anagram of brat

Something I ran across elsewhere on LJ alerted me to the fact that space officially lost its cool factor a quarter century ago today.

I very clearly remember Challenger, it was actually the first national disaster of sorts that I was reasonably sentient for. Enough to be affected by it, anyway. I was seven, in second grade, all excited because we all had been reading those Scholastic kids' newsletters about Christa McAuliffe (holy shit, I still remember her name) being the First Teacher In Space! and like most kids, thought her class was the luckiest in America. (Yeah, no.) Dad was also all excited about it because one of the crew was Ronald McNair, who happened to be a member of Omega Psi Phi and in the fashion of all black fraternities and their brothers, this was a Very Big Deal. I mean, regardless it was still a Big Deal, McNair being only the second African American in space ever with his previous Challenger mission in 1984.

Me being seven and still hazy on racial politics/dynamics (attending an international school where being American of any stripe/color was the minority you got teased about tended to blunt that a bit) my focus was on the teacher. One of the random little details mentioned in the newsletter profile was that she always carried a stuffed frog for luck, for some reason this is the one thing that still sticks in my head, even though I've seen it mentioned nowhere else since. Little things about a person tend to get lost when they perish in a space accident.

Thankfully I wasn't one of the kids instantly traumatized by watching the launch live. But I do remember my teacher being called out of the classroom by our principal for a few minutes during Reading Time, then coming back to tearfully announce that there had been an accident and all seven of Challenger's crew were dead. I remember one of my friends at the time started crying hysterically at that point and I hugged her until she stopped, but I don't remember crying myself. Just sort of went through the rest of my day kinda of O_o and not really believing it until I got home and saw the disintegration footage on the news. Even so, I still thought that it kinda looked like a big bit of orange cotton candy and it was hard to realize that I had just in essence watched seven people die. I had the same problem a decade and a half later with 9/11 footage, something that didn't get fully brought home until a conversation I had with cell23 at Ground Zero a couple years ago. It's not so much you yourself seeing someone die on national TV - the fucked up part is everyone seeing it.

I always had this crazy fantasy that the stuffed frog somehow survived and went on to have adventures of its own, either at sea or in space. Mostly piratical ones. Occasionally I get it conflated with Cartman's Clyde Frog on South Park, either as the same frog or as some sort of slashy gay frog crossover romance. Yeah, my brain is weird like that.

Anyway, that's my tl;dr "where were you" moment. To Ellison Onizuka, Gregory Jarvis, Judith Resnik, Michael J. Smith, Dick Scobee, Ronald McNair and Christa McAuliffe, you are missed, and you are remembered.

I lost my virginity sixteen years ago today. *

That wouldn't exactly be a thing except it occurred to me this morning that it was roughly half my lifetime ago.

Wonder where I'll be on this date sixteen years from now? (I'll be 48.) From then ("Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I'm sixty-four"), when this year will be the halfway marker? **

Weird what triggers the existential moments, eh?


In other news, pushing my holiday travel back a day so I can have another little while to get shit done and get my brain unscrambled enough to deal with hot and cold running Brownes for three days.


~~

Kidzilla got a few more eggs. Also the stubborn tooth of doom finally popped out last night. :)


* okay to be fair it was less a loss and more me being all "HERE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD TAKE IT" and my best friend being all "I don't really wanna but HORMONES okay." *shakes head* You couldn't pay me enough to be a teenager again.

** Barring cancer, intestinal splode, blood clots, runaway buses, poorly maintained roller coasters and murder, of course.

Day One: Ten things you want to say to ten different people right now.
Day Two: Nine things about yourself.
Day Three: Eight ways to win your heart.
Day Four: Seven things that cross your mind a lot.
Day Five: Six things you wish you’d never done.
Day Six: Five people who mean a lot (in no order whatsoever)
Day Seven: Four turn-offs.
Day Eight: Three turn-ons.
Day Nine: Two images that describe your life right now, and why.
Day Ten: One confession.

