When the walls come tumblin’ down - John Cougar Mellancamp

derek :: instrument at the middle east, cambridge, ma :: december 5, 2009

Some people ain’t no damn good
You can’t trust ‘em
You can’t love ‘em

This lyric pretty much sums things up with 99% of my blood relatives.

In August, I let one of those blood relatives back into my life.

She invited me down for Christmas Eve. That’s a 2.5 hr drive from Da ‘Brook and I have the two dogs to worry about since J’s in OH with his mom. It was pure laziness, more than anything, that made me say “no”. I didn’t want to spend more time in the car than I would in CT.  (Somehow, I’d conveniently forgotten that I do that for instrument and All Crazy all the time.)

I was all ready to hunker down and be all “boo-hoo, woe is me” over the holiday. I hate it to begin with, and this year’s is just really bad. One of the worst ever. I just want to hide from the world until it’s over.

I was sitting the parking lot at Shaw’s when it hit me. A) I *do* spend more time in the car than I do in CT on a lot of those band nights and B) I *do* have family to spend it with.

Suddenly, I had to be in CT tomorrow night.

HAD TO.

I’m not sure if this is a good thing, but it feels like the right thing…

I’ll know after I get there.

Bah. Humbug.

usa u-18 vs bu :: agganis arena, boston, ma :: october 10, 2009

Blergh.

This is the first year in god knows how many where I’m not sending out holiday cards. (I don’t *do* “Christmas” cards. I know so many people who don’t celebrate Christmas that it’s easier to piss off the few friends I have who are anal about it being CHRISTMAS and not HOLIDAY. Whatever.)

I’ve been having a rough go of it this year.  I just can’t find the motivation to make 100 handmade cards. I can’t find the motivation to even CARE about making them.

I’m never a huge fan of this time of year, but I normally do a halfway decent job of hiding the ick. This year, the ick is in full view.  I’m not going to hide the melancholy. I’m not going to pretend that everything is fine. I’m not going to pretend that I care about Christmas.

So there.

While there are many reasons for my ban on all things Christmas this year, I’ve noticed a change in J as well. His mother is in bad, bad shape. Like dying-of-cancer bad and the stress of that has really affected him as well. My husband, who lives for Christmas, put up the tree and hung lights on it. That’s it. I’m not in the right frame of mind to handle looking at the ornaments, much less have to touch them. Little memory landmines, each one carefully wrapped in tissue paper and put away until the next year… My angel? BOOM! My CT quarter? KA-BLOOEY! My other angel ornament?... Yeah, so *not* going there this year. I just can’t.

Unless Santa decides to bring my father back from the dead with a side of cure-for-cancer, you can take your “merry” Christmas and shove it.

I don’t want anything to do with it this year.

both eyes open, still movin’ blindly

dave :: instrument at the main pub, manchester, ct :: november 7, 2009

There’s a song on the rough mix CD that Skinny gave me…  they tried it out at one of their shows and Soup put it to a vote. We all voted against it, choosing “Booty Beach” as the winner that night. At any rate, Soup raps at the end of this song and the words just got into my head. (Hundred miles an hour, goin’ nowhere fast…) I’m still not a fan of the rest of the song because anything that references dying fathers is definitely a permanent fixture on my do NOT play list, but that rap at the end, it just speaks to me. I’ve found myself reciting it more than once recently.

The BU hockey team is struggling. I wish that this year’s captains were able to bottle up what ever last year’s captains did and use it. It looks like they’re trying to, but time will tell if they’re successful. In the meantime, it’s hard to watch. Hockey East is completely screwed up this year. Even the national polls are a little messed up. It’s a very odd time to be a BU fan - rebuilding years suck. But, we’ve been building relationships with our sectionmates, so it’s been a good year for that. It’s nice when you get to commiserate with someone who understands what you’re feeling. So many of my friends aren’t hockey fans, and if they are, they’re NHL hockey fans. It’s a completely different (dare I say worse?) product than college hockey now. College hockey is so much better on a thousand levels. Mostly because these kids still play like there’s something “real” on the line, because they love the game, because - with the exception of the ban on fighting - the game is still what I consider “pure”. It hasn’t been commercialized and the rule books haven’t been rewritten to make a consumer-friendly product.

I finally finished a birthday present that was supposed to be completed in September. Now that the recipient has it, I guess I can spill why it took so long. There was a comment a while back about how she liked this band, so I made the decision to make her a mega mix. I have what feels like a gazillion songs - bootlegs, commercial recordings, rarities, etc. - and to go through all of them and find the “perfect” version of each one, to try to balance them all out, to try and stay away from the commercially available versions,  without repeating songs just because I liked the “then and now” aspect, that was so freaking hard. I didn’t know just how mentally taxing… I must have put together a thousand different versions. I’d pretty much been working on it since August, but it was *so* hard.  I did repeat one, though. As much as I like the original version of that song, there’s a reference to Jefferson Holt that has since been removed, so I also added the revised version. At least I didn’t screw up and put them on the same disc. The mix ended up spanning four discs, and I could have done two more. There were also three other mixes - two mashups and one with some of my favorite singer/songwriters. Those, in a way, were a little harder. My taste in music has become a little more melancholy as of late, so there were some lyrics and song titles that I felt a little uncomfortable sharing. Too soul baring, in a way. Five months for seven mixes… I think that’s a new record of being all OCD about making the perfect mix. Oh well. At least I finished them before Christmas!

