But all my choices, my good luck... Appear to go and get me stuck

Choices are scary.

He chose to leave. I choose to think he's dead rather than having willingly chose someone else.

Having chosen the train, I chose the lack of sleep, the fear inducing top bunk, and I chose the lack of security for my luggage.

I didn't choose to lose my bag, some stranger made the choice to take it.

Now I'm trying to choose to be realistic.......he chose someone else. Actively, a choice made of free will, he chose someone else.

And I'm choosing to accept the fact that my luggage is long gone, that someone needed it more than I. I choose to believe that this very iPad made my laptop and my DSi obsolete.

It's harder to choose to be equitable about all my new purchases from Colorado; my jewelry from Boulder Home Town fair, my new brassiere that made my girls look wonderful, my new BFF purse......and then of course all my clothes. The jewelry I had brought to show my friend, jewelry created by my mom, and my emeralds, the last of a set from my Gramie.

But you want to know what brings me to tears, no matter what I choose to believe? My teddy bear. I want to swear, I want to break down in tears, but that little bit of nostalgia, that loss hurts the most.

Stupid huh?

But I have no choice.

Artism

Make friends with an artist.
She will ask why aren't you creating and she won't be quilting you, she'll honestly want to know.
And you'll both be sitting in a cafe, you with your latte, her with her chai, and you'll watch her create, face drawn with concentration.

You'll find yourself staring and wondering what kind of void she's crossed in order to do that.

Not everyone creates, what's different about those that do?

Something fundamental, something learned, something won as a success or a response to a failure?

My creation is written. It's also stagnant and deriviative. It's in need of repetition and the time and energy to create and recreate until it shines thru as original. 10,000 hours needed to master something and I've spent so much time stagnating myself. Creator and creation. Pretty pathetic, really. 

But every creator must go thru something similar, the pain of creating something that isn't quite right, not quite perfect. But you have to struggle anyway, otherwise nothing will ever agree with your inner vision. That perfect creation in your soul.

So you end up watching your artist friend create, seemingly effortlessly, tho you know she'd hit you for saying that. And you think maybe its ok that you're still so far behind, because there she is, bringing her creation to life and it's perfect.

Grown-ups never understand anything by themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be forever explaining things to them.

So kids are a nightmare.

They run around with too much energy, and throw tantrums when they're too tired to keep running. Do you want to sleep? No! I'd rather express myself while massaging your ear drums with shrieks and cries.

Then, why don't you wait till just after I sit down to need something. Please, my ass is huge and I need the exercise. Complete sarcasm.

Why did you move that? Becuz it's a toy now, especially if its dangerous.

And yet, I leave in a week, so the trials for me will soon be over.

I have been jumped on, climbed on, my bed has been peed on, milk spilled, and I've tried to help with potty training. (Like most sane people, I drew the line at diapers.) I have also been requested to read a bed time story. I have had two little munchkins hanging off my jean's back pockets. I have chased them back and forth around me, hanging off said pockets asking in Gollum's voice "what does it have in its pocketses?" Then bending down, reaching thru my legs for them, "ahhhh, Bagginses!"

But here's the thing, I'm firmly in the anti-children camp. All my friends are having offspring and I think "good, better you than me." But damn, my best girlfriend made some cute as sin kids.

Update

Also, I found my pen the very next day.

I just had to wait to become undrunk to find it.

James May Love

So some people who know me know me as a huge geek. And that I have the greatest geek crush on James May. Not for being the voice of reason on Top Gear, not for fighting against all the wine ponces of France, and not even for a delicious dress sense; but because he takes an amateur love of aeronautics and physics and engineering, throws in a large dose of a healthy imagination, and creates things.

I have loved James May since discovering Top Gear, whenever that was, its been going since forever. A trait inherent to the BBC I believe (don't get me started on Time Team, its actually ending soon). He's Captain Slow because he's intelligent, assesses risk accurately in a rather dangerous discipline (Hammond's rocket car crash anyone?) and enjoys what he's doing. I quite believe that his love of space and flight translates very well to his love cars, and that he probably enjoys the speed more, despite his sobriquet.

But because of his love of space and flight, and seemingly, education all together, he's also hosted a number of intelligent and emotional documentaries.

Emotional?

He's flown at the edge of space. He has seen the curvature of the Earth and it is gorgeous.

He's also built an entire Lego house. 1 to 1 scale. Out of Legos. (Legoes or Legos? Google says Legos.) With running water, if I remember correctly.

So emotional. I don't cry for romcoms, I don't cry for movies much in general. I'll cry while I'm reading books, and damn, the Fall and the Fountain both make me cry like a baby, but those are, admittedly, very heavy emotional hitters.
But for some reason, James May always makes me tear up when he's successful. He's so joyous and sincere when something works, it brings tears to my eyes that something simple can be so beautiful.

