If i can remember that a literary agency is not a publishing house, I may do just fine come wednesday.