To say that yes, I still suck. But I am still alive.

I'm also on Facebook quite a bit more than I am here (which is to say I actually use Facebook. *sigh*). So, if you're on my flist here and are also on Facebook (and would like to be friended by me over there), please drop me a line at celticfeministw@livejournal.com!

That is all - back to work I must go!

*misses all of you*

Here's to the warm love of home, family, friends, and sundry other loved ones. May all of us find peace and joy today and throughout the coming year.

Toward the Winter Solstice
by Timothy Steele

Although the roof is just a story high,
It dizzies me a little to look down.
I lariat-twirl the cord of Christmas lights
And cast it to the weeping birch's crown;
A dowel into which I've screwed a hook
Enables me to reach, lift, drape, and twine
The cord among the boughs so that the bulbs
Will accent the tree's elegant design.

Friends, passing home from work or shopping, pause
And call up commendations or critiques.
I make adjustments. Though a potpourri
Of Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, Jews, and Sikhs,
We all are conscious of the time of year;
We all enjoy its colorful displays
And keep some festival that mitigates
The dwindling warmth and compass of the days.

Some say that L.A. doesn't suit the Yule,
But UPS vans now like magi make
Their present-laden rounds, while fallen leaves
Are gaily resurrected in their wake;
The desert lifts a full moon from the east
And issues a dry Santa Ana breeze,
And valets at chic restaurants will soon
Be tending flocks of cars and SUVs.

And as the neighborhoods sink into dusk
The fan palms scattered all across town stand
More calmly prominent, and this place seems
A vast oasis in the Holy Land.
This house might be a caravansary,
The tree a kind of cordial fountainhead
Of welcome, looped and decked with necklaces
And ceintures of green, yellow, blue, and red.

Some wonder if the star of Bethlehem
Occurred when Jupiter and Saturn crossed;
It's comforting to look up from this roof
And feel that, while all changes, nothing's lost,
To recollect that in antiquity
The winter solstice fell in Capricorn
And that, in the Orion Nebula,
From swirling gas, new stars are being born.

Noel
by Anne Porter

When snow is shaken
From the balsam trees
And they're cut down
And brought into our houses

When clustered sparks
Of many-colored fire
Appear at night
In ordinary windows

We hear and sing
The customary carols

They bring us ragged miracles
And hay and candles
And flowering weeds of poetry
That are loved all the more
Because they are so common

But there are carols
That carry phrases
Of the haunting music
Of the other world
A music wild and dangerous
As a prophet's message

Or the fresh truth of children
Who though they come to us
From our own bodies
Are altogether new
With their small limbs
And birdlike voices

They look at us
With their clear eyes
And ask the piercing questions.
God alone can answer.

Now Winter Nights Enlarge
By Thomas Campion

Now winter nights enlarge
           This number of their hours;
And clouds their storms discharge
           Upon the airy towers.
Let now the chimneys blaze
           And cups o'erflow with wine,
Let well-tuned words amaze
           With harmony divine.
Now yellow waxen lights
           Shall wait on honey love
While youthful revels, masques, and courtly sights
           Sleep's leaden spells remove.

This time doth well dispense
          With lovers' long discourse;
Much speech hath some defense,
          Though beauty no remorse.
All do not all things well:
          Some measures comely tread,
Some knotted riddles tell,
          Some poems smoothly read.
The summer hath his joys,
          And winter his delights;
Though love and all his pleasures are but toys
         They shorten tedious nights.

Now let's go ... do something!

Might as well admit that up front. I keep meaning to post, keep getting distracted, keep not posting. And, as I read through my friends' entries, and see the shite they've been dealing with, I feel like there's a dagger carving out pieces of my heart. I should be there for them, instead .... Instead, I'm selfishly ensconcing myself in my own life away from everything else.

*facepalm*

There's so much I want to share, I don't know where to begin. Or how to. I don't know how to reconnect connections that never should have been lost. I don't know how dive back in and swim. So I'm just going to do bullet points to hit the major bits and then, maybe after the holidays, write more.

