Locking eyes, holding hands
To start off, I had NOTHING to do with Pope Benedict dying. I want to make that clear from the beginning. But it made me think about how that lady tackled him at Mass, and how when telling me that story, I learned about the Swiss Guard playing pickup basketball with the Legionaries of Christ.
thornescratch: I'll always remember standing in the Vatican garden outside his funny little office tower thing
thornescratch: Looking up at the open window
thornescratch: And wondering if he could kill me with lasers for having improper thoughts in the Vatican
thornescratch: Also my cousin telling me about how he and some of the other priest candidates sometimes played shirts and skins pick up basketball with the Swiss Guard and wondering what he thought of that
thornescratch: My cousin I mean
thornescratch: Not the pope
thornescratch: Though I'm sure if the pope played shirts and skins pick up basketball the Swiss Guard would let him win
thornescratch: Maybe they would have been obligated to help him dunk
thornescratch: Like all those dudes Putin plays hockey against
thornescratch: Diving out of the way whenever he shoots
Now that we have that out of the way.
When I opened lj to write my tradition NYE entry, I found saved text from my last draft that I hadn't posted, which was about Louise's mother dying. Which happened back in February. So you can see how often I've been opening lj. It was not unexpected, and in retrospect, this made her last conversation with me make sense. She wanted me to take a lot of crystal and china. I already have, like, four different sets of crystal and China from various people (including her) but she talked about how much it would mean to her to know it was still in use and to maybe come by and eat off it with me, and. Like. I'm not a monster. So I said yes.
When I went to the wake, I had my inevitable run-in with Louise's aunt. Lot more weeping this time. Same funeral home as before. The next time I go there will either be for Louise's father or Mike's mother, though I don't know if there'll be anyone left to notify me; Mike probably will. The funeral was the next day, and I spent most of it being polite to people I only ever see at funerals. This includes one of Louise;s high school friends who is now a grandmother, and finding out that bit of knowledge and knowing we were the same age took me out at the knees. Louise's aunt cried on me some more. I'm still bad at being comforting, so I tried to make her feel better by eating a lot of the weird sweetened wheat dish you get at Bulgarian funerals; no one was eating it and she seemed distraught by this. Since there is no mayo in it, this was not as difficult as when I had to eat potato salad for Louise's mom, but it was a lot of wheat. One must do what they can, though. And I left the funeral full of boiled wheat and with several boxes of crystal/china, which I must now wait the sufficient period before I can tactfully donate it.
You know, I let my lj revert back to a standard free account because obviously I'm not really using it enough to warrant a paid one, but it vexes me which icons are left, because they're not what I would have chosen. But it doesn't really seem worth the risk to let my credit card information fall into the hands of Russian bot-thugs to buy a new package, nor the annoying shuffle and re-upload of deleting and finding new ones. Kind of a low priority problem amongst the things currently making up my top ten (needing a root canal, someone shooting a hole through one of my windows, various health issues, goddamn coworker quitting and pulling a reverse uno on me right when she was set to take over two of my projects I'd finally succeeded in transferring out, existential dread over dying alone and unloved, etc.) but still.
In a couple days I get a Flidget! That makes up for all of it. Mostly. We shall need so much bail money.
It's raining out, but the Caps just won their game and scored nine goddamn goals, and my brother just called with his two kids to wish me Happy New Year, and my niece told me she loved me, and I spent like six hours sitting on a bench and talking to a good friend yesterday, and I had a great visit with Twig and Lunar a few months ago, and I have clean sheets, and slow cooker pork chops, and a bottle of sparkling wine on the ready. It feels like the last couple years are a nonstop slog, but I've found good moments.
Happy Year Year, everybody. See you on the flip side.
thornescratch: I'll always remember standing in the Vatican garden outside his funny little office tower thing
thornescratch: Looking up at the open window
thornescratch: And wondering if he could kill me with lasers for having improper thoughts in the Vatican
thornescratch: Also my cousin telling me about how he and some of the other priest candidates sometimes played shirts and skins pick up basketball with the Swiss Guard and wondering what he thought of that
thornescratch: My cousin I mean
thornescratch: Not the pope
thornescratch: Though I'm sure if the pope played shirts and skins pick up basketball the Swiss Guard would let him win
thornescratch: Maybe they would have been obligated to help him dunk
thornescratch: Like all those dudes Putin plays hockey against
thornescratch: Diving out of the way whenever he shoots
Now that we have that out of the way.
When I opened lj to write my tradition NYE entry, I found saved text from my last draft that I hadn't posted, which was about Louise's mother dying. Which happened back in February. So you can see how often I've been opening lj. It was not unexpected, and in retrospect, this made her last conversation with me make sense. She wanted me to take a lot of crystal and china. I already have, like, four different sets of crystal and China from various people (including her) but she talked about how much it would mean to her to know it was still in use and to maybe come by and eat off it with me, and. Like. I'm not a monster. So I said yes.
When I went to the wake, I had my inevitable run-in with Louise's aunt. Lot more weeping this time. Same funeral home as before. The next time I go there will either be for Louise's father or Mike's mother, though I don't know if there'll be anyone left to notify me; Mike probably will. The funeral was the next day, and I spent most of it being polite to people I only ever see at funerals. This includes one of Louise;s high school friends who is now a grandmother, and finding out that bit of knowledge and knowing we were the same age took me out at the knees. Louise's aunt cried on me some more. I'm still bad at being comforting, so I tried to make her feel better by eating a lot of the weird sweetened wheat dish you get at Bulgarian funerals; no one was eating it and she seemed distraught by this. Since there is no mayo in it, this was not as difficult as when I had to eat potato salad for Louise's mom, but it was a lot of wheat. One must do what they can, though. And I left the funeral full of boiled wheat and with several boxes of crystal/china, which I must now wait the sufficient period before I can tactfully donate it.
You know, I let my lj revert back to a standard free account because obviously I'm not really using it enough to warrant a paid one, but it vexes me which icons are left, because they're not what I would have chosen. But it doesn't really seem worth the risk to let my credit card information fall into the hands of Russian bot-thugs to buy a new package, nor the annoying shuffle and re-upload of deleting and finding new ones. Kind of a low priority problem amongst the things currently making up my top ten (needing a root canal, someone shooting a hole through one of my windows, various health issues, goddamn coworker quitting and pulling a reverse uno on me right when she was set to take over two of my projects I'd finally succeeded in transferring out, existential dread over dying alone and unloved, etc.) but still.
In a couple days I get a Flidget! That makes up for all of it. Mostly. We shall need so much bail money.
It's raining out, but the Caps just won their game and scored nine goddamn goals, and my brother just called with his two kids to wish me Happy New Year, and my niece told me she loved me, and I spent like six hours sitting on a bench and talking to a good friend yesterday, and I had a great visit with Twig and Lunar a few months ago, and I have clean sheets, and slow cooker pork chops, and a bottle of sparkling wine on the ready. It feels like the last couple years are a nonstop slog, but I've found good moments.
Happy Year Year, everybody. See you on the flip side.