Harris Hill Ski Jump

Dale's mom and we went to the Harris Hill Ski Jump in Brattleboro, VT yesterday.  It just opened again after some good number of years and many significant renovations, and jumpers from all over came to compete.  There were folks from Austria, Slovenia, and EVEN COLORADO!!  Whoo!  (I'm being funny there.)  Well, of course we took over 300 photos and of those 300, a few of them were OK.  We apparently shot many of these from off-limits areas, however:  The side we were on was a photographer's dream, so few people; all of them had cameras.  Then someone asked if we were press, and kindly threw us out.  Apparently the few other cameras along "our" side of the jump were press, not spectators.  Whups!  Thanks to Dale's mom for the potty break... otherwise the guy may not have noticed!  LOL

Anywho, a few shots from yesterday can be had at www.mount9.com, but here's my favourite.  The reason I like it is because the picture itself isn't particularly focused, and most of it is so light compared to the left corner.  So my eyes are immediately drawn to that corner where the figure is looking down.  It's really not the greatest shot, especially considering that I meant to blur the people down below far more than they were, but I still like it.  And yes, the angle was intentional.  I got something right!  By the way, it is VERY hard to focus on people at close range going 50mph+.  Just for the record.

Vienna Teng

Vienna Teng. I first witnessed her voice several years ago when she
was on the David Letterman show. I still remember it fairly vividly:
I was sitting on my couch with my laptop, chatting with online
friends. My friend, Dave, comes online and suddenly writes, "CBS.
Letterman. NOW." It took me a moment to realize he meant TV, but I
found the remote, turned on the set, and froze dead in my tracks as
goosebumps rose all over my body. A slight shadow of a thing, Vienna
filled the screen with her elegance. She swayed gracefully as her
fingers danced lightly, but firmly, over the lovely ebonies and
ivories of a baby grand. She was singing "Gravity," which immediately
rendered itself a staple in my musical diet from that moment on.
Letterman, I think, was one of her first big breaks. She's still not
really "out there" that I know of, but she has gained a good share of
popularity and does lovely shows to eager audiences all over the
nation and even in other countries.

She's Chinese-American, and has sung at least one song entirely in
Chinese in fact - Green Island Serenade. (How I yearn to memorize
that one so I can "sing" along in my truck!) She started playing
piano at age five and began composing her own melodies around age
six... although she's said that she only plays her own compositions
from high school onward (at least publicly). She's sort of a cross
between pop and lounge music - i.e., kind of folksie/jazzy with a
touch of pop. I say lounge because of songs like Transcontinental,
1:30AM, in particular, but simply listening to her, one is easily able
to picture her singing to a small cozy group of evening patrons. As I
listen to her, I often imagine myself in a 50's or 60's bar room,
dimly lit, smokey air, blue spotlights... I'm looking over a sparkling
glass of glowing amber-green liquor, ruminating as I watch a poised,
white-gloved woman on stage singing along to an upright bass and a
soft tappity-tap of a snare. She's eyeing her following with a
seductively appraising look as she sings, lowering her eyelashes to
accentuate the effect she has on the gents. She uses her mike as a
vocal weapon. We are all shushed into silence by the power of her
voice. She smiles as she raises an eyebrow. A sparkle glints beneath
her lashes and she singers louder, stronger...

Yet, whenever I've seen Vienna on stage, she always looks very caught
up in her own singing. It's like she's scarcely aware of the eyes
upon her despite the roaming glance of the performer within.

I firmly believe that everyone has their own talents and that some are
just harder to see than others, but in her case, the talent is pretty
obvious. I'm quite spellbound by her, in fact. My lifelong love of
Peter Cetera's voice and the little emotional bursts he'd tuck in
there will always have my heart, but the lyrics were somehow never
quite so poignant as Richard Marx's husky insights, Vienna's lulling
truths, Eminem's harsh frankness or Amy Lee's wonderfully expressive
pain. Some folks just KNOW how to vocalize their hearts out and
thankfully for us, permit us to enjoy it while they do so. I savour
these hypnotizing tidbits for the expressive masterpieces that they are.

Here's my reaction to one of Vienna's many irresistible songs. I used
to write these "reviews" a lot while listening to Peter Cetera's
music, and now it's Vienna's turn to suffer my literary attentions. I
hope she doesn't mind. LOL.