• We bought a house and moved in. The house is good, if cold, as it's not insulated. That's being rectified in January.
• I hosted my first ever Thanksgiving for myself, Rua, and his parents. It was OK.
• I've been to numerous doctors and specialists of late, trying to narrow down some odd things I brought up to my doctor. So far, all has come back normal - from a mammogram to echocardiogram.
• The weirdest issue are the iron levels in my blood. They're wacky in a way that not even my doctor can make heads or tails of ... the numbers don't correspond to anything between the three tests they typically run for iron. I'm to see a hematologist in January. And I'm guessing I'll get the same response "We have no idea, but gosh, it's weird."
• The wacky iron levels and/or the fact that I'm hypothyroid could possibly explain my repeated miscarriages. This means that if that's resolved, Rua and I may try again. We may not. I don't know.
• My job is going well; I got a great review for my first year. I still quite like it, too.
• I got to meet and hold and snuggle baby cheetahs.
• I've spent a good part of this year ignoring everything that I usually love to do; I've read less, I've written less, I've avoided movies, I've not had much of an interest in anything.
• I think I'm coming out of that, though. I hope I am.
• I'm not remotely ready for the holidays. Especially the first one without my Nana and my sister-in-law.
• I miss my sister and hate that she lives so far away in Denver. At the same time I'm happy for her and extremely proud of her and her new job.
• I miss my friends terribly. We've made a few friends up here in Columbus and I love them dearly, but I miss my friends so much that at times I want to jump in my car and drive south. I miss volunteering at STAF. I miss my family. I just miss.

Anyway. I won't promise to write more soon, since I never seem to be able to keep that promise. But I do promise that I've think about all of you more than you know.

And I hope all of you have a warm, wonderful, love-to-the-brim holiday.
 

*smushes all of you*

(a day late, but no less heartfelt!)

What Was Told, That

What was said to the rose that made it open was said
to me here in my chest.

What was told the cypress that made it strong
and straight, what was

whispered the jasmine so it is what it is, whatever made
sugarcane sweet, whatever

was said to the inhabitants of the town of Chigil in
Turkestan that makes them

so handsome, whatever lets the pomegranate flower blush
like a human face, that is

being said to me now. I blush. Whatever put eloquence in
language, that's happening here.

The great warehouse doors open; I fill with gratitude,
chewing a piece of sugarcane,

in love with the one to whom every that belongs!

by Jalalu'l-din Rumi
Translated by Coleman Barks

Via Shakesville.

Ok. So, I posted, then vamoosed. But I had a really, really good excuse.

Rua and I just bought our first house. And we just moved in a little less than a week ago. So it's been a frenetic time of packing, moving, unpacking, rearranging, and hooking up stuff.

And there's still eleventy-million things to do.

But! OUR FIRST HOUSE! OMG! I'm a homeowner. A homeowner.

Am I grown up enough for this? Seriously?

And the poetic and tragic aspect of all of this home-owning rigmarole is that it's only possible because of Rua's sister.

We found out not long after she died that Rua was named as the beneficiary on one of her life insurance policies. We didn't expect much from it, as it was through her one of her jobs. As it turned out, when all of the dusty paperwork settled, that it was more than enough to pay off our debts (and lo, there were many) and give us a down payment, if we found a house.

Once we decided getting a home was what we wanted to do, we began that whole incredibly tedious process. A word to the uninitiated - buying a house sounds like fun, and looking for a house sounds like fun, but when you've looked at your 30th house and it's as unsuited for you as the rest of the previous 29, it gets to be a bit disheartening.

But we had an awesome realtor who listened to what we wanted, wasn't afraid to call a house a piece of crap if it was a piece of crap, and who was endlessly patient with helping us sort through those things we can live with and those things we can't live without in a house. In the end, we found a beautifully maintained (pristine, even) little cape cod, about a mile away from where we were renting. It wasn't exactly the location we were looking for, but the house itself was nearly immaculate from basement to attic. And it was our size, has a (tiny) fenced in yard, in the general area we wanted, and it's just perfect for two newbie homeowners.

In short, we both love it.