Day Nine: Two images that describe your life right now, and why.

Interestingly enough, these are both from comics.

1. 
   
   This is a panel from Jhonen Vasquez' I Feel Sick, also known as Fisher Price® My First Comic Book™. (Well, the first one I ever actually liked.) Way back in '99 my then boss and friend Jim handed me the first issue of this (it was a 2 parter) saying "oh hey, this isn't really my style, but I think you'll really like it." Years later, it's still one of my favorite things ever.
   
   What's happening at this point is Devi (in the purple hair) has been nagged, cajoled and generally pain-in-the-assed outside by her best friend Tenna after a long period of shutting down and hiding in her apartment consumed with work (and not being able to complete it), fear/disappointment after a string of guys have all tried to kill her in some bizarre way on the first date, and what turns out to be a parasitic force living in/feeding off her head, preventing her from creating/working.
   
   Yeah, that sound ENTIRELY too familiar right now.
   
   It's funny, when I first picked up the comics a decade ago, I identified more with Tenna than with Devi. Now it just seems like I get Devi's position a lot more these days. So the task of finding and beating up the psychotic doll using my brainmeats to become real becomes obvious, eh?
   
   As a side note, I almost didn't find this image. Way back when I built a fan site for I Feel Sick, and when I was thinking up answers to this question I tore up EPEEN trying to find a backup of said site, seeing as it's been offline for years. I finally found it wedged in a folder on a folder in a folder in the wrong folder in a folder, and browsing all the panel scans made me go downstairs, yank the now falling-apart issues off the shelf and reread them. Hasn't lost any of its punch years later. Just my perspective's changed. Also made me nostalgic for the site itself. Jesus, all that work trying to accomplish an effect with tables and slices that HTML 4 and CSS could accomplish now like nothing.
   
   
   
2. 
   
   Poking around on DA, I found this fan sketch of Fucshia and Criminy from Sinfest. Their weird but sweetly adorable "girl from the wrong side of the tracks plane of reality falls in love with boy stuck in self erected fortress of solitude" story arc has been a slowly developing subplot in the comic for a while now.
   
   The surface connotation/analogy and why it is OMG RELEVANT TO MAI LYFE should be pretty damned obvious, and if it isn't you haven't been paying attention to my icons much. ;) I do have to admit I'm charmed by the less obvious parallels between their relationship and mine with cell23, not least of which being both the near simultaneous timeline and the courtship via books (though the one I gave him ages ago didn't then try to devour him and everything/one else). Needless to say, I'm shipping them super hard and hope they ultimately work out.
   

Speaking of which (and obvious connotations) the coincidental timing of this isn't lost on me. On 12/15/08, on a whim and a spirit of "fuck it all, I'm doing this" I blew off the second half of my workday to go first out to lunch, then on an ill-advised adventure with a certain young man. Quite a bit happened that afternoon, but one of the bits that stands out in my head was stopping in the side doorway of Thornes after getting ice cream and kissing cell23 for the first time after wanting to for longer than I'm willing to admit. Even though I wouldn't own up to it until later, that was pretty much the moment I lost my heart. Two years later and the pain in the ass still hasn't given it back. Which is okay, I've got his. Nyeh.

Life is so goddamn WEIRD sometimes. The day I met him back in 2004, he and chirping_monkey were a) together b) parents of a fresh baked baby girl that liked having her toes played with (and still does) c) giving me the side-eye for being Janra's stunt cunt. If someone had told me where I'd end up six years later... yeah, about that. It took a lot of hellfire, heartbreak and disaster for both of us to end up here, and I still occasionally catch myself looking at him and thinking "Wait, what? How did that happen?" Not that how matters all that much anymore.

Anyway. Two years later and we haven't killed each other yet. Here's to getting to 3, 5, 10 and forever. <3


- (The four at the end are Kidzilla's. Yep, she's started her own scroll. XD )

And thus begins my second favorite month of the year.

