I guess you can't really call it "playing," since I only did one little twirl and that was about the end of anything playful, but I went out in the rain just now and walked around, letting the water soak into everything, looking up at the lights still on in the building, including my own; I wanted to see how well people could see into my room. Not well, it turns out, since it's high up and partly blocked by a tall pine tree. This's a good thing, though, in all respects except that the tree also blocks part of my view outward.
And then I went to brush my teeth, and in the bathroom, besides the disturbing appearance of the ledge under our mirror having apparently turned into either a breeding or dying ground for insects (I can't figure out which, but maybe we should shut the window in there), there were also several post-it notes, labeling various bathroom items in Spanish. I was quite amused, and wished I had my own post-its so I could label a few of the things they didn't, whoever they are.
So the first day of classes went well enough. I've got, like, the most self-babying 16-credit schedule possible (well, taking into account that I have to be in some 300-levels, and not just all 100s or whatever), so any other outcome was going to be difficult. And about those two 300-levels, both English courses: each professor's first order of business was pretty much to cancel the midterms. I still have to write papers, and that will be a pain, but hey, they could've assigned both, so I still come out ahead on this.
I get to stay up late and sleep in and have free time, like freshman year all over again, and hang out with friends and go to Wal-Mart and do cooking projects, and, lo! several friends have easyish schedules, too, and we'll all be more rested and more content and together, and the whole prospect makes me so happy I can hardly stand it. Maybe I'm lazy after all, but I like to think that it's really just a return to more carefree days. I mean, parts of this summer really sucked. People died, and people had bad things happen, and the outside world had crappy things go on, too. Part of me feels like it's escapism, making myself happier just by planning to make bread or something.
Part of me doesn't give a crap what it is and wants to go to bed, and it's to that part I listen right now. ...You home friends should come if you can. Especially in another month or so, when autumn busts out all over. There's your invitation.
-Laurel
8.29.2005
8.28.2005
Updates, updates all around
I'd like to sleep, but also to write; I have a feeling I'll have better luck with the latter.
Okay, so I had all these things to write about, but most of them I've now blanked out on, so I'll start with what's at the top of my head and hopefully work deeper. If not, ah well.
Firstly: the kid from the other night, who said the stuff, is one of my "own" transfer students, as it turns out, even assigned to one of my buildings, though I think Lily Jo was there instead of me when he moved in. I don't remember ever bugging him to offer help or anything, but if I did, maybe he was sick of my trying, and maybe that's why he lectured me, since I do still consider it a lecture. I don't know anymore whether I had it coming, or whether I took it harder than I should have. Erica (my director), having heard the story elsewhere, questioned me a little about it, since she was concerned. That was good of her, though I didn't really know what to say.
He's an art student, at least; after today I shouldn't see much of him anymore.
Maybe I should move my bed, on another note, away from the window. The window doesn't face east, but I'm discovering that it doesn't have to, and it's not like I need more ways to lose sleep. The only question would be, to where in this small room would I move it? The electrical outlets really can't be moved.
Today is the transfer picnic and I can't take Kathy to church like I said I would, so that's a giant bummer. Here are two things that are giant anti-bummers, however: 1) Death by Chocolate is tonight; 2) everyone I've heard from in APO is happy that I've made contact with the Girl Scouts for some projects this year, which means that I managed to do what Nationals wants and still do what the chapter wants. This is quite exciting.
Also: cinnamon Teddy Grahams + mother's homemade strawberry jam = unlikely combination of total deliciousness. I need to buy more of those grahams now.
-Laurel
Okay, so I had all these things to write about, but most of them I've now blanked out on, so I'll start with what's at the top of my head and hopefully work deeper. If not, ah well.
Firstly: the kid from the other night, who said the stuff, is one of my "own" transfer students, as it turns out, even assigned to one of my buildings, though I think Lily Jo was there instead of me when he moved in. I don't remember ever bugging him to offer help or anything, but if I did, maybe he was sick of my trying, and maybe that's why he lectured me, since I do still consider it a lecture. I don't know anymore whether I had it coming, or whether I took it harder than I should have. Erica (my director), having heard the story elsewhere, questioned me a little about it, since she was concerned. That was good of her, though I didn't really know what to say.
He's an art student, at least; after today I shouldn't see much of him anymore.
Maybe I should move my bed, on another note, away from the window. The window doesn't face east, but I'm discovering that it doesn't have to, and it's not like I need more ways to lose sleep. The only question would be, to where in this small room would I move it? The electrical outlets really can't be moved.
Today is the transfer picnic and I can't take Kathy to church like I said I would, so that's a giant bummer. Here are two things that are giant anti-bummers, however: 1) Death by Chocolate is tonight; 2) everyone I've heard from in APO is happy that I've made contact with the Girl Scouts for some projects this year, which means that I managed to do what Nationals wants and still do what the chapter wants. This is quite exciting.
Also: cinnamon Teddy Grahams + mother's homemade strawberry jam = unlikely combination of total deliciousness. I need to buy more of those grahams now.
-Laurel
8.25.2005
-no comments, please-
Everyone's alive. But today has been a very bad day. Part of it wasn't really for any good reason. Part of it was.
I don't know how I expect to save the world or anything like. I don't know how I can ever be in service as a career when one unthinking comment--not exactly cruel, except under the circumstances--on one bad day makes me cry. My dad thinks I can't do it; I don't want him to be right.
I have encountered, this summer, so much pain in my family, my friends, my city, and it's frightening; how can I take on anything bigger?
And how can you, you there who was all alone, sit through a program--and a darn good one, not hackneyed at all--on being helpful, being sensitive to others, being kind, and then take somebody overworked and lecture them for apparently only trying to help because they went to a program? I don't care how philosophical you were, it still hurt, a lot.
I'm sorry if my intentions weren't pure enough for you, whoever you were. But I shouldn't have to reinvent the wheel to be a kind person. I should be able to leapfrog off of others. I've had a long week and I'm very tired, and I'm desperately frustrated with my inability to remain unchanged under those circumstances. I should have sought you out before, and I am sorry I did not. But please don't punish me for trying to fix it. That won't help. That is far from helpful, and I am looking for anything helpful right now. We all are.
-Laurel
I don't know how I expect to save the world or anything like. I don't know how I can ever be in service as a career when one unthinking comment--not exactly cruel, except under the circumstances--on one bad day makes me cry. My dad thinks I can't do it; I don't want him to be right.
I have encountered, this summer, so much pain in my family, my friends, my city, and it's frightening; how can I take on anything bigger?
And how can you, you there who was all alone, sit through a program--and a darn good one, not hackneyed at all--on being helpful, being sensitive to others, being kind, and then take somebody overworked and lecture them for apparently only trying to help because they went to a program? I don't care how philosophical you were, it still hurt, a lot.
I'm sorry if my intentions weren't pure enough for you, whoever you were. But I shouldn't have to reinvent the wheel to be a kind person. I should be able to leapfrog off of others. I've had a long week and I'm very tired, and I'm desperately frustrated with my inability to remain unchanged under those circumstances. I should have sought you out before, and I am sorry I did not. But please don't punish me for trying to fix it. That won't help. That is far from helpful, and I am looking for anything helpful right now. We all are.
