Distilled sad

There is not much that is sadder than the funeral of a miscarried child.

The weather today is cold and damp and grey, and it suited the occasion. I got to the cemetery and my mother was standing outside the chapel. We talked for a few minutes, waiting for everyone to arrive. When my friend and her husband came, they were crying. Her husband was holding a very small wooden box with Chinese characters painted on it. I don't know what they said. I don't know if this box was something the cemetery provided or if they went out and got it somewhere.

We drove out to the gravesite and the priest said some prayers. My dad was there too, and gave a bible reading, the one about Jesus chastising the apostles for keeping the children away from him. My friend and her husband stood there gazing down at the box. She was holding a white tulip and he held their 2-year-old who was crying quietly.

After, when I gave her a hug, her shoulders felt fragile and loosely put together. I was afraid I was crushing her with how tight I was hugging her, as if I could squeeze the grief out of her. I tried to hug her husband, but he was stiff and crying and couldn't speak, so I just sort of awkwardly patted his back and took the wadded-up Christmas-print napkin out of his hand that he'd been using to wipe his tears off and replaced it with a fresh tissue. He seemed to barely notice. I got the sense that half of his pain came from the fact that he could do nothing to prevent this from happening, and to prevent my friend from having to feel it and go through it. He is so devoted to her and loves her so much, and I can't imagine how powerless he must feel, and how profoundly sad.

Driving to work, I thought about how unjust it all seems, that sometimes people who don't want to be pregant become pregant, and those who want a child so badly have it taken away from them.

I don't know. I don't have any answers. It is unjust, and it is sad, and all we can do is feel it. And try to heal from it.

Rest in peace, baby Nicholas. Even though we never got to hear your voice or see your face, you are still loved.

J

Sad.

A sad day.

My good friend called me last night to tell me she had a miscarriage on Christmas. I saw her at church Christmas morning and she was glowing and happy, and it seems the day ended in such awful tragedy for her. She was so excited to have gotten pregnant; her and her husband had been trying for more than a year to have another baby, without success. When I saw her on election day she had just found out she was pregnant again and was so happy. Then she got such awful morning sickness, throwing up multiple times a day for weeks. It just stopped two weeks ago, and now this. She was crying on the phone when she told me. I didn't know what to say. As soon as we hung up, I started crying.

What an awful thing to have to go through. I feel so sad for her...she is that kind of friend who will do anything for you, too, you know, the really nice friend you have who you feel does so much more nice stuff for you than you can ever do for her.

They're having a service for the baby tomorrow at a cemetery. I'm going to that with my mom.

I feel like I have so much to say about this, but I'm just too sad to say any of it.

M was very proud last night when he used the new camera to take this picture of Steve:

Appreciation: a favorable critical estimate

A random orchid photo I took a while ago.

Santy Claus was more than generous this year.

I am now the glowing and ecstatic owner of a Nikon D50, thanks to M. He gave it to me on Christmas Eve instead of Christmas Day, because he knew I'd want to use it (and of course he was right). He got me the kit with two lenses; I have an 18-55 lens and a 55-200 lens. Both are amazing.

I laid awake all night on Christmas Eve feeling unworthy. He is so generous and so good to me. I feel so lucky and so...moved, that there is this person in the world who loves me like this, who wants my happiness like this. And he doesn't have to love me, no one requires him to, he chooses to.

I don't know. It's all very humbling.

Has been an interesting couple days. You know those times in your life you go through when you think to yourself, my status quo is changing? It's not necessarily a huge event that sparks it off, more of a subtle noticing that you've grown up in some ways, and acknowledgement that there are still ways to grow. A recognition that things as they are now will not continue out into infinity, and both the sadness and happiness that comes along with that.

Things went unbelievably well with my brother's wife. They came to my parents' house on Christmas night, and we all exchanged gifts, and at the end of the evening she actually hugged my dad. Our collective jaws fell onto the floor and we all had to surreptitiously gather them back onto our faces quickly without her noticing. I still don't trust her any further than I can throw her, but I'm glad for my parents' sake that the evening went as well as it did. I don't know if she's faking being nice to them for my brother's sake (and we've seen how well she can act) or if it's genuine. If she's faking it, as long as she continues to fake it, that's better than the way it was before, with my brother all quarantined and my mother crying and missing him. I don't know what's changed. I don't trust it, but I'll take it. My mother calls it the Christmas miracle.

