Laughter: The Best Medicine

Even now, I miss Grams every day. I may not always think about her specifically but something will catch me and a pang will sweep through my heart and leave me breathless for a moment. Today, while going through some of her things, I was swept up anew by feelings of grief and remorse, of not knowing her better and writing down her stories, her life, when I was able because what a life she led. The things she left behind are a small testament to the women she was.

While going through a box of things that had already been neatly piled together, I came across a few well creased pieces of notebook paper that hold little bits of laughter from, I'm assuming, a friend of hers. So I'm going to share them with you now in hopes that if you're having a bad day that this will lighten your mood some.

" Once upon a time, there was a nonconforming sparrow who decided not to fly south for the winter. However, soon the weather turned so cold that h reluctantly started to fly south. In a short time ice began to form on his wings and he fell to earth in a barnyard, almost frozen. A cow passed by and crapped on the little sparrow. The sparrow thought it was the end. But, the manure warmed him and defrosted his wings. Warm and happy, able to breathe, he started to sing. Just then, a large cat came by and hearing the chirping, investigated the sounds. The cat cleared away the manure, found the chirping bird and promptly ate him.

The moral of the story:

1. Everyone who shits on you is not necessarily your enemy.
2. Everyone who gets you out of the shit is not necessarily your friend.
3. And, if you're warm and happy in a pile of shit, keep your mouth shut."

" I woke one early morning

The earth lay cool and still

When suddenly a tiny bird

Perched on my window sill.

So care free and so gay

That slowly all my troubles

Began to slip away.

It seemed it's very trilling

Brought up the morning sun

I stirred beneath the covers

Crept softly out of bed

And slowly lowered the window

And crushed it's fucking head!"

For the record, I don't condone violence to birds, I just found it so shocking it was hilarious.

And lastly, the best and the longest...

"TO ALL EMPLOYEES

It has been brought to my attention that the attendance record of this institution is a disgrace. It has become necessary to revise some of our policies.

The following changes are in effect as of today:

Sickness: No Excuse: We will no longer accept your doctor's statement as proof, as we believe that if you are able to go to the doctor, you are able to come to work.

Death (Other Than Your Own): This is no excuse. There is nothing you can do for them, and we are sure that someone else with a lesser position can attend to the arrangements. However, if the funeral can be held in the late afternoon, we will be glad to let you off one hour early, provided that your share of the work is ahead enough to keep the job going in your absence.

Leave of Absence (For An Operation): We are no longer allowing this practice. We wish to discourage any thoughts that you may need an operation, as we believe that as long as you are an employee here, you will need all of whatever you have and you should not consider having anything removed. We hired you as you are and to have anything removed would make you less than we bargained for.

Death (Your Own): This will be accept as an excuse. But, we would like to have a two week notice, as we feel it is your duty to teach someone else your job.

Also, entirely too much time is being spent in the rest rooms. In the future, we will follow the practice of going in alphabetical order. For instance, those whose names begin with -A- will go from 9:00 A.M. to 9:15 A.M., -B- will go from 9:15 A.M. to 9:30 A.M., and so on. If you are unable to go at your time, it will be necessary to wait until the next day when your time comes again.

Thank you -

The Management"

Gotta love old ladies with a sense of humor.

New Old History

My schedule has been suddenly, rather unexpectedly filled. I say suddenly, rather unexpectedly because usually my calendar is rather empty. Currently when I look at the calendar above my desk, I lament over the fact that three of the seven days have stickers on them for this week and next week and that some of those stickers extend a good few days. Such as the one for the twenty-sixth of March. The small maroon sticker that came with the calendar has a picture of a butterfly and the curling scrawl states that it is the start of my 'Vacation'. I'm not sure how much a 'vacation' my vacation will be but I hope to have at least some few moments of ease and enjoyment.

Normally, when I think of a vacation I think of leaving the city to visit someplace new or someplace well loved with family or friends or both but relatively, while there is an agenda, it is rather laid back. I can put on my jeans and walk around and browse and enjoy. Well, this vacation fill some of those criteria... partially. I will be leaving the city to visit someplace new (Bridgeport, Alabama); I will be with someone well loved and his family; there is an agenda and unfortunately it isn't that laid back. Especially since I can't imagine being laid back while wearing a hoop skirt.

That's right. I said hoop skirt.

Come the last Friday of this month, I will be travelling two and a half hours, give or take, to an un-well-known piece of Alabama close to Chatanooga called Bridgeport. If you're like me and have never heart of this little city, here's a little information about it. Courtesy of Wikipedia since there isn't a town run website on the place and shortened even further by me.

Bridgeport is a small city in Jackson County, Alabama. The town was originally named Jonesville in the early 1800s when it was settled but was later renamed to Bridgeport to reflect its ideal location next to the Tennessee River and a railroad line. Bridgeport was a strategic site during the American Civil War and on August 26th in 1862, Bridgeport entered a major skirmish. During the latter part of the war, Bridgeport became a source for building gunboats and transports for the Union navy. The USS Chattanooga was built there and became the famous "Cracker Line" which broke the CSA siege of Chattanooga in November of 1863.

And that's it. That's all Wikipedia or anyone else for that matter seems to have on the tiny blip on the map called Bridgeport.

On the other hand, though, the actual event does have a website, which can be found here. If you are interested, I urge you to join or at least come see the event. If the pictures on the website are to be understood correctly, apparently the Siege at Bridgeport was actually filmed and used in the movie Sweet Home Alabama. Having not seen the movie in a number of years, I don't know if this is true or not but I'm sure those of you wanting to know will undoubtedly find out if you search for it.

So wish me luck. This is sure to be an interesting experience. Due to the length of the trip, I am unsure if I will be able to make an entry on the twenty-sixth, the last Friday of this month. I'm not sure when I am to be picked up, by whom (his parents or by him), and I am still a little fuzzy on what I need to bring and what need be left at home.

Small Domestic Turbulence

Change. Change is something that happens every day. We change our lives irrevocably by deciding to turn left instead of right, wheat bread instead of white, heels instead of tennis shoes... small, insignificant things. The Butterfly Effect. I don't believe that sneezing causes tsunamis, however I do believe that our choices change our life. It's been proven time and time again.

Change happens often in my life. I make friends, I lose friends. I take classes and I either fail them or I pass them and that effects my future further down the line. Even small things, like changing my room layout around so that I am more efficient or less likely to break my toes from stubbing them on the feet of my daybed. So when someone balks so openly at change, I'm baffled and confused, especially when I think that my suggestions make perfect sense, that I've given several viable answers to the same problem. Or maybe just what I perceive to be a problem.

So yes. Very baffling.

Familiarity breeds contempt, or so Grams always told me and while my classmates may have complained when a teacher suddenly changed the orientation of the seating in a classroom, effectively almost bringing everyone to the front row and eliminating those who slept in the back of the class, I didn't complain. I rejoiced. I could thrive in that little bit of chaos because no matter where I was, I knew where I wanted to be. I knew I wanted to be to the right of whatever the focal point was so that I could recline comfortably in my chair, stretch my legs out into the desk across the way from me and toward the front because I tended to like to talk to the teacher. This is not to say that I was a teacher pet, however.

So I guess it just leaves me a little stunned every time I run into opposition from Jerry about something. True, this goes against what I just said, that I like when things are shook up but when you have learned enough about a person, you tend to form an idea of how they'll react, how they process things, and how they reach the conclusions that they do. Now, in some ways, this is a terrible thing that we're all guilty of because this pattern that we start to discern makes it easy for us to manipulate that person. We know what buttons to push at what times, whether it's to elevate a fight by being hurtful, sooth calms by reminding them of their favorite memories, or cheer them up by getting them a little surprise. You can even know how to word something in such a way to bring them around to your way of thinking. So it's good that he shook things up so that I don't fall into this comfortable, perfect pattern.

That doesn't mean it still didn't throw me for a loop. Upon viewing some pictures of his house in it's various stage of construction/deconstruction, I was voicing some of my opinions out loud since eventually he and I will be married and while concurred with a lot of things, other things he became defensive about. Now, a part of me should have known better, especially when he says something to the effect of 'It was a gift from so and so and I've had it for this many years' that I shouldn't poke and prod at it too much. Unfortunately, hindsight is better than foresight any day and instead I poked and prodded. Then I had the gall to argue with him in terms of the placement of objects and here he gets (and rightfully so) a little defensive. He states that he's been here for seven years and he's tried things different ways and this is the way that it's worked for him.

