Rant #596, Stardate 1524.562.6

The mystery has been unveiled. It was the neighbour after all, hammering the whole flat down. The bathroom tiles, the living-room wooden floor, everything is gone. No wonder it’s taken him so long (he was still banging up until two hours ago or so). One would expect some serious sledge-hammer business for that kind of work, but I guess the nut cracker seemed more appropriate.

Getting that out of the way, I thought I might write about what happened yesterday at lunch and what got me so edgy in the first place. I was just telling someone about it and I reckon I’ve chilled enough to write it in peace. I don’t think I overreacted, but I think I could’ve handled it better. Or different. Or both.

So, what you need to know is that I’ve been at university for ages. Starting off with German and Linguistics and taking Swedish as a minor in the meantime, I ditched German (seriously creepy psycho professors) and took Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology. I like what I’m studying and I find most of it quite interesting.

Nevertheless, life takes its own toll and direction and sometimes one’s forced to press the pause button. Unfortunately, not everyone is always keen on asking what one’s been doing, but rather choose the path of blissful ignorance and with it, almost necessarily, a fair amount of prejudice. If I tell you I’m in my tenth year, I’m quite sure your first thought would be yikes! Yeah, I think the same, no worries about that.

Anyway, I won’t go an about why it’s taking me so long, but I’ll just say I’m two exams away, with my final thesis already approved and all. The problem is that not everyone in my family takes is the same way I do. I mean, I can’t blame them, since I really should’ve taken care of it ages ago, but I sure as hell can’t bite my hand off now, can I?

My older brother has finished business and is a director in a major firm. My sister finished languages and is working in a big construction firm. And me?

I suck:
- I don’t have a degree yet
- I’m not engaged or in an already serious relationship
- I don’t have a flat of my own (and a thirty-year-long loan from the bank)
- I don’t have a steady job yet (tutoring, writing, editing, translating and such doesn’t really count around here much)
- I’m a complete outcast since I don’t stare at the news and gossip around
- I like travelling (which makes me a complete lunatic not appreciative of his home land)
- I go out as much as I can and enjoy open-air parties, walking through the forest and just sitting in the grass (what a weirdo)
- I’m a pretty short-fuse type of person (and people tend to cope with that even harder than I can)
I suck.

The list goes on and on (I could really pull off BagLady’s Ten Things, haha), but I won’t prolong it any further. It just boils down to what’s important for yesterday’s event and it boils down to one fact. I suck.

When you suck, the problem is no one really gives a crap about what you say. Or what you think. This is in fact fine by me, since I still didn’t seem to manage the better-keep-your-mouth-shut routine quite yet. Discussions usually end up with someone – usually me – pissed off and annoyed.

But when it doesn’t even come to the discussion, I just feel like someone had just fast forwarded, seemingly clairvoyant and already presuming what I had to say. Well, this is what happens often when my brother is around. Geez, I so don’t want to turn this into a Dear-Oprah rant (I don’t even watch TV), but it might sound like one.

I’ll try to make it short:
- my brother is the oldest and therefore obviously the favourite
- my sister is the only girl, so that’s hear deal
- i’m the last and left out there, stranded and left alone without a life
- whatever my brother and sister do is fine
- whatever i do is a semi-revolution, rebellion against everything dear to them and a step away from a train wreck

In fact I’m not really that bad – it’s just that I’m interested in some things that they aren’t and I’m a bit off the mainstream, so I’m considered weird. Here comes the topic. It’s linguistics.

I don’t know why, but people get goose bumps when they start talking about the language. Maybe it’s the errors that we all make on the daily basis, I’m not sure. But it’s really not a really popular topic, believe me. My folks even appreciate the whole ethnology story, learning about cultures, preserving our old customs and stuff. But when it comes to language, everyone takes a step back.

It’s not that I bite. I’ve learned not to even think about starting the topic. It’s like talking to people who champ. You can train yourself to ignore it or leave the room. There’s no making it right. I suck at that and usually take a platter and go away. Actually, people find it very weird that I eat standing up. They say that’s why I’m so thin. Well, that’s what keeps me sane.

So, my whole family meets up for lunch on Sundays and it’s already started by the time I enter the dining room. I’m not late, but they just didn’t wait for me. Figures. I say hello to my nieces (8 and 6 years old and the nine-month-old munchkin) and play with the little one a bit. She’s walking around, so she needs to be watched over.

