Ok, this blog is still hanging out there cause I just can't bring myself to take it down even though we managed to extract ourselves with much painful effort from this stinkhole. We live in a better place now. A beautiful area with natural wonders, a good economy, friendly people and so many cool things to do we couldn't possibly fit them all in. That's right, Colorado. Every morning we wake up and say, 'Look honey, it's yet another beautiful day!' We live in a fairly urban area and it is SO QUIET! It was almost eerie at first. No ambulances and fire trucks wailing past, no screeching tires, no weekly accidents at Optional Stop Sign Corner, no raging urban street theater at all hours of the night and day. It's so much safer too. I can walk around the block night with the dogs AND I don't have to worry about stepping on broken glass or follow the trail of garbage from someone's McDonald's meal. No one has been murdered within a mile of my home for the past four months. That is a personal best. Bonus: no flagrant, round the clock drug deals or gang activity. Best of all, no obvious corrupt jabrone government. All governments are a little corrupt but here, I have not yet seen the incredible immoral, unethical, illegal inbred nepotism and dirty dealings that is a good days work in Utica.
I feel like some of the mental damage the Utica area has done to us is slowly starting to heal. You know how some buildings are called 'sick buildings' because the people who live and work in them are ill all the time. Utica is a sick town but the illness is all mental, (ok and some physical. Want to see webbed toes and gout? Price Chopper on Genesee street. Just sayin.). After I got paroled to the real world, I wanted to tell people how wonderful Colorado is to make them understand what a great place they live in. They listen to my tales of the Mohawk Valley and look at me like I'm crazy. Like I just emigrated from Bosnia or some other war torn hellhole. Most of the time I get the feeling that I am not being believed or I get some kind of shocked pitying response. They say, "well, it all worked out for the best, you're better off now". This is social code for 'Stop telling me these horrible stories'. I tried to tell some of my new coworkers what I thought were funny stories and I saw the looks on their faces and realized that they were not funny at all. They were horrific. There is no possible way to make people here understand how frustrating life is in Utica for the non native, non Italian. I had to stop. But it's still in me. All the anger and the hurt and the confusion. Ten years of trying to to be part of that community, to have a career and own a home. Ten years of being told that good was bad and bad was good. Being told that things I could see with my own eyes were not so. Having an advanced degree: bad, women should be nurses, stay at home moms or work in retail. Selling counterfeit luxury goods: good. Joette Mancuso of Joette's Gifts got busted with fakes by the feds in March of 2007. Result? A wink, a handslap, a small fine and two new stores in Syracuse and Rochester. This is how business is done. Unless you are black. Then you go to jail. (Oneida Square Vender sold Counterfeit Goods, Utica OD March 22, 2011)
Arts and literature and theater and everything I find good in life are only for children or women and that once you reach a certain age (12) and are a man, you shouldn't be interested in those things anymore because you might possibly be a gay. After that, your main concern should be watching children play sports and charity walking events. Also, there was no point in leaving the immediate Utica area as it contained all that was necessary for a complete and full life. I can't even tell you how many people I met who had not been to Syracuse, Albany or Rochester in years, decades even. Not to the huge mall or downtown Armory Square district for shopping, not to the symphony, never been to the really excellent regional farmers market, not to eat in any of the nice restaurants, not to see an independent film, nor to go to any kind of cultural event that did not involve the 'Cuse. All of which, by the way, can not be done in Utica. People thought I was crazy, and a little strange for doing any of these things. When Monday morning rolled around and everyone did the What Did You Do This Weekend dance, I would say I went to a bookstore/Japanese restaurant/place to buy fresh fish and foolishly ask if anyone else had ever been to these places. Ridiculous! Of course not! That is outside the Utica area and not sports or charity related. "Wow you guys are really adventurous." Then some people would never ask again and others would ask me every Monday what kind of wacky thing I had done now. It was a bookstore people. I didn't go to Egypt and excavate the ruins of the Library of Alexandria. Jesus Christ.
When I was little I used to like Green Acres. That poor motherf**ker Eddie Albert. All he wanted was to have a piece of land and create something that was his. He moved to an isolated rural area with ignorant but savvy locals who ran an absurdist community and had many humorous and frustrating experiences. I laughed but also felt sorry for him because everything he tried to do was subverted. Then I was Eddie Albert.