Yes, he appreciates my fresh perspective and he wants my input but now there are some base rules. Such as I have to give him more time to process things - longer than two heartbeats - and he isn't dismissing me when he says 'It's a thought...' It means he's weighing it with past experiences and is either trying to figure it out in his head or trying to figure out how best to put it to not disappoint/agitate me. It isn't fair that he has me figured so easily and yet with him the rules are still morphing because my understanding of him is still morphing...

We'll work this out, as always, but currently I am left a little disheartened about the actual weight of my opinion or ideas and I'm pretty sure it's all in my head, which is making me feel worse. We had an off day today. Maybe later will be better...

The Best Dream I Ever Had

I know I will not remember it all. Even as I write this, the bits and pieces are fading that strung together so seamlessly just moments before but it really was a most excellent dream. It was a dream about a book, one that by was written by a Sarah Braussen, who does not exist. I remember the dream as if I were reading the book and the story was being told by someone who was always there – I could feel their emotions – but who was not a main character and so was not interacting with…

The story itself is very muddled. I can remember walking up a street which is not unlike a street that I used walk up to take a back way home – to cut through their backyard while no body was home. Except this time, I was being invited in by a girl that the main character knew, at least vaguely. The girl seemed to be in some sort of medical scrubs and unsure of the main character, the girl, but she introduced her to all of her siblings (little sisters and little brothers) as they made their way down the stairs, past the kitchen, and into a work room of some sorts.

There on the workbench table, the girl presented to the main character a small belt of blue plastic that had clear pockets that housed small octagonal shapes with different portions cut out and they were made to be linked up in different ways, any way a kid could imagine to make a shape. On the table, there was a 2-D dinosaur made. The girl who lived there said that she has just bought these, that she remembers playing with them at some time before but not where or when. When the main character states that she’d seen these before, she had played with them during her childhood, the girl became rather confused and turns to ask someone else if she remembers her playing with them during her childhood…

The rest is starting to blur here. There is some organization trying to stop or start something from happening and they know the main character is the key but they are determined to keep her away from the source. They seem to be scientists, mostly elderly women and bearded men. They spend a lot of time talking and scheming, they take the main character and her friends and separate them but somehow the guy, her best friend, escapes and goes through a couple of doors, a couple of small while rooms barely big enough for the tables in them, and finds her, and drags her out. He lies smoothly to whoever gives him an interested look as to why she’s there, free…

Then they’re in some sort of command center, some sort of control room where there are women and men monitoring the status of the source that they seem determined to keep the girl away from and she talks to them. She convinces them that the reason they were told to keep her away from it is because it didn’t want anything but her (or something to that effect). They believe her, and they lock themselves into the control room, with their uppers banging at the door that they’re fools and not to let her into the room – and then she’s in.

Now here the room feels skewed. It’s almost as if it’s coming from a giant’s perspective and the people you’ve come to know all through this journey – they’re just dolls. The room is huge and somehow it maintains the size well with the rest of the people who file into it. It’s grand and dark and gold like a palace and not well lit. The girl climbs onto some sort of mantle while others mill around staring at her. Up there there are four items (I don’t know why four, they just are) and there’s someone guiding her – some old man who keeps asking her all these hard questions about the things she picks up that she us unable to open until she answers his questions – he’s guiding her. She opens one box and her memory returns. She turns, showing the people behind her a miniature of her room, where there’s a work bench, and she declares she grew up in a palace, and this was my room. I created those interlocking toys that you like so much at this work bench right here. With that memory another item opens and as she goes down the line, the old man is nodding, pleased. When she’s done, she turns back to them and declares her remembrance.

She remembers now her history, her story and her purpose. That thing that she had been searching for the most – her purpose. Finally found. She was their creator. Not the creator of everything but of this generation, she was their creator, which is why they felt drawn to her and why some things confused her because they were not made of her, by her, so she had no knowledge of them… So on and so forth, grand little speech that leaves them in awe. The upper management bursts in, sees that they are defeated and then she feels it, as people start to leave. That it’s her time, that she’s going to die and not stay anymore. She walks out slowly with the old man at her side and she tries to come to terms with this short existence into reality – whatever reality it was – and she grieves over the things that she’ll miss.

As they leave the facility, a shot rings out and the old man stumbles, then crumples. She turns him over onto his back and another sort of understanding passes. He was an extension of her, had been there the whole time and had been her silent protector (that’s right, it’s you, which is why the prologue is told in a different way than the rest of the book) and he dies. She’s left feeling more alone than anything because no one else could see him but her, her conscious made into a flesh and form only her eyes could perceive…. But now he’s dead and there’s vengeance to be had for someone having killed a part of her.

It closes with her yelling to the pitch black, at the retreating form of killer and her generation. Closing the book, searching the author’s name on the internet, come across the next book and you read the beginning excerpt where the heroine tracks down three guys and interviews them briefly until she’s sure it wasn’t them… and then I woke up. The dream itself, when living it, was the most interesting, intriguing, thought provoking and vivid dream I’d had in a while and the best written, cohesive one I’ve ever remembered. I didn’t do it justice on paper but it was spectacular in the play by play movie. It was a novel from start to finish and then some and it was… The best dream I ever had.

Fishing for Answers

I realize now why I am always so aware of wherever Jerry is whenever it comes to attending a party or being around his family - it's because when all else fails and I've said something stupid or embarassed myself to no end, I know that he's there and he loves me. It's because no one else understands me to the extent that he does and it's comforting.

Needless to say nothing about this day was comforting with him gone and me left rather defenseless with his younger sister and mother. I will be brief for unlike last night, I actually wish to escape into oblivion tonight.

First, his mother was actually on time. That alone made me nervous. It wasn't that I wasn't ready for her it was just that no one in my family, especially a woman, is ever anywhere on time despite our best intentions. No one. Second thing that put me a little on edge was how excited both women were to see me. Whenever anyone is that chipper (and they hadn't had their sangrias yet), it tends to make me shy away. While the drive over to the mall in Cool Springs was rather uneventful, we did pass several houses and we all ooo-ed and aaaahhh-ed over some of their architectual detail. I found myself easing into it a little as they dropped the volume of their tone a few notches and settled in for the twenty minute drive. At one point I made a comment about how I wanted a house with a lot of land around it and his mother said something to the effect of, 'Well, I hope you're marrying a millionaire then.' I bit my tongue and didn't say what I was thinking - 'No, I'm just marrying your son.'

We spent the rest of the ride after that comment discussing room designs and open floor concepts.

When we sat down to lunch - and I'm still not sure how we got on to this subject but I can almost garauntee that this time, it actually wasn't me - we began discussing weddings. I remember his mother asking me where I wanted to get married and I told her the truth, that I wanted to be married outside. I mentioned to her that my mother had found a dress for me that she thinks would be perfect for my wedding dress and then I pulled it up on my iPod to show them. They agreed and said it was very fitting. A few bites of bread were taken. We started discussing something else but then were almost immediately back on the fact that the cake I wanted was a pillow design with a thistle and some rings instead of a traditional three-tiered cake. It continued down hill from there - and I say down not because it was bad but just because it snowballed. Sometimes I felt like they understood that I was going to marry him and at other times I felt like his mother would hear a detail (that he and I had discussed and agreed upon) and there would be this dismissal like I wasn't ever going to marry him because of whatever I had said in response to her probing.

The shopping trip went much the same way. Dishes, patterns, plates, food, and every topic they could think of was touched upon, even the fact that I am considering breast reduction when his mother insisted (well, the saleslady convinced her) that I should be fitted for a bra and that a good bra would cure all back problems I was complaining of. Bullshit.

Anyways, it's as the saying goes - nobody suspects the Spanish Inquisition!

At least I think at one point I drove the point of my permanency home to them... His mother was explaining something to me, a term that she had used - thunder pup. Someone young who had a lot of ideas of how things should be done and was very set on these ideas. It was a term from a book she was (or still is) reading. She used this term to describe her son and used an example I had almost heard him use. Apparently, according to her, he wanted his wife barefoot and pregnant. I just smiled rather serenely and told her that I thought I could manage that.

What a day... It is a relief to be home and to be silent for a little while. Even if I am guilty of buying a dress and tank tops that I didn't need with money that wasn't really mine to begin with and probably saying things that I shouldn't have, today wasn't as terrible as I had feared - and yet, in a way, it was worse. Oh well.

Mall Madness

I know this is going to sound silly and for those of you who have listened to me complain before about my nervousness with his family, feel free to ignore...

