The view

Coming to Lake George, I was happy. This is not a natural state for me, though I do not tend to notice. A mix of self-therapy, medication, optimistic nihilism, and faint spirituality helps. I am okay and that is enough. Coming here, though, I feel a thrill. Happiness is so rare that I can pluck out specific times it has occurred, Lake George being my annual example. (Others include my wedding weekend and occasions with effortless friends I no longer often see.)

Amber and I arrive first to the house. In previous years, it has been at the motel that claims to be a resort, Scotty's, which was familiar but not ideal as we grew to a party of twelve. We are down to ten, as my eldest niece Ayannah did not get off work or did not care to. She told my mother in January that she could not get off, which seems unlikely. A job at Dunkin Donuts is not the sort of place where you value it over an all-expenses paid vacation (granted, with one's family). You tell your supervisor that they can either let you have that week off or you will quit. It is a shit job and there will never be a lack of those. Yannah did not want to have this week off. She wanted to spend it with her boyfriend and, given what she posts on social media, not sober.

Yannah has not lived with Dan for a while -- she lived there with her boyfriend until my brother presented an ultimatum -- so they may feel her absence less.

Alieyah stayed home to prepare for her upcoming college experience. Dan did not mind this. He could make her care for the pets instead of hiring someone for the job. A week without her family might be vacation enough for Alieyah.

A dangerous lion

I've mentioned in previous iterations of this experience, Lake George is the time when I am closest to my lovers, but I am always close to Amber. She will be busier soon and is trying to proofread one of my books before school sets in again. She is occupying herself with Lucifer -- her current obsession. This is how Amber works: all-consuming interest before putting things to the side.

The driveway is unpaved and rutted, a twisted quarter mile up a mountain. When I reach the top, I vow I would not set foot in my car until we left on Friday. Amber marked this as unlikely.

The rental agent is there when we arrive to tell us how amazing the sunsets here can be. I am not sure how often we will be here to see them. We are a busy people whose evening plans will likely not involve sticking around for the setting of the sun. But this is a new experience in a new place (within an old place), so I cannot be sure.

The agent points out that the basement shower does not work. A previous group of drunken teens yanked the shower knob out of the wall. (It does turn on for a few seconds when one flushes the toilet; the plumbing needs work.) One of these teens later plummeted from the porch, fifteen feet up, and had to be airlifted out. (Ambulances would not go up the driveway, which seems like an insurance risk.)

As the agent shows us the basement workout room and pool table, the jacuzzi (that does not end up working), and the appliances, I stroll from bedroom to bedroom, trying to figure out the configuration that will assure the least nocturnal contact with my niblings. We could sleep in the master suite with my parents, but the heat rises, and my father might snore. The futon on the second-floor landing is private from one angle, but completely absent privacy from another, and is also hot. I eschew the room with the queen and bunk beds for one with a queen and single.

Amber begrudges this house is not walking distance from town, as I thought when first we decided on this plan. It is a ten-minute drive, which might seem paltry, but it is aggravating when one is used to being only down a steep hill from shopping and dining. Also, all the parking in town is both paid and rare. (There was another house that was walking distance that my family nixed. I can be forgiven for confusing them.)

Bear, holding a bear

My parents and Bryan arrive next. Amber and I have already been shown around the house in full. The rental agent repeats the process with my parents.

My mother suggests that Amber and I, thin people, should take the single bed so that Dan and Becky might have the queen in that room. Then, all the children can be sequestered in one room, to be sealed shut and its door bricked up. I, as a reasonable person, tell Amber I will mark that bed with urine before I let them take it from me. It turns out that covering it in luggage and clothes serves this better. Also, my brother and Becky created these children. It is only fair that they sleep with two of them. (Alyssah, oldest of the present niblings, takes the futon to be away from her siblings, and who can blame her?)

On the table are a few bottles of wine, which my parents decant and offer our way. I drink only a little until it reacts with my medication and the inebriation hits me hard.