Remember that movie, American Beauty, wherein some creepy guy next door records everything, even a windswept plastic bag and somehow, with hamfisted voice over, the audience is lead to believe its beautiful?
Its a little like that, except way more believable.

So, I've just found another special in the Toy Stories series called Flight Club and again I'm brought to tears. A silver mylar-ed, orange tipped, and tech heavy glidder makes its way across 22 nautical miles, the equivalent distance from the White Cliffs of Dover to France. Tho because of French Air Traffic Control and the weather, the actual flight is made within England's borders.

And its so simple. And its silly. But the people involved in these shows obviously love this bit of fun, these builds they get to toss off just because someone with some popularity and some network clout lets them. And when they succeed, its beautiful.

But that might just be my crush on James May talking.
Either way, learn a little something new and watch James May.

Narbonic Love

Sometimes I'm astounded by the size of the internet.
The way a gif turns into meme, turns into a virus, corrupts the very inner workings of your mind, is amazing. But sometimes I'm surprised the other way around too. How could you not have heard of "Jacob leave your shirt on......NO!" or "Ain't nobody got time for that"? That latter delicious little video made enuf money for the lady in question to get a new place to live!

How can you still believe in unicorns and spaghetti monsters, the color plurple or that smeg isn't in the OED??? It totally deserves to be.
How can you listen to that kind of music and read those kind of things when you have the whole internet at your fingertips willing to give you some better taste?

Present company excluded, of course.

So love. For a comic no one I know has ever heard of.
I admit, I'm coming late to the party considering it originally ran 2000 to 2006, but I originally joined up somewhere in the middle. I missed out on the Narbonicons and the parties, etc. The author may have moved on to better, brighter, bigger things, but somehow I always come back to Narbonic.

I have a thing for scifi. First of all. Mad scientists are win. Intelligent and dominant women are grand. And a cute geek of a male guinea pig is adorable.
So there's those good beginnings. Then there's the fact that Babylon 5 heavily influenced (read monopolized) the author and you are almost guaranteed a well thought out story that involves great foreshadowing but also time travel!!!!! <3 indeed.="" p="">And don't forget the gerbils. And Hunter S. Thompson. And Shakespeare.

So give it a read. Realize that in the beginning, this was an artist finding her stride. ((Those are almost the best comics, don't you think? Where the love of the story drives the comic forward day by day until you suddenly realize, damn, that's a fine looking comic. Schlock Mercenary anyone?))  And if you like it, there's some other stuff out there by the damn, fine lady and there are books too. ^_^

Ridiculously, Stupid Amount

Well, this might sound silly, but I grew attached to a pen. A nice pen, a present.
I had refills purchased and waiting in the wings.
I used it at work and made sure no klepto customers (or fellow employees) took it. I held onto that pen and treasured it.
It wrote on all kinds of paper, and wrote beautifully, the ink it laid down was straight and of the perfect width. It was the kind of pen that convinced one to slow down just a little bit so that next word might look a little nicer.

You know how it is; you have a routine, a set of habits. You come home and dump all the change in the little cup you lifted from Chili's all those years ago. You walk in through the door and the keys go on that key hanger thingy you thought was sooooo cute. The jacket goes on the hook on the back of the door and oh, hello cat! Aren't you cute Izzy...who's my little Izzy? oh you purry purry thing you........

Suddenly my routine is broken and I don't know if I lost my pen at the restaurant tonite or somewhere in between snuggling the cat and getting into pjs.
Also my chapstick.
But I haven't lost my wallet or my phone.
So I guess......


And yet, this pen.



It made me tear up. I think something else must be bothering me becuz I've lost stuff before and never cried over it. Part of human nature, we're distractable and forgetful by some kind of nature (technology probably) and we're forever losing stuff all the time. Its how we can insure future archaeologists are going to make up drinking games about what the random stuff they discover was used for, way back when.......toilet seats as headgear and .... fuck it. Go read Motel of Mysteries by David Macaulay, he's much better at creating hilarious uses for common things. I stole the toilet seat as ceremonial head gear from him anyway.

The point is.

My car has a name and its a bit trashed up at the moment (THREE incidences are from being parked in a parking lot) my vacuum cleaner has a name and its getting way more use than normal, also smells like baby powder (don't ask) my dish washing machine has a name and will soon have R2D2 decals on the side of it (when I can find some good ones).

The point is I get attached to things.
And at this moment it hurts a ridiculously, stupid amount.
Its a pen.
But it was mine.