I've known Jerry for nearly two years. Just a few days after he and I became an 'official' item, I joined him and his family and friends at a German restaurant downtown to celebrate what was then his twenty-fifth birthday. I wasn't particularly expecting to meet his parents and sister. While I feel that I dressed well, I can distinctly remember mentally kicking myself for not having worn something spiffier (though at the time, I didn't really own anything spiffier) and mentally kicking him for not warning me about his parents.

Now, I will make this disclaimer - I'm not sure he didn't tell me about his family coming. In fact as I type this, I seem to recall the fact that he was unable to pick me up because of the fact that he was picking his sister up in the RX-7 and the convertible didn't have four seats, it only had two since he had started making 'repairs' on it.

Anyways, we met, we chatted, we tried not to be absolutely awkward and afterwards, Jerry, his sister, and I piled in the back seat while his parents climbed into the front of their truck and they drove me home. I don't know where I got the idea but once we reached the house, I asked if they wanted to come in. Some polite etiquette from someone somewhere told me this was what I was supposed to do and I wish I had kept my mouth shut and just said 'Thanks for the lift.' But I of course didn't and my parents had no warning. And that's how Jerry's parents met my parents after just a few hours of getting to know me for the first time.

While it has been nearly two years since that time, there's still that linger dread in seeing them again because of the awkward conversations that are held whenever I'm around. The ones where I'm not quite sure what to say or to what extent or if what I say will make them happy or completely turn them off to me - after two years! Jitters! The saving grace of these shinanigans is the fact that Jerry is always calmly at my side, deflecting when necessary and saving me from the brunt of his mother's repetitive questioning.

Well not tomorrow. No. Today ushers in, as if my weekend hadn't already, my spring break. This week also happens to be the week that his sister had taken off from her job as a nanny and his mother had taken a week off to spend with her daughter from whatever work it is that she does. Well on Sunday, the fact that I was on my spring break slipped out and it was as if his mother could not latch on to the idea fast enough because earlier today I received an invite to go to the mall with them tomorrow. I, of course, said yes because I didn't want to be rude and because Jerry was secretly, and not so secretly, enjoying my discomfort and fretting to him earlier about how I would be alone with his sister and mother. He mentioned that they wouldn't eat me and I told him I wasn't so sure about that.

So tomorrow I get to enjoy for hours their company without my handsome buffer, without his hand rubbing up and down my back comfortingly. I will be left on my own to sink or swim with the womenfolk of his family and I dread it. Not because they're poor company or because they're mean or anything like that - but because sometimes, I speak before I think and backtracking is almost impossible where his mother is concerned...

I'm almost afraid to go to bed because that means that tomorrow gets here sooner... Report to follow tomorrow.

Crossroads

I'm at a crossroads in my life and I can't even see clearly the paths in front of me. I see what I could do, what I could be but I can't see how to get to the end. There are too many options, too many possibilities, too many sights unseen and too many things left undecided. I'm at a crossroads and I don't even really truly know what my options are and so I'm lost, dazed, confused, and left grasping at straws with my heart aching in my chest.

There are so many choices. Choices that we think are good, choices that we think were initially bad but turn out to be good, choices that end up changing our life forever for better or for worse. Choices that we don't even know are choices until they're upon us and we have to make a quick, sometimes drastic, decision. Then there are those you know you're supposed to make for whatever reason that drives you but they don't actually make you happy so you wonder why you bother but you can't think of a logical reason why not - but you neglect to realize that the fact that you even wonder why bother is reason enough.

Sometimes... sometimes you have to go with the flow and trust that the flow will lead you somewhere where you want to be or need to be, whether you know it or not. If you try to control the flow, you usually end up hurting things that you didn't mean to and make life miserable. So just... go with flow. Go with it and when you need to make a decision, the paths will be clear. Or at least, hopefully clearer than it is with me right now. Because I know they're there. I know they're there, lingering and hovering, waiting for the right moment to strike and cripple me or perhaps finally give me the wings I need. We'll see.

Right now I just know I'm at a crossroads and I just want to find the paths...

My Poor Little Car

Believe it or not, it's only been a year since I got my drivers license. No, I didn't fail my driver's license test - in fact, I got my motorcycle license at age seventeen. Two years later, I took the driver's license test. So no, I'm not unlucky, I just had no reason to need a car license. After I passed the test, my parents graciously allowed me to use one of their already paid for cars. In this case, it was the only available paid for car that wasn't in use - the PT Cruiser. Yes, it's a 2005 model but one can't be too choosy - more or less free car.

I remember the first time I put a dent in that car. It was around August, I was just leaving my place of work at the time, after picking up my check. It was a Friday, just before I got to spend a weekend up at the lake with Jerry and his family camping. I was backing out of the parking space, turning to go to the little stop sign. I remembered to look out for my back end while I was making the turn but then I failed to take into account where my front end was. So I scraped along the front passenger side fender against a the concrete around a light pole.

I had a fit. I absolutely cried. I knew my father was going to have a fit and when the lady who worked the shift before me came out and asked what happened, I told her and she held me while I cried. She told me to call Jerry, whom she had heard so much about and to tell him what happened, ask him what he thought to do. She said that because I thought daddy might kill me. She had met daddy before, as my sister had once worked at that same place. So I called Jerry, Jerry said he would take a look at it when he got there to pick me up for the weekend and to not bother to tell my parents until they got back. His reason: Why ruin their weekend with worry when there was nothing they could do about it from where they were? So simple, so logical.

Of course, when they got back they had a fit. Just like I thought they would.

When someone put a dent in the front bumper, driver side at a mall parking lot - not even bothering to leave a note and there were no cameras or security around - I cried. I found out by my dad coming in, early in the morning, turning on my light and demanding what happened. I of course couldn't tell him because I had no idea what happened. I had no explanation. I ranted, I raved, I felt sick to my stomach and fretted all day about it. At least this one wasn't my fault but I was outraged - someone had done this to my car! I wouldn't have done this to someone else's car and not tried to contact them!

And with this latest escapade, I just... feel bad for my poor little car. It has had nothing but a hard life under my ownership and I hate that. It is a good little car and can't help that at times its bad.

Today my car started sounding like it was being run by rodents running in a wheel instead of by an engine. When I accelerated, it sounded as if the rodents kicked it into high gear. I felt bad for the little rodents so after getting my lunch, I let the car sit in the parking lot while I went to my other class. After class, I started the car again and unfortunately, the poor rodents were still there, trying to power my car. Sighing, I made my way across the campus parking lot to the red light that would take me home. I was almost to the stop sign before the red light when the check engine light came on - and stayed on. My dad is on speed dial so I called him, he told me to pull over, it sounded like I had thrown a belt so just park it, he'd be there after work. Well, by this time I was already to the red light and unfortunately, he wasn't patient enough to have me explain.

So I calmly hung up, turned around, and parked in the parking lot. I went and told security I was having car troubles and told them it may have to stay overnight, just in case it actually did have to, but that no, I didn't need their assistance, my dad was coming to take care of it after work. And so I waited. He and mom came, I popped the hood, he took a look when I started it and told me to start clearing the stuff out of my car - it was going to have to go to the garage. So I did. Hopped in the Jeep with my mom and dad drove my car to the garage just a few blocks away, Eddie's.

Well today we got a call with a preliminary 'Here's what's wrong.' Turns out that the water pump had been leaking onto the timing belt and causing that noise that I heard. They found this out because they stuck it inside the garage over night and when they came back in the morning, it had peed green fluid all over the floor. That narrowed it down, they said. Turns out that the hesitation that I was feeling in the car was because the spark plugs that my parents had paid the dealership to be changed were never changed like they were charged for. In fact, the spark plugs had been there since they drove the car off the lot - in 2005! They were cracked, rusted, and everything else under the sun so my parents asked them to put the spark plugs in a box so they could take them to the dealership to complain...

So the rough guess is I get my car back in the middle of next week but until then I have to drive my sister's rather cruddy Aveo (long story, too much to explain my disdain). At least I have a car to use and my car is being fixed, courtesy of my parents. I am grateful. I'm still sad for my little car though. Poor little car...

Le Sigh

I don't really have anything to say here. I have two exams, one on Thursday, one on Friday. I have two papers due, one on Friday and one on Sunday, believe it or not. Jerry is sometimes too good for me (more like almost always too good for me). My room is a catastrophe which is unlikely to be fixed until sometime next week during spring break (my surprise break). I'm not sleeping well and I'm afraid I'm trying to come down with something. Hopefully it'll clear up and I won't actually get sick. I'm very much looking forward to the weekend and all the potential that it holds.

Head hurts, going to bed. I'll see you tomorrow.

