I just purchased luminarias to honor Naomi and remember Betsy at the Relay for Life in Alameda tomorrow. As much as I don't like the idea of crusading, I'm starting to feel like it's time for Lung Cancer to get the research funds it needs. I see nonsmokers developing it increasingly (people I know!), and the lack of buzz is quite literally killing me.
Anyway, I didn't ask for donations when I last posted this link, and I suppose I should've. If anyone would like to donate a few pennies to find a cure for cancer, please do so here. It's my homepage for the Relay, and I think the page is only available until Sunday, when the Relay ends. It starts tomorrow around 9:00 AM PST. Either way, I'm walking the Survivor Lap, and remembering all those fighting for their lives, and those who've lost the battle.
Thanks to those who've taken up the cause.
My boyfriend and I split up last night. It was kind, gentle and so painful. He's a very good man that I care for so much, but we had one deal-breaker that we haven't been able to work out the entire time we've been together. In the end, it was time to let it go.
Unsurprisingly, I've spent much of the last evening and morning crying. And crying some more. And a bit more for good measure.
I didn't eat dinner last night. Not on purpose, just because I never felt hungry. Even my "normal" of emotional eating was stunted a bit, I only had a couple of ice cream bites. I wasn't hungry this morning either, but artgeek reminded me both last night and this morning that I needed to eat. I spent most of the morning on a couple more ice cream bites, and eventually told myself to just take artgeek's advice and go find breakfast.
I will be back to Chicago come fall, but I am rather suddenly spending my summer back in New Mexico. So when I needed to find breakfast, there was nothing more natural that finding the best breakfast burrito I could.
Recently, in another online haunt, I'd been trying to explain that there's this perfect union of food in a breakfast burrito, and couldn't convey it. I am definitely a chocoholic, and I tend to have a sweet tooth of insanity, but a green chile breakfast burrito is still better. I don't think I managed to explain it, but I tried.
However, this morning's experience really confirmed for me the truth of that statement. I'd had a couple of ice cream bites (vanilla ice cream on top of a cookie thing, dipped in dark chocolate), and they tasted good and all, but it wasn't anything special.
Walking into the restaurant and seeing the wait made me smile a bit. It's not the true definition of a hole in the wall, having it's own building, but it's tiny and unassuming. I'd lived in this town in the past for years as a child, driven past it even more as an adult and never noticed it was anything until a friend took me almost a week ago. Then I regretted missing it for so many years.
This time in, I noticed they had a small bar off to the side, in case you didn't insist on a table. I wasn't hungry enough to care that much, but I'm bad at waiting, so the bar it was. I read the menu, despite knowing what I wanted, then managed to drop it behind the bar. I felt better when another person did the exact same failed maneuver later.
I ordered a one egg breakfast burrito, with bacon and green chile on the side. It came smothered with cheese and with their special potatoes on the side.
One bite in, and I realized it was perfect. There's something amazing about the combination of eggs and green chile anyway, and no I don't know what it is. But when the green chile is made just right, and the eggs are mixed with bacon and wrapped in a flour tortilla covered in cheese? That's comfort food.
Suddenly I really needed to eat, even though my body had still not told me I was hungry. Cutting off big bite-sized pieces of burrito and dunking it in the chile. Feeling my throat sting just a hair. Devouring every bit of burrito on the plate (and no small number of potatoes with green chile as well). Walking out afterward with my lips still tingling.
It doesn't cure the pain of losing someone so important to me. But for a moment, it sure made me happy. And right now, I'll take those moments. Sure I still nearly lost it in the restaurant when my wallet fell open to his picture. The radio still had the power to make me cry on my drive home.
But for a moment all that mattered was that I was home, with all the unique pieces that come with it. Like lips that tingle even without a kiss.
It's been over two months since I last posted anything, and far longer than that since I've posted anything substantial. It's not that I haven't had things to say, it's that I've allowed myself to get swamped, I've gotten confused, and my priorities are all in a jumble right now.
