( 31 Days )

Day 10: a photo of you taken over ten years ago



On the horse, that's Brother M, me, and Sister K, and Sister C is leading it.

( All 10 Days )

Day 7 - Four memories you won't forget

Oh, this is a tough one. I have terrible memory, especially if I don't write something done (to do lists, yeah, but also memories of things that have happened, conversations, important details about friendships, etc.). There are whole chunks of 2007 - 2014 I feel like I've lost because I wasn't blogging as much during grad school. (And also, crazy brain, particularly while I was in Michigan, and unmedicated, and pretty sure the sun was never going to return.) Plus memories come and go.

So, four memories I haven't forgotten at this moment, in no particular, but all of which are particularly vivid.

1. Standing in Mom's ICU room with my dad, J, and a couple of my siblings, watching the machines keep Mom alive. Watching the machines turn off, one by one, wires and buttons, plastic and electricity, metal bits, all these unimportant things, and each one, a piece of her gone. She breathed on her own, one last time, and the sound she made. It was like we could see her leave, and then there was just a body, and all those tears, and nothing. I'd been called home so many times over the years, said good-bye only to have her live. This was not that. This was the end.

2. I'm fourteen, and just stupid in love with J. His sister's friends are adults, like her, and they're in a band, and we're watching practice. We go for a walk at dusk, and after the sun has gone behind the trees, we stop. There's a rowboat for awhile, under the stars, water splashing, soaking the bottom of my jeans. The sky is deep, dark blue, all stars, no moon. We kiss, sitting on the hood of an old car, and the band covers Live's "Lightning Crashes".

3. It was late when I landed in Seattle, dark, and I was exhausted. Spring break, but I'd been interviewing with firms, had little rest. I wasn't stressed about the interview in Redmond, I already had an offer from my first choice firm, but I walked outside the airport, and the air was so crisp and cool. It felt different. My driver was quiet, left me in peace, and I couldn't stop staring at the trees, the mountains, the moon. I fell in love with the Seattle area that trip, and the summer I worked out there.

4. It's my first Wiscon, and I'm hanging out with friends I've either never met in person before or only get to rarely see. We're laughing, it's wonderful, we're having so much fun. The auction is ridiculous, hilarious, and I'm grinning at something one of my friends has said when I look up, across the room, and there's a woman. She's gorgeous, all dark shiny hair and such a nice grin and her outfit is casual sexy as hell, and she has a Faith tattoo. I recognize it even at a distance.

And then, after the auction, I'm walking with a friend, and the woman is right there, friendly and smiling and wonderful, and I can tell her how awesome her tattoo is, and how her outfit is very Faith, and -- wait. I know her. We spend the rest of the night talking and drinking. She ends up being one of my best friends, and such an important part of my life for many years.

That is the story of how I spotted nikitangel across a crowded room at a feminist convention without knowing it was her, even though we'd already become friends online. It makes me smile to this day.

December Talking Meme Master List

Day three is from marginalia, the thing you most want to do in your life that you think is impossible for whatever reason (financial, laws of physics, etc.).

This is an amazing question. I have no idea. I have too many ideas.

I've been thinking about this since it was suggested, and I've finally settled on an answer. I would love to have a simple, open to the sunlight home big enough for my people to all live together and still have our own spaces for introvert alone time. It would be on a beach with the Pacific stretched out warm and blue as far as the eye could see. There would be big glass windows that open, and a lanai encircling the entire house. Bonfire pits, great twisty roads for motorcycle riding, room for dogs and horses to run. It would be a writing retreat for the girl and me, who write together a lot. There would be a giant room for our writing and brainstorming, with white boards and lots of light. Heating in the floors. Leather furniture. A room set up for arting, lots of storage. A library of books. A library of DVDs. It wouldn't matter that not all of us have the same citizenship, we can live there without worrying about crap like that.

We'd support ourselves each doing the things we love, mostly writing and arting and cooking.

I want a safe space for us all. A place we can be queer and fat and crazy and biracial and introverted and angry and and and.

What's interesting to me is that there are already pieces of this in place. Yeah, there's not one big home by the sea where we all live in happiness, but other than that, we have holidays together, and arting days, and writing adventures. J's family fills his house and we find love and laughter and peace (and stress and fighting and drama, but that comes with family). I hang out at my dad's almost every evening I'm in town, and our dogs play together. Sister J and brother in law welcome us into their home and we marvel at their library of books and DVDs and video games.

Mostly, I just want the people I care about and trust in the same space, a geographic location I love.

I love living in cities, but I think I'm ready for isolation and ocean and peace.

I am tired this holiday season. And having a hard time getting into the holiday spirit, even my favorite parts (which are planning holiday gatherings, buying gifts for my people, and Yuletide). I have cut way back on the planning for our holiday gatherings (I didn't even include all my lists in the last group email), which leaves me feeling slightly stressed and off-balance, but is better for me in the long run. Things will get done, or they won't, and no matter what, we'll have a good time together. We always do.

