assorted and sundry bits
February 24th, 2005 02:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shiredancer*blows dust off journal*
KACK! COUGH! Awww, poor neglected journal -- it's been all lonely and sad without me.
I've got some time to write, the first in a very long time... well, you know that. Too much life going on, I guess, and some death too. And some teeny, tiny miracles.
Too much of my job, of course. Huge chunks of work getting done there, and budget analysis, and projections for the future, and all. Too much angsting over my grad students, more than I rightly should do. I really need to learn to let go, just a tiny bit. If only to preserve my own sanity and to de-stress a little. Birthdays and anniversaries come and gone. I never even had a chance to read my birthday poem this year. I wonder if that's a bad omen? Kidlet gets to be in the chorus, and a principle dancer, in her school play, The Mystery of Edwin Drood (Dickens -- yay!) and therein lies the secret of me having some time to myself. Hurray for rehearsals. My dad had knee surgery yesterday and despite me being prepared to drive down if needed, I'm not -- he's doing great. My husband's uncle -- my uncle -- died.
Now, there was a man. A fabulous, brilliant, creative, tormented man; a true artist, with a lifetime's worth of drawings and sketches and etchings and paintings that were cleaned out of his terribly, sadly squalid trailer home. A New Yorker complete with accent and attitude, and an openly gay man long before it became "acceptable". He battled diabetes with insulin and refused to quit smoking, so he hacked and rasped his way through brilliant conversation covering opera, film, and the arts. The brilliance is a heritage of my husband's family on both sides, along with the ensuing emotional and mental problems that so frequently accompany it. I can never hold my own in conversation with those people, but they seem to like me anyway. I'm going to really, really miss him at the family gatherings. We all went down to help with clearing out the trailer, me rushing around and snatching the graphic homoerotic sketches as fast as the others were dumping them in the trash. You know what? I thank *god* that I encountered slash right here with y'all and became a genuine devotee. I don't just tolerate his gayness and his sketches and his gay porn videos, I don't just accept it -- I relish it and approve of it and love it in him. I took the one most beautiful painting that he made -- a full-length nude portrait of his dearest lover. God, you can just see, looking at it, that the picture was painted with *so* *much* *love* it's almost unbearable. It's a beautiful, beautiful thing. My small and humble home will never do it justice -- it belongs in a gallery or a museum (but it won't be permitted to leave the family).
*Raises glass to Uncle B, a rogue and a helluva guy.*
The tiny miracles are very tiny, indeed. One: I read a book. But see, it's the first actual, real book I've read since The Fellowship of the Rings came out and began my addiction to all things on line. Oh, the book was the fifth Harry Potter -- The Order of the Phoenix. Now there's an addictive universe -- I'm still trying to cope with real life after a weekend blur of reading, reading, reading. All other things went on hold.
The other miracle was picking up my guitar after -- how many years of neglect? -- a long time, anyway, and slowly, painfully picking out some songs. Ah, how much I've lost.
As for me, I feel like I'm pining for something. There's more change afoot, I can feel it. If I figure it out I'll post it here.
KACK! COUGH! Awww, poor neglected journal -- it's been all lonely and sad without me.
I've got some time to write, the first in a very long time... well, you know that. Too much life going on, I guess, and some death too. And some teeny, tiny miracles.
Too much of my job, of course. Huge chunks of work getting done there, and budget analysis, and projections for the future, and all. Too much angsting over my grad students, more than I rightly should do. I really need to learn to let go, just a tiny bit. If only to preserve my own sanity and to de-stress a little. Birthdays and anniversaries come and gone. I never even had a chance to read my birthday poem this year. I wonder if that's a bad omen? Kidlet gets to be in the chorus, and a principle dancer, in her school play, The Mystery of Edwin Drood (Dickens -- yay!) and therein lies the secret of me having some time to myself. Hurray for rehearsals. My dad had knee surgery yesterday and despite me being prepared to drive down if needed, I'm not -- he's doing great. My husband's uncle -- my uncle -- died.
Now, there was a man. A fabulous, brilliant, creative, tormented man; a true artist, with a lifetime's worth of drawings and sketches and etchings and paintings that were cleaned out of his terribly, sadly squalid trailer home. A New Yorker complete with accent and attitude, and an openly gay man long before it became "acceptable". He battled diabetes with insulin and refused to quit smoking, so he hacked and rasped his way through brilliant conversation covering opera, film, and the arts. The brilliance is a heritage of my husband's family on both sides, along with the ensuing emotional and mental problems that so frequently accompany it. I can never hold my own in conversation with those people, but they seem to like me anyway. I'm going to really, really miss him at the family gatherings. We all went down to help with clearing out the trailer, me rushing around and snatching the graphic homoerotic sketches as fast as the others were dumping them in the trash. You know what? I thank *god* that I encountered slash right here with y'all and became a genuine devotee. I don't just tolerate his gayness and his sketches and his gay porn videos, I don't just accept it -- I relish it and approve of it and love it in him. I took the one most beautiful painting that he made -- a full-length nude portrait of his dearest lover. God, you can just see, looking at it, that the picture was painted with *so* *much* *love* it's almost unbearable. It's a beautiful, beautiful thing. My small and humble home will never do it justice -- it belongs in a gallery or a museum (but it won't be permitted to leave the family).
*Raises glass to Uncle B, a rogue and a helluva guy.*
The tiny miracles are very tiny, indeed. One: I read a book. But see, it's the first actual, real book I've read since The Fellowship of the Rings came out and began my addiction to all things on line. Oh, the book was the fifth Harry Potter -- The Order of the Phoenix. Now there's an addictive universe -- I'm still trying to cope with real life after a weekend blur of reading, reading, reading. All other things went on hold.
The other miracle was picking up my guitar after -- how many years of neglect? -- a long time, anyway, and slowly, painfully picking out some songs. Ah, how much I've lost.
As for me, I feel like I'm pining for something. There's more change afoot, I can feel it. If I figure it out I'll post it here.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
*waves*
Date: February 28th, 2005 08:56 pm (UTC)I *finally* read the Harry Potter books myself, starting with the first one just before the holidays and I finished up the fifth book last week. I was so completely engrossed in that amazing universe and now I can't wait for the next book to come out! I'm sorry I held off reading them for so long and especially for the reasons that I did.
:-D
Re: *waves*
Date: March 3rd, 2005 07:03 am (UTC)Aren't the HP books wonderful? And just think, at least you've got the whole story fresh in your mind in preparation for the next one... When I read this last, I'd forgotten so many little details and some of it was hard to put together. J.K. sure does refer back to things in later segments...
So, are you married yet? You've gone all quiet and I don't know what's going on *pouts*.
*Smooch!*