PASSAGE
Vienna begins completely solo, soon accompanied by a crickety sound of
background noise, ever so slight. She sings of having died in a car
crash, and how her loved ones are coping. My heart is immediately
spellbound by the capturing lull of her eloquently descriptive
lyrics. I can see the wreckage of ironic innocence; the other driver
walking sadly (but gratefully!) away with his wife; the sister
screaming, tears in eyes; the lover looking on in silence; the
mother's pain; the coworkers staring into space in a moment of
silence. The story continues as her loved ones cope with her death.
They move through life, accepting, moving forward, remembering, and
eventually decades pass. The irony of her death now so unlikely due
to current safety designs, the song ends with her lover, who
eventually moved on with his own life and married to someone more than
a beloved memory. The lyrics are poignantly realistic. Vienna's
compelling vocals draw you out of your emotional shell despite any
resistance you may have. They tantalize your ears with sweet anguish
and beat you with their raw detail so undeterringly that the true
irony of a song about an automobile accident is this: If you're
driving, DO NOT under any circumstances listen to this song. For if
you have any shred of emotional turbulence within you, you will have
trouble seeing the road as the depth of these lyrics reach beneath
your surface and yank on your insides until your eyes blur with tears.

Visually spellbounding through the lulling pull of a delicately strong
vocal supremacy. That's Vienna, in my book.

~nv

Screw it

I can't justify spending hours downloading patches just to try a game.

WoW is officially on my sh** list.

World of Warcraft Woes

Okay, so I finally decided to install and try out World of Warcraft.

The install went fine. Then I had to create an account and register
for the free 10-day version. (I had the install disc but the 14-day
trial code was already taken.) Then I spent the rest of the evening
downloading patches. I left the last three to download overnight (one
was 2.3GB - yes, GB) and thought, "Yay, tomorrow morning I'll get to
play the game, FINALLY!!"

Ha.

I got up a few minutes ago and rushed downstairs only to find that I
had run out of hard drive space and the last patch won't download. I
have 5GB!! I have a slight problem with this.

1. The original system requirements state that you need 10GB of hard
drive space. Since WoW is currently taking up 8GB with the gazillion
patches it already downloaded, it stands to reason that 5GB more
should be plenty.

2. One should NOT have to spend inordinate amounts of time downloading
patches just to play a goddamned game. Get it right the first time,
people, and put it on the DVD.

3. Blizzard doesn't even host their own stupid patches. They rely on
peer-to-peer to do it for them.

4. The game itself costs $20 retail, and then to keep playing after
the trial period, you spend between $13 and $15 a month.

5. The game is online only, hence the cost in #4.

6. You need nine of the ten days just to download all the stupid
patches, so in reality, you only get one free trial day, because you
can't download anything until you have your trial account created AND
sign into the game.

7. As beautiful as the game seemed when I saw someone at work playing
it, I WILL NOT STAND FOR ANY OF THIS.

You know, this is the one weekend I had time to finally get into it
and now most of my weekend is gone, wasted, obliterated, by Blizzard
which as has turned into a worse company than Microsoft with all its
upgrades and patches because they just couldn't wait until things were
RIGHT before releasing the MAJORITY of the code WITH the game. Note:
THERE IS NO WARNING on the game itself stating that you'll need to
spend hours on a 5MB down DSL line getting stuff just to play the game
for the first time. The farthest I got was the trailer. From there,
it would not go further until I downloaded to the latest patch. The
line on the box that read "system requirements will change with time"
does not cut it with me. Yeah, they've covered their butts legally,
but that's all. They MUST have foreseen a gazillion downloads in the
future and to be truly legitimate, they should state on the box:
"Note that once you install this game, you will not be able to play
until you download all patches, which can be larger than the game
itself. We suggest you start this installation process well before
you actually want to play the game."

And, they should sell the patches on discs, too.

In this day and age of "everything is fast" - there is NO excuse for
this BS. Especially when expecting such amounts of money to slip
through their greedy little fingers. Thank goodness I never bought
this thing. I'm going to attempt to install it on my Mac which has
more hard disk space (windows was a partition on it and I never
expected to install anything THAT big) and if it fails again, I'm
going to boycott this elusive game like I did Radio Shack for years
when they cheated me on a keyboard.