-Laurel
8.22.2005
8.20.2005
I couldn't help wondering if this was as funny in heaven as on earth.
So it was supposed to take two minutes to donate four bags of clothes to the church clothing drive, and took about twelve. This is because no one was in the church but me.
Back in the eighth grade, Mrs. DiPonzio had told us a story about the loss of trust in America, saying that once she'd tried to get into a church at night to pray for a friend, and found all the doors locked, because it's getting to the point where things get vandalized if you don't. (Just ask the Catholic church where I went to preschool. Three guys from my school, if I'm not mistaken, made all kinds of vandalistic trouble in there a couple of months ago.) It turns out that in my church, you actually can get to every major area in the building, but you've got to know how to do it.
And you've got to be carrying or wearing things you can prop doors with.
Coming in through the main door but finding the primary door towards the "clothing ministry" room locked, I started looking for alternate ones. The inside door from the main foyer, leading to the sanctuary, was unlocked. I pushed that open and figured I'd take the route past the nursery, down those little mini-stairs, through the children's wing, and back up into the clothing room, which's right near one of the nursery's "exit-only" doors. Except that both doors in that area were locked. So on my way back, I noticed that in the main foyer, a different staircase leading downstairs had no door to lock, so, still carrying my three bags, I went down there.
Now I was on the path I just mentioned, a level under where I needed to be, but the door leading to those stairs up was locked, too. However, a fan was operating in the construction area (we're still adding on, good gracious), and, curious, I decided to follow that passage and see where it led.
The majority of the church's lights were off, incidentally, but the only unlocked door past the construction (which is all enclosed, being in what's more or less the basement) led to a lit staircase. I opened the door and tried it from the other side, making sure that it wouldn't lock behind me. Even though the handle did, indeed, turn all the way, I still felt a little jumpy when I went through and heard it shut heavily behind me--if I ended up locked in here, it would be a long darn time before I was found; there was no one, as far as I could tell, in the building. (However, come to think of it, had I gone missing for a long time, it would have been easy to get a lead on my location, because my car was still outside the church with flashers on, as it was temporary parking.)
But the door at the top of the stairs opened, and I found myself in a long, narrow, echoey corridor without any lights lit, but still fairly bright because of the large windowpane in an exit door leading outside. Oh, this was one of the classroom wings, and it connected through big white doors into...the main entrance foyer. Essentially, I'd made a three-dimensional figure-eight and come out where I started.
Noticing that the door back into the lit stairwell had locked behind me as it shut, so there wasn't much point in going back there, I put down my three bags, which had gotten heavy, and, leaving them where they sat, decided to try again; there was one other staircase I could think of. I opened the white doors back into the main foyer, then took off one of my sandals and used it as a door-prop. (I could have gone back for one of my bags, but firstly, the corridor was pretty long, and secondly, I still wasn't sure if there was some janitor or late-working pastor or somebody inside, and one black sandal propping a door between two shadowy areas was less obvious than a big white plastic bag. Or, if it was noticed, it'd look really deliberate, and not just, "ho hum, some other janitor propped this door with a bag of something, so I think I'll take it out and let the door shut," and I come back to find a set of doors between myself and my bags, and have to go through the whole shebang again, or find the random church person and relate my story.)
The door at the top of the other main-foyer staircase was, indeed, locked, but there's another (doorless) corridor connected to that, about one level above where I needed to be. I wandered along that, making odd one-sandaled noises as I walked (still expecting, any moment, somebody to yell out, "Who's there?" and leave me little choice but to encounter the Mystery Figure in the Dark Church, since any attempt to leg it could've been looked at as the flight of a guilty party). When I got to the end, I don't think I expected the door I found to open. But it did, and it led, unexpectedly, to...
...here we are, ladies and gentlemen: a staircase down to the correct level and area of the church. I followed it down to the "primary door" that I mentioned earlier in this entry, leading back to the main foyer (I do realize that no one's following the layout descriptions anymore, except maybe 'Nanda; that's okay), though if I'd turned I could've gone straight to the clothing room. I needed the bags.
Taking my remaining sandal off, I propped this door as well. Then I went back for my bags, took my sandal out of the white doors, went through the primary door (not too many paces from the white doors, but all the locks had necessitated the detour), took that sandal out, put both back on, and walked to the clothing ministry room.
I half-expected, at this point, the ministry room to be locked, but it didn't even have a door, so that was fine. Put the three bags in there. But there was one more big bag in the car that I hadn't been able to carry. Next to the clothing ministry is the door nearest where my car was parked. Took one sandal back off, propped the door (blatantly ignoring a very visible sign that read This door is NOT to be propped), got the bag, came back, and finally took my sandal and left so I could continue to the store and pick up a few last-minute things.
Elapsed time in the church: somewhere between ten and twelve minutes. For a two-minute operation.
::giggles:: I must've had such a grin on my face, getting in my car to leave.
-Laurel
Back in the eighth grade, Mrs. DiPonzio had told us a story about the loss of trust in America, saying that once she'd tried to get into a church at night to pray for a friend, and found all the doors locked, because it's getting to the point where things get vandalized if you don't. (Just ask the Catholic church where I went to preschool. Three guys from my school, if I'm not mistaken, made all kinds of vandalistic trouble in there a couple of months ago.) It turns out that in my church, you actually can get to every major area in the building, but you've got to know how to do it.
And you've got to be carrying or wearing things you can prop doors with.
Coming in through the main door but finding the primary door towards the "clothing ministry" room locked, I started looking for alternate ones. The inside door from the main foyer, leading to the sanctuary, was unlocked. I pushed that open and figured I'd take the route past the nursery, down those little mini-stairs, through the children's wing, and back up into the clothing room, which's right near one of the nursery's "exit-only" doors. Except that both doors in that area were locked. So on my way back, I noticed that in the main foyer, a different staircase leading downstairs had no door to lock, so, still carrying my three bags, I went down there.
Now I was on the path I just mentioned, a level under where I needed to be, but the door leading to those stairs up was locked, too. However, a fan was operating in the construction area (we're still adding on, good gracious), and, curious, I decided to follow that passage and see where it led.
The majority of the church's lights were off, incidentally, but the only unlocked door past the construction (which is all enclosed, being in what's more or less the basement) led to a lit staircase. I opened the door and tried it from the other side, making sure that it wouldn't lock behind me. Even though the handle did, indeed, turn all the way, I still felt a little jumpy when I went through and heard it shut heavily behind me--if I ended up locked in here, it would be a long darn time before I was found; there was no one, as far as I could tell, in the building. (However, come to think of it, had I gone missing for a long time, it would have been easy to get a lead on my location, because my car was still outside the church with flashers on, as it was temporary parking.)
But the door at the top of the stairs opened, and I found myself in a long, narrow, echoey corridor without any lights lit, but still fairly bright because of the large windowpane in an exit door leading outside. Oh, this was one of the classroom wings, and it connected through big white doors into...the main entrance foyer. Essentially, I'd made a three-dimensional figure-eight and come out where I started.
