i wrote

I have to spend a weekend in Indy and not looking forward to it, but the comforting thought is that it will come to an end in TWO DAYS. Just two days with them.

No, I love my family. But we're so different. I read this article in an astrology magazine about Courtney Love's family legacy of .......fucked up situations or something. I have so much to write on mine, but an abbreviated version is this:


About four centuries ago, the Ellsworths left rural England for Massachusetts, USA. Like all the millions of immigrants to the US, they may or may not have known that they were forever giving up their culture and identity to become Americans, although they could at least keep their language. Slowly they moved inland toward Michigan and settled in Alma, a tiny factory town. This is several generations down the road. The Ellsworths, Zieglers from Germany, Beardsleys (who settled part of Michigan, though how is uncertain) and Conklins made up the towns of Ithica and Alma, two lower middle class dots on the map, if they're even on there. From Liberty Tanner Beardsley came John, who was sent to live with the Gerbers for a time, but left to strike out on his own, meeting and impregnating Alfreda Ellsworth. John married and subsequently divorced Alfreda leaving her with a small daughter, Donna, to raise, in the Depression era in the farmland where there was really not much of anything. John later met and married the love of his life, and the two of them made something of a life together and managed to escape to Europe from time to time. Meanwhile, Alfreda found another man, Dan, who raised Donna as his own, more or less. Dan worked in an oil refinery and.......it was not an easy life. There was very little money and Alfreda made most of the clothes, but also cooked and made jam, quilts, collected China and various trinkets, and kept Dan as best she could out of bars. That is, she did her best, but a big part of Midwestern life is drinking.


OK, to be continued, but this is the beginning........don't worry there'll be more