December is pretty awesome. My lover, my oldest friend, and my Dad all have birthdays within the first five days,* the holidays, which I admit to unabashedly loving with all my little five year old heart (even if the presents aren't quite as cool/magical as I remember), an anniversary of something I completely didn't expect at the time (and still kinda look at with a good deal of "wait, what?" bemusement), and if not with a full blown debauched revelry, marked at the very end with at least something alcoholic, a kiss, and watching the mad fools stand around freezing in my home town while a metal disco ball slides down a pole like a gaudy spherical stripper to the sounds of an ancient gentleman counting down the last few moments of a dying year. Everything is sparkly and lit up and people buckle down and reflect - either back into the past year or on what they hope the one coming will be like. I guess I take this month to do both.

Today is dreary cold and sleety but I don't really give a shit. The home stretch has been entered, time for that last push to the finish line. It's been a rough year in Andee-land, you guys, but past patterns have shown that the not so great years of my life have been punctuated by pretty awesome Decembers. I challenge myself to make that happen again. So should you, no matter what your 2010's been like. Shit year or good year, lets take it out with a bang, eh?



* Indeed, I am rather enjoying cell23's discomfiture at his brandy new tricenarian status today.

It's been a long while since I got a pang of "Wow, I wish I could talk to Mom about this." Having just fully caught up on Mad Men, I really find myself wondering what she would have thought of it, seeing as most the characters are pretty contemporaneous to her and Dad. I suppose I could call Dad and ask him... just wondering how close they got to nailing it. I don't know if I'll be watching season four over the summer. I might just wait until it's all wrapped up, seeing as I'm keeping up with too much as it is. Thank goodness The Tudors is ending next week. Speaking of which, Jonothan Rhys Meyers, I love you baby, but your old man impression is laughable at best. And hats off to Sarah Bolger for effectively foreshadowing how fucking scary Bloody Queen Mary is gonna be after all this is said and done.

Local Burger in Northampton's been open a year and a half today. 'Cause every region needs at least one solid burger joint. On a related note, Amherst Creperie opened last weekend. Here's hoping I'll have money enough to try it out by the weekend. Also as I lamented to chirping_monkey yesterday, it's been way too long since I've been to Baku's.

Time keeps on slipping slipping slipping... into the future. Just one of those moments when it's too quiet around me, and all I can really do is wonder what the next half a year will bring in terms of blessings and trials. Or will it just be more of the same?

Exactly one year ago... Local Burger opened in Northampton in the doomed restaurant space next to Taipei and Tokyo. I'm really pleased to see they're still going strong. I wonder if they're doing anything today, cause goddamn, those burgers are good. Not that I can afford going out, but if any of y'all are in the area go NOM.

...what, did you think this entry was going to be about something else? No idea what you could possibly be talking about...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY to claxman, smithie and my niece who doesn't read this!!

Had Fisher Price® My First Oil Change™. Didn't get my ears burnt too much about it being over by either Mr. Quill or captainlove... well, not too badly anyways. *sheepish* Got to poke around and under Hanzo-san with captainlove during it - I was the little girl that used to LOVE going to the mechanic with Mom and making a nuisance of myself while they serviced her Cadillac by peppering them with questions. Kind of amazing I didn't grow up to be more of a gearhead. Not much has changed - I have an oil smudge on the back of my jeans to prove it. Hanzo-san is a hale and hearty old man, however I apparently managed to damage one of my struts this month, so I'll be chucking aside money for that. Also apparently need to keep a weather eye on my transmission fluid.

The shop, BTW, is home to one beautiful cantankerous bitchass of a tomcat who hates everything and everyone and has no use for humans except in a bitch-where's-my-food context. captainlove named him Hefner. Man, I miss cats. Methinks I may have to visit verbena76 and aersi soon for the Bean love.

