To all my fans...

...who love me and want to be counted on my "Coolest people ever" list, make sure to go to JPG magazine's website and vote for my latest entry to the magazine. I entered a photo into the Entropy category. It's a rusting broken down truck that was in my brother's front yard in NM. Please go and vote for me, there is a link in the sidebar that shows the photo I entered. If you vote before the end of Jan, you can also vote for my two other pictures that I submitted last month. You do have to sign up on the JPG site to vote, but they are really good about not sending spam. Thanks for your support! I won't forget you when I'm famous! :)

The Awkwardness of Death

How should a person talk about the fact that a loved one is dying? I have a tendency to be very forward with it and present it as what it is…the truth…my life. People are very caught off guard by this. Death is such an awkward topic and people skirt it as best they can. Two weeks ago I went to visit my oldest brother Jay. Jay is dying of AIDS. He’s been diagnosed for many years. He spent a good chunk of those years on the anti-viral drugs for AIDS and decided last year that he was done fighting the inevitable. He bit the bullet stopped the drugs and began the journey towards death. Not many people choose to start that journey. Not many people face death head on with anticipation. Then again, not many people have lived Jay’s life. Jay's life has been full of drugs, music, glitter, drama, and men. These are the things he loves and so he pursued them with abandon. He has lived his life to the fullest and has decided he’s ready to be done. No life support, no resuscitation…just him going when he goes. He’s very at peace. He told me that his only regret about the life he lived was how it affected his family and those who love him. He knows he is a selfish person…he told me so himself. He knows that his choices were hard on us as we watched him do harmful things to his body and now have to watch him die as a result of those choices. But he also told me he wouldn’t change a thing. If he could do it over again, he would do it all the same. In his words, “I had so much fucking fun!”
Our time together was great! We went to the casino and we talked and I learned things about our family that I never knew. I found out more about his life and his loves and things he’s done. We talked politics, fashion, family, history…we talked about life. I love him. This trip I found that I don’t just love my brother, I really like him. He’s freaking hilarious and he has such a rich life experience that gives him such a unique look on life. On some levels, his passing may be easier because of this trip because we left on great terms. But it also makes it harder because I really like my brother, and now I know what I’ll be missing when he’s gone.
And so I sit here wondering how to cope with my brother dying. Any day I could get the call that he officially has a fatal form of pneumonia and has only 2-3 days left. It’s so bitter-sweet. I wonder if this is how other people feel when a loved one is dying. A mixture of sadness, regret, and happiness: sad because I’ll miss him, regretful because we got our relationship started so late, and happy because he finally gets to go to the after-life that he can’t stop talking about. So many contradictions go whirling through my head: sadness and happiness, anger and peace, regret and thankfulness. No wonder death is such an awkward topic to talk about. It’s confusing to feel and think about, much less to formulate into words.

This Week's Forecast

So today is Monday. Only Monday. My boss stops by my office this afternoon and asks how I'm doing. I say ok. He says, "You look tired, you been staying out too late?" The first thing that pops into my head is, "It's been a long week." I think...wait it's only Monday. So, instead, I say, " It was a long weekend." He laughs and walks on down the hallway. I sit and ponder that if it's only Monday...and I'm already feeling like it's been a long week...It's really gonna be a looong week.

Things you don't expect to hear...

Today I overheard this snippet of conversation between a couple of people discussing global warming.
"Do you ever watch the Weather Channel?"
"No, but I know there's a naked weather channel."
"No, it's not the naked weather channel, it's the naked news channel."

Socialite

Something strange has been occurring in the cosmos and I'm not quite sure how I feel about it. For some reason, random strangers have decided that I look like someone who they really need to interact with. In the last three days, two different people have sat near me and struck up random conversations when I was clearly doing something else. The first occurred on my trip home from NM (a different post will come after I process that one a little more.) I had a whole row of three seats all to myself. It was a glorious moment in the realm of cheap flights. So I took full advantage and stretched my legs out while I did some processing of thoughts on my laptop. An older lady came up the aisle and practically sat on my feet. She didn't say anything. Didn't even look at me. She ordered a rum and just sat there drinking. So I kept writing. Then about 15 minutes later (I think she'd had enough rum to be social by then), she struck up a conversation with me, even though I had headphones on and was staring at my computer. She proceeded to tell me all about her trip to Cancun and how she wasn't looking forward to going back to Canada and work. She's from Vancouver. Then she continued to talk my ear off for the duration of the flight. THen she left and that was that. I thought...Wow, that was really wierd.
Then today I was sitting in one of the many eating areas on campus and a young lady asks if she can sit with me because of how crowded the area was. I had my headphones on and was doing a Sudoku puzzle. I said sure and she sat down and preceeded to ignore her lunch and talk to me. Her opening question was..."So, are you a freshman?" That's when you know it's gonna be a good conversation. Conversations that start like this always end up with the other person being very embarrassed when I tell them, "Actually I'm a senior, I'm 25, and I've been married for 4 years." Apparently I only look like I'm 19. So she talked my ear off for the next 45 min. I just don't know what is going on. I keep checking in the mirror to see if maybe I have "Socialite" written across my forhead, but I don't. I don't really mind that people strike up random conversations, but it's just strange to have it happen twice in three days, when it rarely happens at all to me. Like I said before, I think there's something amiss in the cosmos.