~nv
"Java is the most distressing thing to hit computing since MS-DOS." –
Alan Kay

Garden beginning

Today I started the garden. 12 peat containers each of celery,
peppers, and brussel sprouts.

:)

Tomatoes will be started next time around, since they should be
planted when it's just a tad warmer outside so they can be
transplanted in the right amount of time TO the outside.

~nv

Windows: Remap keys

http://www.usnetizen.com/fix_capslock.php#figure1
Very handy for Asus where shift and up arrow REALLY should have been
swapped... This is what I typed into my little .reg file:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Keyboard Layout]
"Scancode Map"=hex:00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,03,00,00,00,36,00,48,e0,48,e0,36,00,\
00,00,00,00

:)

Rat rice?

The other day I gave my three rats a big huge spoonful of rice from
dinner. You know, like the soup ladle size spoon.

The next day I went to check on things and every last grain was gone.

Those little buggers probably shouldn't have eaten that much rice,
but, apparently they REALLY liked it. So far no ill effects,
thankfully. In fact all three of them are acting pretty spunky
tonight. The cats are sitting on the stairway landing giving me very
dirty looks, like, "I can't /believe/ you're letting them run around
your table and you won't let us have even ONE!! What a selfish human,
keeping three rats all to yourself like that!!"

My raternal instincts kicked into alertness when Lisa and Rikki both
fell silent and still, their eyes seemingly fixed on something. At
first I figured it was Sinclair, whom I didn't see in my line of
sight. Turns out I was right, sort of. I hadn't realized just how
close he was getting until something about the rats' stare made me
shiver. So I moved my elbow ever so slightly and peered over it to
see that Sinclair was just settling down below the edge of the table
with large black saucers for eyes. I didn't watch him very long to
know he was in pounce mode. Just as I pulled my hands together to
scare him off, his butt began wiggling and he'd already risen a bit on
his haunches. He flipped sideways and took off in high gear when he
realized I was not amused by nor proud of his intentions, no matter
how catlike and native those might be for him.

Anywho, time for bed. The little ratties have just been returned to
their big house for food, drink, and a nice clean bed. Dale said he
washed the sheets on our own bed so I guess WE get a nice clean bed,
too!! :D

Below: Rats when they were just two months old. They sure have grown
in their first year!

Kenny Cetera

Peter Cetera's younger brother, Kenny. He's been singing and drumming
for years. I have a couple demo recordings of his from the 80's or
90's, one of which is "Could It Be You" (on this site). Not a bad
voice, but other than having a strong hint of the tenor "air" like
Peter once had (now I consider him more of a present-day crooner), I
can't detect any vocal resemblances like I do with Peter and his
daughter, Claire. To me he sounds more like Michael W. Smith, Tony
Lewis, Russell Hitchcock and Paul Simon, all mixed in together as one
voice and stripped of power. I think this impression would be
lessened if his voice was mixed better with his music, though, and if
he wrote his own stuff (the stuff on the site, I'm not sure he did
write it).

Anywho, here's the site for him:
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=280844120

Oh, in case you don't know some of these:
Peter Cetera - currently a solo artist, but was once a lead singer and
bassist for Chicago (You're The Inspiration; If You Leave Me Now;
Glory Of Love; Feels Like Heaven)
Michael W. Smith - a Christian Pop singer (I Will Be Here For You;
Place In This World)
Tony Lewis - lead singer for The Outfield (Voices Of Babylon; Alone
With You)
Russell Hitchcock - the higher voice for Air Supply (Lost In Love;
Making Love Out Of Nothing At All; All Out Of Love)
Paul Simon - the higher voice for Simon & Garfunkel and he did lots of
solo work also (Slip Slidin' Away; The Sound Of Silence)

Rant on Minorities (again)

I'm also looking at statistics for the various state school systems.
I'm noticing that the majority of states with a high percentage of
folks getting free or reduced lunch rates also have corresponding
black and hispanic numbers.

Massachusetts (where I grew up) is one of the top players (not the
highest by any means) with 73% of students receiving this benefit.
13.5% of the students are classified as "white" while 40.9% are black
and 35.2% are hispanic. I love statistics but having grown up in a
mostly-black-and-hispanic neighbourhood, the only thing I can see
about the "minorities" failing in life is that they CAN'T SPEAK PROPER
ENGLISH.

