for whatever reason, boo is crying today at the drop of a hat. and not just the whiny/fake cry, this is the real tears gasping for air with the sniffles for five minutes afterwards cry. i think her feet have touched the ground a total of 12 minutes today. life is hard when you don't feel good, but i can't imagine not feeling well and not being about to bitch about it.

thankfully she isn't fighting sleep - which is great! i just want her to feel better! we leave for AZ on wednesday....i need her better by then.

even though the Target clinic confirmed my suspicions about a government induced plague, being that i had to show my driver's lisence to get the medicine they said i should be on, i was still planning on getting my tattoo. however, hubbin and JCSG convinced me that i should call the shop and tell them of my dire condition. and they put the kibosh on it.

if you''re sick, getting a tattoo will prolong your illness and slow down the healing process of the tattoo, you should wait until you are feeling better, they said. and it's comforting to know that the folks down at the shop are secret care-givers. needless to say, i don't have a tattoo...YET.

i have nothing bad to say about the Target clinic, and while i did follow their recommendations, i can say that, although i am not feeling better, i am more fucntional. the left side of my nose is still locked down something fierce, but my ears aren't popping so much.

and hubbin and i did take up some friends' invitation for dinner last night. we joined anncisfrancis and her hubba - hot pants. i'm calling him hot pants, because we had a party once and he showed up in black leather pants - and i almost died he was so fucking gorgeous. so we all met for dinner and we all had each other laughing so hard i got light-headed from lack of oxygen. note to self - don't go out with two people who make you pee when half of your nose is plugged with gunk. seriously, i had to lean on hubbin's shoulder because i thought i was going to faint.

it was good to laugh like that. anncisfrancis and hot pants mean a lot to hubbin and i, and they have no idea how their warm, generous company helped me feel more normal and more human. i am blessed to have such wonderful people in my life.

over the last 24 hours the left side of my nasal cavity has swollen shut, only to re-open slightly, randomly, make me choke, and then close again.

obviously i have been exposed to a newly created bio-weapon that has been designed to deprive me of oxygen, deprive me of sleep, and then lead to my insainity. hubbin has been walking around the house behind me in a haz-mat suit collecting my discarded tissues. these will be sent to quantico, as i'm sure a new neural-toxic nerve agent can be made from the vile, gummy, green gunk that comes out only when i blow my nose so hard, my ears pop.

i'm off to the minute clinic at target - obviously this is not normal. but if the new plegue is upon us, blame me. i am the mother host.

even though i went to the doctor today (just one of the many pleasures of being a woman) and i got the whole "over 35" high risk deal - complete with a cholesteral test, AND an appointment for a baseline mammogram. i am holding on for dear life to the fact that i was tattoo shopping yesterday and that i am majorly hearting the films . that still makes me cool, doesn't it?

i have recently decided that i can't have possibly anything worth while to add to this blog. everything worth saying and writing, has already been said or written.

i wish that i had a regular correspondence. PT and i have been e-mail for years, but it's nothing worth while, just stupid howareyoudoing stuff. and i don't believe that blogs should be the place to dump all of your dirty luandry, although that's incredibly hypocritical of me to say.

it hit me earlier this morning that this feeling - this feeling of everything in my life being gone - is just self-pity. granted i did lose my mother far to soon and she meant the world to me, but she firmly believed that i would be okay without her. with hubbin and boo, she thought i was going to be alright. and i can't prove her wrong.

i just don't really feel like me. but i'm not sure who i am now - after all of this. not that i'm not the same person, but who can go through what i've been through in the last six months and not be affected by it?

i just don't do anything interesting enough to put down everyday. i mean, the last book that i read was a batman comic. and i have no intellectual persuits. so what could i possibly say?

i change poopy diapers.
i do dishes.
i walk around the house with a kleenex.

if i knew me, i'd avoid me. i'd be totally checking my caller id and screening my calls.

and yeah, it's all me. i'm sure my daughter would tell you i'm fantastic and my friends...all three of them would tell you i've maintained some sense of humor through it all, but that even they aren't sure of what to do with me.

there has to be an end to this.