My parents and M's were also very generous to us this year. I got more stuff this Christmas than I ever have.

And yet--the stuff matters less than it ever has.

I have such a great family.

I feel so lucky.

Schwoop! (Silence) Thud

That is the sound I made last night as my skis left the snow and I was suspended for a brief moment and then I came down on my bottom. Wahoo!

M and I went skiing last night on a whim. It was lots of fun. At one point we were going up a rope tow to get to a lift and he pulled hard on the rope at an angle to the direction it was going, and let it go with a *fwap.* I was behind him and didn't know what the hell he was doing and it knocked me right off. I felt like a fool. :)

We also did a double black diamond slope--well, I did it about three times and he did it once and fell a lot. Last time I tried that slope was about five years ago and I gave myself a black eye. My skills must have improved because I had no trouble with it last night. That's kind of a good feeling.

I haven't been this happy since we got back from South Dakota. I don't really know what the gig is, but I'm riding it as long as it will last. I feel pretty good. Pretty darn good. M is off work this weekend by a miracle of good timing and it's good to just spend time with him and anticipate giving him his presents and hang out with the dogs and do what the heck ever. I hope it just *stays* this way for a while.

I'm hungry. Wonder what I can find yummy to eat in the kitchen...

Cincinnati: The city where shit is always blowing up

I took this photo out my office window yesterday. Beauty, eh? Some warehouse down by the river. Kaboom. Shoulda heard the sirens, you'd have thought we were under a missle attack. That's I 75 in the middle of the picture, there.

I don't have any pictures of the mosque bombings that happened in town today. I was kind of surprised that it didn't make the national news. Politics and the transit strike (oh you poor New Yorkers, I do not envy you now) took top priority.

I know I've been quiet lately. I don't have much to say. I've been non-unhappy, which is kind of nice. Had some strange dreams, but nothing too notable. I'm happy to see the current administration struggling against the flames encroaching from all sides, though unhappy it has to come at such a price.

I'm feeling good about Christmas. I'm finished shopping. M is out in the wilds of capitalism on steroids (a.k.a. Cincinnati Mills Mall) right now finishing his up. I'm sitting home with the Christmas tree behind me all lit up and purdy. The dogs are wrestling on the floor. I'm drinking ginger tea. It's nice. It's quiet.

We're thinking of adding a chihuahua to our coterie of beasts. Hell, what's one more at this point?

I have slight apprehensions about the holiday that involve my brother's wife. We got her a decent gift, and I think we'll probably outgift her. I have no idea. I am trying my darndest to let those apprehensions go, and to just enjoy the time I have with non-crazy (well, non-mean, anyway) family. It'll be a challenge not to go all angstballistic, but I might be able to pull it off. We'll see.

I've been doing yoga. I think it is helping my sanity. I used to do it a lot, like for an hour or more every day, but I got away from it. Every now and then I get back into it and it helps me through whatever. Right now I'm trying to get M to do it more. He is not graced with a lot of natural flexibility and balance, but I think there is good potential for him to become more flexible. He got into a headstand the other night, which was good since we've been working on that for a couple weeks. I think he gets frustrated watching me stand on my head and twist into all sorts of weird shapes when he can't do it. I was born double-jointed though and remind him of that when he gets frustrated that he can't do what I'm doing. My arms twist around 540 degrees. It ain't natural.

I'm going to watch anime and drink tea tonight. And have blankets piled on top of me. Really, what more could you want on the shortest day of the year?

Happy winter, btw. First official day today, you know.

Hot diggity-dang, lookit that.

A semi actually fell off the elevated part of the highway and burst into a ball of flaming wreckage in someone's front lawn. The crap all over the highway where the dude is walking is, apparently, iron nuggets. Who knew there was a need to transport iron nuggets via the nation's highways?

Guess I better find another route home from work tonight.

Photo credit: Some dude at The Cincinnati Enquirer (sorry, couldn't find his name when I went back to look for it...)