Pride and Prejudice

One of the greatest love stories of all time, Pride and Prejudice, has been on the screen of my television for the better part of the evening. This would be the 2005 version of Jane Austen's 18th century classic, starring such big names as Donald Sutherland, Brenda Blethyn, Penelope Wilton, and Dame Judi Dench.

Now most women, I am sure would probably liken themselves to Jane Bennett, the beauty of the family, the elder sister who is intelligent if not rather subdued or to her more outspoken younger sister, Elizabeth Bennett, who is the heroine of this story. After all, both are rather strong female characters, especially that of Elizabeth Bennett who goes up against not only her mother in matchmaking, but also Lady Catherine de Bourgh and essentially society all in the same breath. Then, she goes up against the hero of the story head on and ends up inevitably falling in love with Mr. Darcy. Jane is strong also, but in a rather subtle way. She possesses the much finer quality of the two Bennett sisters, which is poise as well as grace. While an exceptional beauty, Jane also possesses the good sense not to let it go to her head as some other young lady at the time would have. When Mr. Bingley leaves Netherfield to return to London, Jane shows her backbone as well as her own strong will and exceptional wit by not letting the slight affect her so publicly as others might have.

Both strong female characters to be sure.

But I - I am not like other women. I do not find myself as beautiful or as desirable as Jane, nor as subdued and as elegant as she, either. Her younger sister, Elizabeth, I could probably say I have more in common with but I fail to sport her wit or her balls, so to speak. Instead, I possess a similar bull-headed stubbornness. No, the Bennett that I connect most with would have to be that of Mary - the sister that is usually a forgotten side character that fills in the role as contrast to the other outlandish Bennett women. I say outlandish for I have no love at all for Kitty Bennett, who follows her sister Lydia blindly - not an original thought in her entire head. I also have no love and would say out right that I rather despise Lydia Bennett for her utter stupidity with being swept up and away by Mr. Wickham and finding no fault with the circumstances of such a union before, during, or after with the afore-mentioned Mr. Wickham.

So why Mary? Why the little sister who sits and practices the piano forte though she has no great skill at it? Why the little sister who wears more subdued clothes in comparison to her rather immodest sisters Lydia and Kitty? Who embarasses herself by singing badly at the ball of Netherfield? Why her?

Because I know what it is like to be the younger, forgotten sister. And while she and I both do not possess the grace of her elder sister(s) nor the intelligence of her elder sister(s), we both try very hard. We seek knowledge and while not witty, we try to apply our knowledge when it is warranted and we both seek to accomplish something though we never do. While I am not as plain as she, she and I have much in common.

There is another thing that she and I differ on. While I may not necessarily be the leading lady in my own life, I have certainly been able to obtain the leading gentleman. How I managed to obtain him, I am still at a loss to explain for every day when I am away from him I find myself less and less able to believe in his actuality for he is too good to be true at times. The fact is, though, that he is real and while I am no Elizabeth Bennett, he is most certainly my Mr. Darcy. And while he and I may not have a love story that lasts two centuries like that of Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. Darcy, we will at least have one that spans decades and that is enough for me. He is enough for me.

Emerald and Diamonds

For something so small as this, it was greatly missed. I say 'was' because I merely gave it to a jeweler down in The Village to have it resized. Happily, it is back on my ring finger where it belongs. When purchased from the website that sported this image, the size five and a half was unavailable so we bought a size six instead. Sure, we could have waited to see if a size five and a half would turn up but we were both a bit giddy when we purchased it.

Before my parents dropped me off at college last year, we stopped in at Gatlinburg for a night since the hotels surrounding Johnson City were booked for the Nascar race that was happening at Bristol that same weekend. Since we were short on time and had spent many a year up Gatlinburg during various seasons, we made our way easily to The Village there which is by far our favorite place to go. Not only is it beside the most wonderous breakfast nook ever - which I am happy to say we have it's sibling here at Hillsboro Village in Nashville - the Pancake Pantry, but it also houses the Ole Smokey Candy Kitchen as well as my favorite store, the Celtic Heritage. Over the years, the fare has been rather consistent at all places, in terms of what is sold and what isn't but upon this occasion I had decided that I would like a ring. The ring, I decided, would be symbolic of my commitment to Jerry and my love for him, to be worn at all times, no matter how much it might irritate me. Naturally, then, I chose a silver Claddagh.

The Claddagh, as pictured above, is traditionally depicted as two hands clasping a heart and upon the heart there is a crown. The three elements correspond accordingly - the two hands represent friendship, the heart represents love, and the crown represents loyalty. According to Wikipedia, when the ring is given there is an expression that is said: "With my two hands I give you my heart and crown it with my loyalty." I'm more familiar with the other phrase associated with it: "Let love and friendship reign forever."

Not only is the ring symbolic but also the way one wears the ring. When worn upon the right hand with the crown facing toward the body, then the wearer is not seeing anyone but is looking for love. When worn with the crown facing away from the body, then the wearer's heart has been captured by someone. When worn upon the left hand with the crown facing inward, the wearer is engaged. When worn with the crown facing away from the body, then the wearer is married. Since I was unlikely to encounter anyone who remembered with such accuracy what the ring meant when worn a certain way, I decided to wear it on my left hand, with the crown facing away from me. That is the way that I wear it even now, but not for the same reason as I did then.

When I started wearing it that way then, it was meant to merely put off those who would otherwise try to engage me in an romantic involvement. People tend to notice when one wears one ring over and over and over again on the same ring. The problem I found was that no matter that I wore it day in and day out, in the shower even at times so as not to misplace it, people still failed to take ring very seriously. Agreed, the band was plain and not studded with any type of jewel, but at the time I liked it that way. When things began to become more serious between Jerry and I, we began to search for a more 'convincing' ring to take it's place and later to become my engagement ring.

When Jerry surprised me for Valentine's day last year, we finally stumbled across a ring that gave us an idea of what we were looking for. Before I had been too specific, unsure of what I really sought because I had no notion of what kind of ring I wanted! No, I didn't want gold, no I wasn't a big fan of diamonds even though it was my birth stone, I thought them too over used. No, I didn't want anything modern and I didn't want anything plain but I didn't want something dripping with gems either. And so we searched until nestled in a ring box, in a case, in a little Irish shop that is sadly now closed, there it was - the perfect ring. A part of me will always want the ring although I am very much aware of its ridiculous price. I am also very much aware that if I were to actually have it I would be frightened to wear it for fear that something may happen to it - and that's not the kind of ring to have. It was simple, elegant, and was merely beautiful knotwork with just a handful of tiny diamonds and emeralds. The band that went with it was plain but instead of just a row of diamonds, it had emeralds and diamonds to match the other. A stunning combination that left a wanting in my heart.

After seeing it and finding out what company produced such a beauty, we began the task of finding something similar but the months stretched on and we came to a few conclusions. We knew what my perfect ring was and we knew we couldn't afford it. We knew that it would be impossible to find anything as extragavent as that beautiful set so we would, for lack of a better term, settle for something else. It was with these few hard facts that made finding the one above rather... simple. It was this past summer, believe it or not, when we decided to look a few things up on the internet while we took turn with video games. It was my turn and we had been talking about rings so it seemed logical to look for one on the site we were on, which happened to be Ebay. After a few pages of rings that bored me, I tried refining the search, which turned up more pleasant things. I narrowed it by stone, then by engagement or wedding until finally I found it. Just looking at it a part of me was a little stunned. One, because it was so cheap - believe it or not - and two, because it was just absolutely lovely. It was simple but elegant, an eye catcher without being a bank breaker and it simply pleaded with me. Which made me in turn plead with Jerry as I showed it to him. He too was struck speechless for a moment as he studied it.

We looked at the specs of it, where it came from, how it was made and it had everything - everything! - perfect. It's hallmarked, for one, handmade in Ireland, with an emerald center and eighteen tiny diamonds. There's on on the crown, three in each cuff of the hand, and eleven around the emerald itself. It's silver, not white gold, which means it will age nicely, and shipping wasn't bad either. We made the purchase right then and there and with that, a thrill went through me. We were moving forward. We were making progress.

I waited with great anticipation for the arrival of my ring. I would ask him daily as the date of the approximate arrival neared and it was with great frustration that I was made to wait. I had hoped it would arrive before the weekend, when I spent time with him but by the next weekend it was there. It was mailed in a padded envelop in a tiny bag, wrapped in more padding. When it was first taken out and shown to me, I was almost afraid to handle it. It looked more delicate than the picture had depicted it but there it was, in my warm hands, sliding across my finger with cool precision until it rested, nestled up against my knuckle. That first day and the day after, I kept taking it off to play with it, examine it, marvel at it and criticize it. But by the end of the weekend, I loved it. It took a little convincing, since I gave it back to him the first night, for me to take it home to enjoy it - it was mine after all - but since I said yes, not a day goes by where I don't look at it and love it.