Came in to the office to find *drum roll* I was still locked out. Went on a Dunks run, as I'd gotten up super early for Hanzo-san's appointment and hadn't eaten and on the way liberated myself of a certain piece of jewelry I recieved three years ago today. Clearing the clutter as it were, and hey, extra gas money = super helpful. Office was open when I got back, have now retrieved keys and officemates' cell numbers in case this sort of thing happens again. Knowing me, it will.

Today - worky worky worky, then home to finish up my room, take out the gazillion boxes my books were in, and vacuum... possibly turn my desk and my bed around, if I'm feeing adventurous enough to do so, we'll see. Possibly also watch the last season of OZ already so I return the damn netflix... and end it by collapsing next to deliciously snuggly male... seems like a good agenda for the rest of today, no?

About four hours from now a year ago, my small intestine pretty much fell apart. I spent a fun two hours in pain so excruciating death seemed like a fantastic option. I am not exaggerating - when they knocked me out for surgery I literally didn't care if I ever woke back up as long as my abdomen stopped screaming. Cause you know, when you're dead, you can't feel anything.

Those were two of the loneliest hours of my waking life in addition to the most literally painful. Even if that night Holly had managed to reach the people we called that night, it's not like they could have come with me to get the CAT scan I barely remember done, or into surgery. Nothing like scary medical proceedures to drive home the idea that in a lot of ways, we're all soldiering through our individual shit alone, and handling it as it comes the best we can. As timarok's email signature used to say: "Learning from life the hard way, stumbling every step." Rather true.

When I got out of the hospital finally, it was as if the world had changed in a week and a half. Fall had hit - It was a lot cooler - it had been kinda hot the day I checked in, it was chilly the day I got out. It had been green when I walked in, it was brown and yellow and red when I left. I remember how the wind felt on my face, remember holding on to the silly little bat balloon Von had gotten me as it bounced at the end of its ribbon... I don't remember how wind felt before or, kinda sadly, since. Hell, that day I was still appreciating the miracle of solid food after being tube fed for six days. I took a lot less for granted - being able to run to the bathroom as opposed to hobble holding my belly, for one example. The cubic assload of friends and family that came from far and wide to see me that week, not to mention the other folk on the nets that left comments I didn't rightly appreciate until I reread them a couple weeks later while not being high on morphine. I still have an instant, violent nauseated reaction to the smell of hand sanitizer and rubbing alcohol. Not to mention a pretty badass 7 inch scar down my belly. And I remember the day I came home, a certain someone telling me I was officially more badass than Houdini because peritonitis killed him, and I survived it. Lord. Should have taken it as a sign of things to come. *shakes head*

I don't know. It's been a year. It's a rather grim anniversary, but at the same time it isn't, because I'm still here. This past year has been full of Rough Shit®, quite possibly emotionally on par with having intestinal splode. And yeah, not all of it's resolved... but I guess I'm coming to terms with the fact that that's okay too, that some of the stuff I'm processing through is gonna haunt me for a while yet. But I think this week, in light of where I was this time last year, I think my goal is to recapture that whole simple joy in being alive vibe... cause yeah, I'm still dealing with adulthood sucking, but overall... my life is pret-ty awesome right now. Ac-ceeeeeeentuate the positive and whatnot. And as many people have tried to tell me... I don't know. Tonight seems a good night to forgive, accept and let go. This is how it is and how it kinda had to be in a lot of ways, and I've seen what years of holding in and on this sort of shit does to people... and I don't want to be that person, even though Maleficent is a fantastic Halloween idea. If anything, it'd be kind of awful being a zombie blue-green shade for the rest of your life. I'd never be able to wear orange ever again! Oh wait, I hate orange...

A peaceful yom kippur to those of you that observe it. To everyone else... take a minute to look at all the good stuff in your life. And if you're grieving over something or other... I'll leave you with something my niece posted in Facebook this morning. "Don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened."

Right. That's enough pseudo profound from me for one evening...