Abandonment Issues

When I turned six years old, in 1988, my mother held a birthday party for me in the small trailer in which we lived in Morgantown. My birthday is December 20th, five days before Christmas. She baked me a cake, and I still remember it -- chocolate with chocolate icing and red gel "happy birthday" lettering. She invited all of my family and her friends from work and from around town, and all of them said they'd come. Not a single one of them showed up. It was cold and rainy that day, all day long, and my mother and I sat alone at our wood-and-glass kitchen table, on the chairs made of brass piping and wicker, and ate the cake alone, in silence. I was devastated because no one cared enough to come to my party, and that nobody had the decency to tell us. My mother probably doesn't even remember this now -- several years ago I brought it up in conversation and she claimed to have no recollection of it -- but I remembered it. I remembered it well because, for the first time, it really showed me how careless or self-obsessed some people could be. It was a very young age to find out how cold and how unfeeling reality actually is. It had a profound affect on me that would carry itself through the rest of my life, and created a mantra that I follow to this day -- never depend on anything or anyone but yourself.

Apparently, not much has changed over the years. 

Upon waking up this morning in preparation for the garage sale raid, I had just one thought running through my head: if you can't go or don't plan to, just tell me, y'know? It's okay. I understand. I won't take it badly.

Mind you, some of my friends did, and gave me their apologies -- of about ten people I asked personally, seven or eight of them were indeed kind enough to tell me that they would be unable to make it or had prior commitments, and I do appreciate that. Amongst those friends were Rae, Jay, and Parker -- with a few others telling me later this morning.

Look, I get it. 7AM, especially on a Saturday, is early for grad students. But I didn't just invite grad students, the semester's almost over, and this is the only get-together I've ever scheduled. I also understand that people are wanting to get rid of stuff before moving out of town after graduation, instead of trying to collect more, but again -- c'mon, I didn't invite just those of us who are graduating, either. I invited twenty-eight people, from all walks of life -- many of them who didn't even have anything to do with the university; some of them were people I worked with at the newspaper, or friends who have already graduated and have stuck around the area. Twenty-eight. Some of them even live here in town.

Of those twenty-eight people, not a single person showed up. The vast majority of them didn't even acknowledge that they'd been invited, and some even actively ignored my invitation. Again, it's okay to tell me no. But please tell me one way or the other. It's common courtesy.

Adding insult to injury, I saw that someone posted a party invite for the end of this month, and had invited 80-90% of my friends in the department -- many of them the same people I'd invited to today's garage sale event -- and ten or more of them had already confirmed that they'd be there and were excited about it.

Do you have any idea how depressing that is? Again, it basically confirms to me that I was actively ignored and blown off completely.

All in all, it's making me feel a bit, I dunno, down. Unimportant. Abandoned. Abrandoned.

I suppose this is sort of a taste of my own medicine of sorts; I never go to any parties or events my (few) friends hold down in Wichita, to the point where most people have stopped asking/inviting me. That's generally because I don't really drink or party, though, and I certainly am not going to drive home in my landboat after drinking at a party, because that's just effing stupid (and I am not a stupid individual). I'm thirty, and for the most part am too old and mature for that drinking and partying shit -- I tend to act my age. The only "party" sort of event I'm attending is the graduation party later this month, and that's mainly only because Daisy will be here, doesn't drink, and we'll be taking her car.

Is it because it was on a Saturday morning and no alcohol was involved? I even asked that question to Daisy this morning, because I couldn't tell you how pissed off and just completely crushed/disappointed I was. Am I an old fart in my thirties trying to get people in their early-to-mid-twenties to hang out with him? I mean, what is it? I'm questioning everything about myself. And this is, really, why I don't do shit like this. I know I'm just going to end up bitter, jaded, and disappointed. Even after all the times my friends have been like "hey, we should come up to Newton and do something" and I've said "that would be great," etc., the only people who have ever come up are Rae and Jay -- and, yes, I do appreciate that, but in three weeks they'll both be gone and I'll more than likely never see them again -- and then, well, I'll really have no one.

I don't know. It just feels like, to some extent, I've been left behind in a lot of ways by those few folks I actually care about and actually want to see/spend time with before graduation. Granted, that's not a lot of people, but still. I put together an event, I put time and hopes into planning for it and getting excited about it, and everyone's like "meh, no." I'm not mad or disappointed with anyone; that would burn unnecessary calories and give me more stress. I'm just sort of disappointed in general because it really does feel like few people care. Hell, few even cared enough to say no; they just ignored the event altogether -- which was, essentially, ignoring me. I'm not the kind of person to jump around and scream pay attention to me, dammit! or throw a poor-me-pity-party, but I am let down by all of this. Especially because there were a lot of people who were gung-ho about it when I mentioned that it was coming up last month. Realistically, I should've realized this is what would happen. Daisy really wished she could come, but she's working tonight and tomorrow night. I won't see her in person again until graduation weekend.

It's not just this; I sent out all of my graduation announcements (the last batch went out three or four days ago now) and the vast majority of them should've reached their destinations by now. The only people who I know have received one are Daisy's parents, as they said they got theirs already -- and I believe theirs was in the last batch I mailed out. I wonder how many people are going to get it, read it and say "yeah, that's nice," and throw it in the trash. Mind you, I really don't care if people do this or not -- the cost in making and sending them was fairly negligible -- but it's the principle, again. Maybe I'm just becoming more bitter and jaded with the world and the people around me; maybe I'm just in a sour mood. Maybe I'm really not that well-liked. Who knows. I don't really expect anything from my graduation announcements; only about five or six of the nearly twenty people I sent them out to will actually care about them, I'm guessing. I just wanted to be able to be proud of something, for once, and to be able to show it. Just like how today, I wanted to be like "hey, look, I'm being social and this will be something fun for all of us to do!" Yeah, blow it out your ass, Brandon -- no one cares.

It's been over three weeks since I finished and mailed my taxes; I'd like to get my returns back soon so that I can cash the checks. While I don't need the money for bills or anything like that (those are, thankfully, already taken care of), I would like to be able to have a bit of spending cash that I don't have to worry about for when I go to Omaha the weekend after graduation. Graduation is two weeks from today. Last year, I seem to remember getting back my returns fairly quickly; my Kansas state return came back incredibly quickly, as I recall. I had to wait longer to file this year because of comps and comps studying, though. My tax returns are the only guaranteed things that I ever look forward to receiving in the mail -- and to a certain extent, that's really sad.

Anyway. I'm getting off track.

When I got up, even if I had to go it alone, I was determined to make a day of this, and to have fun by myself. It would be considerably less fun, of course, and I'd be doing considerably less traversing of the town, but I was determined to make something happen, to go out and try to enjoy myself. I posted a message on the event page on Facebook that said if anyone was coming up (because, at that point, I still had a few "maybes" on the docket) to call or text to let me know -- it was one of the very few times I actually had my cell turned on and charged up -- and if I wasn't home I could get back home rather quickly to meet up with them. Newton's a fairly small town; it's not Wichita by any means, and I know my way around it. Barring having to wait for a train or something like that, you can get from any point in this town to any other point in about five to seven minutes.

I left the house at about 7:20 AM, after sending a few private messages to those friends and colleagues who were still maybes. My first stop was Walmart -- I needed to get cat litter and cigarettes, with the addition of picking up a newspaper to get the garage sale listings and attached map -- plus, I needed to get some cash back to actually be able to purchase stuff at said garage sales. At 7:20 AM, it was cold and misting rain. Not too cold, mind you; it was maybe around 45 or so, and I knew the misting rain would better my odds of finding something good at some of these places because less people would go out, and spend less time out, if the weather wasn't exactly cooperating that well.

There is, however, something I noticed immediately upon leaving the house -- usually, around my neighborhood (in a ten-block radius or so), on city-wide garage sale day there will be a dozen or two different garage sales -- advertised, signs with arrows on every corner, etc. I live in a heavily-populated ten-block radius, and in the past I haven't needed to drive that far to find some awesome stuff. In fact, in the past, most of the time I was able to walk around the neighborhood around my area and follow arrows for a few hours.

Today? Nothing. And I mean nothing. Not a sign, not an arrow, no signs of life, no tables set up on any street, nothing. I looked down every street as I slowly drove the three miles from my house to Walmart. There was nothing set up anywhere. The neighborhoods were dead. This was not a good sign. Even in the somewhat shitty weather, I figured that those people who had paid to put ads in the newspaper (and there are always a ton of those people -- remember, I used to work at the newspaper, and was even the photographer for the city-wide garage sale in 2010) would at least attempt to do something. And, again, there are always those people. Not only did I see no sales, but I also saw no one else driving around looking for sales, either. WTF, man? It wasn't that early. The weather wasn't that shitty.

I got the stuff I needed at Walmart and went looking for a newspaper only to find that the newspaper rack was missing from Walmart. As in, completely gone, not in its normal spot (and yes, I know where its normal spot is -- remember, I go to Walmart a lot). Oh well, I thought. Looks like I'll be doing my searching relying on intuition, past experience, and street signs. I got $20 cash back, in $5 bills, to use wherever I ended up going for yard-or-garage shopping. I originally planned to get $40 in ones and fives, but judging from how I'd seen nothing on my way there, I decided to be more conservative in my estimations of need. When I was done at Walmart, it was nearing 8AM. I had no place to go, no map to guide me, and no friends had called or texted me. So, I decided to do a little exploring of the south side of town, the side I live on. There are some high-end housing developments on this side of town, including some behind Walmart, but I'd seen no signs for any of them anywhere, and wasn't just going to drive around aimlessly through them looking for places -- instead, there were a few places I had in mind, and the first was the indoor church sale that I knew would be taking place, rain-or-shine.

I got to the local Mennonite Church at about 8:05. By then, the parking lot (gravel, eww) was already almost completely full, and people were already coming out carrying boxes, tables and chairs, etc. This gave me hope; I knew I'd find something good there.

This was not the huge church sale I'd been to two years ago; I found this out immediately. I don't remember which one that was, but it wasn't this one. Regardless, I was fine with it; at least I'd found someplace actually doing something this morning. I walked downstairs amidst the crowds and found a great many people and things laid out on tables, but what caught my eye was a massive row of tables from one end of the room to the other with full-size TVs on them -- many of which were marked "free."

Mind you, these were big, heavy, 36-inch CRT televisions, but they were free. Most of them were turned on and were playing the same channel to show that yes, indeed, they were working just fine. If I had a place to put a big 36-inch CRT television, or if I could actually lift it, get it up the stairs, out to my car, and then get it out of my car and find somewhere in the house for it, I would've taken one. But I have none of those things, and have no use for a TV that big, especially because while they were all in really good condition, they all looked to be about ten to fifteen years old. In a row in front of the larger TVs were many smaller ones; 13 to 20-inch ones. Some of these were marked "free" as well, and the rest were marked at the mind-bogglingly cheap price of $3. These were what I was interested in; I'd been looking for a replacement TV for the bedroom downstairs for two years, since when my ex moved out she took her 13-inch TV/DVD player combo with her (I also gave her my old 20-inch TV as well, since I had one her mother gave us many years before; it's the one my XBOX and PS1 are hooked up to in my room behind me). The lack of a TV in the bedroom is what made me set up my old laptop down there to use as a media/movie watching device. Now I stood in front of a row of televisions that were either free or were $3.

I looked through them carefully; some were newer than others. Most didn't have AV inputs, which meant that I would have no use for them -- they'd have to have AV inputs for me to be able to use them for anything -- I can't hook up my DVD player or game system(s) to a TV without them unless I buy some sort of converter plug or box to run them through, which would negate the cost of the TV itself. I finally found a 14-inch RCA Truflat TV in the mix, turned on and working well, for $3. It had two sets of AV inputs -- one set on the side and another set on the back. It also didn't have an antenna hooked up to it and was receiving TV signal in a church basement, which led me to believe that it also had a digital tuner and a strong internal antenna (and thus, wouldn't need a converter box). The remote was taped to the top of it.

"I'll take this one," I said when one of the church workers came over.

"Good," he said. "I want to warn you though, these TVs were donated to us; we haven't checked to make sure all the buttons on the remote are working or anything like that."

I looked at him sort of like he was nuts, though with a smile. "...it's a three-dollar TV," I said. "It's worth it even if a button or two sticks or doesn't work. I'm fine with that."

I paid for the TV and took it out to the car. I had solved my bedroom television problem; I could disassemble the mess of wires, speakers, and chargers I'd taken downstairs along with my old laptop, and put it away. For a CRT television, it was pretty light -- maybe fifteen pounds or so at the most. The remote takes two AA batteries, which I always have on hand. If I find nothing else today, I thought, at least I got a television.