Noticing that the door back into the lit stairwell had locked behind me as it shut, so there wasn't much point in going back there, I put down my three bags, which had gotten heavy, and, leaving them where they sat, decided to try again; there was one other staircase I could think of. I opened the white doors back into the main foyer, then took off one of my sandals and used it as a door-prop. (I could have gone back for one of my bags, but firstly, the corridor was pretty long, and secondly, I still wasn't sure if there was some janitor or late-working pastor or somebody inside, and one black sandal propping a door between two shadowy areas was less obvious than a big white plastic bag. Or, if it was noticed, it'd look really deliberate, and not just, "ho hum, some other janitor propped this door with a bag of something, so I think I'll take it out and let the door shut," and I come back to find a set of doors between myself and my bags, and have to go through the whole shebang again, or find the random church person and relate my story.)
The door at the top of the other main-foyer staircase was, indeed, locked, but there's another (doorless) corridor connected to that, about one level above where I needed to be. I wandered along that, making odd one-sandaled noises as I walked (still expecting, any moment, somebody to yell out, "Who's there?" and leave me little choice but to encounter the Mystery Figure in the Dark Church, since any attempt to leg it could've been looked at as the flight of a guilty party). When I got to the end, I don't think I expected the door I found to open. But it did, and it led, unexpectedly, to...
...here we are, ladies and gentlemen: a staircase down to the correct level and area of the church. I followed it down to the "primary door" that I mentioned earlier in this entry, leading back to the main foyer (I do realize that no one's following the layout descriptions anymore, except maybe 'Nanda; that's okay), though if I'd turned I could've gone straight to the clothing room. I needed the bags.
Taking my remaining sandal off, I propped this door as well. Then I went back for my bags, took my sandal out of the white doors, went through the primary door (not too many paces from the white doors, but all the locks had necessitated the detour), took that sandal out, put both back on, and walked to the clothing ministry room.
I half-expected, at this point, the ministry room to be locked, but it didn't even have a door, so that was fine. Put the three bags in there. But there was one more big bag in the car that I hadn't been able to carry. Next to the clothing ministry is the door nearest where my car was parked. Took one sandal back off, propped the door (blatantly ignoring a very visible sign that read This door is NOT to be propped), got the bag, came back, and finally took my sandal and left so I could continue to the store and pick up a few last-minute things.
Elapsed time in the church: somewhere between ten and twelve minutes. For a two-minute operation.
::giggles:: I must've had such a grin on my face, getting in my car to leave.
-Laurel
8.19.2005
Like, oh, my gosh.
My last day at work was great, though I essentially slacked for a lot of it.
My last day at W&B mostly sucked. My being sleep-deprived didn't help, 'cause it drained what little patience I had left, and besides this being fun during general kid-watching, I got the closest I ever have to arguing outright with a teacher, because I hate walk-in arbitrating, because it totally ignores the fact that the person who was there the whole time probably has a better idea of what's going on, and is probably objecting for a reason. Such as, if a kid has zero concentration and then is let to play on the computer when no one else is, in full view of the jealous kids actually working, I understand that it isn't fair to assign him a role instead in a video talk show that he doesn't want to play, but giving him free computer reign is still tantamount to rewarding him for being such a whiny brat. End rant, because I couldn't yell that at Re-, though I kind of wanted to.
So I was standing in the stairwell after that, eating an apple I'd brought and trying to calm down, and Wendy comes through working on something, and when she discovers again that it's my last day...
...she tells me I should apply for the camp coordinator job in December.
Like, oh, my gosh. I was simultaneously flattered by her confidence in me, betrayed by how little of it I've come across this summer, and stunned into monosyllables. That's pretty good, for one sentence. Luckily, she left before I came up with anything resembling an answer, since I had to find something more tactful than, um, working with some of these kids has made me question my future career field, my purpose on this planet, *and* my qualification to ever have children, so maybe you should find somebody with more patience and a better sense of humor. This is the real answer.
But at the end of the day, I got to spend about 45 minutes just watching the Wa-- kids, who get picked up late, and they were both reading, so I got to read, too. I like them both very much, so that was a nice last moment. Also, Wendy gave me a W&B shirt and pencil, and praise that she said she knew I hadn't heard, and wanted me to ask her for a reference letter now while she still had everything on hand (I'm to e-mail her). So it was okay in finality, though I don't think I ever want to do it again.
I do like and support the organization, don't get me wrong. It's hard to intern there, but it does appear fun to take classes there. The adult ones are probably even better than the kid ones. With the kid ones, it's hard to know beforehand which adults actually have a plan of action, and which ones are going to pull the class out of their nasal passages and call it flexibility. I don't know if the adult ones are anything like that or not, though the descriptions for each class make them seem like they wouldn't be.
And sometimes the problems have more to do with the kids themselves: spoiled-brat private schoolers, not used to not getting what they want, or extreme cases like Jo--, who think they can buy their way into whatever they want. Or kids from broken homes, who have more of an excuse but, to be brutally honest, are no less annoying. But the biggest problem is probably just the same kind of crap that comes with any nonprofit: they're given quite a bit, but they always need more of something. Supporting as many dozen kids per week as they do will bring that on. It means that they can't always be choosy about their teachers. They can't always change the classes in ways that everyone would like. They have this love-hate relationship (okay, tolerate-hate) with governments, because governments and large organizations help them but, say the artistes, cramp their style.
(Wendy wants to, or at least claimed to want to, ban poetry-teaching from schools so that kids would be more drawn to it and realize how subversive it is. I am prudy and uncool and, let's face it, totally of The Man, so this horrifies me, because I think that most poetry intending to be subversive just ends up as rebellion for its own sake, not to mention really mediocre in quality, and leaving novices up to their own devices will mostly bring about more empty rebellion and crappy poetry. But I digress, as though this whole section isn't all one big digression.)
Okay, I'm done. In short, it's done, and I'm glad, and I got a t-shirt, and I need to pack.
-Laurel
My last day at W&B mostly sucked. My being sleep-deprived didn't help, 'cause it drained what little patience I had left, and besides this being fun during general kid-watching, I got the closest I ever have to arguing outright with a teacher, because I hate walk-in arbitrating, because it totally ignores the fact that the person who was there the whole time probably has a better idea of what's going on, and is probably objecting for a reason. Such as, if a kid has zero concentration and then is let to play on the computer when no one else is, in full view of the jealous kids actually working, I understand that it isn't fair to assign him a role instead in a video talk show that he doesn't want to play, but giving him free computer reign is still tantamount to rewarding him for being such a whiny brat. End rant, because I couldn't yell that at Re-, though I kind of wanted to.
So I was standing in the stairwell after that, eating an apple I'd brought and trying to calm down, and Wendy comes through working on something, and when she discovers again that it's my last day...
...she tells me I should apply for the camp coordinator job in December.
Like, oh, my gosh. I was simultaneously flattered by her confidence in me, betrayed by how little of it I've come across this summer, and stunned into monosyllables. That's pretty good, for one sentence. Luckily, she left before I came up with anything resembling an answer, since I had to find something more tactful than, um, working with some of these kids has made me question my future career field, my purpose on this planet, *and* my qualification to ever have children, so maybe you should find somebody with more patience and a better sense of humor. This is the real answer.
