july 1 2013

1:47 am

on saturday i went to my cousin's wedding. she's a relative on my father's side of the family. she's, i think, in her late 30s, and has two kids from two different men, i think.

i don't see my father's family often. i have tons of cousins, aunts, and uncles whose names i don't know. at 54, my father is the youngest of 12 children. this side of the family mainly comes from mexico. the older aunts and uncles only speak spanish, so i rarely talk to them. many--if not, all--of my cousins speak english.

i don't know the exact reason why we've distanced ourselves from that side. my father doesn't particularly make an effort to stay connected to them. i guess because it's such a sprawling mess of people he's doesn't see the point. there's also some savory characters on that side whom i suppose my father prefers to stay clear from.

you know my cousin with whom i reconnected with a while back around christmas? she was there, along with my other two cousins and my aunt and uncle.

there were a few older cousins whom i hadn't seen in years--like 7 or 8 years. i remember them being much taller

the wedding was held at a catholic church in fontana. if you're aren't aware, fontana is a city to the east of los angeles, approaching riverside. and since the recent heatwave, it's a fucking hell hole. like furnace heat pressing right into your face and up your nose. like constant clammy, damp skin. like break a sweat standing in the shade.

i've never lived anywhere else. are cities normally connected together? what i mean is that, here, you can drive from one city to another without realizing it. you don't have to drive across empty fields to get to another city; the boundary can be literally across the street. in areas like fontana and riverside--which are technically in san bernardino and riverside county, not los angeles county--open, undeveloped land is more common. it's also closer to the desert and hot as shit most of the time.

aside: i had a neighbor growing up on my street with the same name as me. we were one year apart. he was a bit chubby, so i always had an advantage in sports and games. i used to go over his house a lot--probably once a week. we'd play video games a lot, or watch tv, or just play pretend. i remember days when i'd spend all afternoon over there, and casually walk across the street and two houses over back to my house at night. i have good memories, and i have bad memories. he was an abusive son of a bitch, constantly physical when we were younger, slowly growing out of it but never quite completely. he was a whiny, coddled baby. we never had much in common except that we were both kids with the same name and an interest in video games. he wasn't funny or witty. shamefully, my strongest memory is of peeing my pants in their house in fifth grade because i was too embarrassed to ask permission to use the bathroom. at last, when i was in pain and ready to let go, i asked to use the bathroom. i lost control of my bladder in there. my pants were soaked with dark wet stains. i stayed in the bathroom for about fifteen minutes thinking of a way out of there (obviously this was before cell phones) and meanwhile cleaning up the mess i made. finally, i took a chance. i exited the bathroom, rushed passed the living room where my friend and his parents were sitting, said something like, "yeah, i'll be right back. i'm going home right now. i'll be back soon," and didn't see them again for another few months.

aside, cont.: a few years later we lost contact with each other for no particular reason--although see coddled baby above. they moved away around that time. this was probably. . . 2005? 2006, maybe? my friends dad was a realtor and making some serious money back then--or at least he led my parents to believe. they were always like that--my neighbor's parents. anyway, around that time they bought a bigger, newer house in fontana. we only visited them once a couple years later. it was a nice house, spacious and modern. the kitchen was huge and well-lit; it had two floors and three or four bedrooms. my family had dinner with them. the dad showed us a recent  diploma he'd gotten from pepperdine university realtor school or something. my old neighbor showed me his room--actually, both his rooms: a bedroom and a computer room with a soft couch. i remember this because he was the first person to show me stumbleupon, and we exchanged email addresses. in my head, it was a nice house in an newly developed area of land in an under-developed city. their house had a steep incline driveway--or at least it appeared so in my mind--and it was the first house on the block. on one side of it was an equally enchanting similar style house; on the other a dirt lot with a chain-link fence around it. there were more house--an entire block, actually--but i think they were one of the few families to have moved in; all the rest were waiting for buyers. i don't believe it cost more than a couple hundred thousand--which for the la area, is a very low number. if you didn't mind living in a hot climate with a lot of open, undeveloped land around you, these kinds of houses were gold waiting to be lived-in. then the housing market burst and i think they went broke. i don't know exactly the ins and outs, but they eventually moved back into their old house which they were renting out; and when they did move back, the dad went missing for two or so years. i never saw him in their old house after they moved back in, i never heard anything about him. i didn't talk with my neighbor because our connection was--and still is--frosty. eventually the dad returned (or was he even gone in the first place? i still speculate with myself, and even my parents don't know the whole story). something happened during the rough transition between houses with them and my parents, and now they don't speak with each other. they used to be quite close, the kind of friendship couples have with other couples, complete with movie invites and parties. i still don't know what happened; everything i know is about the far past. my neighbors are a mystery.

2:58 am

part 2 to be continued: the wedding and reception