i think that i have decided that anyone over the age of eight can do without valentines day. i had a blast getting boo's valentines together, but buying stuff for adults - that's for the birds.

yes, i put together my kids' valentines - she can't write yet! it was fun too, but not the kind of fun i want to admit to. like scrapbooking. i had a helluva time making sure each envelope had the same number of stickers on it. kids notice that stuff, but more importantly some wackjob parent will notice. me being the wackjob parent.

i can't wait to pick her up and kiss her sticky face and look through all the valentines her friends shared with her. i spent the day shopping tattoo parlor's and talking to the artists. it was pretty cool.

i hope i don't get one tattoo and then get addicted to it, that's a real fear i have. once i break the seal, will i be able to control myself? as i was sitting there looking at designs and whotnot, i thought, you know after this tattoo, i could totally go for something like...that. scary stuff.

i feel like today is the first day of the rest of my life. time stretches out before me as vast and as wide as the ocean. i fear i will not know what to do with myself. that the person who i am today is here only because this specific course of events, these and no others, brought me here for a purpose. i await the unveiling. until then i am commiting to good food and rest. the health of my daughter and of myself.

i'm afraid it's all i'm fit to do.

the bitch who shall remain nameless has her title back. i granted her a short reprieve, but damn if she didn't force my hand with her selfishness and lies.

why am i so wrapped up in all the drama you ask? because it's hurting people i love and care about, and cuts me to the quick. because my brother and his children deserve better.

TBWSRN will not be present as her son is laid to rest on monday. she will be flying home after mass on saturday. she will not stay to help her grandchilden through the second major tragedy in their lives. all of them took the loss of my mother very hard. now two of them have lost their father, and when i finally talked to my other niece, nica, she was in tears because her next trip here is for another funeral. she's never had anyone die before my mom. it's hard on them. too hard.

and while i will gladly take them up, each on of them and shower them with as much love and kindness as is within me - their grandmother should also play a part. she is choosing to be absent.

there was a comforting finality to seeing my mother buried. it was difficult, that final goodbye, but not without merit. i couldn't bear to see my child placed in the ground, it would shatter my soul. but i wouldn't miss it. i would be there for them, so they knew i was there and that they weren't alone.

on of the last things randy said to me was "don't leave, don't leave me." i promised him that he'd never be alone again. and i meant it.

her actions sicken me.

my mother would be saddened by this, but she'd put it behind her. she'd take the high road and find solace in her own reasons for being there for randy. i need to do the same.

i need to try and do the same.

i am going to try and worry a little more about what i'm doing, that what other people are doing. it's really none of my damn business anyway, but i think the kids are going to be hurt.

i need to forgive her actions in her grief. but it pisses me off as a mother.

it's bright as a gunshot outside and i sit here around the house, dark and cold and sick.

i am so flattered by slootie's trust in me. planning a funeral and organizing stuff is so much easier after the hard lesson of going through it once already. i must have looked like that too, to those around me. stunned, but functional, absent but physically around. dazed and forced to think clearly and make decisions.

she asked me to give the eulogy at randy's funeral mass. i am terrified. i feel so shitty for saying this, but i don't/didn't know my brother all that well. but honestly, slootie can't think of anyone else to do it. i guess no one knew him well.

i supposed that happens when someone falls ill and is sick for so long. your friends slip off for whatever reasons. but i honestly am going to have a tough time with this one.

i feel a little guilty receiving condolences. don't get me wrong, i loved randy, i truly did. but with his absence comes a responsibility hubbin and i have been looking forward to for a long time, and that is to spend more time with the kids. rand wanted to be a part of everything and in the last couple of years, i guess things that they did, he thought that it would be the last time he'd get to do it. so he didn't want a lot of external people included.

and towards the end, he had a hard time physically getting around so that was tough. but he always made the effort. and when he couldn't do that, they stayed home. which is hard for youngins.

i feel like there is a wide open space stretching out and widening in front of me. we all keep saying, let's get back to normal. well, what is normal? what is the new normal going to be?