But at the end of the day, I got to spend about 45 minutes just watching the Wa-- kids, who get picked up late, and they were both reading, so I got to read, too. I like them both very much, so that was a nice last moment. Also, Wendy gave me a W&B shirt and pencil, and praise that she said she knew I hadn't heard, and wanted me to ask her for a reference letter now while she still had everything on hand (I'm to e-mail her). So it was okay in finality, though I don't think I ever want to do it again.
I do like and support the organization, don't get me wrong. It's hard to intern there, but it does appear fun to take classes there. The adult ones are probably even better than the kid ones. With the kid ones, it's hard to know beforehand which adults actually have a plan of action, and which ones are going to pull the class out of their nasal passages and call it flexibility. I don't know if the adult ones are anything like that or not, though the descriptions for each class make them seem like they wouldn't be.
And sometimes the problems have more to do with the kids themselves: spoiled-brat private schoolers, not used to not getting what they want, or extreme cases like Jo--, who think they can buy their way into whatever they want. Or kids from broken homes, who have more of an excuse but, to be brutally honest, are no less annoying. But the biggest problem is probably just the same kind of crap that comes with any nonprofit: they're given quite a bit, but they always need more of something. Supporting as many dozen kids per week as they do will bring that on. It means that they can't always be choosy about their teachers. They can't always change the classes in ways that everyone would like. They have this love-hate relationship (okay, tolerate-hate) with governments, because governments and large organizations help them but, say the artistes, cramp their style.
(Wendy wants to, or at least claimed to want to, ban poetry-teaching from schools so that kids would be more drawn to it and realize how subversive it is. I am prudy and uncool and, let's face it, totally of The Man, so this horrifies me, because I think that most poetry intending to be subversive just ends up as rebellion for its own sake, not to mention really mediocre in quality, and leaving novices up to their own devices will mostly bring about more empty rebellion and crappy poetry. But I digress, as though this whole section isn't all one big digression.)
Okay, I'm done. In short, it's done, and I'm glad, and I got a t-shirt, and I need to pack.
-Laurel
8.18.2005
-more-
My mom got something different, less severe, as it turns out.
Great Northern was fun. The mall was less fun; Matt got sick playing DDR.
I was supposed to bring Glenn, tried really hard to get a hold of him, and he should have gotten my message and called at least my house, but he didn't. Drove by his house twice (once on the way to pick up Daf, once on the way to get onto the expressway to go to Great Northern), looking for him maybe being outside or something, to no avail. Drove Daf home after the function and passed Glenn's house, which always has a light on in the dark...and he was outside doing something. Now that it was far too late. I couldn't even slow down; I went right past.
Maybe he didn't want to be with his stalkeresque ex-girlfriend anyway.
Tomorrow is my last day at both jobs. Maybe I should get to bed for once in my life.
-Laurel
Great Northern was fun. The mall was less fun; Matt got sick playing DDR.
I was supposed to bring Glenn, tried really hard to get a hold of him, and he should have gotten my message and called at least my house, but he didn't. Drove by his house twice (once on the way to pick up Daf, once on the way to get onto the expressway to go to Great Northern), looking for him maybe being outside or something, to no avail. Drove Daf home after the function and passed Glenn's house, which always has a light on in the dark...and he was outside doing something. Now that it was far too late. I couldn't even slow down; I went right past.
Maybe he didn't want to be with his stalkeresque ex-girlfriend anyway.
Tomorrow is my last day at both jobs. Maybe I should get to bed for once in my life.
-Laurel
Well, this is ominous.
Yesterday Dawn, who works next to me, fell sick all of a sudden, left work halfway through the day with a sort of 12-hour bug, is well enough today to come back but still feels kinda icky.
Today I saw my mom looking all cheery, and like 15 minutes later she was gone of the same ailment, so fast she didn't even tell me she was leaving.
If I end up barfing before school--or, worse yet, tonight at Great Northern--I am going to be all kinds of annoyed. ::scowls::
And Evan has this, like, migraine, and Bunny's little brother got hospitalized for playing with fire.
This crap needs to stop. I'm going back to school. Everybody is going to be healthy and safe when I do it. Got it, world?
-Laurel
Today I saw my mom looking all cheery, and like 15 minutes later she was gone of the same ailment, so fast she didn't even tell me she was leaving.
If I end up barfing before school--or, worse yet, tonight at Great Northern--I am going to be all kinds of annoyed. ::scowls::
And Evan has this, like, migraine, and Bunny's little brother got hospitalized for playing with fire.
This crap needs to stop. I'm going back to school. Everybody is going to be healthy and safe when I do it. Got it, world?
-Laurel
8.15.2005
::with U2's "Kite" playing in my mind::
I...I discover, starting this, that I have no idea what to say. I'm talking to someone about things that can't be posted, but I feel like there needs to be some public statement.
It's not going to do this strange night justice, but thank God for my always having friends that understand me. I don't think I've ever felt fully misunderstood, and if it hurts this much and feels this helpless to know people who're otherwise, I can't imagine living it. I must need friends and connection desperately, like air and water, because they're one thing that I've always, always been given. When one has faded, another has come in, not to fill a place, but surpass it. If being stretched and tested as a person means learning to live without things you thought you always needed, or always had to be, then that must be a very, very high level, because my friends have never been touched. The things that have come anywhere close have been among the most painful things ever to happen to me. But none have come very close.
I can't help wondering if in the end, some dark day, I'll have to be hopelessly and extendedly alone for a while, surrounded by people, but none to truly connect with, if only to learn what's really forever in this world.
That's too melodramatic to end on, but I'm not sure how else to do it, or what else to say.
-Laurel
It's not going to do this strange night justice, but thank God for my always having friends that understand me. I don't think I've ever felt fully misunderstood, and if it hurts this much and feels this helpless to know people who're otherwise, I can't imagine living it. I must need friends and connection desperately, like air and water, because they're one thing that I've always, always been given. When one has faded, another has come in, not to fill a place, but surpass it. If being stretched and tested as a person means learning to live without things you thought you always needed, or always had to be, then that must be a very, very high level, because my friends have never been touched. The things that have come anywhere close have been among the most painful things ever to happen to me. But none have come very close.
I can't help wondering if in the end, some dark day, I'll have to be hopelessly and extendedly alone for a while, surrounded by people, but none to truly connect with, if only to learn what's really forever in this world.
That's too melodramatic to end on, but I'm not sure how else to do it, or what else to say.
-Laurel
8.14.2005
I need, need, need/A life, life, life...
Oh: all people with Blogger usernames (WL-Mafia Dorks, this includes you) should take the Blogger survey, especially if they didn't take that other survey I linked to (they measure completely different things, though). In the few suggestions I made, I forgot to say that I really do like the idea of "cuts," a la LJ.com, even though I still consider Blogger as a site better on the whole. At least from the standpoint of someone who only reads LJs and doesn't have one.
Also, lest I let the moment pass without celebrating: ONE WEEK UNTIL SCHOOL! ::careens off walls::
-Laurel
Also, lest I let the moment pass without celebrating: ONE WEEK UNTIL SCHOOL! ::careens off walls::
-Laurel
An entry about loooove. Awwww.