Of course, the house has its issues (what house doesn't??) ... it doesn't appear to have any kind of insulation. So that's our first big cost. And the furnace, a/c, and hot water heater are old. Impeccably maintained and running well, but old.

According to the lovely and amazingly nice women we bought it from, we're likely the third owners of this house. it was built in 1953. They bought from a 92-year-old woman named Mrs. Mercer. Mrs. Mercer married Mr. Mercer at the sprightly young age of 75 (and it was her first marriage!), and Mr. Mercer had lived in the house for years.

The neighborhood is quiet and tucked away from things. The only thing that's actually noisy is the fact that the train tracks aren't too far from our house. We're also fairly close to an intersection of the tracks and a road, which means the trains have to blow their whistles when they go through. But, it's not as loud as I was afraid it would be when you're in the house, and it's not close enough to shake the dishes in the cabinets, so it's not bad at all. And really, the sounds of the trains on the tracks (not the whistles), is actually kind of soothing in a white noise kind of way. On top of all of that, once we get the house insulated, that will also cut down the noise even further, I'm sure.

So that's it. That's my big news. We have a house! I'll post a few pre-move in pictures here in a bit, for the curious among you.

And you know, while I'm thrilled to be a homeowner, Jen's death still seems to high of a price to pay for this luxury. But Terry and I will do our best to fill this place with love and light candles in her memory. I know how much it means to me that even in death, she's taken care of her brother and me in ways she probably never thought possible.

And to me, that's an incredible honor to her life and her memory.

I can't decide - is this live footage of the current presidential debate or a campy '60s superhero show?

Hello all! I did not fall off of the face of the Earth. Or at least, not literally.

I didn't want to write anything until I properly honored my Nana, which I became extremely avoidy about, which led to all out disappearing from everything, which led to OMG I'm So Behind I Can't Catch Up, which led to OMG I Can't Show My Face Because I'm So Behind, which led to more avoidy-ness, which ....

I think you get the picture. I still need to write about Nana, I just don't know when I'll do that. But I think I'm going to at least start posting some other stuff and getting back into the welcome, needed, much-missed warmth of my friends.

I've really missed you guys.

*SMUSHES ALL OF YOU*

Today is (was) my sister-in-law's birthday. She would have (should have) been 33 today.

Happy birthday, Jenn. My beautiful, brilliant Kansas City sister. I miss you like hell every day.

I want to write something about my Nana. I want to write other things, too. But I don't want to write those until I write about Nana ... and I'm not sure I can face that yet.

I will say this, though. If any one of my family, friends, or other sundry loved ones takes it in their head to die this year, I am never going to speak to them again.

And yes, I mean you.

So. I will update soon. Just right now ... I can't bring myself to do it yet.

My Nana died today.

Life? You can stop it now. Really.

Fucking hell.

First, a huge THANK YOU to my lovely, wonderful, warm, incredible flist for your beautiful, kind words and thoughts on my last post. I know words and thoughts seem like too little to offer in times of grief and pain, but I hope all of you know that your thoughts and words do more to ease our pain and comfort us than you probably know.

So, thank you. *much, much love*

Time has this inexorable way of making you move on ... work, socialize, dogs, family ... in a way being forced to move along is a welcome salve, a distraction from the pain. In another way, it almost feels like a disservice to her memory ... because if the world can't stop for a day to mourn such a bright soul, shouldn't I at least be willing and able to?

Then again, maybe not. Walk it off. Keep moving. Distance.

But it's been more than a month and it still fucking hurts.

A couple of other things to note ... she loved wolves. Her apartment was covered in them. My first holiday present to her was a wolf adoption. And one of the things I took from her apartment was a ceramic wolf head she had painted. It even has her initials on the bottom.

Shit. Tears.

Something I've never done before - I wrote her a brief note to say good=bye and placed in it an envelope with a tiny preserved shamrock pendant I purchasd in England. I placed both in her casket. I don't know why ... other than I wanted to tell her good-bye somehow and I wanted to give her something. Logically I know it's a rather silly gesture, after all, it's not like she'll be able to read the note or wear the pendant. But it seemed ... right, somehow. And I can't explain why. I guess I don't have to. Ha! Take that logical-mind!