Although my parents know that it's mine, it has yet to be formally given to me as my engagement ring. Nevertheless, I wear it as if it is. Some of his co-workers are already calling me his little wife, because I call him every morning, try to talk to him every lunch, and check on him when he has to stay late for work. Some are even saying that we will be married before the year is out and that there will be a baby soon to follow. Everyone seems to be expecting it, our union, and we aren't going to disappoint. Not because we feel pressured, but because we feel so moved to. What a joyous day it will be when my ring is not just my engagement ring but also my wedding ring. I look forward to that day, whenever it may be, with great anticipation.

Twitter tweet.

Fed Up with February

• I'm tired of being tired
• I'm tired of all the bare trees and dead grass
• I'm tired of the cold wind biting at my joints
• I'm tired of being cooped up inside because it's cold
• I'm tired of the clouds always hiding the sky
• I'm tired of there not being a lot of sunlight
• I'm tired of having to wear so many heavy clothes
• I'm tired of the static electricity
• I'm tired of the lack of color
• I'm tired of my teeth chattering while the car warms up
• I'm tired of being limited in my activities by weather
• I'm tired of snow and ice and slush and flurries and hail
• I'm tired of not having any energy
• I'm tired of not feeling well, like I'm permanently sick
• I'm tired of burrow under mounds of covers to keep warm
• I'm tired of blowing my nose so much from dry air
• I'm tired of my ear and jaw popping from pressure changes
• I'm tired of hats and scarves and gloves and things
• I'm tired of my car getting less gas mileage because it's cold outside
• I'm tired of not being able to do anything because of the cold
• I'm tired of going stir crazy in this house day after day
• I'm tired of having to smile when I just want to sulk about the winter
• I'm just so tired of winter. Period.

February Blues

I have decided that February is a lost cause. Not for any sane reason - after all, it is only a few days shorter than that of the other months but it's hard to want to post something you've written when you think that the month was tacked onto the calendar as an after thought.

Yes, yes, I know there's Valentine's day and I must admit that last year's Valentine's day has still not been topped in surprise and creativity but after that... what good is February?

It's short, it's cold, it's in between the joy of the New Year and the excitement of the coming spring, it just seems like such a waste. It's about the time that the winter blahs, as my mom calls them, start to take effect and give you the awful sensation of cabin fever. So if you don't enjoy the cold and being cooped up all day because of said cold and conditions like snow and ice, you're going to get depressed just a smidgen. The cold saps the warmth out of your bones, makes your skin tingle uncomfortably, any energy you had is quickly surrendered to wind that you have to fight against. It just isn't worth it.

I personally have rather hated this month with a vengeance, almost as much as it has hated me. After all, I go most of the winter without being sick and then February comes along and I am struck blind with headaches, rendered thoughtless with boredom, and all around just feeling icky - like I'm sick constantly but never sick enough to get over it or get better. I am just so fed up with this month that I can't even begin to explain it. Thankfully it will be over soon. Not soon enough for my tastes, though, because I know there will be a few more months before spring, but soon.

And then maybe soon it won't be so hard to smile, to get out of bed in the mornings, to try and function when I get into class - maybe. But at this point and on this day, when it snowed in the sunshine and the wind ate away any comfort I had, I doubt it. I am just fed up with February...

December 24, 2009

I love my job. I mean it, I really really love my job.

I had to be at work at six this morning, which is fine. I originally took it to mean that it was because somebody didn’t like me and when I told my parents about it, they turned it around saying that it’s the price that I pay for doing a ‘good job’. Either way, I wasn’t a particularly happy camper when I rolled out of bed at five fifteen to don the uniform (red collared shirt and khakis)and went to go fix my cup of coffee and my bowl of cereal. I also wasn’t particularly happy when I started backing down the driveway, only to have to take it out of reverse because I was veering too far to one side because honestly, I wasn’t that awake yet - but I had to go to work.

Upon getting there, I perked up though, especially since everyone seemed to be decked out in their gay apparel (no pun intended). Jessica for example had on a Santa hat with leopard fur around the band of the head and a bell attached to the white puff ball on the end. Okay, so that was pretty, well, -ahem-. Anyways, despite my worst fears the morning passed very quietly without any incident. The first few customers came in, got what they needed and left. And we waited. A few more drifted in, didn’t wander too much, then checked out. Again we waited.

It was during one of these waiting periods, just before a slight rush that I happened to take note of the parking lot, which was empty except for the employee cars, and the store, which was empty except for the employees. Looking over at Tana, who was on the register facing mine at the service desk and making small talk, we happened to remark that we should be playing Christmas music in the store. We both agreed and silence reigned for a few more seconds before I asked the question that had niggled me from the very mention of Christmas music. “Do you happen to know the Twelve Days of Christmas?”

“Yeah, what about them?”

“Can you remember them all?”

And with that, we started the hour and a half long quest for the correct order of the Twelve Days of Christmas.

Everyone can remember, of course, from five down. Five golden rings, four calling birds, three French hens, two turtle doves and a partridge in a pear tree. But above five… it gets a little fuzzy, to say the least. After asking numerous people and getting told either they didn’t remember it past five either or some hazy number coupled with something that didn’t sound just right, but close, one of my co-workers was walking by and stopped to listen. Everyone starts to disperse and as I start to turn away, she yells, “Hey Heather!”

“Yeah?”

“How many Toys R Us employees does it take to figure out the Twelve Days of Christmas?”

Everyone, of course, laughed, me included and I told her I’d get back to her on that. Turns out it takes nine of us, me included. At the end of the day, it was Denise who knew at least the most complete version we had to go off of. Here’s the order we got:

1. A partridge in a pear tree
2. Turtle doves
3. French hens
4. Calling birds
5. Golden rings
6. Geese a-laying
7. Swans a-swimming
8. Maids a-milking
9. Ladies dancing
10. Lords a-leaping
11. Pipers piping
12. Drummers drumming

The worst part of it was that even before I went to go ask Denise what the Twelve Days of Christmas lyrics are, I was able to recall with no difficulty whatsoever the Twelve Red Neck Days of Christmas.

A 12 pack of Bud
11 rasslin' (wrestling) tickets
Tin of Copenhagen
9 years probation
8 table dancers
7 packs of Red Man
6 cans of Spam
5 flannel shirts
4 big mud tires
3 shotgun shells
2 huntin' dawgs
and some parts to a Mustang GT.

So after all that, still bored, we took to seeing how many multiple things we could remember. Dan asked me if I remembered all the reindeer and I looked at him and without hesitation I said:

“Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and Vixen, Comet and Cupid and Donder and Blitzen, but do you recall? The most famous reindeer of all?”

“Rudolph?”

“Very good.”

Then of course Jessica had to turn around and ask me a question which showed my roots, so to speak…

“Hey Heather, can you name all the dwarves in Snow White?”

“How many of them are there?”

She kind of stared at me for a moment and it didn’t dawn on me why until she said, rather incredulously, “Heather, it’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarves!”

Like I said, very blond of me. All in all, it was a very satisfying, very quick day at work. Everyone was very jovial when given the opportunity to laugh and joke.

Hopefully this has brightened your day a little and I hope that you have a very safe and happy holiday. Merry Christmas!

Loss of a Loved One

When I posted the note on Bear, my eyes were drawn to the end of the post and it brought on tears. Not those beautiful, movie screen tears, the award-winning tears - no, these were uglier. These were the tears that leave your mouth dry, the ones that make you feel like you're choking and they make your skin tingle with heat and displeasure. Big, thick, silent tears, that fell too quickly, too eagerly, and too sadly to do anything but hurt. The kind that make your heart beat just a little harder as its squeezed by pain.

Of course, about this time, Jerry tells me he's going to sleep but before he can say good night I ask him if I can tell him something first and he says of course. So I let him know what I'm feeling. That loss, that pain, that complete and utter sadness. His response is uncertainity at what to say and when I tell him I don't care, I just can't stand the silence, he does something silly - he says 'Hi. You're cute.' That forced a laugh out of me and cause my tightness to ease a little even though the tears still threaten. I tell him so and he says good, because he wants me to enjoy him. I do enjoy him, immensely. But I told him sometimes there's just something stronger than love and its grief and loss - the good news is that they don't last as long as love. He said that that's good and that he wishes he could make me feel better. Then he reminded me of his need to sleep and reminded me, 'Get tomorrow done and we have the weekend. So something to look forward to.' I thanked him for the reminder and we bid each other sweetly goodnight.