The days of NES

My good friend Cara has come (from New Mexico) and gone (to Dayton). It was great to see her. I'll get to see her again in a couple of weeks when she comes back through Cincinnati on her way back to New Mexico. While she was here, we got drunk and played a whole load of old Nintendo games--including Bubble Bobble, Tetris, many incarnations of Mario, and something called Caveman Games, which I had never played. I went into hysterics during the part of the game where you rub two sticks together to start a fire. Nothing has struck my funny bone that solid a jab in a long time, and it was great to actually fall over onto the floor laughing and snorting and giggling nearly to the point of losing bladder control. I can't remember the last time I laughed that hard.

We also went out to The Dock and Cara got blatantly felt up by a drag queen, but that's probably a story for another post.

Christmas shopping continues. I bought M one of these, which was not an entirely unselfishly motivated gift, heh heh. In general I feel pretty satisfied with the gifts I've gotten everyone on my list, although I wish I could afford to give them more, as always. M's parents kinda crack me up; his mother makes it very clear when she disapproves of things that we do (she was *not* a happy camper when we moved in together, especially since it was just three months after we'd met), but she is very generous too, and we have thus far gotten extraordinarily generous gifts from them, so I always feel bad that I can never live up to returning their generosity, at least not financially. I mean, they know we're not financially at a point in our lives where we can afford to give them the kinds of gifts they give us, so it's okay--but you know how it is when someone out-gives you. Feels kinda...mleh.

Your comments on the music post were all so good--definitely gave me food for thought, in particular the comments of Saphenous and Adeline. But all of you had such interesting perspectives on why we listen to music, what about it appeals to us, and how it plays on emotion. Thanks all for weighing in!

Here's a picture I took while I was riding the bus (for three and a half hours) during the snowstorm. It appeals to me a great deal--and it was utterly uncomposed, I literally put the camera against the bus window and pressed the shutter button, so I can't claim a whole lot of skill was involved. It's not edited at all either--not very impressive small but if you click the photo you can see the larger version. I like the tone of it. The mood. The feel. The music in it. :)

Lunchbreak

I've been listening to music all morning while I've been working, which I sometimes can do and sometimes can't. And I've been thinking about the experience of music, and why it appeals so much to us. I guess there are a few notable exceptions, but in general, animals don't seem to enjoy it the way we do (my dogs, in fact, seem downright annoyed whenever I put anything on at home, from Ani DiFranco to Beethoven to bluegrass; they leave the room). Must be a linear thought thing. Or maybe dogs make their own music, and I'm just not in tune.

The thing about music for me is that it's sometimes dangerous--which is why I can't always listen to it. I'm curious about your experience of music too. I'll get to that.

Let's see if I can explain "dangerous." I let emotion control me more than I ought to--because I don't know how not to. I don't know if I feel things harder than the people around me, or if they've somehow developed better ways to quash what they're feeling than I have, or if they just know how to not show it, if it's some combination of these, but, let's just say, it makes me feel alienated most of the time. Or rather, I let it make me feel that way, when I really just don't know if it's all in my head or what.

For instance, I usually feel a great need to get the hell out of the office at least once during the day, preferably for as long as possible. I don't know a single other person at this office who goes on four-mile walks during lunch. The most anyone else does is about two miles, and that's the exception rather than the rule, and it's generally to get food at some place downtown. While I do like to get exercise for the sake of staying healthy, that's not why I go on these walks. I go on them because I have to if I'm going to get through the rest of my day without some sort of pressure clamp popping in my noggin. Mental restlessness = a buildup of emotion = the inability to do my geek-related toiling in obscurity thing at my desk, here. If I tire my body out some, and let my brain rove over and through whatever topics and emotions it needs to while my feet move me, I can handle the rest of the day better (i.e., I feel less pointless, less directionless, less...crappy). (Of course this effect wears off in a couple hours, but sometimes that's all I need.)

So. After twenty-eight years of being an emotional basket case, I've learned a few techniques for hiding it from my fellow bipeds, and a few techniques to wear it off some so it's not such a struggle to hide it. But listening to music is kind of like playing with fire. When I listen, all the colors and flavors of mood that I'm feeling throughout the day start having a lot more substance--and they wind up attaching themselves to memories of times when I've had those same emotions and moods in the past, which means, I sit at my desk proofreading and listening to Royksopp and suddenly instead of being at my desk, I'm in the deep end of the pool playing sharks and minnows with a bunch of other ten-year-old kids and wishing, again, that I felt like I belonged in the place where I was. Or I'm standing on the train tracks as an eight-year-old in the bad part of town my grandparents lived in, and it's cold and the sky is gray and the tracks are brown and the smell of their metal is sticking in my throat and I feel like the gravel on the ground is in my heart and stomach, and there's a kid a few houses away in a tired, small yard blanketed in dead grass and car parts and he's yelling at me and I want to be away from there but there's nowhere else to go.

