Tuesday, September 29, 2009

I don't remember what I've said when, and really I'm not in a place to go back and trace all my words over the last month, but there's a good chance I'm about to repeat myself. I thought I should warn you in case you see a pattern repeating itself and got concerned you were in some weird sci fi short story suddenly where the Hadron Collider magically directly impacted your life. No, friend, it is not that. It's just that I am this freakin' tired and I just want to run a constant stream of consciousness on to the page here. My thoughts, and therefore my words, tend to be circular. So we may revisit some old topics here.
My grandmother died. I know I mentioned that somewhere. I believe I even ruminated on death and how that just appears to be "it", for lack of a better word. Everything that you are just stops cold. If there's no one else around to recall that or pass it along, then that's it. Just like the end of Blade Runner, which always brings me to tears. Tears in the rain, as it were.
September has been a hell of a month. I am usually incredibly busy in September but this just took the cake for wtfscheduling. It was a combination of forethought and planning, last minute additions, and at least one "Well, this happened and we have to deal with it RIGHT NOW." Went to Maine with my now-husband (which makes it sound like I intend to have a different one in a few minutes. Funny, but not true.) for 4 days of romance and reminiscing that I'm glad we got to have. My grandmother died, so we got together as a family and put her in the ground and I watched grown men cry who have never done anything but been sarcastic the majority of their lives. We drove around to see old schools and houses, and it was fun to get a feel for the area and see everything like this. There was a thin veneer of goodbye as much as there was one of passing info along to the next generation. I did wonder in passing if my Mom was attempting to butt up against the eventual loss of information by showing us everything. I did that before with Bob, showing him my old report cards and items from kindergarten and dance outfits from past recitals. I understand that.
The house I was born in, by the way, was probably flooded out in the rains this past week, and it was fucking eerie to know and be reminded of that on the news. I had newfound concern for something weather-related. It's not my house, but I feared it would be destroyed. Silly, isn't it?
I got married, on top of everything else. It was incredibly fun, but even as I sit here I worry that I didn't spend enough time with people individually or properly thanked them all for coming. At ~some~ point this week I would like to sit down and write thank you notes to people for coming. But all that aside, the end result is that I am hitched to an awesome man -and I mean the dictionary definition of awesome, thanks much- who I love and who appears to really think highly of me in return.
I became a vegetarian. I decided to NOT cut all ties with my family because they were not, as imagined, jerks to me when I showed up in Georgia. In fact, I'm wishing to reach out to all of them, just no idea how. We both got sick and spent our first week hacking and coughing and being miserable. We decided we wanted to rearrange our lives around a puppy, the first level of scary responsibility. I may take up NaNoWriMo again in November. I may knit the hubby a sweater, which I have never done before. And all the meanwhile I'm still going to school and changing topics every 5 weeks with blinding speed. Yet I'm managing a B at this point.
In short... I am doing a LOT. I'm doing it all within a short time span. And I appear to be surviving it.
I'll keep you posted on how this all goes. Now that I've had this brain-dump to get it all sorted and in writing actual thoughts might return to me instead of reactions to things going on, and that would be nice. Leads to smiling more often.
I'm tired. I think there's more but for now... at'll do. That's what my brain wants to part with.