I know part of the reason for my weeping is because I didn't help take care of bear as I should have at times. My family and I have a temper and sometimes, as her hips became worse, she would do things that would absolutely just tip one of us over the edge. We never beat or mistreat our animals but we do get frustrated. Sometimes she couldn't hold it anymore and we would come home to find the floor smeared with poop and her backside covered in it as well. Of course, as intelligent as she was, she was ashamed and there wasn't much she could do about it but if we had tried to hurry home or it had happened frequently, even when we were home at the house, we just got angry. Harsh words were spoken to one of the sweetest, most loving dogs I have ever known and I deeply regret that more than I can possibly express. And worse is when she would have to go outside and suddenly her hips would slide and she would fall. More roughly than we should have, I know a few times when it was particularly cold or particularly late at night or particularly early, when we had had to deal with one mess or another or she had driven us crazy with whining, we righted her with a little more force than necessary and I know that didn't help her pain. And I know she didn't understand why in those moments we were being mean to her and I wish she could understand that pain I'm feeling now from it.

I know, if she were a human, she would forgive me, saying she understood but it still doesn't make it right. Of all the creatures on this green earth I should have had the patience with (and I'm sure people, like my mother, can agree), it should have been her. We should have treated her more kindly. I wept while I held her as she whined and was unable to move. I wept as my parents came inside, wept as I looked at my mother, and wept harder as they left. It's been two years now and that pain is as fresh and more potent as it was then. Perhaps recent events have just got my hormones going or perhaps the loss of more loved ones has made the pain of previous losses worse... all I know is that I will not sleep easy tonight and my pillow will likely be wet with tears.

July 15, 2008

Bear is the white German shepherd that my father got for my mom while I was still young. When daddy brought bear home, you could hold her in both your hands, she was so small. She barely had her eyes open but from the way daddy told it, Bear chose him.

He had gone to see a man about a dog, literally, for mom. At first he wanted a boy dog to help protect mom and us kids, but Bear kept following daddy around. He says that he didn't choose her so much as she chose him.

Bear was always the brightest dog. She wouldn't play much but there were some things that she liked a lot. Like when you placed a blanket or towel over her head and just started playing with her. She would gently bite your through the towel and whine and attack movements. If you put a cookie in one hand and left the other empty then offered her both hands, closed fisted? She almost always was able to choose which hand had the cookie. She'd be a lady about it too and not try to bite your hand off for the cookie, she'd use her paw to indicate which hand the cookie was in.

When we got her, I was just three or four, so she's pretty much been around my entire life. One thing I always found kind of strange was that she hated thunderstorms and would whine and stay next to mom the entire time. She could always feel it coming and go hide in a bathroom or follow mom like a big white furry shadow.

She used to come with us when we went to different states and state parks on the weekend in our airstream. I remember one time when we were at an airstream park, Stephen and Miranda were walking Bear. I wasn't with them, I was somewhere else at the time, but a strange kid came running up to them and Bear instantly started to protect and bark at the kid, nearly bit them.

That's how she was, she would always stay next to mom or us kids, protecting us. She wouldn't bark unless she thought there was a real threat and she didn't like strangers until mom or dad told her it was okay. Generally, she put her body between mom and somone she wasn't familiar with. She was just that way. She was intellegent and protective, just like a mom. Dad used to say she thought of me as a puppy. Whenever someone wasn't sick or not feeling well, she used to do two things - either stay with them or if she thought she was in trouble, she would go into the tub and wait until she was told it was okay.

Then when we moved up here and got Jackie, Bear became a little more playful but by this time, she was already getting up in her years. Nothing bad, she was just older, more sedate. I think I was ten when we got Jackie. Jackie, however, was just a pound puppy who tugged on Bear's ears and Tigger pounced her and everything else. When Bear got tired of taking it, she would take a swipe at Jackie and bring the smaller German Shepherd/Chow mix down but she was always gentle about it like a mom.

Jackie eventually learned to be a little more sedate although she never could figure out how to speak for a cookie or to bark towards the door not away from it. Jackie still barks entirely too much but that's just Jackie. Jackie did learn from Bear, though, and generally sleeps where she can keep an eye on things and make sure there aren't any intruders.

As time passed, things began to get harder for Bear. She would sleep more, her back legs wouldn't support her, her hips started to go bad, she couldn't romp and play with Jackie anymore. This didn't hit quickly and adjusting to it wasn't easy. She would need assistance getting up and down and because of an incident when she was a puppy, we couldn't give her pain medicine. So she would lay there and whine and try to adjust and sleep but she was just in so much pain. Some days were better and she could sometimes get up by herself but time had taken its toll and even with the weight that she had lost, she wasn't getting any better. Her eyes were starting to go and her hearing was almost gone too.

Finally yesterday it got to the point that she could barely keep herself up for a minute or two, for a few dozen steps before her back legs would give out and she'd fall. She couldn't support herself at all barely and not as far as she wanted to go. I stayed with her and tried to make her stand but honestly, she struggled and whined in pain. She just couldn't do it. So that afternoon, during their lunch break, my parents came and took Bear away to the vet. Mom said that it only took them a second, that Bear didn't feel any pain. She said that you could tell that Bear just relaxed and was finally at peace.

In my county, you can't bury your pet but you can have it cremated. Mom and dad are going back on Thursday to pick up the urn and bring it home.

The entire family grieves the loss of one of it's members. You could never ask for a better dog than Bear. We all love and miss you but we're glad you're no longer in any pain.

College Orientation

The only real thing I have to add here is that I did have notes about orientation but five moves later (to college, from college, to college, from college, and then switching rooms in my house), the notes are long gone. To sum it up, I went to breakfast, tried not to be too awkward, attended the seminars, signed up for classes, fought with advisors about an ACT score that hadn't been entered right in the system - which would required me taking remedial math if it hadn't gotten fixed and I hadn't noticed it - and talking to the English department, my trip was mostly uneventful. I made one friend, Michael, which didn't last long once college actually started, but then I did become best friends with his roommate, Taylor, so I guess that's okay... my parents did rescue me for the second night, we went to Olive Garden, and then after one more day of schedules being confirmed, t-shirts being bought with the school name on it, and my id being made, I was free to go. I happily returned home.

Sorry there isn't more but I'm tired and defeated from the lack of job opportunities in my community...

July 12, 2008

College Orientation

And so it begins...

We left Wednesday and we were out of Nashville by eleven am. This was actually on time, as we have a five and half hour drive with the joys of trying to avoid Knoxville rush hour in its entirit but still be there before check in closed at eight pm. Easy, you think. Leave at eleven, get there at four thirty, plus an hour (for the time difference) which totals out to five thirty. Wrong. You haven't accounted for the times you'll need to stop for gas, stop for food, stop for a restroom break, stop for a little shopping, or taking the longer way because you're tired of staring at the interstate... Which totals our time to roughly... six thirty ish their time, five thirty our time. About an hour off from the orignal estimated time. But anyways.

After arriving and parking, I was informed by my parents that I would be staying by myself on campus instead of them staying on campus with me as we had discussed. Normally, I would jump at this, but it was six thirty at night after a long time having to sit still in the car, I was in a strange city that I had only visited twice before in my life, surrounded by complete and utter strangers, and I was cold, tired, and hungry. "Welcome to college," was pretty much the response I received and off they went to enjoy themselves leaving me with the combined cash that they had with them and a fully charged cell phone. "Call us if you need us."

So off I tottered to the room which was assigned to me, which was on the first floor of the hall, arms full with the linens and towels provided to me while my parents brought the car around to get the rest of my things out. Upon entering the room I found it excrutiatingly cold but otherwise stark and empty. Placing my things on the bed closest to the door and furthest from the window which overlooked the construction area next door, I promptly left to retrieve the remainder of my bags, wave good bye to the parents and head back to my room to make my bed. Which is exactly what I did, beside claim the left hand side of the sink and make a little note which I placed on the empty matress that simply said 'Hi' with a smiley face.