Adalynn, the youngest, has her face painted like a lion from a concert she attended the night before. She insists it is not paint and that she is, in fact, a lion. My mother makes clear that she may be a lion for the night, but that her feline nature will be washed off come morning.

Dan and Becky will not be sticking around tonight, as they have tickets to Beck and Cage the Elephant. Their children complain when offered tickets to this show. After all, who would want to see these two acts? With considerable reluctance, Alyssah and Bear condescend to go. How brave of them to persist despite being so put upon.

My mother, thinking ahead, placed an order from Wal-Mart for pickup. The difficulty came that she didn't select "No Substitutions." We end up with a bizarre assortment of things that some grunt thought were equivalent. Some, like an eight pack of diet ice teas substituted with the same quantity of sweet tea, make sense enough, though miss the crucial nuance. Others, like two packages of Starbursts substituting for actual fruit, are baffling. This frustrates my mother. We have a lot of food that will go uneaten and it necessitates further grocery shopping.

Given the largeness of this house, how picturesque it is, and the imposition of the driveway leaving one stranded, I daydream of renting this house for a week of memories with friend. I as quickly understand that, for reasons of penury, distance, or unreliability, these fantasies stand next to no chance of realization.

Watching Lucifer

One doesn't want to cling to the idea of things. It is not mentally wise. This generation, or the generation to which I am saying I belong, values experiences over material possessions. Having the experience of this material possession, the fantasy of what that weekend could be, is an experience crave.

There was a pool here, although a small above ground one for which remains only a sandy circle where I suggested we could conduct Satanic rituals. The owners removed it because, they claim, it is illegal to provide a pool without a lifeguard. More likely, it is an insurance issue and the owners are too cheap for that, though they still have pictures of it on the ad. A driveway that allows emergency personnel seems more important, but the agent was clear that the owners wouldn't fork over for that.

At 6AM Tuesday, the first alarm goes off. My nephew Aydan had set his phone to go off at this hour, ungodly on vacation, then -- and this is the clever part -- had trained himself to be able to sleep through it. He then has a second alarm at 6:15, through which he also sleeps, and I shut off as well. By seven, it is time enough for him to shut off his own alarm. I tell him that this had better not occur again or he will sleep in the basement.

We linger around the house until noon, waiting for a promised downpour, which our phones promise less and less the longer we wait.

I spend the morning doing mechanical edits to my next novel, even though I said I would not do any work here. It is easy, though, and I can do it while in a political conversation with my father. (My leftist retweets anger him, but I do not think I do.) We talk about the unlikelihood of the official story of Jeffrey Epstein's death, because how could that possibly be true? He says my mother doesn't discuss politics anymore, as it upsets her all day.

Dan and his family go off on their own. The rest of us are adrift. I say that we should head into town for a light lunch, as my family has not stopped eating since waking. My own small bowl of cereal is insufficient, even though I make it more decadent by taking it on the porch, looking over the misty mountains.

In town, in the matter of thirty seconds, the rain comes. For half an hour, all the threatened rain gushes from the sky, turning roads to rivers, trapping people in stores. In their mercantile way, these stores begin selling flimsy ponchos and cheap umbrellas when the first drop hits the pavement. This is not their first day operating with unpredictable upstate New York weather.

The promised rain

With few exceptions, all the shops in Lake George reek of cedar. Some of it is from homey planks telling one to Live, Laugh, and Love, some from Adirondack chairs and similar furniture. The canny tourist will notice a few stores where nothing wooden can be seen. In these, it is possible that the shops pump the smell in to seem cozy or secret cedar chips below scuffed green rugs.

(The exceptions smell either of incense, if they are trying to sell smoking supplies, or the burnt plastic of ironing "Barenaked Volleyball Team" and "Trump Will Screw You Cucks 2020" onto t-shirts. Either way, the nose knows.)

Months ago, my parents gave me the Vacation Orb, a green stone sphere that meant that I was the one who had to plan vacations from now on. They gave Dan the Easter Orb with a similar edict, which meant that he spent this past Easter in Disneyworld without the rest of the family, and without much advanced notice. That orb plan did not seem to work out, though I could rise to the challenge.

