Quick entry… because guys! (Gals! Non-Binary Pals!)
I. AM. WATCHING. MY. SECOND. HOCKEY. GAME. OF. THE. NIGHT.
OF!! THE!! NIGHT!!
I watched the BU / Maine game - and got to listen to the BU announcers. (*sniff*) BU won, barely. I might have jinxed them… they were doing really well before I logged into ESPN+.
Now, I’m watching the Boston feed of the Bruins / Habs game. I’m hoping it inspires me to pick up what I’m lovingly calling the Drarry Hockey AU Disaster.
I haven’t been writing very much and I’m pretty sure finishing 50K words this month just became impossible, but you never know.
Instead, I’ve been bouncing between The Sims and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. I’ve invested in a gaming PC because the Sims and the (disturbing) amount of CC I have is killing my little MacBook. The Sims is playing great on it, I have a smexy new keyboard, and I can revisit my favourite legacy. Their save file used to crash non-stop on the Mac, but it lives again!!!!
Stuff’s been on my mind, partly because of reliving happy days that turned sour, and partly for other reasons.
I got swept during the half marathon again. Asthma / panic attack at mile 8 did me in. I managed to keep going and got pulled at roughly 11.5 miles. The sad thing is that the new asthma meds were working. I PR’d the 5K and 10K. Which is almost nearly impossible at Disney if you’re a back of the packer. I was doing really well on the half until I wasn’t.
I have the Turkey Trot 10K on Thursday and the Space Coast Half on Sunday. We’ll see how those go.
But, in happier news, KALUSH fucking kicked ass. I needed their chaotic live show in a way I didn’t think was possible. Of course, it being Florida, it fucking poured that night. In the five minute walk to the parking lot, I was as drenched as if I was pushed into a swimming pool. Also, the drainage in the parking lot sucked and I was walking through almost knee deep water at points.
But. I got my live music fix and now… it’s all quiet until February.
(Although there are a lot of new Ukrainian bands I want to see coming through Miami. Guess it’s a good thing I’m done with runDisney!)
Psst! Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes? AMAZING. The book was still better than the movie, but the movie was definitely excellent.
You can force the girl out of hockey, but you can’t take the hockey from the girl
Oh.
My.
God.
What have I just done?!?
So a little while ago, I had posted that I was going to write a piece of original fiction (het, no less!) in response to all the hockey books I’ve been reading.
The fact that my female MC is aro/ace has completely thrown me for a loop. I have no idea how to write her. At all.
I even purchased some books and joined some FB groups, hoping that would help.
Nope.
I’m more confused than ever.
Jump to last night - in one of my Drarry groups, a girl mentioned how she hated the words “entrance” and “member”, and wanted to know if we had any pet peeves / problems with certain words.
I said that I was OK with hole and entrance because, no matter where, it’s a receptacle and meant to receive. I have more issues with descriptions for the things being received. Like man (something) as in, “He poked his big man stick into her tiny tunnel.”
And that one sentence just… just… created all kinds of fucking chaos.
So, apparently, I’m now writing a Drarry hockey AU.
I got tired of answering message after message during Irma (which was our first hurricane as Florida residents), so I started posting #bluedotupdates on my Facebook page. Normally with a screenshot of the current conditions. Of course, hurricanes are hard to predict. They can change course in the blink of an eye. Like, for Irma, it was headed straight for Sunrise, so we decided maybe it would be smart to go north west. Well, Irma decided to go there before we could totally make our minds up. Probably a good thing that we were frozen by fear…
We’re located between Miami and West Palm. Closer to Boca than Fort Lauderdale. We are often in the Cone of Uncertainty. We are often nervous. We are often scared. The #bluedotupdates are often soothing. People know where we are and how we’re fairing. While I can get exhausted thinking about what could happen, and answering the same “Are you guys OK” day after day, I appreciate that people care.
I mean, it’s not like I have many friends… mostly acquaintances. People I want to meet up with when they’re near… then blow me off after making tentative plans. And I get it - I absolutely suck donkey balls at staying in touch with people. I hate the phone, but I would rather talk than text. Texting takes too long and I’m never sure where the conversation actually ends. Quick likes on Facebook are more my speed, but they don’t breed intimate friendships.
I’m a fucking walking disaster.
But anyhoo… that’s not the point.
The point is that I’m Facebook friends with three members of my blood family. Two that I was really close to growing up and one that I became close with recently. M & C are my aunt’s daughters and L is my godfather’s oldest.
I’ll give you one guess as to who reached out to see if I was OK.
I’m tired of being angry. I’m tired of being hurt. I’m tired of letting that branch of the family tree live rent free in my head. (...And if you read the archives, I tend to say the same things about my mother.)