(Saturday is the first, Group Gathering with Sister K, her husband, J, his brother J2, our friend G, and our other friend J3, plus J and J2's mom, who is visiting from Hawaii. Then Christmas Eve, we have our first family gathering, and Christmas day will be the second family gathering. Only three big gatherings is a pretty small number, and I'm hoping it will be delightful and relaxing, too.)

(I'm also hoping to spend a lot of Christmas day reading Yuletide. Yuletide. I want my Yuletide joy back, and here's hoping I can manage it. I love my assignment, love the story that is coming out of it, and can't wait to read my gift, but oh, where is my Yuletide joy?)

I think I am struggling more than I anticipated with finding joy in light of the deaths in the family. (We had one, and at the same time, Sister K's family in law had one, and then shortly after those two, a third which overlapped the families.) Plus I have been sick lately, and it just isn't a great time.

However, I am almost done shopping for Group Gathering (I just need to hit up an art supply store that was closed when I left work today), and then all I have to do is wrap gifts once I get down there Saturday. We're doing breakfast for dinner, which means biscuits and gravy and mimosas! (Biscuits and gravy is my favorite food.) Plus a bunch of other stuff, but my fave. I am done shopping for my secret giftee for the family gathering, and for Dad and the nephew. I need to buy for the niece, and then I will be done with shopping for the first family gathering. I haven't really started shopping for the second family gathering, but J and I are going to figure that out this weekend.

I also haven't really started shopping for the group of friends with whom I exchange gifts, so, as usual, those packages are going to go out late. Also, I think the rental office has a box of mail for me; I think my mailbox filled while I was gone for Mom's funeral, and I didn't realize it, but apparently they have mail I need to pick up. Unfortunately, the only time I am here while they're open is on the weekend, and I'll be out of town this weekend and next weekend, so it might be awhile before I can grab it. (This is the first year I've purchased an ebook as a gift, and I am pleasantly surprised by how easy Smashwords made it. That reminds me, I need to buy a few more copies still.)

I've almost finished my Yuletide story. I think I know where the ending is going, but I'm not quite there yet, so I guess that could change. Then I will consider a treat or two, and December Drabbles, of course.

Rough holiday season. Rough year. But there are good things.

Stop! Self-awareness time!

I was reading this fantastic post in which toft talks about Mercedes Lackey's books and I realized why I have so little patience for -- well, I'll put it in toft's words:

7) I love that all of the books that I've read so far punch my talented-outcast-child-is-rescued-from-family-and-excels-at-school narrative kink right in the kidneys and throw it down the stairs. In a good way.

Now I read this post after watching the first three Harry Potter movies with Mom (one last night, two today) and even though I've seen them before and read the books and wrote fanfic, damn it, it struck me really hard how much of an idiot Harry is a lot of the time and how things just fall in his lap. Sometimes literally.

And don't get me wrong, I love the first four Harry Potter books a lot. (The movies not as much and the last three not nearly as much, but the first four, particularly three and four, SO MUCH LOVE.) And I also love the Mercedes Lackey books I've read, which isn't very many, I'll admit, but I read the Arrows trilogy and then BY THE SWORD which has KEROWYN I'LL KICK YOUR GODDAMN ASS AND YOU'LL LIKE IT who is my hero, so obviously I'm a fan of that one, too.

But frequently these talented-outcast-child-rescued-from-family-and-excels-at-[fill in the blank] narratives really bug me. While reading toft's post I finally figured out why, even though it is really obvious if you know me at all: Basically every awesome thing I have ever done is because I am trying to live up to the awesomeness of my family. No, really, they've set the bar high and it just keeps getting pushed higher. Even though I don't directly follow in anyone's footsteps, what I do is done so I can be as awesome as my family. So of course I don't grok that narrative the way some others might.

Not very awesome that it took me that long to figure it out, but whatever.

(By the way, as we're watching Harry Potter, Mom turns to me and says she doesn't understand why people threw such a fit over Harry Potter being satanic or whatever, nothing they did magically seemed all that bad and I said I thought it was just the idea of ~magic in the first place that was so horrible. She scoffed and said that was ridiculous, kids should grow up with magical stories and reading stories about magic doesn't make them bad Christians. Oh, Mom, you are the best conservative, Christian mother ever! [Though obviously conservative doesn't apply to Christian in that sentence.] Oh, speaking of conservatives, I am not adjusting well to being back in a small town in a red state. Today some guy came around talking about politicians because we're running up on the November election and ads and calls and door to door is going wild. Anyway, dude told me politician is a Democrat and liberal in [these ways], but still conservative, too, in [these ways] and is pro life. I don't think he expected me to say, well, those liberal things are really good, but the pro life thing is generally a deal breaker for me. Too liberal for the liberals here, what?)

~*~

Sons of Anarchy comes back this week! I think I will liveblog it, because OMG FINALLY. J and I were talking the other night and he said the adverts make it look like it's going to be very soap opera-y and the season finale was very much a soap opera. I laughed and said even if it is, if I kept watching after [that thing with Gemma last season], I'll give them a season of being a soap opera before I quit them.