It makes it hard to keep my mind on my job. It's not the words of what I'm listening to that do it, it's the combination of sounds that's layered together to make what we call "music," which in a lot of cases in my body takes on the same meaning as the word "mood." And a mood isn't just something I feel, it's something I taste and inhale, too--it has a color, a substance. This isn't always bad--sometimes it's overwhelmingly joyous, which is in fact more difficult to contain than when it's overwhelmingly sad or painful.

But. The fact is, it can cross into "overwhelmingly" more often than I want it to. So I have to watch it, with the music.

And I'm wondering if this is what music is like for everyone. People listen to music because they like it (they must, or else why would they do it voluntarily?)--but why do we like it? Is it because it makes us feel feelings stronger? And, for most people, that's kind of nice, but for me, it's not always nice because I don't handle it very well?

Why do you listen to music? Why do you like it? What do you like about the artists you like? The lyrics? The total sound? The mood? The way it makes you feel? How it distracts you? How it focuses you?

Double-tagged

I got tagged for the same meme twice, from Deputy's Wife and Aquarelita, so I guess I'd better get up on this bad boy. The meme requests bits of information people aren't likely to know about me. Aquarelita wants twelve and Deputy's Wife wants five, and since I've been awake for a long time, I'm going to go with five and call it a night (sorry BG!).

1) I live in a house that has something like eight or nine guns in it. Currently, I don't know where the key to the gun safe is, and I'm happy not knowing that information, even though...

2) I enjoy firing a gun. (Shh, vegetarians aren't supposed to!)

3) I sympathize overmuch with the victims of violence. Particularly animal victims. I'm sometimes utterly overcome with this sick sensation, thinking of abused dogs. The miasma of agony that goes through my head sticks with me for days sometimes and I feel like rotting fruit. While I sympathize with groups that work to, say, stop the breeding of pit bulls for fighting, or eliminate animal testing as much as possible, I'm paralyzed into inaction by the suffering I'm exposed to when I try to find information about what I can do to help. I'm ashamed that I'm so affected by what I see and by what I feel that I literally lose my sense of hearing or my ability to detect the passage of time. What good is this sympathy if it's so strong I can't act to help alleviate the source of suffering?

4) I like to Photoshop my dogs' heads onto each other's bodies. The results never turn out good but they make me laugh.

5) I am so fucking lonely. And I have no one and nothing but myself to blame.

It probably doesn't read like it but lol, coming up with those five things just took about half an hour (people don't know that shit [except number 4] for a reason, eh?) so I'm not going to tag anybody else with this, unless Hu wants to do it, because he's such a man of mystery :-). (Hi, Hu.)

My friend Cara is flying in on Wednesday to stay for a few days. I'm happy about that. I need the connection, and I miss her. She's the greatest.

Goin' to bed.

Now entering...

The EX hall of shame. I can't believe I'm posting this, lol...

These are pictures of pictures, since I don't have a scanner, so the quality is terrible. But here are some of my exes.

First girl I kissed.
Crazy Hungarian. Didn't last long. I got a trip to Budapest out of it though. Ended messy.

Ah yes, senior year of college. I miss this gal.

First years of college. This guy had gorgeous hair and liked to hurt himself. I took this photo in the bedroom of...
...this girl, who broke my heart repeatedly over a number of years. I harbor her no ill will, though. Well, not really. I just think she's a fool. :)

Some lol. Hoo, that was a silly mess. Lol!

A pretty long-term guy, for me. Couple years. I think he's married now. Ended *reeeeaaal* bad.

This guy broke my heart good, but I deserved it.

A guy I could've had a lot more fun with than I did, if it weren't for his *absolutely insanely jealous* best friend who did all he could to split us up. Man that guy was a nutter. And yes, in that middle frame, he's doing what you think he's doing.

And this guy. Awful purdy to look at, but an emotional train wreck. (Ha ha! Even worse than me, ha ha!) In denial about a lot of stuff.

