block party

i am writing this from megabus.

dad: so what you’re saying is, now it’s not just greyhound, it’s monster-bus.
me: well, megabus, but yes.
dad: mega.
me: yeah. and before megabus there were these really cheap chinatown buses that were like five dollars, or ten dollars. i forget.
dad: mega-bopper.
me:
dad: mega-… mega-butt.
me: please stop pretending to be senile.
dad: ha ha! not pretending.
mom: can you guys just get a little closer so i can get a picture
eve: OH MY GOD MOM WHAT THE HELL
dad: so these are chinese buses?
me: i don’t know about megabus. it’s a bit nicer than fung wah, but
dad: fung what?
me: fung wah. it’s a chinese name. f-u-n-g, w-a-h.
dad:
dad: funga wunga.
me: you are a tenured professor of history. you travel to non-anglophone countries on a regular basis.
mom: eve can you just scootch over a little
eve: MOM JESUS CHRIIIIIIIIIST
mom: it’s just nice to have photos.

family vacation, block island, may 2009. eve is 20, i am 26. we picked the week before tourist season, and sure enough, we saw no tourists. that was because visibility was between ten and fifteen feet for most of our stay. the island may actually have been teeming with tourists, who like us were either stumbling through the foggy undergrowth, accumulating parasites, or lying stuporously on furniture back at home, where there was directv. here are the movies that we ended up watching:

legally blonde
bridget jones’s diary
the notebook
pride & prejudice (2005; the keira knightley version)

i am not kidding. we watched all of those. the problem is, dad has been living in an estrogen-intensive household for nine years, and he’s been conditioned not only to watch exclusively movies for women, but to loudly enjoy them in ways that women find relatable. example: yelling advice to colin firth. “she’s not going to be interested in you if you don’t listen to her needs,” dad blurted, visibly frustrated. second example: attention to costume design. “will you look at that dress,” marvelled dad. “that’s what i’m talking about! dress.” so movies for women were the only category of movie we were allowed to watch while on vacation. when i tried to switch to basketball at a commercial, he became more agitated than i have ever seen him. “WE’RE GONNA MISS THE BALL,” he bellowed at me, eyeballs bulging. “JESSE. FOR CHRIST’S SAKE, IT’S THE MOST BEAUTIFUL BALL IN ALL THE LAND.”

he’s in rough shape. it was definitely good for him to log some quality guy-hours, which we periodically did: belching at each other in lieu of conversation, say, or pretending to be apes. every morning we drank a bunch of coffee and then strode around the living room yelling about politics or sports or whatever. i would say that we were wearing clothing with food stains about 80% of the time.

other than that: we read, we ate. we biked around when it was nice, which it was for a couple of days. i made a modular origami thing. i drew the lighthouse, inexpertly scanned in above. i did some casual research for a book on what i’m calling “calamity tourism,” and got an email from pakistan: “This is with reference to your visit request to Swat Serena; we regret to inform you that due to bad law and order situation in that region our Swat Serena hotel is closed till further notice.” that’s fine. i can wait. the next family vacation isn’t for a year or so.