ETA: I don't think I mentioned this before, either. The hospital where Jenn worked has established a memorial nursing scholarship in her honor. The family requested that donations be sent to that in lieu of flowers for the funeral. The amazing thing is that the hospital intends for this to be an on-going scholarship, so each year on July 8 (Jenn's birthday) they will hold a memorial bike-a-thon to raise money for it. The hospital also hung a plaque in her honor in their memorial garden and the nurses, aides, doctors, and others she worked with are each making quilt squares of their memories of her ... and once pieced together, the memory quilt will be hung in the hospital.

The hospital also had a memorial service for her, which Rua and I were not able to attend, but her and Rua's parents did. They were honored guests, as her friends and colleagues shared stories, laughter, and tears ... and then presented her parents with two large scrapbooks of memories and pictures of Jenn's service to the hospital, her friends, and her family.

The fire department she served in also held a memorial for her and there surprised her parents with a handmade oak swing ... which Jenn had been making plans to purchase as a Christmas present for them this year (someone at the fire department makes them). The fire fighters all chipped in to have it made, complete with a brass plaque on the swing to Jenn's memory.

All in all, it seems like amazing stories of generosity and support are flowing towards Jenn's family from all quarters; all birthed from Jenn's own generosity of spirit and love for life. It's a beautiful and fitting tribute to a beautiful woman whose time here was cut too far short.

_______________________________________________________________

In other, happy news, my sister (kittygiz) is getting married this weekend, to a fantastic man I highly approve of. And yes, this is vital to note because a) she has not been known to choose her partners wisely and b) I rarely like anyone she dates. :)

I'm her matron of honor, for what it's worth. I've been a rather shitty one thus far. I missed her bridal shower, as it was the weekend after Jenn's funeral and I arrived back in Ohio at 4:00am the day of her shower. I'm going to miss her bachelorette party as well, since it's this Thursday evening and I have to work a donor event at the Zoo until at least 9:00pm.

What can I say? I suck. And take this as a warning if any of you think of making me a big part of your next wedding. *nods*

Actually, I need to gather the traditional "something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue" before I go down there this week. I'm at a loss, though, as to what those things are supposed to be. Suggestions, anyone?

I also need to write a toast to give at the reception. As luck would have it, I came up with a great idea for a toast while I was in Kansas City, but did not write it down, and it is now gone. *sigh* I don't want to do anything too long and I don't know what I'm even supposed to say. I suppose just standing up there and saying "Best of luck to ye, Slainte!" is probably too short and out of the question. Heh.

And that's about it from my wee bit of the world. I'm sorry I haven't kept up better with all of you - I'm going to try to do better, I promise.


*hugs all of you*

I keep waiting for the punchline, you know? It's been two weeks. I saw her body. I attended the visitation, pressed hands and accepted hugs, and said thank you when they said sorry for your loss. I've held Rua, his mom, his dad, his aunt, his cousin while they cried. I went to her funeral. I saw the casket. I touched her long, flaming red hair.

And yet. I keep waiting for the punchline. For a phone call or a visit or an email that says "HA! GOT YOU!" It's all been one horrible practical joke gone awry and carried on too long. The plane crash nothing more than a set-up to a stupid joke. Because she can't be gone. She was so young and vibrant and funny. Death doesn't come for people like that.

And yet. There is no punchline because Jenn is buried and dead. Dead. Gone. Never to be seen or heard or touched or laughed with again. Her being dead is so ... pointless and idiotic and incomprehensible ... and unbelievably fucking painful.

Life is so fucking stupid sometimes.
__________________________________________________________________

One phone call can change your world. "Your sister. Jenn. She's been killed in a plane crash." Rua gone ghost pale, shaking, "Not. Jenn. Not her. Not. Jenn."

Me. Practical and task oriented. Flights to Kansas City. Pet care. Jobs.