Okay, even though 'Nanda posted this first and I'm a bandwagoner, people need to go check out I Harth Darth, which's this odd little comic that apparently explores what would have happened if Darth Vader were just a (semi-)regular family man. Except don't start with the one that says "gone fishing" if you're not up to PG-13 for content. (Like, start here or here or something. I wish they were all that clean, but at least PG for language and PG-13 for content appear to be as bad as it gets.)
In other news, a girl stole my brother's heart this weekend.
::giggles:: It's okay, she stole mine, too. Her name is Glenna, and she's our newest little cousin, eight months old. teh br0 and I helped watched her and her "big" brother (two and a half years) on Friday night so their parents (my cousin and his wife) could go out to dinner and see a couple friends. Like, my brother likes little kids, but I've never seen him melt so much over one as he did over her. Which is understandable, as she is all kinds of adorable. My brother gave her a bottle, which is pretty big news, and he would totally panic every time she whimpered or whined or started to cry, 'cause he couldn't stand seeing her sad.
Two aunts and my cousin Tara (about thirty, and one of my dad's favorite people) were there at the time, too, which was helpful, because you need about four sets of hands to get the two of them ready for bed. Tara, actually, is the closest of all my family members in her guess of what I might do for a living someday. Since my dad didn't take it so well, I haven't done much letting on to people that I ultimately really want more to be in community service than in straight-up English, but Tara and I were talking as she cooked herself dinner, and she's like, "I don't know where I got this, if someone said something, or if I just dreamed it, but Shea [that's her brother] asked me what you were planning to do eventually, and I, like, pulled it out of somewhere and was like, 'I think she wants to be in with charities, grant-writing or some big public thing, maybe start her own...' Did you say something about it, or your dad or someone?"
I don't remember saying anything. I know my parents were talking about grant writing briefly with friends of theirs, and I said so, but anything bigger than that is totally not part of their concept of the situation as far as I know. I did tell her that community service was more like what I really wanted to do, and she was like, "Well, I know some people who do things like that, and you're like them. You'd be good at it."
...Wow.
The funeral, by the way, was the closest to pleasant that I think any funeral I've been to has ever been. Still don't like the idea of cremation, but urns are not so weird when they look more white-marbley and Celtic than anything else. Tara read off stuff about Grandma, and so did her mom, and so did another aunt, and things were good. How come I never know that much about my parents' parents until they're dead? Well, in this case it's because by the time I would've asked Grandma C. these things, she was already Alzheimer'd. ...The one little heartbreaking tableau of the whole thing was after the service, my Aunt Mary and Uncle Dennis crying on each other (faces concealed, so it was almost private). They're not married; they were the two biggest caretakers. Aunt Mary's the second-oldest of the seven kids, and Uncle Dennis is the youngest. They both took it really hard, like Aunt Jan did with Grandma Doris. Caretakers are like that. It's sad.
How come most of my really profound material comes out of deaths and tragedies and dramatic things, anyway? That's a little disturbing. I do not want a future in LifeTime-Television-type stuff, so maybe this needs to stop.
Anyway, some happier lovey-stuff: this afternoon my mom, brother, and I went to go see March of the Penguins, which was pretty cool. G-rated, with lots of penguins being all epic and then all romantic towards the beginning (which, honestly, was a little weird, 'cause some of it was slow-mo) and lots of chicks being all cute and fluffy towards the end. Lest you think it's all over-cutesy, it's not. They consider it partially a love story, but it's in mostly a storge kind of way, very familial. There are also lots of really cool nature shots, some penguin suffering and death, and lots of intrepid-sounding music (predominantly piano, flute, and bassoon). And it's short, about 80 minutes' run-time.
Okay, it's time to post this and move on with my life. Maybe some Spanish-writing time, or some cleaning up of this wreck of a room. Oh, I made bread today, buttermilk-and-honey. It ended up being buttermilk-and-honey-wheat because we ran out of regular white flour halfway through, so maybe the flavors are more subtle than they would be, but it still tastes quite good.
As a final thought for today: this was totally me as a little kid.
Ciao,
-Laurel
In other news, a girl stole my brother's heart this weekend.
::giggles:: It's okay, she stole mine, too. Her name is Glenna, and she's our newest little cousin, eight months old. teh br0 and I helped watched her and her "big" brother (two and a half years) on Friday night so their parents (my cousin and his wife) could go out to dinner and see a couple friends. Like, my brother likes little kids, but I've never seen him melt so much over one as he did over her. Which is understandable, as she is all kinds of adorable. My brother gave her a bottle, which is pretty big news, and he would totally panic every time she whimpered or whined or started to cry, 'cause he couldn't stand seeing her sad.
Two aunts and my cousin Tara (about thirty, and one of my dad's favorite people) were there at the time, too, which was helpful, because you need about four sets of hands to get the two of them ready for bed. Tara, actually, is the closest of all my family members in her guess of what I might do for a living someday. Since my dad didn't take it so well, I haven't done much letting on to people that I ultimately really want more to be in community service than in straight-up English, but Tara and I were talking as she cooked herself dinner, and she's like, "I don't know where I got this, if someone said something, or if I just dreamed it, but Shea [that's her brother] asked me what you were planning to do eventually, and I, like, pulled it out of somewhere and was like, 'I think she wants to be in with charities, grant-writing or some big public thing, maybe start her own...' Did you say something about it, or your dad or someone?"
I don't remember saying anything. I know my parents were talking about grant writing briefly with friends of theirs, and I said so, but anything bigger than that is totally not part of their concept of the situation as far as I know. I did tell her that community service was more like what I really wanted to do, and she was like, "Well, I know some people who do things like that, and you're like them. You'd be good at it."
...Wow.
The funeral, by the way, was the closest to pleasant that I think any funeral I've been to has ever been. Still don't like the idea of cremation, but urns are not so weird when they look more white-marbley and Celtic than anything else. Tara read off stuff about Grandma, and so did her mom, and so did another aunt, and things were good. How come I never know that much about my parents' parents until they're dead? Well, in this case it's because by the time I would've asked Grandma C. these things, she was already Alzheimer'd. ...The one little heartbreaking tableau of the whole thing was after the service, my Aunt Mary and Uncle Dennis crying on each other (faces concealed, so it was almost private). They're not married; they were the two biggest caretakers. Aunt Mary's the second-oldest of the seven kids, and Uncle Dennis is the youngest. They both took it really hard, like Aunt Jan did with Grandma Doris. Caretakers are like that. It's sad.
How come most of my really profound material comes out of deaths and tragedies and dramatic things, anyway? That's a little disturbing. I do not want a future in LifeTime-Television-type stuff, so maybe this needs to stop.
Anyway, some happier lovey-stuff: this afternoon my mom, brother, and I went to go see March of the Penguins, which was pretty cool. G-rated, with lots of penguins being all epic and then all romantic towards the beginning (which, honestly, was a little weird, 'cause some of it was slow-mo) and lots of chicks being all cute and fluffy towards the end. Lest you think it's all over-cutesy, it's not. They consider it partially a love story, but it's in mostly a storge kind of way, very familial. There are also lots of really cool nature shots, some penguin suffering and death, and lots of intrepid-sounding music (predominantly piano, flute, and bassoon). And it's short, about 80 minutes' run-time.