Far be it from a little poor city girl to figure THAT out, though...
zheezh. And I state this: To someone growing up as a white minority,
it's very hard to fathom why they're still being called minorities in
the first place. Equality, people. We gots it. Let it rest, go
learn English, and do something with your own life instead of crying
about your poor peoples. Egads, every people on earth has been
discriminated against. If it's not happening to you now and you're
not actively involved in stopping it for others actually in the
situation, then get over it.

I simply do not comprehend why race and sex have anything to do with
anything anyway. The only logical thing I can think of is that women
give birth and men don't (for the most part). But race is foobar
aside from potential physical differences. I've seen some pretty
athletic white folks, though, which blows the "blacks are better
basketball players" idea right out of the water.

Listen up, people: We've all got our strengths and weaknesses. Learn
how to exploit your strengths and curb your weaknesses for the
betterment of Society, and the world at large may just have more
respect for us as a Nation.

End Rant.

Teacher Quality my butt

You know, the word "deserve" is really getting on my nerves, too,
these days. I read the first paragraph of this site about teacher
quality and cannot stand the use of the English language anymore.

"The National Council on Teacher Quality is a nonpartisan research and
advocacy group committed to restructuring the teaching profession, led
by our vision that every child deserves effective teachers."

Children do not DESERVE effective teachers, because to deserve
something, you must be worthy of reward. Children are too young and
moldable to _deserve_ a headstart in life because they haven't done
anything with their lives yet to warrant such a statement. Rather,
knowledge is paramount to every child's future. It isn't deserved;
it's a necessity in our society to give every child equal
opportunities. What each child does with those opportunities is up to
them.

I have trouble placing stock in the site at all if the authours
themselves have not been correctly taught. Perhaps their vendetta is
due to their own lack of study when they were younger.

Anywho, otherwise it's a neat site with all sorts of data compiled.
It's just that, like my beliefs in journalism and any public text,
sites about teaching should be linguistically correct.

End rant.

Asus Eee Pc 1000HA

I read a gazillion reviews and asked around and so... Last night I
finally took the plunge and ordered an Asus Eee Pc 1000HA in
sleekandfingerprintyforsure Ebony Black. I wanted the 1000H but it
was hard to find, most places said it was either out of stock or
discontinued. But it basically added 802.11 -n- to the b/g along with
bluetooth, neither of which I can honestly say I NEED. So I ended up
with the next model down for $100 less and at a store I like to do
business with.

Other specs: Atom processor, 160GB hard drive, XP Home, three usb
ports, a VGA port, ethernet, 802.1 b/g, 10" screen, 6-cell battery
that can last "up to" 7 hours, and according to a few sites it's got
the smallest power supply available, too.

Due date is within two weeks. This will be my ninth [current] "child"
and the first new computer I'll have had since Dale enticed me to
marry him with Shady in October of 2006. The one before Shady, was
Raven, which I built in August of 2004. So, I'm definitely due for
another one.

I am very very excited. With this little doodad I can sit on the
couch, upstairs in bed, on the stairs, outside on the porch (once it
warms up), in the truck, et al and get a good 5 hours of fun time. I
can also take it with me to friends' houses and the occasional
client's when those creep back into my life (which they always do
somehow). YAYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

cough recipe

I *think* this works... at least, it seems to, or maybe I'm not
extremely sick so it's only coincidink.

Tight chest, bronchial intermittent cough with post nasal drip, one of
those coughs that hurts while being only slightly productive... I hate
them, because it sounds like I've got bronchitis but for such a minor
irritation it's overkill. Anywho, I discovered that this concoction
may hold it at bay:

One crushed clove of garlic
1/4 tsp cayenne
About four cloves with stems, whatever that turns out to be - crush
them coarsely
Some powdered fennel, garlic powder, salt (it was an existing blend I
had for cooking)
about 1/2 tsp mustard seed, crushed or not... I suspect crushed is
better
1/2 tsp vinegar
1-2 tsp honey
6 oz hot water

Place all of the above into a cup and stir together. Let sit about 15
minutes. Take a few sips, then sip every time you feel a cough coming
on or right after coughing. It seems to loosen the plegm a bit and
make new coughs more productive for a while, and open up airways. It
also seems to stimulate mucous. Finally, I haven't yet noticed a very
sore throat just yet from the coughing, just a bit of itchiness.
While I'm most definitely sick, it seems that it's not as bad as it
could have been.