I ask where they would like to go next year. They say Lake George. I ask if they would like to rent a house -- not this house -- next year. They say no, that they would like to go back to Scotty's Lakeside Resort.

I am excelling at this planning, let me tell you.

Tuesday night, Amber is flagging, but says she is willing to go into town. When my family takes minutes getting ready, she changes that vote to staying in. I make a romantic overture, but she thinks it is past her bedtime. She says maybe another night, but I know that there will be no other time that we are left alone with this house. This is a onetime offer and she wants to spend it watching Lucifer. Amber has spent much of the vacation reading a twenty-six chapter Lucifer fan fiction on her phone. We relax differently.

I assume my parents think we are staying back to have sex anyway. Maybe that is reason enough for her not to want to do it.

My cute wife

Wednesday morning, my mother sets to making breakfast, cooking bacon and eggs. There are few things more comforting than one's mother making one breakfast, something my own rarely has occasion to do. I look forward to Christmas morning, when she is always ready with bacon and a French toast bake. When I was a child, my breakfasts were usually cereal -- less healthy versions than what I eat now -- or, for a brief period in middle school, salad with dressing that gave it far more calories than sugary cereal. My spirit, if not my flesh, is grateful for this diversity. Food is a sort of love and we will work off superfluous calories with walking.

There is a quiet joy in sleeping in the same house as my family, though I could say the same of most groups of people with whom I feel comfortable enough in my pajamas. Of the times in my life I have been happiest, it has been under the roof with people whom I love, enjoying food. It must be in a house. Restaurants are nice, but they are not as warm, the exception being when we had Daniel's going away party in PAKT. Restaurants have a pressure and time limit. For all your heart knows, you can stay in a home forever.

Much of my life has been trying to establish myself around people whom I love, to build a family composed of adults who do not need me but want me. I have not been successful in this, except in short flashes. I would love to live in a complex with people I care about, but that is unlikely for now. I would not want my neighbors harassing me, for instance. I would grow weary of the lack of privacy soon enough, as I am a writer and I need to be left alone. Still, with the promise of activities, most of my writing can be scribbled sentences in my pocket notebook.

For whatever flaws this house has -- and I am not denying that it does -- the interpersonal conflicts are few because we have room to breathe. We can all find spaces in the living room or porch to pursue our interest, whether flying drones, writing, or worshiping the Devil.

We arrive at Great Escape and spend half an hour in security lines as guards examine us for tendencies contradictory to the Six Flags dictatorship. I remark that I remember a time before this was considered necessary, but Amber looks doubtful. She is seven years younger and wasn't paying enough attention before the world assumed everyone in board shorts and a tank top must be a potential terrorist. A different time clearly. We can no longer be trusted with full bottles of liquid.

We did escape the room

We abandon my family at the entrance to wait for Amber's mother, who is parking and will need to go through the same security. Though she was not joining us on the vacation proper, she is a season pass holder only waiting for someone else to join her.

Theme parks are weird concepts. Far too many people, the threat of vomiting on a twirling ride, overpriced food. At least county fairs allow one to walk. Here, one is herded. There is no room to breathe and one always feels watched.

I go on a few rides before deciding I have had my fill and will eschew bravery for keeping away from nausea. Amber asks a few times if I am sure, but I know my limits. I'm fine tagging along.

We stop for lunch beside a speaker blasting music that would be too loud for a concert. What is the function of this? Every inch of this place is designed and redesigned. Why would they blare something sure to keep people away from buying food and souvenirs? I've read two books recently that touched on the use of music as torture, both in Abu Ghraib and with the Branch Davidian compound siege. Is this where Six Flags takes their hints?

We are soon waiting by the swan boats at Great Escape. It has already been a long day, especially as I am not given to enjoy theme parks.