Okay, it's time to post this and move on with my life. Maybe some Spanish-writing time, or some cleaning up of this wreck of a room. Oh, I made bread today, buttermilk-and-honey. It ended up being buttermilk-and-honey-wheat because we ran out of regular white flour halfway through, so maybe the flavors are more subtle than they would be, but it still tastes quite good.
As a final thought for today: this was totally me as a little kid.
Ciao,
-Laurel
8.11.2005
Absence alert!
Will be with dad's side of the family until Sunday. Home friends, enjoy the drive-in; applicable school friends, enjoy the wedding. See everybody soon. At least August is giving me my wish; hard to believe it's the 11th already.
I have to leave the house pretty early, so I'm going to bed.
-Laurel
I have to leave the house pretty early, so I'm going to bed.
-Laurel
A Thursday that feels like a Friday
Greetings from work, where we're having Funny Hat Day to celebrate Dan's last day here before he goes off to college for the first time. I had a pretty mediocre morning, culminating in my swallowing some mouthwash (not enough for Poison Control, but more than your average little trickle), but there's just something about no-bake cookies and sitting around with Marj in a big sombrero, Troy in a huge red foam cowboy hat, my mom in a hat shaped like a stegosaurus, and so on, to my Harry Potter-style wizard hat and Dan's football helmet.
Time for me to do some major envelope-stuffing. TEN DAYS UNTIL SCHOOL!
-Laurel
Time for me to do some major envelope-stuffing. TEN DAYS UNTIL SCHOOL!
-Laurel
8.09.2005
And another thing.
Starting prolly Thursday, I think I'm going to attempt to not be online past 10 pm, 'cause I need to not be sleep-deprived going into orientation. If you have any messages for me, therefore, IM before 10, or e-mail anytime.
Anything supermegaimportant, of course, go 'head and call.
-Laurel
Anything supermegaimportant, of course, go 'head and call.
-Laurel
Goal accomplished, sort of
I made roasted garlic soup last night. I wanted to make it because I had it once and it was probably the best soup I've ever had (it may have tied with the chicken noodle soup from Peru that I got when I was sick). The roasted garlic soup I'm used to is dark brown and creamy and garlicky.
This stuff was more like stew--pale, whitish, and thick, and tasting much more like the onions, leeks, potatoes, and pepper that also went into it. But it was all right.
12 days 'til school.
-Laurel
This stuff was more like stew--pale, whitish, and thick, and tasting much more like the onions, leeks, potatoes, and pepper that also went into it. But it was all right.
12 days 'til school.
-Laurel
8.07.2005
Summary of my weekend
-I saw Lily Jo.
-She and I, among other things, went to Barnes & Noble. I made the horrible mistake of going into the foreign-language section, because given that I had the money, everybody knows that I was going to fall in love with the Spanish books and get one, even though I'm no longer taking any Spanish classes. So I did. I am now theproud nerdy owner of the very nerdily-titled 1001 Pitfalls in Spanish, which is essentially a manual on how to fix all the grammatical things I screw up, and it wasn't expensive, either. (I am going to write in Spanish more. I have sort of started.)
-I have decided again that unless you have a blatant moral objection to a song's lyrics, it's really not the music, but the moment, that determines whether you end up liking an atypical (for your taste) song in the end. Also, Los Lonely Boys's Spanish is way easier to decipher than Shakira's, but that's probably because hers is at much higher a beats-per-minute count.
-$9 buys all of 3.6 gallons of gas, so it's a good thing that Lily's car is more fuel-efficient than mine.
-You can't always pick blueberries on Sundays. But sometimes you can get ice cream instead.
Okay, the end.
Two weeks until school! ::is a hyperspazz::
-Laurel
-She and I, among other things, went to Barnes & Noble. I made the horrible mistake of going into the foreign-language section, because given that I had the money, everybody knows that I was going to fall in love with the Spanish books and get one, even though I'm no longer taking any Spanish classes. So I did. I am now the
-I have decided again that unless you have a blatant moral objection to a song's lyrics, it's really not the music, but the moment, that determines whether you end up liking an atypical (for your taste) song in the end. Also, Los Lonely Boys's Spanish is way easier to decipher than Shakira's, but that's probably because hers is at much higher a beats-per-minute count.
-$9 buys all of 3.6 gallons of gas, so it's a good thing that Lily's car is more fuel-efficient than mine.
-You can't always pick blueberries on Sundays. But sometimes you can get ice cream instead.
Okay, the end.
Two weeks until school! ::is a hyperspazz::
-Laurel
8.05.2005
Bummers and interlaced not-bummers
So the only people to actually come to the bowling thing today, as totally predicted in a previous entry, were three people: Ananda, Matt, and me. So we didn't go bowling, we went back to my house, where we played DDR and then went up the road a ways for Chinese. That was very cool. Then I went to see the local theater-camp-thingy production of Music Man, for which 'Nanda was playing second flute. Though it didn't quite match Anything Goes two years ago (I didn't see last year's), it was very good, especially for something put together in three weeks. That choreography must have been a nightmare, but they pulled it off well. And my new dream role totally went from Chava to Marian Paroo. (Ha, at least Chava I had a semi-conceivable shot at ever being; I don't even have the range for Marian. Not that I've been above a bit part since the fifth grade church play, and am unlikely to start now, but never mind.)
The older aunts--whom, yes, I love, but who do not have a lot of sense about these things--are descending upon Uncle Gary's house like two of the Wyrd Sisters. They essentially invited themselves down to Texas to stay indefinitely, and already they're down there arguing with the doctors, bickering with Uncle Gary, and generally doing everything that they did when Uncle Tom and Grandma were sick. Uncle Gary has a wife, and she can't possibly like this setup, especially as her own mother is moving in as well. I can't comprehend just letting that happen; both of my parents, oh man, if anybody ever tried that on them, that person totally would never get past the door.
Tonight's Foregone Conclusion Reached Anyway: Tim refuses to dye and spike his hair bubblegum-pink like Nymphadora Tonks. And apparently would not at all approve of me spiking my own, though he graciously allows me the pink if I really want it. :-P Silly boy.
Okay, time to get a quick snack and head to bed.
-Laurel
The older aunts--whom, yes, I love, but who do not have a lot of sense about these things--are descending upon Uncle Gary's house like two of the Wyrd Sisters. They essentially invited themselves down to Texas to stay indefinitely, and already they're down there arguing with the doctors, bickering with Uncle Gary, and generally doing everything that they did when Uncle Tom and Grandma were sick. Uncle Gary has a wife, and she can't possibly like this setup, especially as her own mother is moving in as well. I can't comprehend just letting that happen; both of my parents, oh man, if anybody ever tried that on them, that person totally would never get past the door.
Tonight's Foregone Conclusion Reached Anyway: Tim refuses to dye and spike his hair bubblegum-pink like Nymphadora Tonks. And apparently would not at all approve of me spiking my own, though he graciously allows me the pink if I really want it. :-P Silly boy.
