The Moose in the Closet: Land, Deb, Ignatz and On the Way Down: Ithaca

I had a wicked cool blurb set up for today but for reasons beyond my control I won’t be able to post it. So I think I’ll just ramble for like five minutes before getting to my story, post and go to bed.

I’ve been sort of fascinated with the Greg Land “tracing” thing that’s popping up on every comic message board. It’s not that I don’t have an opinion but I’ll be the first to say that if Greg Land wanted to work with me I would say “yes” in a heartbeat except it would be muffled because I’d be sucking his dick in an appreciative gesture. With that in mind I plead the fifth but I will say that it makes for some interesting reading. What do you guys think?

My homegirl and fellow DC Conspiracy member Deb Orgel started a blog recently that’s filled with cartoons and musings. Good little read plus, you know, she’s a chick and we can all pretend that comics isn’t a sausage factory boys club but you know as well as I do you’re more likely to buy her books at a con than some dude with emo-glasses and bowling shoes. So you might as well get to know her now before buying her whole catalog. Also check out DCC member Matt Dembicki’s blog, while you’re at it. I would link Chris Piers but that one seems more of a personal thing, not sure what his stance is on that. (EDIT: never mind, here it is.)

And speaking of the DCC, I haven’t pimped this yet but our Dr. Dremo Anthology is on the SPX ballot for best book premiering at SPX. DCC superstar Jacob Warrenfeltz made this little poster for us (and speaking of posters, wait until you see the jam poster Matt, Jacob and Evan are putting together for the Counter Culture Festival):

Story time.
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This whole week is basically one big story that continues a longer story. You can click back if you want to catch-up. Monday has the whole collection of links. Not a great week for newbs, this is more of a pay-off week. This is like starting Watchmen at issue 11 minus Cold War fears and fake alien invasions (SPOILERS!). Feel free to check out the "Best of" to see if you like it here first. Yesterday’s story.

My friends Jackie and Mary are two people that I’ve stayed away from quite a bit on this blog. I mentioned them twice, which is odd, because they were easily two of my best friends throughout high school and college. As I’ve mentioned, however, I really fucked that one up and feel bad talking about them. So I really only bring them out when I have to and although the final chapter in the Jackie and Mary story really doesn’t take place until after college, thus making it an eventual Moose in the Closet Year II story, I think the roots of it all takes place during the summer between sophomore and junior year.

Mary had to go up to school (Cornell) early and Jackie went to neighboring Ithaca so I decided to ride up to Ithaca with Jackie, hang out with her and Mary for the weekend and then come back down to Brooklyn.

On the way we stopped in the Poconos at Jackie’s family’s time share, hung out with the family and had a good time like we always did. I was always close with that family – still miss them all. After the stop it was off to Ithaca for a weekend of friends, fun and forgetting about R.

The road trip was your typical “twenty-years-old and want to have fun” road trip. Music, laughs, stops at random places for pictures. We get to Ithaca, pick up Mary and roll around the town built solely on supporting two college campuses. Did some shopping (they had a pleasant outdoor market of some sort), ate some pizza, picked up some wine and beer.

The town was pretty dead that weekend, the bulk of the students yet to move in. We had a low-key dinner, walked around Cornell’s huge campus, laid in the grass for a while and talked about life. It was sort of restrained – Mary was in a two year long back and forth fucked up relationship, R and I just broke up and Jackie broke up with B (my friend that stopped talking to me after playing strip poker with his ex-girlfriend) a little bit ago – there was some tension emanating from all of us. But nothing like a little alcohol to lighten the mood and get us all talking, which is what happened later on that night.

To preface this, I always had some feelings for Mary, even when I was with R. The feelings spawned from the super-friendship, the closeness that causes one to lower his guard while his emotions run crazy. I think Mary was the only person who didn’t know which means she probably did but never acknowledged it. I always kept my feelings in check. Having never met her boyfriend but hearing the stories (from her, mainly) I couldn’t stand him and having broken up with R recently – I couldn’t stand him even more. But on this trip she promised she was through with him and that made me…complacent.

So we’re drinking. I hear two stories, one from each, which I have no right to ever tell and being that we don’t really talk anymore, no right to even remember. But I heard them and it fucked me up a bit. It fucked all of us up. And here I am, wallowing in misery over R, and I get these two stories that are real heartaches and I feel like the biggest asshole ever. The kind of shit that you think you would never have to deal with or ever have to have any of your friends or loved ones go through. And I get them both and at that moment, I think we all realized that we can no longer avoid the fact that our lives aren’t like High School anymore.

That night Jackie and I sleep on the floor. In the middle of the night Mary sneaks out and goes to her boyfriend’s house – we don’t talk about it. Mary and I don’t talk about much of anything from that weekend on, actually. Everything changes in our relationship after that weekend and it was obvious it was going to happen instantly, leaving Ithaca there was the unavoidable realism that this particular friendship peaked. And the shit just piles on even more.

Labels: mitc

Land, Deb, Ignatz and On the Way Down: Ithaca

Tuesday, August 23, 2005

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