Currently Chasing: A Trip Back To Buffalo

Family is an odd thing. You don’t get to pick em, but for some reason you are required to deal with them, make excuses for them and comfort them in their time of need. You have to make yourself available for these people simply because two people who came out of the same womb, each had a couple of people, who had a couple of people and all of a sudden you’re on the hook for giving a shit about 20 some-odd people who you possibly never met, could care less about, and wouldn’t even recognize in photographs. But that’s how it is, and damn it, the more of these bitches you have around, the less likely you are to end up homeless…so play nice!

This weekend while in Buffalo, N.Y., I met a whole new mess of people that I can add to my list of family. And to tell you the truth, if I could have, I would have picked each and every one of them. Well almost. There’s always one.

My point is I thought the million or so family members I have in California completed the package for me. I thought I knew everything I could possibly know about myself. And then Bam! I meet a group of people who make me understand who I am all the more. They have my laugh, my walk…and wouldn’t you know it, they have my fucking fingers even! And now they have my heart.

I’m on the hook for them and I don’t mind a bit. I’m going to make all the excuses necessary and hide a body or two if it’s required. I spent 1.5 days with this group of misfits and to tell you the truth, it felt like no less than a lifetime. I soaked it in. I also soaked in a bottle of Baileys! And along the way I started to remember the real reason families get together during the holidays. Family is really all accidental, due to unprotected sex and bad decisions, (just the tip, just for a second, just to see how it feels...FUCK I'M PREGNANT...another damn cousin) but in the end, it's a group of people who will encourage you to drink too much and sleep with people you probably shouldn't even stand with. And that's what Christmas is all about.

So just call me a Buffalo Soldier! I've even stopped wearing a jacket no matter how cold it gets. That's how New Yorkers dos it. And yous guys know it.