Okay, time to get a quick snack and head to bed.
-Laurel
8.03.2005
Quick update
-Chinese kid day at W&B was cool. They were here for three weeks for a trip-type thing, so we helped them journal some of the events. I use the term "journal" rather loosely, but it was cool.
-Uncle Gary's cancer is, I think, even more advanced than Uncle Tom's was. This time there will be no remission and him making Thanksgiving pies, only to find more of it; it's stage four and they're not even going to operate, though I guess he is doing chemo. So yeah.
-Lily Jo got a tattoo. A real one. It's small and on her foot, and it's vaguely Celtic-looking. It's pretty cute, really.
Okay, I need to get to bed.
-Laurel
-Uncle Gary's cancer is, I think, even more advanced than Uncle Tom's was. This time there will be no remission and him making Thanksgiving pies, only to find more of it; it's stage four and they're not even going to operate, though I guess he is doing chemo. So yeah.
-Lily Jo got a tattoo. A real one. It's small and on her foot, and it's vaguely Celtic-looking. It's pretty cute, really.
Okay, I need to get to bed.
-Laurel
Okay...I got 60% of a win...
Turns out I have to work at W&B today and tomorrow after all. Today is "helping Chinese kids express English" (hmm, okay), and tomorrow is something to do with checking computer records against printouts of information, or something...all I can say is, it better not involve heavy use of those wretched Macs.
Friday I assume is bowling, but we'll see whether we get more than, like, three people. Hm.
Still tired. Still need to go to bed earlier. This's no surprise at all.
Good gracious, but my blog is continually either melodramatic or boring.
-Laurel
Friday I assume is bowling, but we'll see whether we get more than, like, three people. Hm.
Still tired. Still need to go to bed earlier. This's no surprise at all.
Good gracious, but my blog is continually either melodramatic or boring.
-Laurel
8.02.2005
Just that kind of summer
Today Christy IMed me--I haven't heard from her in a long time--and somewhere past discussing summer jobs and friends' summer jobs, she asked me if I'd known this guy from her graduating class named Steve.
I most certainly did know him; he showed up very early on this blog, not to mention like everywhere between eighth grade and twelfth, as Bryan, the one I was so desperately infatuated with. I haven't heard a word about him since he graduated, and had just asked Aubrey, in fact, whether he knew anything about him. I told her I did, and asked why.
Did you hear what happened to him? she typed back, which has become one of the worst possible sentences to put in front of my eyes, especially coupled with that did, past tense, that her previous question was in, did you know him?
Waiting for her to tell me was like waiting for someone to punch me in the face: just like with Heather, I found myself shaking, knowing that the next sentence would tell me whether or not he'd gone her way. Christy'd never mentioned him before; why would she now? Oh, God, please let him be okay. Please let him be okay.
And then I got the reply, he broke his jaw and maybe his face (I can't remember what my dad told me).
It was a bad accident. I guess he joined the fire company(!), some EMTs "tied him to something and left him there," and he fell forward and landed right on his face. She found it out from her dad, who's on the fire company (though I assume he's not one of the EMTs in question). Steve (or his family, I don't know)'s suing them over it and everything. I don't know what the ramifications are--whether he's badly scarred, whether he's having trouble talking--but, gracious, it kind of sounds like a scrape Steve would get himself into, if a level above the usual consequences. Nothing earth-rocking in that sense.
But still, what I felt long before everything else was relief. Anything's okay, as long as he's alive. I was still trembling, just enough for someone to have noticed if they'd looked, long after I knew he was all right.
It sounds paranoid from here, knowing now what happened, and seeing how all gossipy news begins the same ways on a screen. But sitting there at work, waiting, I thought she was going to tell me he was gone. And, most telling of all to me, my mind accepted it, much faster than it did with Heather. Heather, it was what?!, Steve was oh God. Not with a bang, but a whimper.
...It's been that kind of summer. I haven't mentioned it here yet, or to anyone besides Aneya and Kristine (from work--that's a long story), but my dad's biological mother, the last of all the grandparents, died while we were in DC; we got a call the day before we left that she was really sick, and when we got back home the news was worse, though not altogether unexpected. She had Alzheimer's and was sicker longer than either of my other grandmothers, both dead now as well. Alzheimer's, you know, the death is just a matter of time, and we'd kind of lost her to the dementia long ago.
And last night we got a call that my uncle Gary has esophagal cancer, the same stuff that killed my uncle Tom last summer. The same beginning--he couldn't swallow, he let it go for I don't know how long, a couple of weeks--and of course he finally went to a doctor, and the doctor found the lesions. We'll know soon whether Uncle Gary's has spread like Uncle Tom's had by the time it was found; if it has, the prognosis likely isn't going to be much better.
Like, how d'you do that, go for two or three weeks unable to swallow and think it's just going to go away? I mean, in both cases the family used the same words, "couldn't swallow." Not even "having trouble swallowing," or "had a really sort throat," or something you could sort of dismiss. In a way, this's good; if I'm going to develop cancer at any point, I sort of want it to be as blatant as possible, so that I'll know as soon as it starts and can get it ripped the heck out. Stuff like people get in reproductive-type places horrifies me because it could be like 39209 other things.
There's all the stuff that went on at work--Mary getting all that cancer everywhere, Dawn's father dying, and the other stuff from the summer's beginning that I mentioned in entries like that, stuff that eventually felt like warning shots before Heather. There's the stuff that freaked Kristin out, the embassy bombing near where she worked, the terrorism in London, all the disasters that've happened this summer. I saw the Boy Scouts in DC, and three days later the news was full of them, and in all the wrong ways, electrocutions and heat exhaustion and who knows what. (Glenn told me twice that he'd be there for the Jamboree. I wonder if he was; I wonder if he's home.) And there's so much other crap going on, some of it people I know, things I don't even want to get into. Common denominator: pain.
Was the world always like this, or is it really an exceptionally bad season?
More immediately, what to make of all of the death and disease in people I know, and sometimes know well? Disaster has touched so many people I know, but nobody that would truly devastate me to lose has been lost or had their life on the line; thank God, for Heather has come close enough. Why? It's almost as though that's outside the realm of simple chance. If that many people close to me, why not somebody closer still?
But that makes the calamities sound random, and as I remind myself, none of them were. Heather was sick. She was young, and she was very alive, but she was sick; Rescue Squad and Kelly, who repeatedly force-fed jelly down her diabetic-seizured throat, will back me up on that. All three grandmothers were old, and one was sick long-term. The cancer happened to the smokers--my uncles and Mary--though of course it's a little more complicated than that. My extended family is rapidly aging, especially my mother's side, where much of the disease and death has been; my mother is the family's youngest child, and even she is nearing fifty. Nobody has yet sickened or died illogically. This isn't some armageddon of my little world within the big world.
And there've also been more weddings and babies this summer than usual, little popcorn bursts of good along with the bad.
Still, it gives me a lot to think about, and still makes me think that things are changing. As though the world wasn't going to be big enough in the spring of 2007.
Applicable morals of the story, to all of those still reading: give your friends hugs; and if you can't swallow, go get your throat checked, huh?
