Rambling Update- Family, Writing Ideas, Hermes (of course)
The wake will be held on Tuesday and the funeral Wednesday, on Friday I will be back in Baltimore and back to my normal level of online activity. :-)
For the last two days I've been sick, the cold I had threatening when I first came down finally acted up. I've been camped out on Jean's couch just trying to take it easy, and it seems to be going away now. There was also a minor bump with my mother, the usual clash between her and her very strict ideas on proper behavior and me just simply not giving a shit what anybody thinks, but for once it was a short little bump (often times those arguments can go on endlessly, that woman really does not get me at all :-P). But beyond those two things, even despite the circumstances, it has been a relatively peaceful vacation here. And no, it isn't always the case.
I am sleeping well, got my own private room here in Jean's house; much improved over that Christmas nightmare sleeping on a mattress in a closet (big closet, but still a closet in someone else's room). I've been over to visit my mother twice now, things there are much the same. I've only seen my father briefly but I usually never see much of him at all anyway, for a retired man he is oddly low on free time. That I'm mostly okay with, my father can be all right sometimes but I generally prefer him in smaller doses and there are always severeal conversations you just don't want to have with him unless you should explode and say something that is just going to cause massive problems somewhere down the line (the issue of money is one that we are all trying to avoid with him right now, but his pretending that he is also experiencing "tough economic times" as a way to avoid feeling obligated to help out his struggling family (as though anyone would ask him) needs to be a rant in and of itself, and it might be one I feel obligated to unleash here sometime in the near future). Plus he always has to come complete with his family and I could really do without that. Nobody likes his wife and his kids with her, and when I say nobody I mean exactly that, nobody.
I had been hoping to get some writing done while I was down here in my off time. So far, no dice. I spent my time playing video games while I was sick because it was an activity I could do while sprawled out on the couch that required little movement out of me. Now that I'm feeling better I should probably consider it. I got two other poem ideas floating around in there, plus two essays also half formed. I was thinking about doing the standard Hermes as I see him essay, and then there was another one about his role as a trickster. Because Hermes as I deal with him is very much the trickster, and this is a role that I see if often ignored or severely glossed over and he ends up being treated as little more than a divine dancing monkey whose sole purpose is to do cartwheels and make you laugh. Uhh, no. And this is something that has been annoying me more and more, the more I'm exposed to it, and what started as ranting to Renee and one or two others about how Hermes is not a playful little sprite began forming into an essay in my mind. We'll see what I can come up with.
Hermes has been around here I think, helping out here and there. Jean somehow managed to get one of the ink cartridges she needs to print photos for the wake for free, she said she just wasn't charged for it. And when she went to buy her daughter some hair dye, somehow she only got charged a dollar for it, and with some weird coupon was given five dollars in return, so she actually made money there. I do love it when things like that happen, one of my favorite Hermes Luck stories was when I got a pair of jeans for a dollar, it was supposed to be more like thirty dollars but hey that was what they kept ringing up as and so that was what I got them for. :-) And that is one of the things that gets glossed over, his luck is not usually the up front and straight forward kind, its more about loop holes, errors in your favor, shit like that (speaking as someone that lives on his luck, yes that is what most of it is). Its appreciated.
I can't wait to be home again.