So there you have it--or a small percentage of it, anyway. All in all, lookin' at this, I'm really glad to have M in my life now. He's a keeper.

Fourteen more shopping days 'till Christmas, kids!

(slinks off in embarassment)

Oh it's so chilly willy!

I had the *worst commute ever* on Thursday, and *almost* thought about taking back everything nice I ever said about snow.

But I still like it. It's purdy.

I am plannin' on posting the storie of the worst commute ever, if I can thaw my fingers out long enough to type it up.

Also up on tap for a future-soon post: The EX HALL OF SHAME. I was going through photo albums the other night and took pictures of my picutres of my exes, giggling madly. Oh, remember how that one broke my heart! Remember how I broke that one's heart! Remember how I found that forehead, nay fivehead, attractive! Lol!

Oh, will warmth ever return...

So at work, I've been asked to proof a new-business pitch to a company that sells a certain kind of food. A food in the meat group.

As you may know from the shameless propaganda slathered all over my sidebar, I am a vegetarian. And I have pretty strong feelings about being a vegetarian. Believing also in a Buddhist philosophy, I try not to judge others for eating animals; I will never eat animals again, but it's a moral choice each person needs to make for him- or herself, and it's not for me to say another person is bad for choosing to decide that eating animals is not a morally reprehensible thing to do. If you eat animals, that's your moral choice, and while I disagree with you about that choice, I'm not going to hold myself in higher moral regard, or disassociate myself from you because of it. (Lol, I wouldn't have many friends if I did that...)

As far as go the companies that farm and kill animals and market them as commodities for consumption, I do disagree with that. It's wrong to breed animals, make them and their offspring live in absolutely inhumane conditions, and then to slaughter them and sell them to make a profit, never considering that those animals might, once or twice in their short lives, like to maybe breathe air not tainted by the odors of the feces of their bodies and those of their cellmates, or, say, might want to stand up and turn around once in a while. It completely devalues life. I take far, far less issue with the eating of animals that were raised humanely, in conditions that are the opposite of those in the factory farms where most animals are raised for the American meat industry. Quality of life is important.

So in a small way, my moral standards are up against my desire for a steady paycheck. By proofreading this stuff that promotes the eating of factory-farmed animals, I feel complicit. I'm pretty sure that if I talked to my boss and said I was more than happy to work on other projects but that I find working on this one to be against my beliefs and moral code, he'd be cool with it and have someone else do it. He's a really great guy and very understanding. Also, his wife is a vegetarian. He knows that the people who choose to not eat animals usually do so because of strong convictions.

What stinks, though, is that my not doing the project isn't making any difference. It just means one of the other proofers will do it, and it will still get done, and there will be banner ads and websites and such, grammatically correct ones, out there tempting people to go buy this "product" (i.e. animal), take it home, grill it up, and consume it. My objection makes no difference. It just gives my coworkers more to do, which makes me feel guilty.

But dammit, I don't have to be the one to do this job. I don't.

This probably sounds like a bigger deal than it is. It's just a small blip on the long, tedious road of my employment at an advertising agency. (Thank you, oh mighty job market, for crashing just as I graduated college with a liberal arts degree.) It tosses a little more fuel on the fire of my longing to get out of here and do something more meaningful with my life.

It's somethin' to think about, anyway.

C'mon, snow...

Giggity giggity gi...oh wait.

Don't let the geeks have free time at work.

Recent pictures:

A snowflake. There was paper, there was scissors, there were a few folds and snips, and then... there was a snowflake! Rumor has it we're getting a few inches of snow on Thursday--yee-haw! I (heart) snow. Except when I have to drive downtown in it. But it's still purdy. It makes me sing real loud.

Aaaaannnd...

The geek and the cop. Ain't we a cute couple? My ma gave us this little set last year for Christmas. May God strike me dead if I ever wear a candy-cane striped tie though. Ha ha!

I think we're going to go see that Aeon Flux movie tonight. I'm generally not one to imbibe pop culture a whole lot, but put Charlize in shiny tight black things and give the girl some weapons and I'm sure to be there front and center. Plus Sophie Okonendo is in it, and she did mighty fine work in Hotel Rwanda.

Woop woop.