The sad thing is that I know therapy would probably help with bits and pieces of that, but every therapist I’ve ever seen wants to dive into the minutiae of my parents’ alcoholism, the physical and mental abuse my mother put me through… and I know that that’s probably the root of all my problems that are outside the scope of the bipolar.
But.
It’s easier to work through that shit here than it is to talk to a complete stranger. I don’t know. Despite everything, I’m still a little protective of my family. Not that they deserve it. (Well maybe my father does. He tried the hardest to do right by me… but the rest of them can go fuck themselves.) Here I can edit my word vomit. Dial back the emotions. Engage in unhealthy behaviours. *shrug*
Maybe I like constantly feeling like shit.
Who knows.
- - - - - - - - - -
In other news, and not really in order of importance:
We went to Universal last weekend for Halloween Horror Nights. The only house worth the price of admission was the Halloween (1978) house. We had express passes - which is the only way to do the event, tbh - they’re great if we want to do certain houses more than once. (We can justify the cost of those since the HHN ticket is included in our annual pass.) Since we had early access, we were able to get into Halloween before the doors opened to the crowd. And it freaked me the fuck out. (That movie is the only one to consistently scare the shit out of me no matter how many times I’ve seen it. I hear the music and my blood runs cold.) We also got lost in the house. There was one room that was a hall of mirrors and… GAH! That, of course, was the one room we couldn’t find our way out of. We used the express pass to go through it a second time (when the wait was two-ish hours) and it scared me even more the second time, despite knowing where the jump scares were.
I’m running a ridiculous amount of races between now and Wine & Dine: 5K tomorrow, two 5Ks next weekend, a 5K the weekend after that, and a half marathon the weekend after that. Then, I take the weekend off for my first trip back to UConn in years. (And I almost got a room in Storrs before remembering that the football stadium is in East Hartford… I’m close enough to the stadium to walk to the game.) Have I mentioned that I HATE running?
My Stetopher fic is a struggle. I haven’t figured out the actual plot yet, so it’s eleven chapters of backstory / exposition. I’m oddly OK with the struggle; it means the characters are more in character than most of my fan fic. I’m also loving bouncing in between the three characters thoughts. It’s a fun project, even if it makes me want to tear my hair out.
I’ve taken a break from using italki for Ukrainian lessons. I’m not feeling it right now. I just haven’t found the right teacher and it’s frustrating. I found a (online, yet a true classroom setting) class based in NYC, affiliated with a Ukrainian group that I am familiar with and trust. When I was going through everything with the class organiser, I mentioned my struggles with italki. It boiled down to: there’s a huge difference between a native speaker trying to teach a language and someone who has been trained to teach that as a second language. I looked into teaching English as a Second Language a few years ago, and opted not to because I would essentially have to relearn English. Yeah. No. It tracks. Except now, I’m in the ridiculously odd position of using the Яблуко text for a third class. And, that book has been written in to the point where I have to retype the assignments because I can’t just take a photo of the page. Plus, the paper is C2S so I can’t write in pencil. It has to be pen, and it can only be one type of pen. (Staedtler triplus fineliner, if you must know. It’s the only one that doesn’t smudge… but who the fuck prints a textbook on coated paper?!?!)
At any rate, we have that basic chapter one conversation: How are you? Fine. (Як справи? (Добре!)) What’s your name? Wendell (Як вас звати? (Вендел)) Where do you live? America (Звідки ви? (З Америки)) What’s your profession? Accountant (Яка ваша професія? (Бугалтер)) How old are you? 47 (Скільки вам років? (Сорок сім)) —and next thing I know, I’m in Beginner Two. ACK!!!! Also, it is an absolute bitch to switch between languages on the keyboard. First world problems?
Well. I’ve spent way too much quality weekend time going through those in that blog post and some others.
We’re painting the room we call the Person Cave and we needed to figure out a way to maximise the closet space. Last weekend, he painted the closet white and installed shelves. I’ve been trying to reorganise 40+ years of crap.
I suppose it goes without saying that I’ve spent most of the last two weekends crying.
But… I’ve actually thrown away a lot of memorabilia. Like my parent’s honeymoon photos, my mother’s UCONN scrapbook, their wedding album, my baby book. One of my rules was that I would only keep it if it didn’t piss me off to look at it. So. No pictures of people I didn’t know. No pictures of places I’ve never been. No pictures of people who are dead to me. I kept a bunch of photos of my parents, back when they were young and in love, but only because my father looked so happy in them. The one thing he kept saying during our last conversation was that he wished I knew the woman he married. The woman she used to be. I look at those pictures and I see a strange woman laughing with my father and smiling at him. The only reason I know who she is is because I look like her, and well… historical context. I mean, as far as I know, my father only married once. And if it’s not my mother in those photos than the people I’ve always thought of as my grandparents are… not.
It’s all a bit of a head fuck, to be honest.