On April 19, there was a plane crash just outside of Mt. Vernon, Missouri. A small Cessna, to be exact. It was carrying six women skydivers - the PMS Club - who were going to do a formation dive. It also had one pilot. At some point, we don't know when, the plane went out of control.

Four women had time to jump to safety; the last woman to jump said her leg was broken by the plane as it started to spin out of control not long after she jumped. Two women were left inside - Jennifer Collins (Rua's best friend and only sibling, my sister-in-law, full sister in spirit) and Marnie Fuller, mother of a 12-year-old daughter. The plane (spinning, diving, straining, nosedive) crashed not more than a four seconds after the last woman jumped. Jenn and Marnie never had a chance to jump, though according to the survivors, both made sure the other women (younger, less experienced) got out first.

Jenn was in the door of the plane when it spun out of control, preventing her from jumping. Her reserve chute, on a automatic sensor, released on its own when the plane hit 800 feet and too fast of a speed. It didn't matter. At 800 feet, it was no more than second before the plane hit the ground. Jenn was thrown out of the plane on impact. Marnie (I think) was still in the plane.

Jenn and Marnie died. The pilot survived.

And our world shifted, cracked, contracted.
________________________________________________________________

Jenn was (everything in past tense now) a vivacious, vibrant person. My brave, brilliant, and beautiful Kansas City sister. She was a registered nurse at the Children's Mercy South Hospital Urgent Care. She was a firefighter and EMT with the West Peculiar Fire District. She was a skydiver. She spent her working life dedicated to service to others and saving lives and her not-working life falling to earth.

She laughed a lot. She was smart as hell. She was tough. She was funny.

She's dead.

She had a cantankerous cat, Duncan. She saved lives. She set off fireworks when the Captain wasn't around. She slept with a teddy bear. She was trying to get a divorce from a tyrannical, controlling asshole. She read. She cooked and collected things with hot peppers on them. She loved Irish things. She had bills to pay. She fought fires. She crawled into wrecked cars and pulled people to safety. She took temperatures and stemmed bleeding. She made quilts. She packed parachutes. She went to the Zoo. She loved animals. She had a boyfriend she loved. She biked. She explored. She had fiery, long, red hair. She always wore jeans. She chose to work with sick kids because they're nicer than sick adults. She mentored new nurses. She jumped out of airplanes. She loved The Sound of Music and M.A.S.H.. She felt everything deeply and purely, but held her emotions close to her. Guarded them.

She was a person I loved and admired. (Past tense again. Always.) She wasn't perfect, she wasn't always nice or funny or happy or brilliant. But that never really mattered because no one is always nice or funny or happy or brilliant.

She was in the process of getting her life back together after a bad marriage to a bad person. She was happier than she had been in years. She was doing everything she wanted to do. She loved what she was doing.

She collected "Life is good" clothing and jewelry. I have a necklace and bracelet set of hers from that company. And it brings an odd comfort because I truly believe that despite the troubles she had with her husband who was trying everything to stop her divorce, she felt her life was good. She enjoyed it. She loved and cried and laughed and cuddled and read and watched TV and collected peppers ... and it was her life and it was good.

And that is all any of us can really hope for in an epitaph. "She lived her life and it was good."
_________________________________________________________

There were probably 500 or more people at her visitation. Nurses. Firefighters. Skydivers. Doctors. Friends. Loved ones. And people who didn't know her, except as the person who saved their life or their child's life. "I was in a car wreck and I wouldn't be alive today if your daughter hadn't been there." "My son was so, so sick and she saved him." There was even a woman whose child had died, who came because Jenn had offered her child care and then offered her comfort when nothing could be done. She came to thank Jenn's family for that.

She touched so many lives.

The funeral was ... a funeral. The end was the most moving ... a firefighter (the Captain? I can't remember.) stood at the podium and talked about how a firefighter's life is measured in the ringing of a bell. The bell rings once to start a shift, it rings when there is a call to duty, it rings when the fire is out. And it rings three times to end a shift. Then the bell rang three times for Jenn because her shift, her life had ended. At the graveside (a two and a half hour drive), the firefighters presented her parents with the flag that had been flown at half mast over the station and then presented them with her helmet. I wasn't sure anyone would stop crying after that.
___________________________________________________________

So this is it. Now we cope. We move on. We go to work. Walk the dogs. Talk on the phone. Fix dinner. Go to the bathroom. Sleep. We keep moving. Coping. We cry now and again. And we remember and talk about Jenn. We preserve the hole her death put in our hearts, but as the days go by, we begin to fill it with memories of the good times. Of laughter and hugs and stories and moments. We light a candle and honor her. We remember.

I just dropped Rua off at the airport for a one way flight to Kansas City. His sister, (keppiecat) was killed yesterday afternoon in a plane crash. I'm going to sort out things here at home (the dogs, the cats, work), then get out there.

She was only 32. And I loved her.

Fuck.

I've been meaning to post this for awhile. And I have lots of thoughts to go with it. However, being that I'm stealing work time and all to do this while I'm thinking of it, I'll just post it then (hopefully remember to) come back to it.

I want to give Peter Sagal a big, fat, slobbery kiss for this because it's something that I've noticed my entire life and it encapsulates in a (albeit very specific) nutshell why I am a feminist and wear the label proudly.

You can read and/or listen - whichever tickles your fancy - the original here, at NPR.org.

Gender Inequity in Whoville
All Things Considered, April 2, 2008 ·
I don't know what sins Dr. Seuss committed in his life to be doomed to have Jim Carrey star in movie adaptations of his books. But I came out of Horton Hears a Who, with my wife and my three excited and happy daughters, irritated by something even more annoying than Carrey's tics. In a new subplot added by the filmmakers, the mayor of Whoville has 96 daughters. He has one son. Guess who gets all his attention? Guess who saves the day? Go ahead, think about it, I'll wait.

No I won't. What's so irritating about this casual slap at daughters is the sense that the makers of the film didn't really mean it. They seemed mostly interested in riffs on pop culture and jokes about violating bodily integrity. But what writers are told, you see, in Hollywood notes meetings, is that every character has to make a journey, towards something he needs and ultimately gets, and what they decided the Mayor of Whoville needs was a better relationship with his son. Here is a father with 96 daughters — 96 amazing, beautiful, unpredictable, mysterious, distinct, glorious human beings — but gosh, what in the world is he going to care about? I know, let's give him a moody silent uninteresting offspring, but this one's got a Y chromosome... that'll be boffo box office!

Have the clowns who made this movie ever met a daughter? Have they dated one? If they did, did they meet the daughter's father? Did they then ask that daughter's father if there was anything more dramatic, interesting, arresting, and moving to him than his relationship with his daughter? Did they ask him if he might find that a close relationship with said daughter might be something he would care about? What do they imagine that we do — sit around, and watch our daughters grow and change and suffer and fail and triumph — and idly wish for something more INTERESTING?

And there's this — not only does the movie end with father and son embracing, while the 96 daughters are, I guess, playing in a well, somewhere, but the son earns his father's love by saving the world. Boys get to save the world, and girls get to stand there and say, I knew you could do it. How did they know he could do it? Maybe because they watched every other movie ever made?

We got into the car outside the cinpeplex and I was quite in lather, let me tell you. How come one of the GIRLs didn't get to save Whoville? I cried.

"Yeah!" said my daughters.

"And while we're at it, how come a girl doesn't get to blow up the Death Star! Or send ET home? Or defeat Captain Hook! Or Destroy the Ring of Power!"

"That's rotten!" cried my daughters.

"How come Trinity can't be the One who defeats the Matrix!" I yelled.

"What are you talking about?" they said.

"You'll find out later," I said. "But here's one: how come a girl doesn't get to defeat Lord Voldemort!"

"Well, wait a minute, Papa," they said. "None of us would want to mess with him."

I took their point. But I still wanted to grab that fictional, silly mayor of Whoville by his weirdly ruffled neck, and say, you see those 96 people over there? Those girls, those women, those daughters? You know what they're saying to you, every minute of every day that you waste thinking about anything else?