Salty Anger

As I am learning to recover from the deep, dark recesses of repression, I'm coming to see how much anger I keep pent up inside. My family has a history of anger and poor anger management. It runs on my mom's side. My mom got it from her father. Apparently their relationship was so bad, that my mother can hardly say anything good about my grandfather, even though he's been dead for 40 years. My mother's anger was an off and on part of the majority of my childhood. It is within the context of this family history that I began to recognize how angry I am. I am angry a lot. I'm easily frustrated. And I always repress it. As I seek to abolish this repression, I must embark on a journey of anger management and expression. What are healthy ways of managing and expressing anger? I don't know, cause I've never seen them before. I was never taught how to handle anger. So now I find I have a legacy of anger in the past, a present full of anger, and a future with no coping skills. This isn't looking so good for me. But tonight I began to find some release, some small way to draw the anger to the surface and wash it away. It all started with a science class. An Atmospheric Science Class to be more precise. A quote from my professor, "Think of Science as a country to which you are visiting. In order to understand the country you must speak the language. Math is the language of science." The subsequent thoughts that went through my head were, "Oh Shit!" I haven't taken math in 5 years. The last math I took was Algebra. My professor is talking in class about how we'll probably recognize this equation from high school calculus. Yet another "Oh Shit!" from me since I never took Calculus, and even if I had, it would have been 8 years ago. I'm fucked. Hence how a science class could begin my process of anger management. I was so frustrated with an assignment for that class tonight, that I went downstairs to use my punching bag (my favorite Christmas present this year). My anger fully surfaced at my own inadequacies, at the class, at math, at stereotypes of women who aren't good at math. I punched...and I punched...and I punched. I punched until the anger was pouring out of me in sweat and in tears. I punched till my fingers hurt and my heart was ready to explode. I punched till the anger subsided and I felt some release. My anger came out in salty droplets, and I took one small step towards the death of repression.

I kick ass!

Check this out...I'm Superwoman! Yeah baby! I can fly and beat bad people up, yet I have a darker side since Catwoman is next on the list. Sweet. I dig it! My one feminist tidbit that I must throw out there is that she is definitely Superwoman, not Supergirl. I definitely don't think that she would qualify as a "girl" according to the picture they give, at least I've never seen a girl with that big of boobs or muscles. We don't call Superman Superboy, so let's extend the same respect to his female counterpart. I couldn't help myself, it bothered me.
Your results:
You are Supergirl

Supergirl 75% Catwoman 70% Spider-Man 65% Hulk 65% Robin 60% Green Lantern 55% Superman 55% Wonder Woman 40% The Flash 30% Batman 25% Iron Man 25%

Lean, muscular and feminine. Honest and a defender of the innocent.

Click here to take the "Which Superhero are you?" quiz...

The Christmas blur

Christmas comes and goes faster and faster the older I get. It is quite amazing really. Recently, I have begun to see Christmas differently. I have more of a tendency to be dissatisfied with the commercialism and consumeristic nature of Christmas. In an attempt to make some peace between the dislike of consumerism and the need to buy presents for people, Josh and I tried to buy gifts that we knew would be used and that were experientially based. We bought tickets to theatres, ski resorts, and golf courses. We figured at least that felt a little less commercialized.

The picture above was taken on our way to Idaho. We stopped at the top of the Meacham pass, because the valley below was filled with thick, dense fog. It was beautiful!





Our Christmas in Idaho visiting Josh's family was a grand time. There was good food, good talks, and a very cute little girl! It snowed a couple days before Christmas, so we got to go up to Mom's cabin for sledding. Ally didn't want to go sledding at all. They had her try it once, cause you have to try everything once. She cried the whole way down. Then after she got inside the cabin she couldn't stop talking about sledding and how great it was.






I was sad to miss spending Christmas with my own family, but time and money did not allow it. My niece, Kya, is painfully adorable with mounds of curly hair.

I'm going to see her in March and I'm very excited. Keith and Steph send me pictures and I'm amazed at how much she is growing.
Over-all Christmas was good. We were constantly serenaded by Ally's version of Jingle Bells that was punctuated with a very enthusiastic HEY! after every couple of words. We relaxed and enjoyed being with family and playing in the snow. Long live relaxation, snow play, and Jingle Bells.