I have a few theories as to why this recipe seems to work. First,
Cayenne Pepper improves circulation, makes your (or at least my) nose
run a bit, and is supposed to be good for mucous production overall
anyway. Garlic is an antibacterial, strengthens mucous membranes, and
overall has been a "healthy" herb anyway. Cloves have a numbing agent
in them as well as antibacterial consituents. It's long been used for
toothaches. Vinegar is another cure-all, honey is also antibacterial;
in the past I've used them half-and-half to dampen or prevent a sore
throat (burns like hell but it works if done right away).

Not sure what fennel and mustard seed do, but salt is a good cleansing
agent and helps clear the slime out of your mouth when you're sick. I
didn't want to mess with a recipe I believe works, so I left the
ingredients intact.

I figure the garlic, vinegar, honey, and cayenne are working on the
bug I've got, and the cloves and vinegar and honey are helping to keep
my throat from getting sore. The cloves, I discovered, have an added
benefit - they keep you from "tasting" the crap in the cup. I noticed
this because this last time, I didn't crush them much at all and the
stuff burned like holy ol' - well, you get the idea. Then I chewed on
a clove for a bit and next thing I knew, I couldn't taste _anything_
anymore. :D

So I stayed home from work today, I may be well enough to be there but
I don't feel very rested and I do feel irritable and by God, I bet no
one would want me around with the garlic smell anyway so I decided to
stay home and read in bed all day. It's not like I'm crucial
anymore... it's a new job where I haven't made myself totally
invaluable yet so I think I can be easy on myself just this once and
do what I'd tell anyone else who was sick. STAY HOME.

~nv

The victim

Dale's words echo my sentiments: "Once again, I found myself faced
with a bad smell. It smelled of death. So we looked around, followed
our nose and found it. It appears This APC unit must be defective. It
could not provide battery backup to save this little guy."

The little critter is pretty much in the center of the photo. If he
were still alive, perhaps he could sue APC? At any rate, may he rest
in peace.

Death hides not from mine nose

I have a really mild cold, and apparently my nose was affected last
night because I had absolutely NO problem with the garlic "tea" I was
drinking before bed. Well, this morning I made another cuppa and was
nearly blown over backward by the stench. Poor Daley-poo!! He hates
garlic!! Well, anyway, a few minutes ago, Dale called to me and asked
if my nose was working. I said, "Not sure, why," thinking perhaps I
smelled worse than last night or something and didn't know it. He
said he kept smelling "dead animal" smell.

Well, as much as I hate the smell of rotting flesh, and as much as the
mere thought of it can make me gag when my throat is already feeling
coated with slimy mucous, I can't turn down an informal invite to
define and locate the source of whatever it was he smelled. So I got
up and went to walk into his den.

I didn't get very far when I was hit with a whiff of death-aroma. I
stopped and fought a faint gag. It faded. So I told Dale he was most
definitely right - it was certainly the unmistakeable odor of death -
and then I took to hunting all over the floor, sniffing vents, behind
the entertainment center, the catnip scratch box... and only caught
the occasional whiff. Dale admitted that he smelled it more near the
floor, too, but otherwise, we were perplexed by the lack of source. I
tried to take note of any drafts that might be dragging wafts of the
stench our way, but those tests were inconclusive as the drafts were
not sufficiently strong enough to lead me. Like a bloodhound, I
scampered across the floor, holding my cough in check lest I catch a
whiff again and puke my brains out during a would-be short coughing
fit. I couldn't smell it under the couch or chair so I figured maybe
it's near Dale's desk? After all, he's still smelling it off and on,
and he's sitting there, and that's the wall where I first smelled it,
so...?

I stuck my nose in between his desk and the armoire and was greeted
with a reassuringly strong sign of death. I estimated it was likely 2
or 3 days since whatever it was fell off its mortal coil. Oh, joy.
He said, "Ok. I can look for it from here, then, thanks." But I
hadn't seen it. I wasn't satisfied with grossing myself out that
much, I wanted to know for certain as to what the source was, no
matter how heartbreaking or disgusting it might be!! He repeated
himself as I dug in behind the flags, the little foldup chair, peeking
behind the armoir, sniffing, searching, eyes piercing the dark
recesses for any sign of decay. The smell faded behind the armoir.
His desk, then.