Last night was my friend’s holiday party. I’d been on the fence about going because I feel like complete crap. I still do, but I was heavily medicated last night. I’m so glad we put the dogs in the kennel so the hubby could come play with me. It was great fun and for a while, the weight of the world was off my shoulders.  So much I could say about last night - so many misheard things, so many random shout-outs, a wicked embarrassing story involving Bubble Tea was told - complete with verbatim quotes from the event!, Pony - but the thing I’ll always remember is that out of the five of us who obsessively tweet, not a single one of us tweeted last night. Not. A. Single. Tweet. Every since texting and Twitter came into our lives, I don’t think I’ve ever been as present in the moment as I was last night. Yeah, there were “OMG! I HAVE to tweet this moments!”, but those were filed away to be written about later. 

We were ORDERED to go to a New Year’s Eve party with the same group of friends, and I don’t think I’ve looked forward to NYE as much as I am this year. Slowly but surely, I’m gaining control over my life again. Still not getting the closure I need in some areas, others are getting better more quickly than I thought they would, and The Big Thing that’s really been weighing me down is still weighing me down, but I’ve grown used to the weight. Not happy with the ripples its causing in my life, but there’s nothing that can be done about it, so I’m just waiting it out.

Life goes on, whether we want it to or not, right?  This pain is just a price we pay for the privilege of waking up every morning…

 

Oh. My. God. IT’S OVER!!!!!!!!!!!!

self-explanatory, eh? :: 50,591 words

I can’t believe that I did it (again).

Not only did I survive it, I finished early. EARLY!

<.insert evil laugh>

That’s three years I’ve done this. Two in a freaking row.

As if ya’ll ever needed more proof that I was insane…

It’s Thanksgiving in the US, so…

johnny curry makes the save :: pens @ wolfpack, hartford, ct :: november 19, 2009

It dawned on me that despite the constant stream of ick, I’ve actually had a lot to be thankful for.

Last night, I made beef fondue. My mother’s way - london broil cut up into cubes and then dunked into boiling peanut oil until cooked. It can’t be the healthiest thing, but I hardly eat it, so it was a nice treat. While I was eating, I was reflecting on some conversations I’d had about my father recently. It sounds weird, cold, whatever, but I’m thankful they’re gone and that I’m distanced from 99% of my blood relatives. The past seventeen years have been a completely messed up ride, but in their passings, each gave me so much. My mother flat out lied in her will - to my daughter, whom I gave everything in life, I leave nothing in death - and it’s funny that she made a point to spell that out. Her death was freeing, it tightened up my relationship with my father and it ultimately ended up being the straw that broke the camel’s back, destroying my tenuous connection with my blood relatives once and for all. I don’t need people I’m related to only by blood causing me drama. Especially when they had shown very little interest in me when my parents were alive…

I know who my friends are and I know which ones are my family. For those guys I’m wicked thankful. Matter of fact, I’m thankful for a lot this year.

- My favorite platypus who always has a hug at the ready.

- My favorite bulldozer for helping me break into the social circles I’m traveling in.

- My old friends who are still around and those I consider my family. Especially the first person I considered a sister and my little brother.

- My skiing buddies… although we may be down a man, we will always have Pony and the memories of riding on the moving carpet.  Looking forward to this year’s adventures!

-  The boys in the bands—Soup and Skinny for always making me feel awesome at their shows and for sneaking me some of the rough mixes of the new album. All the guys in instrument for letting me

smother them

help them out and especially D for that parking lot talk after the Webster show. For whatever reason, it was exactly what I wanted to hear, what I needed to hear. It couldn’t have come at a better time.

- My furbabies for the unconditional love and support they’ve given me. There’s nothing better than puppy kisses. Nothing.

- Hockey—The BU hockey program for reigniting my all-consuming love of hockey and for winning the National Championship. I know we won’t repeat and this season is going to be a long, painful one, but I look forward to getting out and seeing the games. The Rangers for signing Matty Gilroy and being close enough so that we can watch a majority of the games. The Wolfpack for hosting the Baby Pens and allowing me to reconnect with Hockey Girl.

- While I’m on the topic, I’m thankful for having Hockey Girl in my life. Who else would understand that NEED to get the cable stations working in time for the big games? Who else would understand me when I ask them if they want a teddy bear? Who else just “gets” me? Here’s to running around the woods!

- I’m thankful to have a job. As trying as it is to work with Mom and Dad most days, Fig definitely makes it better. I look forward to his bits of wisdom and the jokes he cracks. I think I’ve learned more about him than I’ve wanted to, but he’s just too cute. This job really suits me and I knew going in it was going to suck. I just had it sucking for the wrong reasons. Slowly but surely, we’re getting it to suck less. It’s always been a matter of time, a function of the learning curve, a function of the new world I’ve entered.

- I’m thankful for my knitting girls. No one makes me laugh the way they do.

- And finally, I’m thankful for the Wonder Hubby. I love that we don’t have a “conventional” relationship and that he survived my hitting rock bottom in such a spectacular fashion. I love that we crack the same jokes at the same time. That we order our food in the same boring ways. Even the fact that we tend to wear the same outfits on the same day. He is definitely my other half. (I’m the better half, LOL). It’s been eleven years since we met and we’ve been married seven. We joke about getting divorced all the time, but I know I can’t live without him. I’m pretty sure he feels the same.