randillarium - my brother's first CD. he mentions me in the liner notes because for months i'd sit and smoke Wintson's at his kitchen table and listen to him bitch about our dad. he was never there...

you're 35 dude, i'd say, get over it.

and he did.

after my mom died, randy would call me every other day, to check on me and see how i was doing.

when my dog, nick, died and the asshole i was dating wouldn't help me bury him; randy came over in the middle of winter, chipped away at snow and ice and frozen earth until we got a hole in the ground and he and i laid my poor pup to rest. it was the saddest thing to happen at the beginning of my adult life.

and now, after a fateful struggle with cancer, he rests. our valient warrior sleeps with kings and we are all a little sadder for it.

maybe i am still numb from my mother's death, and so i'm not processing all of this. but i think i've figured out very quickly what my role is to be in all of this. mom's death and doing all of the preperations and work alone taught me to be there for someone else when the time came.

tig calls it the smart kid scenario. when the smart kids are done with their work, they don't get to sit by, basking in a job well done ahead of time, they don't get to kick their feet up and read comic books. the smart kids have to do more work when they are done. helping other studetns do the same thing that seemed so easy to them.

not that planning a funeral was easy or work for that matter, but it's a huge responsibility. and her in way of ways, mom is guiding me to help my sister-in-law, slootie. she's in a daze, stunned. and i don't blame her.

in our time together down at the mayo, my niece and nephew would call her, when are you coming home mom? is dad getting better? when will dad come home? thank god i didn't have to explain anything like that to boo. she's too little. but KK and Bubba are 11 and 8 respectively. old enough to ask questions and get it. and it breaks my heart that slootie has to do it alone. they have all gone through the most tragic thing to happen to them thus far. who can explain it?

she was torn with staying down at the mayo with randy and being home with her kids. randy didn't want to be alone, ever. on the firday night i stayed with him in his room, at one point he grabbed my hand and with surprising strength and clarity said "don't leave me alone". i told him i wouldn't, he was never going to be alone again. and i meant it, and he wasn't.

but slootie couldn't be in two places at once. the kids were/are going through the most traumatic thing in the world to them, losing a parent, and the other parent isn't there to help and guide them, to answer questions and reassure them. she couldn't be in two places at once. i told her to go home and be with the kids. no matter what anyone else in the family thought of her, she had to go, leave her husband for a few hours to help her kids cope.

i wasn't there when randy passed. every time i was with him, i told him how much he was loved. how the kids were home and safe and thinking about him and loving him as much as he was thinking about and loving them. i told him there was nothing to be afraid of. that he had help on the other side waiting for him - my mom and auntie jan. i joked with my dad saying that randy was sick of him taking care of him and that my mom did a much better job - so he wasn't dying, he was just opting for better care. my dad laughed at that.

and in his final hours i tried my best to draw down the angels of heaven to grant him mercy. to take him out of his shell and grant him peace without pain. i prayed to my mother to take him, please come and take him. but i guess we don't go until our name is called.

there was a point when we were all in the room, where the nurses thought that it was the end. the five of us, randy's mom, his brother, my dad, slootie and i were all around him. it took him eight hours after that to die. he was strong and stubborn until the end.

and i know he didn't necessarily want to go. but he was in physical pain until just about the very end. and it was almost too much for me to bear.

i hate the fact that my dad has had these two major losses so close together. but in a way, i think randy's death will help him heal. i hope it does.

i read this short story in vodo's class a few years ago. and that's all that was going through my mind yesterday as i sat in a very nice room filled with family, and only two people i actually like.

but the story was about a marine or vietnam vet (i can't remember), who was an ametuer boxer. and i think he took a few too many knocks to the head and ended up with a form of epilipsy. so he got a pair of dogs who were trained to know when he was about to have a seizure and they would get him to a safe place.

and it was all i could think about as i looked at this shell of a human being, lying there, still my brother, but no one i knew. hopefully, quickly and quietly, he'll be at rest soon. his fight will end and he'll know the pleasure of being without pain.

i opened jack's little dashboard to see what the word of the day is. it's moribund - adj. dying, in a dying state, at the point of death.

i get it universe, i hear ya, loud and clear.