A blonde girl, no older than twenty, one of the immigrants who spends their summers toiling in this resort town, plunges her arm into the water. This is an actual stream that the park incorporated into their rides; it is not something tamed. The rotors of one of the boats is a clog of invasive vegetation.

Simone, the girl, then dips her ponytail and the back of her head in the water as though this is nothing at all, another day in the job. Her blue shirt darkens as the water absorbs. We are aghast at the scene, but it is nothing to any of the people on the other side of the fence. To them, it is normal.

She soon has her whole head submerged, coming up for ragged breaths, tearing at the vegetation with a tool that looks like a bread knife welded to a long pipe.

We try later to tip her, because there is no way Great Escape pays her enough for this, but she says this is not allowed.

We leave to return for a barbecue at the cabin. Julie, Amber's mother, cannot stay and would not care to be around my family in such a concentration.

Amber wants to go into town this night, even though this is the one where being around the house makes more sense. There will be fire and drunkenness.

There is nothing in town aside from the annual Ben & Jerry's ice cream cone and dipping my toes in the sand and surf, nothing that couldn't wait until tomorrow, but this is what Amber preferred. I didn't see a strong enough reason to contradict. We search through shops, but our reasons are vague. I did pull her away from Great Escape before she would have preferred ("probably not to close," she suggested), so it is fair turnabout.

When we get back, there is a campfire that will not last much longer. There have been smores and are no longer. This party has died down while we were driving for twenty minutes through town, trying to find a place to park.

I sit by the fire, but only long enough to establish what we are doing the following day. (Escape room, nice lunch, fireworks cruise, nebulousness between.)

Back in the house, my mother is regaling Alyssah with our childhood missteps. She tells her the time after a torrential rain. The creek near our house swelled to rapids. My father was bringing his young sons and an inflatable raft down to it, though my mother was screaming for him not to murder us. A police officer drove by, seeing her but missing us. She waved him down and said some idiot was about to drown his kids. The officer put a stop to this, yelling at my father. For decades, my father did not know that my mother had set the law on him.

Seeing what her sisters went through, Alyssah is concerned about what she is going to do for college. I ask how old she is these days, attentive uncle that I am, and she says she is thirteen. She may have some time to cement her future.

I tell her that her parents kick their children out by college, so she has five years before they turn her room into a mini CrossFit gym. She thinks I am joking.

Thursday, this vacation is nearing its end, I lob the question to my mother, "What would you rate this house?"

My mother settles with a 78, then explains that, if there was the advertised pool, it would go up further. If it were as close to Lake George as the rental agent implied, higher still. If the internet worked. If the driveway was not impossible. If the streaming worked on the television. There is a foundation here, but there is not the necessary follow through that would earn it plaudits.

I give these answers to my other family members, who tend to concur, especially when it comes to the driveway. There are Christmas decorations stowed away in the basement. It would be close to unfathomable to plow this driveway and, if they did, the slightest flurry would make the renters snowbound. The owners could never mention the driveway in any advertisement.

Dan says that he loves the view. I look over the mountains for miles, the blue of them as they recede behind fog.

"That's because it is the same view you have from your house."

He grants that this is likely.

We do not take a boat into Lake George until this final night, for the fireworks cruise. I am bothered, but not surprised, that it is packed with fellow tourists. (I do not imagine that the locals truck with paying to take a boat into the lake.) It upsets Amber that there is no tour component, as there always is for its daylight version. We see none of the lake and hear no garbled lecture of anything on the shore. We sail into the center of the lake alongside other ships, incline toward the boat that will launch the fireworks, watch, and we sail back. It is not a more satisfying experience, but it also is our best opportunity without a residence abutting the lake.

On this cruise, I experience the edges of nostalgia, that toxic taint, and chide it back. I do not need to be sad now that I was happy so recently.

It dilutes the nostalgia that everything is a little different this year. It is hard for my pattern-seeking brain to get a fix on it, so it can't tick off events until I am back in my car, on the drive home from vacation.

Soon in Xenology: Writing. The Sheet.

last watched: The Haunting of Hill House
reading: Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates