Category Archives: events

A day late

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I know everyone is probably completely over the turn of the new year. By New Years day people are usually at home nursing their hangovers or assessing the fire damage and loss caused by the previous night’s attempt at fire works, or looking for their long-gone pants and dignity, whatever they are doing they are not really interested in hearing another recap of of the previous year. It’s over, put a fork in it, it’s done.

Well, I am just not quick enough. Really, I intended to put my year-end blog post early yesterday, but I just was not sure how I was going to go about it. I didn’t want to write an essay detailing all of the events of the previous year and ending with my hopes for the coming year, because there would be almost nothing about that post that would set it apart from any of my other posts. I also didn’t want to do a top-ten list of events of this year since I hate top ten lists, so I stole this idea from sundry, who is one of the funniest bloggers in the history of bloggery, and decided to fill out a new year survey! LETS GO!

1. What did you do in 2009 that you’d never done before?

I started college: attended classes, took exams, put a project together, and acquired a GPA of 3.77.

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

I didn’t have a resolution last year. It’s often like setting yourself up for disappointment, which call me crazy, I am not all that into. But for 2010, my resolution will be simple and vague: keep going. Keep on with school, keep saving money, keep Deven, just don’t stop. I’m having such a blast at this point, I don’t think there is anything that could cause me to want to stop.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

Jackie had beautiful baby Gwenyth at the end of June! Jessica and Braxton had Alexis on 9-9. Good year for babies for everyone else.

4. Did anyone close to you die?

No, thank god.

5. What countries did you visit?

None. I didn’t even venture beyond the usual parts of Texas.

6. What would you like to have in 2010 that you lacked in 2009?

Friends. I go to a college full of other people and I have yet to befriend any of them. I’m going to try to open myself up to people more.

7. What dates from 2009 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

Ugggghhhh…November 7 is unavoidable. But June 1 was the day I started college. December 4 was the day I saw KISS for the first time. September 16 was the day my baby boy turned 2. That day is always memorable.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

Teaching Deven to talk to me with his hands, oh yeah, and starting school and ending the year with a GPA of 3.77.

9. What was your biggest failure?

For the first time I can say I didn’t do a whole lot of failing this year. But there were days when I felt like I could have been a better wife and a nicer person to Vance. I always feel like I could have been a better mom to Deven.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

I only had 3 or 4 colds by the end of the year, but dealt with my stomach issues and ailments pretty much daily.

11. What was the best thing you bought?

The Sims 3. I cannot lie.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?

DEVEN! He started talking finally!

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?

Pretty much all of America for fooling themselves into buying us another 4-8 years of the same old shit in a different color. Thanks, assholes.

14. Where did most of your money go?

Food and rent. Anything extra I’m sure went to crap. But we got some fun out of it, I’m sure.

15. What did you get really excited about?

SCHOOL. This subject pretty much dominated my year.

16. What song will always remind you of 2009?

Poker Face by Lady Gaga. It’s god awful, but why not?

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:

– happier or sadder? Much happier.
– thinner or fatter? I’m actually sure I’m the same. My weight has not fluctuated beyond 99-104 lbs.
– richer or poorer? Financially poorer, richer in love.

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?

Exercised, took Deven for more walks. We probably would have had more fun. I wish I could have reached out to my friends more, hung out with them. Stupid agoraphobia.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?

Yelled, watched TV, moped. The usual.

20. How did you spend Christmas?

With Vance’s parents in the sticks. We didn’t leave their house after Christmas morning until it was time to go home, and then we left Deven there for the week. It was wonderful.

21. Did you fall in love in 2009?

 With Craisins and True Blood. And maybe Alexander Skarsgard. Still working that one out.

22. What was your favorite TV program?

True Blood, True Blood, True Blood.

23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?

No…

24. What was the best book you read?

 I didn’t read as much as I would have liked to have. I did read Meltdown by Tom Woods and it was pretty damn good. I recommend it to Libertarian-leaning-intellectual-Austrian-economics- loving nerds.

25. What was your greatest musical discovery?

Celtic Rock: Enter the Haggis, The Young Dubliners, Tartanic. Awesome.

26. What did you want and get?

 To succeed in school, to acquire greater knowledge and a bigger brain, to actually become good at math, and a talking child. I didn’t even have to get pregnant again to get that one.

27. What did you want and not get?

 More money. Boooooo. And a vacation out of Texas. That last one didn’t happen because we ran out of the first one.

28. What was your favorite film of this year?

It’s a tie between Star Trek and District 9.

29. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

 I turned 24 and it was a bit of a disappointment. I went to the mall and became sick on an epic level. Ended up having to cancel my evening plans. People were nice to me though.

30. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

 More financial security, more friends.

31. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2009?

 Jeans and TShirts. I’m done trying to evolve beyond that, it’s just how I am.

32. What kept you sane?
Deven, talking to my friend Jackie, and school.

33. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

Alexander Skarsgard. Do I even have to elaborate?

34. What political issue stirred you the most?
Politics in general pissed me off. On any issue I’m the odd one out talking about free market and smaller government and Austrian Economic theory and a repeat of the last 8 hellish years, and everyone else is all, “I don’t even know what in the hell you’re talking about and I think you’re a racist” And I seriously contemplate chopping off each and every one of my limbs and stuffing them down a garbage disposal because that would seriously be less painful then talking to those ignorant oafs that I seem to encounter everywhere I go.

