RI Day 7 - Birthday Bashes and Philosophical Floundering

Today my family threw my brother and me a joint party birthday party while I was still close enough to MA, so I didn't do much exploring today.

I did go back to the moose cafe because i was kicking myself for not getting the mooseachino. It's essentially just a mochachino, but they add a dash of caramel to moose it up a bit. It was probably a bit more sugary than I normally like in my coffee, but it still tasted really good. I've mentioned this place twice for coffee but they also have a huge selection of ice cream and pastries, all of which are fantastic.

I'm sure my family party might not be all that interesting to everyone else, but I'll still give some highlights.

All of my aunts started dancing to a jazz cover of jingle bells, which was absolutely blasting for some reason.

My cousins and I played pictionary telephone. It's essentially a low-rent Telestrations, but we've been playing it long before we knew about that game. It's easy to set up, and a great party game. You just need paper and pens. Everyone starts off writing a sentence, you pass the sentence to the next person, they draw a picture of the drawing, then they pass their picture on to the next person, they write a sentence of what they think that the picture is, and it goes around the circle swapping between pictures and sentences until it gets back to the original person and you can see how much the sentence changed over time. 

My cousins got lady gaga sunglasses that you can't see out of. The best of this was that woman who sold them the glasses at a flea market, mentioned this like it was a big selling point. I think they work for me though.

After the party, I drove the four hours to New Jersey to get to my AirBNB, which doesn't make for exciting journalism. So I'm just gonna reflect for a a brief moment because over this week in Rhode Island I've crossed the 1 month mark of doing this and I think it might be good to talk a little bit about why.

One challenging thing for me at my party was how much everyone was being protective of me and trying to give me advice and safety tips.  I don't mean to sound like a spoiled brat saying, "Ugh my family cares about my well-being, why am I going through this hell?" Their advice was all good, useful, appreciated and coming from a place of love, but the thing that I took some umbrage with is the idea of trying to keep me protected in my head came across in some ways as keeping me sheltered. I'm not trying to put myself in undue risk, but part of the whole point of this trip is to get to see the country, warts and all. 

Seeing the country and meeting and learning from people all over is the primary goal of this blog for me personally, and comedy is just the way I'm choosing to do that, because A. as far as i know there's a million travel blogs, but none doing quite this B. I selfishly want to get better at comedy so that I can maybe one day get paid to do it and not a real job and C. most importantly I think making someone laugh is one of the fastest ways of making a connection with a person. There's all kinds of people out there though, and I think it's important to try to talk to and understand as many of them as I can, but some of them won't be nice and some of my experiences won't be good and that's okay. 

Thinking about this made me realize something in that I've been very actively focusing mainly on the positive in this blog. There's a couple reasons for that. I've got depression so I'm naturally drawn to remembering and focusing on negative things, but actively writing all the positive or putting a positive spin on things helps me not get bogged down and actually make it through this trip. The zoloft doesn't hurt either. The reason that I find more frustrating is the amount that my mom worries with just me writing about the good stuff, I worry that she won't be able to handle less pleasant experiences I have. But the reason that provides the most justification is that I want to believe and so far, I've been finding, that there are good things everywhere. It's important to go into places without prejudice. 

I'm not (totally) naive though, and there is definitely a danger in having rose colored glasses and not acknowledging that flaws in our country and in people exist.  I've had a relatively cushy life personally, but I (and I think anyone that has worked with either the disabled or children) have seen some real shit. Families go through hard times and can't pay for medical care, people have no problem hitting a disabled child in front of a bunch of strangers, people flat out neglect kids, and these things are not uncommon at all. Just about every person of color I've talked to has faced at least some kind of discrimination, small or large, on a daily basis. An absolutely shocking number of people I've talked to on this trip have personally had lives touched by addictions and death. There are so many large societal problems, and if we pretend those don't exist (like the whole opioid crisis for years) that's a huge danger. BUT there really are so many good things out there despite all of this and ignoring those is just as big a danger. People need to be skeptical and critical of social ills, but they also have to be hopeful. 

There's a really good Irish movie, that I think flew under the radar, called Cavalry where the main character, a priest, says "I think there's too much talk about sins and not enough about virtues". That line always stuck out to me, so while I'm not particularly religious, I've really been trying to take it to heart. So I'm gonna keep being largely positive, but I just wanted to make sure I acknowledged my position of privilege getting to do this at all and that I know there are horrible things happening every day, but hopefully even in the middle of truly difficult things there's always still a way to find something to laugh at.

Favorite Random Sightings: Fish and Chips Sundae (swedish fish and choc. chips but I sure did a double take); Break Up Brownies; A license plate that said "Awsmum" (either an awesome mum or a horrible speller); A billboard with a bunch of chickens and the oddly intense words "Which of these chicks would die for your eggs?" still not sure entirely what it was for

Regional Observation: The stereotype about NY drivers being bad and aggressive was definitely true in my brief experience driving through NY on the way to NJ

General Observation: Motorcycles scare the hell out of me. I like me not killing people to just kind of my default state, but I feel like a lot of motorcycles force me to have to actively put effort into not killing them. In general we underestimate how dangerous driving is, just because we do it almost every day.

Albums listened to: Covered by Robert Glasper (really great jazz trio music, not so great when you're driving and tired because it's damned relaxing); Crack-Up by Fleet Foxes (The vocal harmonies are always great with fleet foxes, but does anyone else feel like they almost never understand the words in the songs?); Crazy Baldhead Has a Posse by Crazy Baldhead; Crazy Ex-Girl Friend Season 1 Soundtrack (I'm a Good Person, Cold Showers, and JAP Battle); Crazy Tonight & This Has All Just Been a Dream by Ethan Tucker; Cricklewood Green by Ten Years After; Criss-Cross by Thelonious Monk; Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain by Pavement

People's Favorite Jokes:

What did Dela wear? Idaho, Alaska (I dunno, I'll ask her)

I’m sorry, that that joke is the only one I got today

Song of The day: 

Fitting with the theme of this post, acknowledging dark things but finding hope in the end

RI Superlatives:

Favorite Food: O Dinis in East Providence

Favorite Hot Dog: Olneyville New York System Hot Weiner in Providence

Favorite Ice Cream: New Port Creamery

Favorite Coffee: pure taste- White Electric in Providence; Best Location- Coffee Grinder in Newport; Best All Around- Mags Aussie Milk Bar in Newport

Favorite bar: Revival Tap Room in Cranston

Favorite Beer: revival ice fight Irish stout

Favorite Mic: Black Duck Tavern in Providence

Favorite Attraction: Fantastic Umbrella Factory in Charlestown

General Impression of the Comedy Scene: Small but very supportive. Similar to Connecticut and Boston in terms of content: Not PC, but thoughtful and clever, tends to be rants or self-deprecation. More down for silly experimental stuff than other states I've been to so far

Bonus Less Sad Song of The Day: 

"Newsflash Fuckwads, I'm a good person" might be one of my favorite combinations of words in any song