i just love when a nigga bring his whole crew.

i just got back from my mother's condo. stopped by to pick up some leftovers and drop off a brand new sewing machine someone i work with found and didn't want. i figured at least the colombian chick that takes care of my grandma during the day might want it. it was a breath of fresh air to be able to go to my mom's in short sleeves for the first time in awhile. she finally knows about my sleeve, i had been playing the hiding game and sweating my ass off for the past few months. i couldn't take it anymore and the opportunity to spill the proverbial beans presented itself last weekend when two of my friends came to my parent's house in the mountains. there was no way in hell i was going to rock longsleeves all weekend so it was a good way of forcing myself to show her my newest and most expensive piece. naturally i still had to booze myself up beforehand on the way there so i had some of the "fuck it" in me. i did some post-work barstooling with my apprentice buddy friday, then brown bagged it in the car on the way upstate (real friends let you drink in their vehicles). letting her see wasn't as bad as i had anticipated, but most things aren't. that can't be true otherwise i wouldn't be wasting my time with the keyboard. but anyway, she just walked up, looked at my arm, and said "let me read you." my mother is the only woman who can do that effectively, at least without stalking me online. she sees through these big brown eyes more easily than i like to think. she probably knew that i had more tattoo work done well before i came out of the ink closet too since she knows i normally wear t-shirts in january. at least that's one less thing i have to hide from her. someday, maybe, i'll tell her what i really went through in college. not to sound morbid, but that long story is best reserved for deathbed confessional time. after greeting my mom and stepdad i climbed the steps to see my grandma. we had the usual conversation about the status of my laundry and where i was eating dinner. then she grabbed my arm and asked what i did to it, meaning where did all of those silly pictures come from? my faulty spanish suddenly became even more broken as i backpedaled. don't remember quite what i said, and i'm sure the verb wasn't conjugated right, but i know she asked "why?" i said i didn't know, smiled. she pulled my arm closer, rubbed the leaves and face carved/painted in it, smiled back. she could've shat on me like any other 87-year-old with a third-grade education from a small god-fearing island would have, but she didn't. i guess i owe her some prime arm real estate when she eventually passes. knock on wood.

it's bizarre that another more dangerous vice, smoking, was easier to tell her about. i stopped making sure i was freshly showered and doused with cologne before seeing the fam a couple months ago and have been much happier ever since. i mean i don't smoke in front of them out of respect (unless we're all drunk and don't care), but at least i feel i can be myself to some extent around them. it was so uncomfortable having to keep so many things a secret for so long, or go through the motions of doing so for everyone's sake. she kissed my cheek tonight and smelled the recent smoke on my face and gave me the obligatory "quit smoking!" in her best motherly voice. i told her to do the same and it became awkwardly silent. i chimed in with a perfectly placed "good talk" after three seconds and headed home. i got sent to my dad's for two weeks as punishment for getting rid of my mom's stash when i was fifteen. that was always one area where there was some serious reverse parenting going on. one thing i can honestly brag to Saint Peter about is that i never smoked up, not that it'd kill me. fuck, it'd probably help mellow me out. i know now that my mom is the type of person who literally needs marijuana to level her personality. she's so uptight and stressed out at home with all the cooking and cleaning and finances and babysitting my senile grandma and alcoholic stepdad. when she's a little on the blazed side she gets to relax, i understand that finally. like last weekend when my friends and i visited her and my stepdad in the mountains, she was a totally different person in her own pleasantly chronified atmosphere. it was nice to see her smile for real, even if her glazed eyes gave away what they were doing up on the deck before we invited them down to hang with us and drink by the fire. i guess it's a sign that i'm growing up. i don't judge people as harshly anymore just because the majority of society deems something wrong. to each his own, to some extent. for fuck's sake, i wrote about my amazing drunk driving adventures in the last entry. i'm well on my way there right now; well, not the driving part. i was going to hold off on the writing tonight and chill in my man's bedroom across the hall tonight since his last night here, but i changed my mind. i'm sitting here with my freshly installed air conditioner blasting as he plays songs from a band that i loved and he hated from high school, shouting inside jokes and obscenities when appropriate. (i just hit him up with a perfectly placed "...that's what she said" worth at least eight points on the "ohhhhh shit" scale.) the fact that we can even do these things now shows how far we've both come as individuals, let alone friends. i decided that this was a more appropriate way of spending his last night in this house since this is how we spent so many others. "i'm going to the kitchen on an impenetrable mission to make a drink." "hey now, if anyone knows about impenetrable missions it's me." haha, i'll miss that kid being around every night.

another friend just showed up and laughed hysterically that he was able to sneak up the stairs (which is ironic since he weighs about 320, no joke) and caught me blogging hard as hell. all three of us starting cracking up because he made such a big deal of it and tried to make me feel like a tosser for my pseudowordsmithing. rolls of loveable fat gyrated as he shook his pointer finger in my general direction and yelled. it honestly felt like i was getting caught masturbating because he always makes fun of me about my writing habit, so strange. i diffused the situation by telling him to go downstairs and make a bourbon and coke because it makes me equally uncomfortable to see such a jolly guy without a drink in hand. i think i'll join him. oh no. whiskey. this will end in tears, haha.

the three of us just went outside for a smoke. on the way down we all smelled an atrocious stench of stale smoke. at first i thought it was from my other roommate grilling before, but as we approached the front door i realized what it was. my last cigarette break was not so responsible, i failed to fully extinguish the butt before tossing it into the flowerpot-turned-ashtray and it smoldered for an hour or so. whoops. way to almost burn down the house. it was almost my last night here as well. thank goodness the urge sucked me outside for some nicotine when it did.

i just realized i say "but" too much, idf;,mbasrglk'asehtlk(someone just commanded me to leave that) i'm always contradicting myself mid-sentence; and "realized," i'm always claiming to find things out; and "at least," i try my damnedest to pretend there's a silver lining on those hurricanes. i also just sent the link to this miserable bullshit to someone i probably shouldn't have. DMX is talking about fucking a corpse, i really have to go.