She stares at me with this look that you only see on small kids. She knows my face and she’s examining it like it’s a map. And she can’t seem to get used to my laugh. I have a really weird, loud, tractor-like laugh. She’s not scared; she just can’t seem to work out the whole machinery behind that sound coming out of my mouth.

So I sit down on the floor next to her and I talk to her. Under my breath. I’m not the type that goo-goo-gah-gahs kids, so I simply talk to her. She’s doing her own business, playing with a piggy bank, but carefully leaning on my bended knee. She isn’t so stabile yet and she knows it. Now, I’m in a pretty messed up state: I’m scared and edgy and tired and hopeless and no one is looking up from their plate.

As if she read my thoughts, the kiddo drops the piggy bank, catches my eye and gives me this peaceful but intense look, as if to tell me it will all be OK. I swear, sometimes I have the feeling like she can relate to what’s going on in my head. Now I regret storming out because I only spent two minutes with her in the end.

Now that this came back to my mind, I find the whole fuss so irrelevant. I don’t even see the point of writing further, but I might as well finish it since it’ll come back to my mind eventually.

After my first bite at the table (since I had my soup standing up in the kitchen) my sister-in-law asks me about something which is not only a bit, but completely into the language sphere. My family members lift their heads like gazelles at the water trough sensing danger. I'm a tiny colourful bird on top of a rhino, trying to get some minerals from the mud behind its ears. I know this is a dangerous ground, but fuck – I'm riding a rhino!

I don't know what bothers people so much about talking about errors in speech. I mean, there's so many different languages and there's so many people and so many rules, but everyone's so sensitive about it. Talking about the world order, war crimes, recent disasters or someone's placenta are no uncommon topics at the table, but mention grammar or spelling and everyone will instantly put up a force field.

So I do my best and try to envelop it in a really short and acceptable answer in order to wrap it up as soon as possible, but the avalanche has already started. I know I'll be the one thrown off the mountain, but there's no point in pushing someone in front of me either.

We talk about some common errors (something like your and you're in English) and by we I mean my sis-in-law and me. She’s the only one who talks to me normally, listens to me and is indeed interested in a topic she asks me about. My bother cringes, because if it's not business management or soccer, he's out. Like my dad. My sister is avoiding the whole story, because she knows she's as edgy as me, but at least she has a way out as soon as the lunch finishes. My mum is blissfully chewing her mouthful, acting like she doesn’t see the gigantic tsunami in front of us.

So my sis-in-law and me’re talking onwards and by the time I’m on my second bite, the whole bunch has already hijacked the whole conversation. Damn.

Don’t you dare tell us how to speak. We know our language and you can say what you want. We’re older and we know better. Where did you get the nerve...?

At this time I place an imaginary mouse trap over four of my fingers and hope there’s a meteorite coming our direction. Since it’s my profession, I try to point out (with the calmest voice ever) that it’s simply grammar and spelling and that I’m trying to lead a conversation here.

So, they’re yelling, I can’t get a word out of my mouth and my sis-in-law is slowly aware of the fact that she could’ve chosen a better timing – purely for her sake. In a family where offspring gets muffled down, she’s smart enough to know she doesn’t have a chance. Not with my whole family in one corner of the ring. Well, not my mum – she’s still blissfully chewing.

I’m not going into details of the football-field debate that followed (it’s just pointless), but before my third bite I just got up and left the table. My brother made what he obviously thought was a funny remark and I just couldn’t stand it anymore. I hope one day I win a Nobel Prize or marry the princess of Jordan or something – and then I’ll show him. Haha, I’m such a dork.

Anyway, I got up and left the room. He didn’t come by to say bye on the way downstairs. Nor did my sister. Nor my parents. I’m quite sure my sis-in-law would’ve, but I get why she didn’t completely.

I understand them. They think I’m too edgy, that I have a short fuse, that I’m impatient and that I can’t shut up. Umm, excuse me, but don’t they think I know that?! They’re quite much the same – or even worse; not willing to pay attention, let alone to listen. I’m aware of the fact that I’m fucked up and hard to deal with, but at least I don’t think I’m perfect. I guess they are.

Anyway, I’m pretty sure they just shook their heads, made another bad joke and finished their tasty lunch. It doesn’t matter anyway. It’s just going on in my head. My dad asked me why I got angry. He doesn’t have a clue. They don’t know me at all. If some of them ever read this, they might get to know me a bit better. Because we don’t talk about that. No one cares.

I’m a stranger in my own home.