Today’s unexpected memory landmine was a bunch of stuff from the UCONN Mens’ Ice Hockey coach, Coach Marshall. He was such a good guy and it showed in the post it notes stuck to every single ticket he left at the door for me, the random letters he’d send me as part of the fundraising bullshit he had to do, the letter of recommendation he wrote for me. And at some point, past me decided it would be a good idea to keep the booklet from his memorial service with all that. Fuck. I’m crying just thinking about all of it. When it came to getting a job in hockey, he was my number one cheerleader. I owe that man so much. And he’s gone.
Yeah.
So… it’s been a bit of a tough day for me.
Let’s end this on a happy note, yeah?
This may very well be my favourite lyric of any song ever (well, as of right now):
Нині не льотна погода
Сказала мені, шоби я
Літав собі голий по хаті,
Показував дулі з вікна.
На мене багато хто скаже,
Шо я тіпа з боку смішний,
А той, хто багато говорить,
По-моєму трохи дурний.
Roughly translates to: The weather is bad today. I’m walking around the house naked, showing my bits from the window. People say I look funny, but I think people who talk too much are dumb.
Seeing how it’s been fucking raining since Thursday, I thought it fitting.
UConn’s last pure white husky has crossed the rainbow bridge…
I’m a fucking mess right now.
I can’t even deny it… tear tracks are running down my face and I haven’t been able to stop the tears for days. (Other than when I need to pull my shit together for work, of course. They can’t see how broken I am.)
A dog that wasn’t mine… that I wasn’t even close to… is dead and I can’t deal with it.
I suppose, all things considered, I should have seen this coming.
I’m past exhausted.
I’m not sleeping.
I’ve barely been eating.
And, I’ve been waiting for this day.
My complete and utter breakdown.
The day the depression brings me to my knees.
Catharsis.
Why was the death of a dog such a big deal? How could something like that move me to the tears I so needed to shed?
Easy.
Despite my… complicated… relationship with my mother, she was a UConn grad, too. There was always a little bit of me that wished - that still wishes, if we’re to be honest (and when have I ever lied here?) - that she could have been there for those years. She was already dead by the time I was applying for colleges. Didn’t know that UConn was the absolute last school I wanted to go to. Because of her. Didn’t know that it was the only school I applied to. Also because of her… and that’s a story for another time. I’m already fucked up enough without revisiting that time of my life.
Standing at the practice field, staring at the Towers dorms. Dating a guy who actually lived in her fucking building. Having to walk past what was her room. She had left enough of her behind in a scrapbook that I was able to find her fucking room. And I don’t think I ever told the boyfriend that… maybe in passing, but not in enough detail.
SO. UConn. It was a place where I was able to finally define myself as something other than Helen’s daughter (even if I carried that weight around for four years). I lived through so much craziness over four years and I don’t regret a moment of it. We always wind up where we’re supposed to be, even if we don’t know it at the time.
Going to UConn was the beginning of a wild ride… again, it was a decision I will never regret and I will always be proud to be a Husky… and a hussy, because we’re Bus 4, after all. And a white Jonathan will - even after all this time - be my husky.
And the last white one is gone. With a generic husky taking his place.
My UConn is gone.
My mother’s UConn is gone.
Replaced with an imposter.
And, while you may not understand why, it hurts. Badly.
To make matters even worse, I just finished a piece of Drarry fan fic that has brought me to tears over the past two days.
Fuck, I wish I could write like that.
Seriously.
It started with Draco in New York, recreating himself, working with at-risk kids and turning his back on all things magical and Malfoy. He ends up sharing dreams with Harry, and it is like the slowest burns of slow burns. Of course, I didn’t cry when Evan killed himself. I didn’t cry at the too real emotions that Draco was going through. Nope. I bawled like a fucking baby when Harry showed up in New York. And then I cried harder when he left. And then I cried even harder when he came back. It. Was. Beautiful. I love when fics break me like that. I really do.
Oddly enough, that level of heartache spurred me on to clean up the mess I made in the Otayuri fic I’ve been working on… until that vicious editor in my head decided to speak up. Yes, editor, I gave up on the slow burn. No, that wasn’t what I wanted to do. No, there won’t be any age-inappropriate scenarios. Yes, this is all Otabek Altin’s fucking fault. Three drafts, three fucking drafts, and he’s all ‘eyes of a soldier’ and Люди могут забыть, что вы сказали. Могут забыть, что вы сделали. Но никогда не забудут, что вы заставили их почувствовать.People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. (God bless Google and Russian language blogs for giving me the ultimate apology quote…)
But the editor did what they set out to do and, well, imposter syndrome.
So, I just wasted a bunch of time rereading all seven of my published fan fics, all the comments, and just started at my statistics.
I’m never going to be a Sara’s Girl, or bixgirl1, but they all did better than I would have thought.
For me, not you, I submit the following for those days when I feel like I can no longer make the words do the thing good because englishing is hard:
