Fourth Blogoversary: March 25th

 

Strange fate. Why God, or the universe, or a great nothingness conspires or throws events at random to some and misses others. The Wheel of Fortune keeps spinning. Some folks buy a vowel while others go bankrupt.

There was a blurb on the news yesterday: A fire at my old apartment complex. Then it announced the address. My building. I asked my friend to drive me ‘round the hood. I wanted to see if it was their apartment since their apartment was in the same building as the apartment I shared with my mother. Ye Old Shitville Ghetto Apartment Complex looked the same as ever: dilapidated, half-assed put together, just all that charm of a coastal town sunk into hell. Home sweet home. Roachy, bedbuggy, home. Mom and I lived 9 relatively happy years here. Four Years ago yesterday, March 25, 2010 I started my blog there. In 2011 my mother was taken to the hospital from there never to return again.

It wasn’t their apartment that caught fire, that is, my ex-roommates. Not the man who I miss to this day. My mother’s cook book is still on their shelf, and whatever else I gave them or they kept as theirs did not catch alight in some Waiting to Exhale diva style fashion. I’m glad they’re safe, and I hear they’re moving far away in about a week. 

No, there was the apartment my mother and I shared gutted by fire. So far they say “cause undetermined,” but I’d bet the house (pun intended) that it was shitty wiring. First that wiring was older than I am, I’m pretty certain, secondly if I remember correctly, sometimes it did act funky.
If it was a malfunction in the wiring or appliances, and had my mother lived, I’m certain we would still live there and it would be us left with nothing. Did God deliberately spare us that fate? Why?

In my more philosophical mode, I think, “Did my mother die at 68 to be spared going downhill physically, possibly ending up an oxygen-bound invalid like her mother or near blind from macular degeneration like her father? Did God cut my mother a break, or was he being cruel? My mother’s illness was two weeks total, only one day of which was  in the hospital. Also God knew that as long as my mom lived, my OCD would’ve been at her side trying to keep her alive. I’d never have lived alone were she still alive. I’d be too afraid she’d die. And now our apartment is charred. My mother’s essence burned out of the walls it feels like to me. Would we have died in the fire? Did God kill my mother to protect us from a worse fate? Why didn’t He just stop the fire in the first place and spared whoever lived there.? Ugh, I just don’t get it. Maybe my not being there was just the luck of the draw, and numerous calamities are about to befall me. Stay tuned!

 

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Lost in Spain: A Collection of Humorous Essays by Scott Oglesby

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

When Scott Oglesby graced me with a review copy of his Lost in Spain: A Collection of Humorous Essays, I was honored and thrilled being a fan of his writing from back when he kept a hilarious blog.
This book of essays are the memoirs of a man able to observe the comedy in his life and surroundings no matter how high or low the situation. We see snapshots of a socially awkward, yet charming man making his way through through strange family members and even stranger strangers.

When we first meet Scott, we are in Ibiza, Spain with his wife and her wealthy, eccentric brother. One begins to feel as though Scott is the narrator of The Great Gatsby: Espana Ediccion. He is the outsider looking into an opulant world, the ultimate non-stop party…until we see the actual home he and his wife are to spend the next three years. The apartment the uncle has given them is in the rural village of Javaron, a place unlike Ibiza or anywhere else he could imagine.

While in Javaron, the Oglesbies live among a unique cast of villagers, Gypsies, and European ex-pats of varying moral fortitude. The fact that Scott has a severe case of OCD, struggles with alcohol and drug abuse, and doesn’t quite fit in anywhere is explored with great candor and humor.

If you have OCD, and I do, you may find yourself relating to the the book in that you will be saying to yourself, “There’s someone else that does that. Wow!” The fear of mimicking someone’s accent, to going to insane lengths not to offend someone, to being on the extreme side of socially awkward are all things I have dealt with too. Scott also has the abillity to not sweat the big stuff and fall apart at little things, something I find happens to me too.

In short, this is a rauciously funny book, a different travel memoir, and a portrait of someone struggling to survive mental illness and addiction. It has something that will resound with most readers.

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