Do I even want to make more friends?

35. Who did you miss?

My mom, Annie, Chance, Captain Morgan.

36. Who was the best new person you met?

Tom Woods. I didn’t make any new friends, so it has to be an author/economist/historian that doesn’t remember me in the slightest. That’s okay, though, I got proof.

37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2009.

I don’t know of any anecdotal lessons I may have learned. Being a nice person is good. Thinking for yourself is indeed better than believing everything you are told. Being self-sufficient is good, but it’s okay to ask for help on occasion.

38. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.

This is from the song Anthem, by Rush. Long live Geddy.

“Know your place in life is where you want to be
Don’t let them tell you that you owe it all to me
Keep on looking forward, no use in looking ’round
Hold your head above the ground and they won’t bring you
Down”

Happy New Year everyone!

6 years

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So today is the 6 year anniversary of my mother’s death.

She died shortly after midnight of a pulmonary embolism after having surgery. I was living with my friend and a couple of days before the surgery I remember my mom calling me and telling me about the surgery. She was “excited” to have this last surgery because she believed she would finally get better and we could be a family again. I was terrified for her. I had visited her for the last time that Monday, but after that Thursday I didn’t call her. I didn’t call to check on her, or to say hi, or anything.

Last night I had a dream about her. I remember the day before thinking about the date, but it wasn’t heavily on my mind.  In the dream she was happy, and had lost weight and was living by herself. She had bought a ton of christmas presents for Deven. She was light years away from where she had been the years leading up to her death. She was always how I had hoped she would be when she was alive. The first couple of years after my mom died I had dreams about her several times a week. I think it’s a part of the grieving process to dream about the lost loved one. At first it made me feel better to believe it was her visiting me, making sure I was okay. I wish I could still believe that. Now I just think it was very heavy on the deepest part of my mind. Not believing in an afterlife sure is a bummer sometimes.

Sometimes when it comes to these dreams, the hardest part is waking up from them. This morning I didn’t wake up sad, per say, as much as surprised. In the past these dreams would ruin my entire day. During the dream I would be unbelievably happy and relieved that I was with my mom again and everything was okay, and then would be forced to wake up and realize that none of that is real and could never be real again. I had to live with the grief, sadness, and emptiness I aquired when my mom died. I had to hope that it would get better over time. Some times I would be so affected by these dreams I would force myself to believe that there had to be something beyond this life, because it was just too intensely painful to believe that I would never in any lifetime see my mother again.

Sometimes I imagine where she would be in my life now. I tell Vance that she would hate him because he took her only daughter away and that there was no guy in existence good enough for me. I would have insisted that we lived close to her so she could see Deven every day, and she and I would be arguing constantly over how I raised him. We would be perpetually mad at each other, just like we were when she was here, but at least she’d be alive. It is so unfair that Deven will never get to know his grandmother, and it kills me that she never got to meet him. She’d be in love with him the same way I am. She would be so happy again.

One of the hardest parts of my mother’s death was losing her 17 days before Christmas. She loved Christmas, it was her favorite time of year. I remember it was a good year when she was excited to decorate the tree. Every year we would buy new ornaments and decorations, and every year she would insist that every single ornament went on the tree. Some years I would be surprised the tree didn’t fall over or collapse on itself from the massive amounts of gaudy clutter that over took the fake plastic tree. She would go into debt to make sure we were happy. The entire living room would be filled with gifts. I don’t plan on recreating any of this for my family; I’m talking minimal decorations and huge birthdays as opposed to christmases, but these memories represent the joy I had with my mom. I have to try to focus on these things as opposed to dwelling on the sadness. When we put up the tree this year, I thought a lot about my mom and how she went about decorating. I envisioned sitting on our little couch cradling, kissing, and tickling Deven. I have no idea what I would get her this year, and I would probably insist that she not get me anything.

This time of year is the often the hardest, and most cathartic, but brings back the best memories of the time I spent with her. I cannot let myself forget them, I cannot forget the joy I used to feel, and I have to try ot recreate it again for myself and my son.

It’s hard. I miss my mom

Happy Thanksgiving!

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Every year at the holidays there is always that one side dish that is never missing from the table.

At our house it’s called pink stuff. No, not jell-o salad, not crap ala mom, pink stuff. It was a recipe concocted by my paternal grandmother or somebody on that side, and “perfected” by my mom. After she died my brother kept pestering me to bring back this thanksgiving landmark from the dead. I never learned how to make it formally. I have no idea what the hell I am doing when I make it, so it comes out a little bit different every year.

If you’re into diabetic comas and “textural surprises” pink stuff is for you!

It’s made of red-colored jell-o (I usually go for cherry), cocktail fruit, marshmallow cream, cream cheese, and…

to make it seem a little less like chunky vomit, cool whip. Not reddi-wip, not whipped cream, cool whip. If you do it without cool whip, you’re doing it wrong.

Yeah, after going through the arduous task of making the stuff, seeing it in each of it’s stages, I avoid it. Some how every year the stuff is totally gone by the time dinner’s over.

Happy holidays to all!