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Caught a Lite Sneeze

I really didn't plan for any of this to happen, I must be honest. When I set out umpteen billion years ago (really, I'm that old) I thought to myself that just because there's no path doesn't mean there will always not be a path, and surely something will arise. Surely. That's what they promise in the books they sell and the music they sing and the shows they broadcast. Your life's purpose is filled with Joy and Laughter and will Just Feel Right when you hit it.
It is, my friends, utter bullshit. It is also an alarmingly popular industry to tell people they need to have a point to exist. It isn't that they don't have a point, it's that the existing pre..well...exists... the point. You already ARE. You are HERE. You are NOW. So... do something with it. If it's scratching your ass, penning an Aria or flipping someone off in traffic, you know... that is THE point. Whatever you're doing right now is pretty much what you're meant to be doing. Everything on earth and in the heavens has converged on that place in time and space and all roads have led to whatever action you take. Do whatever. There is no "right" path. There's only the path you choose to forge ahead on because it seems like the best direction to go. Become a senator, become a stripper, don't work at all and live off your parents. Whatever. It's a moment in time perpetually and it's YOURS.
Just... try your best not to hurt anybody with it, it's the best and most we can ask of and do for each other.
I have made no secret that my path doesn't exist. I have come to believe that in this life I reflect more of those around me and the location I have currently come to rest in than I have actually had personal will or means. My hobbies come and go, my interests come and go. I collect knowledge like some philatelists store bits of paper and glue in large tomes heavy with the weight of time and history. I just know stuff and remember stuff. It's what my head does best, acquiring tricks and talents and bits and bobs of knowledge for use later on. It has never NOT come in useful later on, something that to this day amuses me, but not so much as it scares me a bit. There's no path, yet I'm always prepared with skills I needed, learned years before. I sometimes wonder if predestination isn't something I should've dismissed out of hand years ago when these things happen.
All of this seems like a build up to something big and scary and momentous, and on one hand Yes. The other, No. Parts of me are well aware that I wander because I enjoy it and love the freedom to pick up and leave things as I needed to know or be known to them. This included people, to a degree, though they have proven far harder to pick back up again and forced a revision in how I act towards them. They aren't resources like books, you see, to be re-checked out of the library. People remember when you disappear for 3 years and are shocked when you're suddenly happy to see them again. It's hard to explain, and I'm fairly sure few will understand that it was a Big Stupid Misunderstanding on my part.
An outgrowth of this free-flowing form was that I dropped my degree as easily as some people set down the jar of mayonnaise they decide not to buy at the supermarket. I couldn't deal with it, didn't like it anymore, and learned everything I thought I could from it and moved on. Per usual, the true lessons of the time made themselves known later and had nothing to do with the schooling itself.
See...I got married. And it was beautiful and joyous and happy and I have never been so certain that I wanted to stay with another person in my life. Everyone has agreed that it's an excellent match, and I am grateful to have found another human being that can keep up with me tit for tat and give as well as he gets. I'm not a religious person, so it carries weight when I say that I am blessed to be with my husband and share a life with him. There is a level of intimacy that I haven't experience with another human being since I physically separated from my mother's body at birth and something that was, until I met him and was willing to open myself up to him, incomprehensible to me. I was me. The rest of the world was there to be experimented with and learned from then on to the next thing. Rinse, repeat.
Except that somewhere in the last few months something that might be called a miracle happened. I stopped. I slowed down. I held out my hand when he held out his and agreed to stop in this time and place and just be. Be happy. Be safe. Be friends and lovers and philosophers together. I was resistant to the idea, thinking of the freedoms I loved, the ability to just drift off to something different and test drive life there. But not this time. This time he was there and I realized I wanted to come to rest. And in his arms, next to his heart, was the best place I could conceive of.
What I didn't know in my wanderlust was that I had a great overview of many things, but a depth of knowledge in none of them. The longer I stay the more I see that it isn't really giving up one thing for another, just adjusting how I intercept my data, run my experiments, gather my knowledge. You see, despite what many women grumble about with men making them settle down, I didn't. I asked him if I could stop and be with him, and he agreed. We talked, realized it would be a nice thing to start drifting more slowly, together, and tied the knot.
I could go on about the kind of person it would take to bring me to a screeching halt, considering the normal life of a house, a dog and kids. These thoughts weren't even a part of my life until I met him. It's scary, but the "what if??"s are having a field day and I still enjoy the thrill of future-prospecting in my spare time. Me as a mother. Me as a homeowner. Me as an equal partner with a man that challenges me and makes things fun. Uncertainty is a nice bedfellow and I am enjoying it even as it makes me stumble in doubt. Seeing a general outline of a plan has given me pause for once.
That being said, I am very happy to be where I'm at. Overjoyed, in fact. I had no way of knowing I would be here when I first started to wander in my teenagedom. And even as I rest here I know that what appears to be permanent is not. Small things will shift, move, disappear, reappear and just bugger off entirely. Right now, though, it's wonderful to be a part of something that relies on me for gestalt, but could get along without me.
As an aside my first weekend spent with my husband was done in bed, but for less than salacious reasons. We were both very sick and spent most of it sleeping near each other, hobbling about and getting each other tea or theraflu or hot foods to try and make ourselves feel better. If the Universe is listening, we do not need to stress-test the rest of the vows, we're good here. Thanks.

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

What's in a name?

Hard to believe I'll be married in 4 days. Never have I been so happy to get rid of a collection of letters in exchange for others. Learning to write my new name should be interesting.
The part of me that's a feminist wants to rail about changing my last name. Why should I just because it's traditional?? that part of my mind thinks. Are you his property? Is his name better?? Why are you just going along with the flow on this when you fought against every other wedded and married convention just to DO this whole act?
And I sit back, completely at east, and smile. Why? Because I did it once before while trying to go through the whole juggernaut of the wedding industry, holding on to tradition, and I'm stuck with the awful moniker that I have to look at every day.
My new last name will be beautiful and lilting. It'll hint at Europe, take up the beat and phrasing of my first name, and rolls off the tongue in a friendly dual-syllabic song. It announces itself sharply, then trails off in to softness. I'd like to think it's indicative of my life as a whole. It will replace the stentorian mono-syllable bark that is my current last name, and good riddance.
It is with that thought that I tell my inner femininst to sit down and shut up. You see, blindly following a tradition is stupid. Knowing that it's there, knowing that you have the ability to NOT follow it, but are choosing to, completely negates anything negative that might cling to it. I want his name because I love him and it's the single best way I can show I truly want to be one with him.