My luck was beginning to look up, which was a plus. However, nobody had called or texted me, it was starting to rain a bit harder, and there was nothing else at the church sale I was remotely interested in -- the only other thing I saw was a PlayStation 2 they had, but someone had realized how much that was worth (unlike the televisions) and they were trying to sell it for $75. Yeah, no thanks -- I can get a used one for maybe $50 on Amazon if I *really* wanted one. Which I don't, really.

The Mennonite Church is located in one of the better neighborhoods on the south side of town, a neighborhood well known to me at this point for having some of the best yard sales in the entire town. So, I began slowly driving around. I followed signs I saw on poles, most of which led me to several houses who had, apparently, canceled their garage sales for the day (since I saw nothing, even at the addresses listed). I stopped at two other places. One barely had anything -- though they had a gorgeous oak table and chairs set in their garage for $100; no thanks. The other place had a bunch of baby clothes and boxes of paperback books that they were letting sit out in the rain. Again, no thanks. After this, and after seeing nothing else anywhere around me, I took the back way home (read: the long way) to see if there was anything else on the opposite side of my neighborhood, where some of the houses were nicer and where I'd also found a lot of really nice sales in the past -- again, nothing. Not a soul. Signs on poles led me places where nothing was happening. Apparently the shitty, snowy weather earlier this week and the misty rain this morning made everyone cancel their garage sales.

I didn't bother to cross the tracks to the north side of town or venture into the housing developments -- I figured I'd more than likely find much of the same. To make matters worse, by after 10AM still nobody had called or texted me. I decided to go back home, see if Daisy was still awake, make some food and wait for anyone to contact me or for the weather to clear up a bit before venturing out again. I'd only seen three garage sales on my entire side of town, including the church, and I'd stopped at them all. This was all I was willing to do on my own unless the weather got better or unless others came up. I wasn't going to tax my car any more than I had to, and I certainly wasn't going to gallivant around town alone for no reason, spinning my wheels in feckless searching.

I logged back on to my computer and found that two of those "maybe" friends had awakened while I was out and had canceled on me. I talked to Daisy for a while, and we added a bunch of stuff to our wedding registry on Amazon before she had to go to bed for work tonight, and then I canceled the event on Facebook -- nobody cared enough to come anyway, the weather was shitty, and I didn't want to go back out alone, in my own vehicle. I was not in the greatest of moods, to put it mildly. I was really depressed, to be honest with you -- I really, really wanted this to work. I really wanted my friends to come up and spend time with me and to just have some fucking fun for once. But my friends didn't cooperate, the weather didn't cooperate, the garage sales themselves didn't cooperate, and suddenly I was six-year-old Brandon again, eating his birthday cake alone.

And people wonder why I'm basically a hermit and shun most social interaction.

I turned off my phone and went back to bed; I had no more patience for the world or for the rest of the day, and I ended up sleeping until it was almost dark tonight, avoiding my computer for hours after I awakened just so I wouldn't have to deal with the outside world any more than necessary. I probably won't be awake much longer tonight, either -- I have no patience for being conscious anymore. I hooked up my old DVD player to the new TV downstairs, and planned to watch something that will put me to sleep again. Or, barring that, something that would take my mind off things.

After running setup of the TV and hooking up the DVD player (when I found that the TV has three sets of AV ports, not just the two I thought it had), I decided to test it to see what the volume and picture were like...when I found that not only does it have beautiful picture quality, but it has several sound settings including concert and theater. What did I test it with? None other than the first disc of this, of which I own the entire box set:



I am such a nerd.

SHINING FING-GAHHHH

Ahem. Just as good as anything else to test it with, right?

The TV does indeed have a digital tuner, but in my basement, at least, it can't pick up any channels, unlike in the church basement. I don't know how old the TV is; doing some research, I found that most of the models in that Truflat range were made at least up until 2006 or 2007, and some are still available on Amazon or at Sam's Club. A lot of them also have issues after a while as well, apparently, where the TV will decide to turn itself on or off at random intervals. Mine seems to be working fine, though it it does start screwing up eventually? Well, I paid three dollars for it and there's a trash can 30 feet from where it sits on my nightstand.