'twas a fat little mouse, fast asleep for eternity upon his
Uninterruptible Power Supply. Just a foot from his foot, no less. It
would appear that UPSes only work for electronics, for when the little
bugger lost his life, the backup whose outlets he had so carefully
laid his tiny little body between utterly failed to generate power for
his tiny heart.

Another one bytes the dust, I'm afraid. I only hope it was a quick
death. I will say that with two hunters around, no mouse will live in
this house for very long without being a caged captive in my direct
care.

~nv

Western Rainbow

WESTERN RAINBOW
2009011762 c2009wlc

The other day I was driving home
When I looked up for just a moment
I caught a glimpse of the setting sun
And lo!
I swore I saw a sun dog
But no!
'twas a solitary rainbow
Growing with every passing second
To the left of the sun
Over West Mountain.

I kept on driving, no camera upon me
I looked up as often as I dared
Watching the rainbow grow ever stronger
So straight!
I swore it had to be alone
So great!
The minutes passed as time grew late
The sun still bright but going down
My heart alight and dancing
Across from West Mountain.

Around a curve, and then another
Still I could not cease to wonder
Another bend, no sign of thunder
The skies!
They were the clearest I could see
My eyes
Bedazzled by the scene displayed
Could scarce believe there were no clouds
Just a hint of wispy shrouds
Caressing West Mountain.

But on the other side of Sun
Over the spot where we turned One
The other end of the wondrous rainbow
Standing proud!
My foot eased off the gas
Still no cloud!
The silence of the air, it stilled me
For God Himself had all but willed me
To see that time had stopped
Up on West Mountain.

Over our mountain where we were married
The sun surrounded by a Promise
Even though you were not there
I felt you
And called you there in spirit
To share with you
The strength and love of such beauty
So akin to what we share
The Rainbow went not unaware
For I still see it
When I gaze at West Mountain.

~nv
"A life of struggle means you quit and stagnate or fight and change."
~me

Dancing Rainbows

DANCING RAINBOWS
200901761 c2009wlc

It's 9 a.m.
I watch the sun stream through the window
Birds are chirping
Peace envelops me in its warmth
I lay upon my side
Your jaw at my head
My glasses pushed high
So I am partially blind
My eyes are attracted to a movement
So subtle, I surely would have missed it
Were it not for the slowing wander of my mind
And this calming peace
Surrounding me

A myriad of cellular rainbows
Softly pulsating, a natural rhythm
Dancing quietly in the light
The morning light
Travelling up the swell of hand
Slowly fading into clouds
Your hand turns ashen
I'm feeling you in 80 years
And I'm secure
For you're with me

cherokee

I'm in the midst of my first Cherokee language class, online at www.cherokee.org
... and it's pretty slow. The teacher is funny and sweet but my New
England upbringing has my mind racing past everything so fast it's too
hard to concentrate... like reigning myself in for sleep when I'm not
tired. LOL

Ooh, he's talking about chocolate... oooooooooooooooo (that's "u" in
Cherokee)

LOL LOL LOL

Now we're on the G row of the syllabary... oh my this will take a
while. LOL If I don't have this syllabary completely memorized by the
time this one class if over, just shoot me.

nv

Our Kitchen

I love our kitchen.

And... kitchen just became the weird word of the day. Funny how that
happens... you say a word your whole life and all of a sudden it feels
so ... strange. Kitchen. What an odd sound...

~nv

Family

Mum has been telling me off and on about the issues facing my cousin
and her daughter. She said my cousin's view is likely one-sided.

I agreed, because I used to feel that way back when the right side was
MY side, but now I see both sides of our story and can see why Mum's
side was the right one, too - from her perspective, that is. I mean,
I still don't full agree with her on a few things, but I can see why
she could feel the way she does about them. Well, my cousin's got her
side, but her daughter's got a side, too. From my perspective, I
could easily imagine that she's feeling good about herself right now,
staying off drugs when their pull might be so strong, and then having
a mother who still refuses to believe she's a good person inside just
because she's done some stupid things in the past. What could make it
worse is that the kid may not understand that her mom's particularly
vulnerable right now, having just lost her husband of well, a long
time. The kid could be taking her mother's words quite personally
which would do absolutely nothing for her own self-esteem. It takes a
strong person to pull out of such a cycle.

