The Evil Eye

When I did something wrong when I was a child, my mother would give me the evil eye. She would squint her eyes and stare me down. It didn’t scare me (other behaviors of hers did), it just made me know that whatever I did made her mad, or really, just annoyed with me.

Every morning when I would come upstairs from the basement, my mother had a look on her face that said “You’re still here?” I always felt like an inconvenience for her. I know I was planned six years in advance and conceived on a February evening in 1973 in front of the fireplace. My parents never liked children and neither do I.

It seems nowadays all the gays want kids. I told everyone that the reason my last important relationship ended is because he wanted kids and I did not. This is not true. I mean, the kid thing is true, but the relationship ended because he found out the truth about me, meaning that I have opinions and I am not his shadow.

I liked the old days when being gay was dirty and weird and fun. It’s of course gone mainstream now, years ago. Now the gays all want kids and now when I say I don’t want kids, people act like that is terrible. You see, I never wanted a “normal” life. The problem is that I never figured out what life I really wanted.

When I mouthed off to my mother, she put on the in between area on the stairs. I think it’s called a mezzanine. She told me I would have to stay on the stairs until I was ready to apologize for whatever it was I said to her. Since I am never bored, I would remain on the stairs for hours, sometimes a day or two. I would refuse to apologize because whatever I said to her I meant. Eventually, she would beg me to come down off the stairs. I would refuse until she apologized to me for putting me on the stairs. She’s a psychologist, yet she never seemed to have a clue how to deal with me. I think it’s that she has a really short attention span and I can stay stuck on something for weeks at a time, sometimes years. I don’t give up.

I have never apologized for something if I didn’t mean it. This means I’ve rarely apologized in my life. I’ve always thought apologies are only for those who get caught.

I came across a poem “The Judgmental Eye of Larry” I wrote a few years ago. Here it is:

The Judgmental Eye of Larry

“You’re missing, he told me
But, Dad, I’m right here
But truth can’t be seen through the judgmental eye of Larry

As a child, I was well behaved
Did everything the wall told
I believed in god and all that jazz
Now as I am older now
I see your eye, like a third eye for what it is
Cold, hard and judgmental,
Like the eye in the sky

Yes, I never loved you
And I don’t miss you now
Just turn your back on me now.”

Today’s song is The Maker from 1998 by Willie Nelson with Emmylou Harris. It’s a hello to Austin song because I am visiting Austin for the first time coming up in a couple weeks. I hope I like it so I can escape LA. If not, I don’t know where to go.

Willie Nelson & Emmylou Harris—
The Maker
http://www.zshare.net/audio/4311514525b201

“I can't work the fields of Abraham.”