Not exactly Acapulco with the Bizet Society....
It has been one intense spring break. Much like the week before last, actually, when it was good, it was spectacularly amazing, and when it was bad, it was often crushingly horrible. It all balances out in the end, really, and ultimately, mostly on the good side. The sucky bits are just very draining.
Last weekend, and Monday and Tuesday, I spent much of my time driving my grandmother back and forth from the hospital, where my grandfather is still on breathing tubes since the car accident- almost three weeks now. This was the more exhausting part of the week- running errands, helping my grandmother clean her house, gather her stuff, go to the bank and to church and anywhere else she needed driven; when I wasn't doing that, I was trying to help my mom; both my parents have been missing tons of work trying to deal with my grandparents, and so I've been trying to help cook and clean and get things done around the house as best I can. I also went to the doctor and got a tetanus booster- which still hurts- and the first dose of Gardasil, which is possibly the most unpleasant vaccination I have ever gotten...it burns as it goes into your bloodstream, and you can sort of feel it, spreading painfully down your arm, and into your neck...not fun. There were also, of course, some brilliant moments, watching Doctor Who with Dad, and sometimes my grandmother, who is clearly engaged despite having no idea what's going on most of the time.
New York, of course, was brilliant; we somehow ended up in a private room in the hostel, we rocked MOMA and the Met, (and though I still didn't find my Merovingian plate, I did find an early Persian medallion that I may just like better).
I had a surprising amount of fun watching the skaters in Rockefeller Center; I sort of started making up stories about them, and wondering about their lives and stuff. We rode the carousel in Central Park, went to Tiffany's (no breakfast, though; remind me to put that on my list of things to do sometime in my life), spent ages in the American Girl store being nostalgic, and saw Mary Poppins- second time for me, and just as brilliant as before because Bert tapdances on the ceiling and you cannot get any better than that.
Plus, of course, being in New York was whirlwind and intense, as the city always is, and didn't leave me time to think. And we ended reading large chunks of the Thursday Next books out loud, occasionally in British accents, which, though we can do fairly passable RP, was not nearly as good as I can hear it in my head. (The narration should be in a mild Welsh accent, sort of Gareth David-Lloyd level; Thursday's voice should be a perfect middle class Estuary accent; Acheron Hades sounds exactly like John Simm playing the Master, of course. Landon's got a kind of unidentifiable RP-ish thing, he sounds like Colin Firth's character in Love Actually. Mycroft and Polly speak old-fashioned RP, not like, T.S. Eliot or anything, but 60's or 70's BBC. Most of the random SpecOps characters have northern accents of varying degrees, and sound either like Simon Pegg in Hot Fuzz, or like the Life on Mars characters. Yes, I've thought a lot about this. I could almost hear it as I was reading, and it was so frustrating not to be able to replicate it out loud.) Um...my point was actually just that these books are brilliant, by the way. My current favorite throwaway pun is the character Oswald Mandias. Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair. And it's Satis House.
Had a rougher day today...got up by 11 and was at the hospital for a good while; there were a lot of various family members there, and it was nice to see people. I had a bit of a meltdown actually; it's weird, I didn't cry before, except briefly right after hearing the news, and nothing's upset me until today, when he was clearly awake and conscious and in a lot of pain and unable to talk or move. It's such a nightmarishly terrifying headspace- trapped, conscious, silenced, in pain and unable to die. The worst part was leaving- it's obvious (to everyone, really, though some people are more willing to say it than others) that it would be kinder to let him die- and I had thought I was comfortable with that. It was really easy when he was unconscious, you know, you just say goodbye and he's not there, so it's easy. When he's awake, though, I don't know...when I left today, I was saying goodbye to my grandfather, not just a body; he was awake and himself and squeezing my hand and loved me. It hit me a lot harder than I was expecting. I guess you can know that something is for the best and still have it be painful, though. Obviously.
I "finished" my thesis again; I finished once when I finished the draft of the draft, and I finished now when I finished editing the draft. I still haven't written a conclusion; I'm kind of afraid to. And there are two sections of criticism I need to fill in, and some footnoting needs to happen...I'm kind of at the "insert Freud here" stage. Multi-valanced puns intended.