They are shouting at you. They are shouting:

"We are here! We are here! We are here!"

Peter Sagal is the host of NPR's "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me." and the author of "The Book of Vice: Very Naughty Things (and How to Do Them)."

caerwynx picked four icons for me to talk about ...

Wonder Woman - Hee

This icon is just made of happy. I love Wonder Woman; I grew up watching Linda Carter play her on TV, some of my fondest childhood memories are wearing my Wonder Woman Underoos and pretending to be her. I've recently started reading the comics too. She's a feminist icon, she's a kick ass superhero, she's just awesome. I love this icon because my childhood hero is pictured, smiling and gorgeous. The addition of "Hee" adds a great bit of whimsy and silliness, which is always a great way to my heart. Plus it's a fantastic light-hearted icon to use. The icon is by rissykay

Me and Wodehouse

This is a goofy shot Rua took of me one afternoon while we were playing around with a camera. I loved it, for the impish look and because I'm holding up a book. And not just any book, but a book by P.G. Wodehouse, one of my favorite authors. He's British, he's a master of a well-turned phrase, and he's hilarious. You haven't read him? Go. Now. I recommend any of the Bertie Wooster and Jeeves (yes, that Jeeves) stories to start. Anyway, back to the picture - this has now become my standard internet profile shot - at least until I decide I'm ok with an actual shot of my face out there. :)

George Dream Somewhere Else

This is from Dead Like Me, one of my favorite TV shows. I especially love the way this icon looks, melancholy, dreaming, lonely ... the tag "Dream of somewhere else" works perfectly; and it's the perfect icon to use when I feel like escaping my life. It's by dreamt.

Poe

Oh, Poe. My dear, sweet, dumb kitty-boy. Poe is one of my cats; he's all black with a few white hairs on his chest. I adopted him in 2000, when he was about six months old. He was found in a field with his two litter mates at 4 weeks old. All of them are were suffering from starvation and hypothermia; Poe spiraled into pneumonia with a raging fever. He wasn't expected to pull through, when he did, it was a shelter miracle. It's also theorized that his high fever actually damaged his brain, so when I say he's my big dumb kitty, I'm not kidding. A bright star, he is not. But he does make up for it in sweetness and light. As for this icon, I wanted a picture of each of my "kids" to be an icon; Poe, being a black cat who can't sit still if someone is near who might pet him, makes it nigh-impossible to get a decent picture of him. I loved how this one turned out - he's vaguely angry eyes and his paw curled at the camera make it a "soft angry" icon to use. Plus. It's POE!

And now, the meme instructions:

1. Reply to this post, and I will pick four of your icons.
2. Make a post (including the meme info) and talk about the icons I chose.
3. Other people can then comment to you and make their own posts.
4. This will create a never-ending cycle of icon squee!!

I haven't posted anything in more than three weeks. I know things have happened. I know there are things I want to share. But I sit here under a blue blanket on a cream couch in a grey mood and wonder if anything I can possibly come up with to write about is actually worth it. I also wonder at my own inability to post about anything that really matters to me ... fears, sadness, hopes, true frustrations. *sigh*

So, instead, I will meme. And I will meme like crazy. And then I will go and shop, though I lack money and owe taxes, because I need clothes for summer and have very few that fit and look good. *nods*

But before I do so, I owe a huge, unequivocal THANK YOU to the lovely, thoughtful, and utterly awesome caerwynx. She recently sent me a beautiful set of handmade books of poetry written by Irish women 1,000 years ago. It's a gift that is utterly breathless in its perfection for me and it means more than words can say that this dear woman saw, purchased, and sent me this gift. So, thank you, my sweet friend - your thoughtfulness was a light in my day.

( One word meme via caerwynx )

( Four things via Brave Sir Robin )

To all of my geektastic friends - Happy Pi Day!!

*toasts all of you with pie*

For more info about Pi Day, clickity here. For more information about our friendly neighborhood irrational number, that one and only mathematical constant for describing the ratio of any circle's circumference to its diameter, go here.










(And a big thank you to Brave Sir Robin who tipped me off about today!)