Not entirely. Graduate school, my research, those continue to be my highest priorities, even as I've had to set them aside for a couple of months.
I can't focus, though, because my personal life priorities just seem to be confused. And I don't know what to say about them. A friend of mine often writes in her blog about how she sometimes has it all going on in her head, and can't put it down in writing. I'm having that issue myself right now.
I'm living in New Mexico right now, just for a couple of months. After that, it's back to graduate school (well, actually starting my PhD program), and that will help some, I think.
I do not know how to make structure for myself when I have little to none. Even in my masters program, I'd manage to get to all my classes, and on time, but I couldn't schedule my other time to best do my research or grade papers or just have fun. Or focus on my out-of-class writing and photography.
I'm not feeling creative right now. I'm feeling mostly out of whack. I had a poem start in my head one night, and instead of sitting up and writing down what I "heard", I figured I'd remember in the morning. That was less than brilliant, and I think I knew that. I just think I didn't want to focus on the feelings causing that poem.
I'm going to try to get it all back in order. But at the moment, I feel very built on a foundation of sand, and it's slowly eroding. There's some bedrock under there, I'm certain, but I can't find it right now.
Anyway, that's me surfacing briefly. Ironically, I'm relatively certain almost no one is going to see it. That's okay. It's good, I think, to put it up here anyway.
Share a scene from a movie that uses music perfectly.
Submitted by nohablo.The music in The English Patient was truly another character in the film. I can't imagine the film without it. There are many exceptional segments, among them the beginning of the film, the part where Juliet Binoche swings on the rope in the church, all the parts with the Goldberg Variations....
More recently, It's All Gone Pete Tong is another choice, although that's a music-themed movie anyway, so I don't think that counts. As with Quadrophenia.
Elizabethtown isn't a great movie, but the music makes me want to see it over and over again. It's mostly in the end, when Orlando Bloom drives back to Oregon, listening to the cds Kirsten Dunst has made for the roadtrip.
I guess one of my all-time favorites, though, is Harold and Maude:
Edit: After reading this post, I've noticed a theme, although I didn't plan it that way. Either way, I like the notion of new beginnings, and the idea that possessions, in the end, possess you, and are potent symbols of a way of life that you may be ready to leave behind. Maybe the '70's were just a really destructive era?
You guys are the best! The part about wishing you could do something for me---You do.
The hubby's begun to travel again, thus the crack-of-dawn airport jaunts. I actually tried to go back to sleep after dropping him off. It was a lovely idea. Alas, the brain was already grinding away, despite the lack of coffee. Now I'm listening to KCRW (techno-I don't know why but it sounds good), listening to the construction drone from the next street, drinking coffee on the back deck. There's a crazy breeze, the sky's blue, another warm day. The garden is on steroids, lots of corn and an heirloom yellow pear tomato plant that's taller than me. I can't wait for the eggplants to mature! I've been using the herbs, but they should've gone into a long pot on their own.
Getting up early is always amazing to me. I'm not a morning person, so it's difficult, but I get alot done around the house. Of course it could just be that I'm on pre-chemo steroids (and am pushing myself as usual).
Thanks to all who prayed for Betsy, and sent her love and light. I was in Monterey over the weekend and didn't read this e-mail from her daughter until today. It was sent on Saturday, May 31st.
Dearest Betsy passed away about 5:00 this morning. She was
completely at peace as we watched her take her last breath. She
gently faded away like a feather floating down a calm river. We are
happy she is no longer suffering and know she is free to fly and
breath and laugh. My mom always looked at life as a journey. Every
moment of joy, every challenge or obstacle... she embraced it with a
whole heart. From the moment she learned her cancer had returned,
only two weeks ago, she accepted it with a smile knowing this was all
part of her adventure all the while knowing she was to face the
hardest challenge of her entire life. Believe me when I say she felt
the love. She felt all the love and support from everyone who
cherished and knew her..."
...because it seems, at this point, like everything is happening to everyone around me.