I could write an entire other post on the funeral I attended last Friday. About family coming together, and seeing things I've never seen before. Also about the nature of assumptions and the refusal to follow the teachings about change in all things. It'll probably never get entered, since so much is going on this week, but I wanted to mention it, in case it triggers my brain at some point. I've made a mistake and I have no idea how to fix it, but it'll have to be done for a lot of people.

I think that's enough for now.

Actual Conversation #77 ~ where the importance of proper ascii art in conveying emotions is depicted.

me: <3
OUr love is like a triceratops
Docile, friendly, very large, and fucking awesome.
gru: Awwwww that's the sweetest thing evar!
me: I'm trying to figure out how to make an ascii triceratops now
gru: Yeah, got me.
me: )\)\
<'' }
Huh.
Crapola
gru: You tried though! :-)
me: ))\
{<'' }""""""")
grrr...
This WILL happen
gru: I know it!
I believe in the power of our triceratops love!
Sent at 1:08 PM on Wednesday
me: .
)\)\/""""""\
<'' } }=~
* (_)---(_)
....close enough
And yes. I just spent 6 minutes on that
.
...)\)\/""""\
<'' }...........}=~
.....(_)---(_)
There we go!! WIN! FUCKING WIN! YES!
gru: NICE!!! \\O//

Monday, September 14, 2009

Actual Conversation #76 ~ wherein talk of man babies and men who act like babies is had.

me: Wow... the internet really hates Kanye West this morning.
gru: Lol, what he do now?
me: And rightfully so after reading the story.
Taylor Swift got an award last night over Beyonce.
Taylor Swift actually writes her own songs and creates the melody in the very least. She doesn't sing the songs of other people.
Kanye West jumped up in the middle of her acceptance speech, stole the mike, and started talking about how talented Beyonce was and how her video should have been the one to win.
Taylor Swift is still a teenager. He totally ruined it for her by being a dick.
gru: Wow, that it indeed being a total dick, yeah.
me: @joshuagates This Wednesday, tune in to Syfy for an all new epis...YO I'LL LET YOU FINISH, BUT BEYONCE HAD ONE OF THE BEST VIDEOS OF ALL TIME...
Actual tweet.
:D
gru: chuckles
me: I love Josh.
If you die, I will seek him out to have his strange car-destroying, animal-fighting man babies.
gru: I..have no response for that. Instead I will mention we now have pumpkin flavored coffee in the office.
me: Rock!

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Actual Conversation #75 - Because I Absolutely, Positively Fucking HATE Zombies. Period.

gru: Baby?
me: Yes sweetie?
(Sorry, I was slamming all the tickets in the queues. And I am now done with ALL of the tickets. Queues are empty)
gru: No problem :-)
Let's say, hypothically, I had something I wanted to tell you.
Let's also say, again hypothically, I was concerned how you'd take it.
me: Do you have rabies?!?!
gru: No.
me: Oh okay then.
grud: How would you, at this moment, rate your psyche? Let's say on a scale of 0 - 100 with 100 being total metaphysical imperviability and 0 being a good sneeze away from complete and total cthulonian barking mad.
me: Give me a minute.
I'm still turning over "cthulonian barking mad"
gru: Take your time.
me: I'd say I'm probably in the 70's. I'm tired but I'm not nuts.
gru: Alright, that works. Thank you.
I take it gamespy is still blocked for you. So I'll just post this.
The game's just hit retail stores in the States, and already Cryptic Studios has announced plans to release the first live content patch for the game late in October.

Dubbed Blood Moon, the patch will introduce a zombie apocalypse in Canada (nice!) among other things:There is a chill wind blowing through Millennium City. It's late October and the moon has taken on a sinister aspect, staining the sky a bloody red. The superhero Witchcraft, of the Champions, warns that this is a dire portent of an approaching mystical threat. There have been sightings of strange creatures emerging across the world, those of savage werewolves and flesh-craving zombies. Even worse, they bear with them the tidings of a great evil returning to the world... Takofanes, the Undying Lord!The official teaser site goes into more detail about some of the new powers, monsters and challenges that await. Stick with us for the consensus on Champions Online very soon.
me: *begins barking*
gru: Yeah...I knew I should have held out for the 80's.
me: OMG TEH ZOMBEES WILL ET MEH!