Snow! Just think! :)

You know you got drunk last night when

• you wake up with a hankering for an egg sandwich at five in the morning
• you wake back up at nine with a hangover
  
• you find a Christmas-tree ornament that says "1986" on it in your pantry, complete with teethmarks from one of the dogs
• you go in the living room and notice there is a silver garland wadded up and stuck to the Christmas tree like it's been thrown at it
• Steve the dog is sporting Christmas bling, in the form of a rainbow hot-air balloon ornament tied to his collar.

I had an adventure yesterday when I was putting up Christmas lights. I got the extension ladder out and propped it up on the side of the house, and while I was climbing up it, a branch from one of the bushes over there caught on my coat and then snapped back and hit me right in the eye. Stung like a futhermucker. I had to take my contact out and go around in my dorky glasses the rest of the night with tears oozing out my eye. Cutting up onions for dinner when you have scratched the tar out of your eye is not a good idea, kids.

I made a story on Flickr. You can look at it if'n you want to. Worth a laff.

I took a lot of pictures of ice today but I'm too cold and tired to post them now so I'm going to get in bed. Perhaps I shall post them tomorrow, if I don't have a case of the Mondays.

Too cold for trampoline tricks today

Ice storm last night. Everything's frozen. When I go outside, the air sounds sharp and crackly, as if there are ghosts all through the neighborhood, chipping away at the ice. But it's just the wind cracking it off tree branches and telephone wires.

Better post comin' soon...

Yee-owsers. The meme.

Thank you all for the compliments on my trumpet photos. :) If I don't watch it, I'm going to wind up with a swelled head here.

I now have artwork up at Ciani's Cafe in Ft. Thomas. Any of you locals, feel free to stop by, have some coffee, look at some pictures.

So I did this meme that Adeline tagged me with. Here are my answers:

Three things that you wish you were good at but are either not good at all or just so-so:

1) Math. It would be sexy to have wild math skills. Currently, I stink at it. 2) Running. 3) Singing.

Three of your favorite songs to dance around in ya undapants to:

1) Kale by Osman Isman (on Buddha Bar III) 2) The Katamari Damacy theme song 3) This punk cover of "Build Me Up Buttercup" that I have.

The name of your favorite teacher, what grade, subject and WHY (can be a professor too).

My senior capstone creative writing professor. He opened my eyes to all sorts of possibility. He seemed to have great confidence in my writing abilities too. I feel lucky to have taken his class.

Three things that you are inexplicably good at, for better or for worse.

1) Takin' pictures 2) Writing, when I'm on form 3) Skating.

Your top 3 favorite breakfast cereals, if none, your idea of the perfect breakfast.

1) Life cereal. 2) Life cereal. 3) Life cereal. Mmmmm, I love Life cereal.

Top three destinations, places you gotta see before you die and WHY.

1) Sub-Saharan Africa. I've wanted to go there since I was old enough to recognize Africa as a place as far away as you can get without starting to come back. 2) India, anywhere, because--God, it's so huge and different. 3) One of those beaches where the sand is white and the water is crystal-clear and there's nobody else around.

Name a huge turning point in your life, something that happened and after that everything was different. What was different? Why?

When my brother broke his neck. I wrote a post about it; if you're really interested you can read it here.

On a scale of 1 to 10, are you a good kisser? Pursuant to this, does it matter? (what is your opinion)

Lawd knows. I ain't never kissed myself to tell. In fact, if I met myself in a dark alley, I think I'd be a lot more inclined to try to beat the shit out of me to see how good I fight than to kiss me to see how good I kiss.

What is your best feature? Your worst? (intentionally vague here)

When I'm nice, I'm really really nice, and when I'm mean, I'm awful.

Are you a night person or a morning person?

Probably morning--that's when I do my best photography and writing. I don't really know. The lines get blurred sometimes, and everything blends together.

Fill in the blank: "There is nothing better than _______ after a long hard day of work."

Coming home to dogs who are so overjoyed to see me that they knock me over and talk about it and lick me and tell me about how they barked at the mailman and called my mom's dog, Sam, on the phone and how much they wanted to go chase that squirrel out of the yard but they couldn't because they can't figure out how the latch on the sliding glass door works.

I'm tagging You, You, and You. (You know who you are, mua ha ha ha)

Fridays are good. I'll take two, please.

Oh P.S.: My friend Hu told me about this video. Check it out. It's neat-o.