The Vampire Diaries comes back, too, but I rarely talk about that here. Maybe that will change this season. Because [THINGS! THINGS WHICH ARE SPOILERS!]

~*~

I am tired, but I am waiting on a thing and I pulled up my werewolfbigbang, which I keep thinking I won't finish, but the first draft isn't due until later this month, so maybe I will finish. I'm writing a sequel to "wolf woman wild," but I keep wanting to write some ridiculous crossover (er, even more ridiculous than "wolf woman wild" which has BtVS, Angel, Fast and the Furious series, and Ginger Snaps) about a wolf pack that contains characters from BtVS, Fast and the Furious series, Sons of Anarchy, Harry Potter, etc. I do not need to set aside the sequel and write 10k of a ridiculous crossover. I don't.

(Dude, Sons of Anarchy basically is a werewolf pack without being werewolves. And how awesome would it be to have Oz and Faith, Letty and Dom and Mia, Jax and Opie and Donna and Tara, Remus and Sirius, Clay and Gemma all in a wolf pack together? Hell, let's really make it ridiculous and throw in Sam and Dean and John and Mary Winchester and, GOD, Ellen and Jo Harvelle, because obviously after Race Wars, Jesse runs off and becomes Ash. Hell, Chad Lindberg himself brings together Fast and the Furious, Supernatural, and Sons of Anarchy. If I really wanted to go wild, I know I could work in Velma and Daphne.

Good grief, I'm actually considering this.)

~*~

THING is done, so I can go to bed! Except now I'm thinking about the damn ridiculous crossover.

ETA: It has taken me five billion edits to get the coding right, even though I swear I was using the same coding I'd been using since I started crossposting from DW. WHAT THE HELL?

Remember when I took that Supernatural character quiz and it said I was Dean and I said that worked because my younger sister would be Sam?

Did I totally call that or what?

(She's right, too, I'd love the heat. I'm cold, and it's been warmer out these past few days, yesterday in the 50s. Still cold, though.)

So I just stocked someone's stuffing--no, wait, that's not right, stuffed someone's stocking--for Yuletide, a short little story I both love and loathe at the same time, in a new to me fandom (that makes two for Yuletide this year).

Then I realized I had failed to buy my godson an ornament this year. Which would be fine, except I bought his sister one. So now I have to go to the shops on Christmas Eve. I am so filled with woe on this it is not even funny. I have never had to go shopping this late for a gift from me. (I've gone with J. before on his last minute shopping. I've often spent Christmas Even frantically wrapping gifts for my parents, J., or J.'s mom. I've never had to shop for a gift I had forgotten.)

Now I am waiting for my hair to dry enough to go out in the (comparative) cold, and for the dryer to finish so I have jeans to wear. Sarah told me to go sans-jeans and be a rebel, but like I said, cold, so no.

However, I am still very pleased I was able to write a Yuletide stocking stuffer.

Happy holidays, you guys. I hope everything goes better than you hope.

First, just a quick note to say thank you for all your comments. My mother is doing better, and though she'll continue to be ill the rest of her life, at least they're learning how to treat it so she's not in as much pain.

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( Yuletide letter )

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In the same vein as Yuletide, I'm just waiting for you all to post your holiday_wishes. This is another of my favorite activities this time of year, finding wishes I can fill. Make my life easy and post your lists soon.

On that note, I should probably think about starting my holiday shopping one of these days. This is the latest I've ever let it slide without knowing at least one gift for each person on my list. I've only bought one thing so far. I used to be done shopping in July.

I have become a holiday slacker. Woo.

Just so you all know, my mother is currently in ICU. She's been sick for over three years now, and Friday her oxygen stats went down to 60, when they should have been in the 90s. She's now on a respirator and unconscious. At first they thought it was an infection which was exacerbating her main illnesses, but the cultures came back yesterday and it's not. They don't know what set it off this time.

So I'm not going to be around much. Her specialists work out of a hospital an hour and a half away from here, and the three hour round trips each day are taking a toll on me. I'm going back to work tomorrow, but still plan to drive up to Columbia often.

Tonight, it's time for bed.

Just over an hour until I get to leave. I've only clocked a little overtime, but it's still been a long week. I'm glad tomorrow is Friday; it feels like the end of the week today, and tomorrow may drag because of it.

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Saturday my youngest sister, K., and I are going to Columbia to see some bands, one local out of St. Louis, one local to Columbia, and two others. I don't recognize any of them, but she put together a mix CD for me, and I'll try to listen to it tonight and tomorrow. I like Columbia, and I think I may suggest we go up earlier (doors open at 6:30) to do a little book shopping and just walk around near campus. I love that area.

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( health talk )

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The getting rid of things has slowed. I need to organize the last two bookshelves and then start in purging something other than books. I also need to make more time to write and edit. I also need to find some more freelance work. I also need to practice my bass guitar more.