Phone calls were made and returned, I finished writing, adressing, and stamping a letter and before seven o'clock, I was leaving my dorm rather sure of myself... or at least secure in the knowledge that I had a roof over my head and money in my pocket. If all else failed, I knew where the vending machines were. Setting out across campus, which was surprisingly light out, I immediately went to the post office where I deposited my letter in the appropriate bin and made my way to the Marketplace. Or I should say attempted to make my way to the Marketplace. The doors leading from the post office to the ramp were all locked. A summer student gave me a funny look as I tried not just one set of doors but two before giving up and heading out. Cutting across campus, I expertly found my way over to the Tree House which was also decidedly closed. After such an excursion and the mountain air, that which is called my stomach felt as if it hadn't seen food in closer to three days than a few short hours. Defeated, I returned to the hall to enquire at the desk on what I could do in terms of food.

The answer was quick in coming by way of a board that's set up next to the tv in the lounge area. I could have my pick of pizza places, each number generously provided beneath the corresponding logo. After making my choice, I returned to the front desk where one of the RA's not only dialed the number from memory but also said that I should tell them I'm ordering the college special. As it was Papa John's, the college special is a large one topping pizza. More than I thought I needed but as it was at a reasonable price and I was rather ravenous, I ordered it with ham and a white sauce, told them where to drop it off, and went to my room to count out the change. The entire thing to have it delivered was nine dollars and sixty eight cents. I don't care who you are, that's kind of a steal.

Returning to my room, I found myself alone still, my note undisturbed and the sun setting. Going over everything I had in my bags to occupy myself while I waited for the thirty minutes to pass until the arrival of my pizza, I finally settled on my notebook in which I jotted down brief occurances of the trip and the day in general before counting out the cash and change needed for the pizza. By this time, not only was I hungry but the room seemed to be even colder than before and I was starting to feel the strain of feeling utterly alone. Time passed and as the time neared, I resigned myself to a night of solitude and returned to the lobby to await the forthcoming pizza.

When I arrived, the RA's were participating in some sort of game amongst themselves and as I walked by, I saw a car pull up. As the man got out of the car, carrying a distinctly pizza shaped red shape, I moved hopefully towards the door. He bounded up the steps and knocked on the first set of glass doors to get the RA's attention, one obligingly leaving the game to open the door to admit the Papa John's man. My stomach called out with a joyful growl as I waited for him to take notice of me and the money I had folded in my hand. Nine dollars and seventy cents, almost exact change. As much as I appreciate him doing his job, I only had limited cash funds and couldn't waste what I had.

Paying him, I quickly made my way back through the small maze of halls and key card areas to the vending machine, where I purchased a coke and hurried past a tall guy with a buzz cut back to the safety of my room. The only other people I saw that night were a couple in their late fifties. I heard plenty of people though, especially with my bed being next to the wall and on the otherside of that wall being the main hallway. So up I climbed into bed with a box of pizza and a twenty ounce coke, curling up on the pillows with my copy of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, alone but now rather content. The wish for music did cross my mind once or twice but otherwise all was still as I munched and read.

Time ticked on and as ten o'clock local time neared, I disposed of my pizza box and ventured outside once more. The night was cloudy but you could see the moon, especially from where I was sitting next to the library.I waited patiently for the phone to ring and ring it did, just as I was about to give up after the third flash of lightning off in the distance. Although the conversation was brief, it put me to ease and I ventured much more willingly to bed. I returned to my room I brushed my teeth, organized things for the next morning, chose what to wear, turned off the light and climbed into bed. Sleep was not quick in coming and it never stayed for more than short bouts at a time, but I slept right through the alarm I set on my phone. If Jerry hadn't called with my wake up call like I had requested, I probably would have missed breakfast entirely and had been late to orientation.

End Day One

Flutter Flutter

I would like to point something out about this story. While I did go under rather quickly, I distinctly remember the anesthesiologist cracking a joke after I had taken a few breaths from the mask. I don’t remember the joke but I found it funny so I started to shake with laughter. He pulled the mask off my face and said ‘Are you still awake down there?’ I nodded, still laughing and he chuckled, before placing the mask back on my face. A few more breaths and that’s when blackness claimed me.

I had something else that I wanted to put here but after the evening I've had, I don't know whether to talk about Valentine's Day, the future woes and fears, or something completely mundane so I'll save you any extra drivel you might have to shift through. You're welcome.

June 9, 2008

As most of you know, my surgery was yesterday. The procedure was an arthroscopic surgery on my left knee because of a torn outer meniscus. They were unsure if they would be shaving the cartilage or if they would actually be repeairing the tear and they would not know for sure until they opened the knee up.

I awoke around four thirty at the insistence of my mother, left the house around five thirty, and arrived to check-in for the surgery just a little past six am. My parents received wristbands that were marked PG (for Parent/Guardian) and I was told I would receive mine when my name was called. When we arrived, already the room was becoming crowded with relatives, other young patients, and concerned parents and guardians.The sight was a little heartbreaking but hopeful with all the younger kids there obviously getting the help they needed in some form or another. I was easily the oldest there.

The wait didn't take long. Soon I was being weighed at the station with a nurse, an armband placed on my right wrist, then taken up a floor to room thirteen. Thirteen, you say? Isn't that unlucky? Fortunately, I think just the opposite. I think it very lucky because I've always enjoyed the number thirteen.

Upon arriving in the room, which was cheery (since I my surgery did take place at the children's hospital) and nonthreatening were it not for the hospital bed and other distinctly hospital accessories, I found on the bed a gown and some special socks.After a few tests, I changed into these and took my place on the bed, scooting my legs over for the surgeon and nurse, respectively and at different intervals, to sit. The surgeon explained the procedure again, the anesthesiologist who explained what methods would be used to keep me under, and then the nurse who placed an IV port in my right arm. I still have a purplish bruise from where the tube was inserted.

After the arrival of the man who would actually be performing the procedure, I said good bye to my parents (who were asked to take their seats in the waiting room where we were sitting before) and was wheeled down the hall to the operating room. If you have never had an operation, I have news for you. The actual room is freezing and the table they use is little more than a sheet covered ironing board (as the anesthesiologist pointed out to me). They placed five heart monitors on my chest, as well as one around my finger, then place a mask over my face and after a few deep breaths, I was under.

When I awoke again, I was in an open room, having just been wheeled there after my surgery. My parents were brought in and things were explained to them, pictures handed over of the inside of my knee, and told that the surgeons shaved the cartilage, they did not repair it. Most of it I don't remember. I do remember being awake and lucid enough to ask my mother for my glasses so that I could see the pictures. After that, and handing my glasses back to my mother, my father left to go to work and I closed my eyes to rest as I was wheeled into another room to wait for the effects of the drug to wear off.

Time, when you're in a hospital and under a drug's influence, is fleeting and never lasts as long as you think it should. When I awoke next, more fully aware and functioning this time, my vital signs were taken and I was proclaimed fit to leave at any time. It was about this time that I noticed that my leg was completely covered and my knee itself was in a lot of pain. They literally wrapped me up in an ace bandage from knee to ankle, with more padding on the knee, to keep the swelling down. The pain was to be expected, I know, but still, something about it just made me cringe, this mummy looking knee that didn't even look to be a part of me. I was assisted to the bathroom, where I dressed in privacy more or less with the help of my mother, then waited for the wheel chair to take me out to the waiting Jeep.

And so I was driven home and assisted up to the front yard, the front steps, through the front door to the couch without crutches at around eleven. Yes, it hurt, but I managed. Later in the afternoon, I was able to more or less go where I wanted within a very short distance without assistance. As the night progressed, I was able to move further distances. Today, I can pretty much walk the length of the house and stand but it still hurts. It still feels like something is shifting under my skin that shouldn't be shifting, and the creaking and popping is painful to hear and feel.

Unfortunately, the pain medicine that they gave me has not been working. The hydrocodone that I had left over from my skateboard accident hasn't helped the pain anymore than tylenol would - like candy for a diabetic basicly, no help at all. Lortab is also not working, which was what was perscribed to me yesterday. The only thing that puts a dent in the pain is the left over pain medicine from my oral surgery back in May, the roxicet and even that isn't numbing it well enough.

For those of you who don't know, pain medicine doesn't effect me as it probably would others. Morphine, which I have a mild allergy to and have built up a tolerance to, works just about as well as hydrocodone, which is nearly not at all. So while someone else might trip out on these drugs, I'm pretty much sober, a little sleepy, but still very much myself and grumpy with the pain.

Tomorrow I go to a physical therapist in the morning and she'll help to unwrap the bandage from my leg (which is supposed to stay on for forty eight hours). I'm not looking forward to seeing it or moving it around a lot. I think just me walking around on it is enough.

A Rough Summer

I just wanted to inform you in case anybody wanted to know, my grams passed away this past summer on June 2nd, 2009. She clung to life to see her last grandchild being brought into the world, my aunt's boy child Quinton. He was born in April, not long after grams birthday and my birthday.