Anyway, off to pack. And possibly sort through my notes some more.
Last weekend, and Monday and Tuesday, I spent much of my time driving my grandmother back and forth from the hospital, where my grandfather is still on breathing tubes since the car accident- almost three weeks now. This was the more exhausting part of the week- running errands, helping my grandmother clean her house, gather her stuff, go to the bank and to church and anywhere else she needed driven; when I wasn't doing that, I was trying to help my mom; both my parents have been missing tons of work trying to deal with my grandparents, and so I've been trying to help cook and clean and get things done around the house as best I can. I also went to the doctor and got a tetanus booster- which still hurts- and the first dose of Gardasil, which is possibly the most unpleasant vaccination I have ever gotten...it burns as it goes into your bloodstream, and you can sort of feel it, spreading painfully down your arm, and into your neck...not fun. There were also, of course, some brilliant moments, watching Doctor Who with Dad, and sometimes my grandmother, who is clearly engaged despite having no idea what's going on most of the time.
New York, of course, was brilliant; we somehow ended up in a private room in the hostel, we rocked MOMA and the Met, (and though I still didn't find my Merovingian plate, I did find an early Persian medallion that I may just like better).
I had a surprising amount of fun watching the skaters in Rockefeller Center; I sort of started making up stories about them, and wondering about their lives and stuff. We rode the carousel in Central Park, went to Tiffany's (no breakfast, though; remind me to put that on my list of things to do sometime in my life), spent ages in the American Girl store being nostalgic, and saw Mary Poppins- second time for me, and just as brilliant as before because Bert tapdances on the ceiling and you cannot get any better than that.
Plus, of course, being in New York was whirlwind and intense, as the city always is, and didn't leave me time to think. And we ended reading large chunks of the Thursday Next books out loud, occasionally in British accents, which, though we can do fairly passable RP, was not nearly as good as I can hear it in my head. (The narration should be in a mild Welsh accent, sort of Gareth David-Lloyd level; Thursday's voice should be a perfect middle class Estuary accent; Acheron Hades sounds exactly like John Simm playing the Master, of course. Landon's got a kind of unidentifiable RP-ish thing, he sounds like Colin Firth's character in Love Actually. Mycroft and Polly speak old-fashioned RP, not like, T.S. Eliot or anything, but 60's or 70's BBC. Most of the random SpecOps characters have northern accents of varying degrees, and sound either like Simon Pegg in Hot Fuzz, or like the Life on Mars characters. Yes, I've thought a lot about this. I could almost hear it as I was reading, and it was so frustrating not to be able to replicate it out loud.) Um...my point was actually just that these books are brilliant, by the way. My current favorite throwaway pun is the character Oswald Mandias. Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair. And it's Satis House.
Had a rougher day today...got up by 11 and was at the hospital for a good while; there were a lot of various family members there, and it was nice to see people. I had a bit of a meltdown actually; it's weird, I didn't cry before, except briefly right after hearing the news, and nothing's upset me until today, when he was clearly awake and conscious and in a lot of pain and unable to talk or move. It's such a nightmarishly terrifying headspace- trapped, conscious, silenced, in pain and unable to die. The worst part was leaving- it's obvious (to everyone, really, though some people are more willing to say it than others) that it would be kinder to let him die- and I had thought I was comfortable with that. It was really easy when he was unconscious, you know, you just say goodbye and he's not there, so it's easy. When he's awake, though, I don't know...when I left today, I was saying goodbye to my grandfather, not just a body; he was awake and himself and squeezing my hand and loved me. It hit me a lot harder than I was expecting. I guess you can know that something is for the best and still have it be painful, though. Obviously.
I "finished" my thesis again; I finished once when I finished the draft of the draft, and I finished now when I finished editing the draft. I still haven't written a conclusion; I'm kind of afraid to. And there are two sections of criticism I need to fill in, and some footnoting needs to happen...I'm kind of at the "insert Freud here" stage. Multi-valanced puns intended.
Anyway, off to pack. And possibly sort through my notes some more.