Am I talking about my cousins, or my mother and I?

Regardless, in the kid's case - I'd say that assuming she continues to
pull herself up by her bootstraps and stays off drugs, she's a damned
strong person and worthy of a second look by her own mother, at the
least.

I can also see her mother's side, though - worry that she'll lapse
back into drugs as she has before. But I know from experience that
people with bad habits can surprise the shit out of you.

"God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; the
courage to change the things I can; and the wisdom to know the
difference." ~Alcoholics Anonymous Serenity Prayer

~nv

Writing

I decided I missed reviewing music albums. I read a few of my old
ones for Peter and thought, Gee, I don't write like that any more. I
don't write much at all in fact... truly write, I mean, as in express
myself! So I set out to review one of Richard Marx's albums. I sat
here for over an hour struggling to find words that used to come so
effortlessly to my racing mind. I couldn't do it with any sense of
self-satisfaction, no matter how involved my heart got while I
listened to his music in an effort to help myself get "into" it.

So I started "rambling" to my blog. My favourite English teacher had
taught her classes this trick; she said that if you ever have writer's
block, just ramble on and on and eventually you'll get something good
out of it. And if not, it at least gets the juices flowing so you can
get closer to getting over the block.

I was horrified to think that the expressive side of my writing
abilities have waned so dramatically over the last few years. Even
when I didn't really feel like writing, I could still do it on command
to some extent. Now I can email people but writing poetry is a
tedious, unpleasant task that makes me want to bang my head against a
wall to let my feelings gush out in a messy brain-spilling glob. Ah!
You see? That's what I'm talking about. Perhaps my recent exercises
are helping already. I do still "have" it, but the "big words" I used
to be so good at conjuring up out of thin air have all but
disappeared. I spend more time trying to figure out the right word
for what I want to say than I do actually writing! So I will be
reading the dictionary again and every day I'll be rambling. LOL

Part of my problem, I think, is related to what I mentioned to my
mother the last time we spoke - lack of "alone" time. I think I've
failed to realize that in order to write well, I need time to myself.
Lots of it. It isn't just about getting my thoughts together and
experiencing the feeling that I once felt, whether good or bad; it's
about expression, which I can't always do in its entirety because
communication is typically verbal between Dale and I, courtesy of
warnings given me by my past counsellor. But you see, each and every
interruption breaks my thought pattern and in order to avoid feeling
annoyed I simply swallow every feeling whole lest I spout off over
nothing. I found it rather entertaining tonight because as I was
writing, and mentioned it half-heartedly, Dale still managed to
interrupt me at least four times. The last time, he came downstairs
just to make an appearance as he brushed his teeth. I ripped off my
headphones and said laughingly as I finished a string of words with my
fingers: "Of course the interruptions could be a big part of this."
He just looked at me quizzically, not having "heard" the concerns I'd
previously written on my screen, which is why I laughed as I said it.
It made me realize just how justified I am in fearing the process. I
would literally prefer to cease words altogether than have them
constantly dashed upon the bricks and scattered for me to repeatedly
pick up. Have you ever tried to pick up a little serif? Those things
are tiny enough, and damn, are they sharp!! I almost bled after
poking myself with an "A" serif.

I've mused about this, in all seriousness, for some time now and I've
come to the absolute conclusion that yes, I need to state my needs
more often. And I need to stand by them with absolute declaration.
If he's going out and invites me along after I've stated that I'm
going to stay home and do "me" things, then I need to say "No, I have
plans to write today. You go ahead." I need to remember that I have
a right to take this time for myself, and a duty, in fact, to meet
this need for myself. My mom used to do what her and I called "Four-
Year-Tantrums" and by golly, I will NOT have myself start having those
due to unexpressed emotions that are swallowed whole in an attempt to
be with my counterpart every minute of every waking hour we manage to
have off at the same time. It's unhealthy and not who I am besides.

Aight, now I'm tired and will go to bed.

~nv