-Laurel
I most certainly did know him; he showed up very early on this blog, not to mention like everywhere between eighth grade and twelfth, as Bryan, the one I was so desperately infatuated with. I haven't heard a word about him since he graduated, and had just asked Aubrey, in fact, whether he knew anything about him. I told her I did, and asked why.
Did you hear what happened to him? she typed back, which has become one of the worst possible sentences to put in front of my eyes, especially coupled with that did, past tense, that her previous question was in, did you know him?
Waiting for her to tell me was like waiting for someone to punch me in the face: just like with Heather, I found myself shaking, knowing that the next sentence would tell me whether or not he'd gone her way. Christy'd never mentioned him before; why would she now? Oh, God, please let him be okay. Please let him be okay.
And then I got the reply, he broke his jaw and maybe his face (I can't remember what my dad told me).
It was a bad accident. I guess he joined the fire company(!), some EMTs "tied him to something and left him there," and he fell forward and landed right on his face. She found it out from her dad, who's on the fire company (though I assume he's not one of the EMTs in question). Steve (or his family, I don't know)'s suing them over it and everything. I don't know what the ramifications are--whether he's badly scarred, whether he's having trouble talking--but, gracious, it kind of sounds like a scrape Steve would get himself into, if a level above the usual consequences. Nothing earth-rocking in that sense.
But still, what I felt long before everything else was relief. Anything's okay, as long as he's alive. I was still trembling, just enough for someone to have noticed if they'd looked, long after I knew he was all right.
It sounds paranoid from here, knowing now what happened, and seeing how all gossipy news begins the same ways on a screen. But sitting there at work, waiting, I thought she was going to tell me he was gone. And, most telling of all to me, my mind accepted it, much faster than it did with Heather. Heather, it was what?!, Steve was oh God. Not with a bang, but a whimper.
...It's been that kind of summer. I haven't mentioned it here yet, or to anyone besides Aneya and Kristine (from work--that's a long story), but my dad's biological mother, the last of all the grandparents, died while we were in DC; we got a call the day before we left that she was really sick, and when we got back home the news was worse, though not altogether unexpected. She had Alzheimer's and was sicker longer than either of my other grandmothers, both dead now as well. Alzheimer's, you know, the death is just a matter of time, and we'd kind of lost her to the dementia long ago.
And last night we got a call that my uncle Gary has esophagal cancer, the same stuff that killed my uncle Tom last summer. The same beginning--he couldn't swallow, he let it go for I don't know how long, a couple of weeks--and of course he finally went to a doctor, and the doctor found the lesions. We'll know soon whether Uncle Gary's has spread like Uncle Tom's had by the time it was found; if it has, the prognosis likely isn't going to be much better.
Like, how d'you do that, go for two or three weeks unable to swallow and think it's just going to go away? I mean, in both cases the family used the same words, "couldn't swallow." Not even "having trouble swallowing," or "had a really sort throat," or something you could sort of dismiss. In a way, this's good; if I'm going to develop cancer at any point, I sort of want it to be as blatant as possible, so that I'll know as soon as it starts and can get it ripped the heck out. Stuff like people get in reproductive-type places horrifies me because it could be like 39209 other things.
There's all the stuff that went on at work--Mary getting all that cancer everywhere, Dawn's father dying, and the other stuff from the summer's beginning that I mentioned in entries like that, stuff that eventually felt like warning shots before Heather. There's the stuff that freaked Kristin out, the embassy bombing near where she worked, the terrorism in London, all the disasters that've happened this summer. I saw the Boy Scouts in DC, and three days later the news was full of them, and in all the wrong ways, electrocutions and heat exhaustion and who knows what. (Glenn told me twice that he'd be there for the Jamboree. I wonder if he was; I wonder if he's home.) And there's so much other crap going on, some of it people I know, things I don't even want to get into. Common denominator: pain.
Was the world always like this, or is it really an exceptionally bad season?
More immediately, what to make of all of the death and disease in people I know, and sometimes know well? Disaster has touched so many people I know, but nobody that would truly devastate me to lose has been lost or had their life on the line; thank God, for Heather has come close enough. Why? It's almost as though that's outside the realm of simple chance. If that many people close to me, why not somebody closer still?
But that makes the calamities sound random, and as I remind myself, none of them were. Heather was sick. She was young, and she was very alive, but she was sick; Rescue Squad and Kelly, who repeatedly force-fed jelly down her diabetic-seizured throat, will back me up on that. All three grandmothers were old, and one was sick long-term. The cancer happened to the smokers--my uncles and Mary--though of course it's a little more complicated than that. My extended family is rapidly aging, especially my mother's side, where much of the disease and death has been; my mother is the family's youngest child, and even she is nearing fifty. Nobody has yet sickened or died illogically. This isn't some armageddon of my little world within the big world.
And there've also been more weddings and babies this summer than usual, little popcorn bursts of good along with the bad.
Still, it gives me a lot to think about, and still makes me think that things are changing. As though the world wasn't going to be big enough in the spring of 2007.
Applicable morals of the story, to all of those still reading: give your friends hugs; and if you can't swallow, go get your throat checked, huh?
-Laurel
8.01.2005
I win!
W&B is cancelled this week. They didn't have enough signups to run either class. So I get two weeks of vacation for the price of one.
And on the way home I managed to translate, just by listening, a whole bunch of "La Contestación," this Los Lonely Boys song all in Spanish.
So that rocks.
-Laurel
And on the way home I managed to translate, just by listening, a whole bunch of "La Contestación," this Los Lonely Boys song all in Spanish.
So that rocks.
-Laurel
I've got it down! ...except for that exercise and nutrition part. And the rebellion. And the short hair.
I used to be a renegade, I used to fool around
But I couldn't take the punishment and had to settle down
Now I'm playing it real straight, and yes, I cut my hair
You might think I'm crazy, but I don't even care
'Cause I can tell what's going on
It's hip to be square
I like my bands in business suits, I watch them on TV
I'm working out 'most every day and watching what I eat
They tell me that it's good for me, but I don't even care
I know that it's crazy
I know that it's nowhere
But there is no denying that
It's hip to be square
It's not too hard to figure out, you see it every day
And those that were the farthest out have gone the other way
You see them on the freeway, it don't look like a lot of fun
But don't you try to fight it, an idea whose time has come
Don't tell me that I'm crazy
Don't tell me I'm nowhere
Take it from me:
It's hip to be square
-Huey Lewis and the News
-Laurel
But I couldn't take the punishment and had to settle down
Now I'm playing it real straight, and yes, I cut my hair
You might think I'm crazy, but I don't even care
'Cause I can tell what's going on
It's hip to be square
I like my bands in business suits, I watch them on TV
I'm working out 'most every day and watching what I eat
They tell me that it's good for me, but I don't even care
I know that it's crazy
I know that it's nowhere
But there is no denying that
It's hip to be square
It's not too hard to figure out, you see it every day
And those that were the farthest out have gone the other way
You see them on the freeway, it don't look like a lot of fun
But don't you try to fight it, an idea whose time has come
Don't tell me that I'm crazy
Don't tell me I'm nowhere
Take it from me:
It's hip to be square
-Huey Lewis and the News
-Laurel