I was there when she died. During 2009, I saw two people die. Was there as they took their last breath and whatever soul or life force faded up into oblivion. Both were maternal grandmothers - my grandmother and Jerry's grandmother. I was there at the end of their beds, respectively.

When grams died, I knelled at the end of the bed and wept as my mother held one hand and my aunt held the other, my father in the corner and the hospice nurse to the side. I knelled there clinging to the end of the bed that hospice had provided and took huge, wracking, ugly sobs. I was scared, I was mourning and I was facing death. I could almost feel it in the room, the stillness, the feeling as if there weren't any oxygen left because there didn't seem to be as she took one shuddering breath after another and then was gone.

Over the summer, I debated on whether or not to take her old room, make it my own. And I worked on it, sanding the floors, hand buffing them, taking off wallpaper the hard way, and painting the entire room by myself. I made it my own but even now, sometimes, at night, I sit in the dark and I'm afraid. I don't believe in malicious spirits, but death happened here and now I'm living. That can be said for every inch of this earth, I'm sure, but this is my room. My haven. And I don't always feel that it is my haven.

The second death was Jerry's grandmother in a hospital, with family gathered round as the machines were turned off and the nurses waited behind curtains silently, waiting for that dreaded flat line. It took longer than I expected for some reason. I think its because movies and television have conditioned me to think that it only takes a few minutes. Instead it took several long moments and in the end, these people who were gathered around me - who had gathered several times, ready to say good bye before - finally seemed to let out a breath they had been holding for years. And there was a sadness in that act too. After so many close calls and rallying together, they were finally able to let go as she finally let go and I felt the same choking sadness well in me. Not because we were particularly close, although she did approve me - Jerry never got that approval from my grams, who didn't want to make any more connections because her time was coming. No, I cried because I knew the feeling and because it was too close...

Sorry for the morbid post tonight but I did say I'd post my old posts here. So here it is and here's my two cents today...

Tweet tweet.

June 3, 2008

My grandmother is a fighter. She may not have been there during the wars, helping make airplanes and she may not have saved people in deadly fires, she may not have run for office or even done more than just do her best as a divorcee raising two daughters more or less on her own, but she's a fighter, through and through. Something that's been a sort of family trait. Whenever one of the females of our family, be it my sister, my mother, my aunt or me has been particularly fiery, particularly stubborn and hell-bent, it has often been said, 'Alright, Bonnie.'

She's that too. She's beautiful. It isn't the beauty of youth, although she was very pretty when she was younger. Some may say she looks just like other grandmothers, with her hair now streaked a dark grey with bits of silver, the brown gold of her hair just a memory but still a vivid one with wild streaks of that also. Her face may be one lined with her age but it isn't lined in complete sadness. It shows her mischievousness still, it shows her spirit, although the pain and suffering linger there too in a way that cannot be erased.

And she wouldn't erase a single line. She's earned them all. Every freckle from forgotten summers where she tanned the color of copper, every crease and fold of her skin, she's earned. She used to work in a factory while my mother and aunt were growing up. They used to live in the same house that she still lives in, I sleep in their old room. That house was built new for her, with the built in bookcase next to the kitchen and everything. Sure, some of the appliances don't match the other but she loves her house. Loves that street. Loves that life, even in the later years of her life.

Now a new foe enters the field. We aren't completely unfamiliar with it. She's already battled and beaten skin cancer. She's already battled and beaten breast cancer. And she's decided she'll do whatever it takes to battle and beat this new form of cancer, lung cancer.

They aren't a hundred percent sure if it is lung cancer or just a manifestation of the breast cancer but for now they're treating it as lung cancer. If she had decided not to fight, she would have only six months to live. Long enough to see my sister marry. Long enough to see me head off to college. But not long enough for her first great-grandchild or for my diploma. Not long enough for so much that she's earned to live to see.

So I'm fragile right now. So very fragile because that's my grams. That's my hard headed, stubborn as a mule, kick em where it hurts and keep on moving grams and she's fighting a battle she's already fucking won twice. She shouldn't have to fight this hard again. Its so fucking unfair.

If anyone wonders, yes I'm in tears. Because I fought that woman, using the stubbornness and the fiery temperament that I inherited to tell her that she can't quit, that she had to beat the breast cancer. And I'm not about to let her quit now but I am so fragile right now. I need all the support I can get. And I never ask for help lightly.

And if that isn't enough, I have surgery in less than a week.

Fucking hell.

The Queen Is Not A Subject

Yes, yes, I know you're excited, tonight you actually get a post, calm down...

A friend of mine reminded me of something I haven't checked in the longest of times - Myspace. Myspace and I never had a very warm relationship, mostly because my friends had better things to do than sit on Myspace and talk to me, which surprisingly doesn't seem to be the case with Facebook. Now either this means my friends have less of a life or Facebook is far more enjoyable. I'll let you decide but I'm betting on the latter. I will say this on Facebook's appeal and then drop it, I swear. In terms of ease of use and streamline, Facebook wins hands down. Myspace is finally catching up in applications, games, that sort of thing, but it is rather nice to not be harassed by annoying backgrounds, blaring musing, or eye-spasming animations that glitter and implode. No, Facebook is nice and sterile except for the occasional wall posts that the applications you use would like to post but those are easy to ignore.

No, the reason I'm bringing up Myspace is because of a memory. A few of them actually - some that are mine and some that are Jerry's, memories that I wasn't ever a part of. Going back over my blog is a short matter. After all, before I ever met Jerry I would systematically go back and delete posts, starting fresh over and over again. That's the nice thing about online blogs, you have the option to delete. To edit, to rearrange, to correct a spelling mistake or a grammatical mistake. In real life with pen to paper, you don't have that leisure, that security that with a push of a single button you can delete from this world forever your words. Sure, you can do the whole book burning thing if you like but there are remnants of that all around you. On the internet, you can lose your words to oblivion because with billions upon billions of people accessing it every day from across the world... well, you're just a number. It isn't very real.

Looking back though I'm glad I didn't purge fully. I am a writer. I write best the emotions that affect me the most and the ones that affected me the most are now buried in notes on Facebook and the few remaining posts on Myspace. The reason I left Myspace for Facebook was not because of the reasons mentioned above, although those eventually became the reasons for my not returning. No, the reason I left Myspace was because I was going to college and on Facebook, I could more readily and easily connect. Looking back on the four remaining posts, I think I couldn't have chosen any better posts to keep. Granted, I can't really remember any of the other posts but these posts are more like my earlier posts on this blog - poetic.

I think I'll add them to this blog next week, and my notes from Facebook. In chronological order, of course, but I think it should be done. On top of that, if I have something to say, I can say it. Some insight to the post added or perhaps just something that came to mind, like this has tonight. It will be a way for me to keep some of the parts of the whole centralized. I would say all but that would be inaccurate. In any case I hope you are interesting in seeing a more... personal portion of my life.

Now, as I mentioned earlier, I wasn't the only one who used to write blogs on Myspace. Jerry did as well, which came in handy when he and I first met. Yes, I suppose you could call it (jokingly) stalking, but I think he would agree with me if I were to say that it wasn't stalking, it was merely reconnaissance. I'm glad that he didn't purge like I did because even though he wasn't sure anyone was reading his posts, he kept soldiering on, making a post every few months or so to give a brief update while other times he delivered a rather eloquent little snippet of his life. I have never claimed great understanding of the man I love, nor will I claim that now but I will admit that I understand him better than most. When I first read his posts nearly two years ago, I was trying to figure out the background of a man I hardly knew but now knowing him, loving him, and learning more and more about what makes him him - his past, his present, his dreams, his doubts, everything - taking all that and going back and reading those posts again? I won't lie, it was difficult. Not difficult to read, the man is extremely well read. No, it was difficult because I had that level of understanding that I didn't have before and I understand the people, the places, the things he's referencing to. I can better understand the pain, the anger, the joy, the frustration, the loneliness, everything that did and still does make up the man that I love.

For that, I am extremely grateful. In this day and age, I'm sure it is likely that more people can say that they are also privy to this knowledge, to this experience but I guess I'm old fashioned in the fact that its difficult to share the most intimate part of you - your mind - with the unknown, be it the entire wide web that spans this green earth or a list of friends you've acquired from all over. To me, its precious, not something that should be taken lightly, and the knowledge should never be misused. It has been, for lack of a better term, a blessing to be loved by such a man and I am eternally grateful for it.

Have a safe weekend, sorry for the mushiness. Blame my sinus infection.