I was thinking about my cousin parker today. She's the only girl cousin I have on my dad's side. I was so excited to have a girl cousin, i remember what i felt when I found out. I mean all the cousins i had on my mom's side i didn't relate to because i was always the youngest one there (well, i mean, my brothers were always younger than me but that is really not the point). It really became, though, a study in disappointment. Sure i had this little girl cousin, that i was just hoping to be like the little sister I never had. And do you know, i didn't get to see her until she was well, look at the pic. the first time I ever got to meet her. and then years and years later at my grandpa's funeral and then most recently like a few years ago. I get it, i suppose. My aunt and uncle think i am a bad influence. But when grandma just got back from a trip with a pic of her and she is just so completely different. It just goes to show you, there is absoloutely nothing you can get excited about. You know what i mean, just the most for front example of what i have found to be true, is there is really nothing anymore to get excited about.

You know something I was thinking about the other day when I was bored out of my skull in math class? Teachers. No really. I had some really good teachers in high school and I never appreciated their ability to teach a lesson comprehensively. I have this Pre-Cal teacher this year who, not only teaches the same lesson over and over again until you just want to take the chalk away and toss it out the window, but he teaches it in such a ridiculous way that one comes to wonder how he got to teach in the first place. He also gets to confusing some of the people and I am sitting in the back row doodling when the poor confused people around me have no earthly idea of what is going on and when they try to ask for help, he has a coniption, sputteringly mad. If he wasn't such a complete moron, I wouldn't have to explain it to everyone else. This is one of those times when I really wish I had gotten to go to the school I wanted to. Granted, I will most likely ace the class, but it will have the disadvantage of booring me to tears twice a week.

Merry christmas and Happy New year!

As usual I spent my holiday in sunny florida. However this year for the first time I spent new years eve at a rockin' party. It was amazing! There was this kick butt band playing all my favorite songs in front of a massively huge hat! And then three two one fireworks timed to classic rock. It was unbelievable and i loved all the mega excited people! Everyone cheering, singing along and blowing noise makers. I loved it! The atmosphere was practically electric. If you want to see some pics from my trip visit facebook. My first new years eve party and it was amazing.

Florida November 2008

Welcome home to me I guess, although i would much rather have stayed i know it is time to return to nashville, physically at the very least. It was an awesome trip (well the disney parks were as amazing as i remember at the very least) you would not believe the lack of lines, i was so happy :) i did not have to wait more than 20 minutes for anything and i actually won dream fastpasses. It was an awesome trip and i will tell you little cole (pictured) was so happy to see me back he hasn't left my side all week, isn't he precious :). Mostly i am a photographer at heart so i am posting a ton of pics from the trip. Moreover i can happily say that i am a lot more relaxed (maybe too much but that is not the point :)) and i am savoring the possiblities for the future. I have also decided to plan my own spring break, never done it before so that is mega exciting. After attending disney world and being enchanted by it for years i have realized the one thing i have been missing all along, Disneyland. And so for spring break i am planning a trip to the california park, and you can bet that i am so excited, it will be my first trip to the one that started it all and sort of a pilgramage of sorts. If i can make this work, i forsee alot of disney globe trotting in the future perhaps including a visit to the French park, with its radically different menu of offering. This year at Epcot introduced a facinating new exhibit with a scale model of the terra cotta army found at the tomb of the first emperior of china, even at their diminutive size, the sight was still the most amazing thing i had ever seen, I must see detour if i ever make it to HKDL. To me, and i know it seems silly, but this is my dream vacation, i want to visit all the world's disney destinations and see all of it for myself.

Still in shock

I am still in shock over the election day results from yesterday. Can you believe they actually let a communist indonesian citzen be president of the united states. I mean i thought there were laws about that kind of thing in this country and i am quite sure he will be the first president to not be a us citizen (not that that is a good thing). I am very scarid about the threat of imanent terrorist attacks starting in january not to mention that during these trying economic times, the last thing we need is keysian econmic theory which, historically, has been a failure. This election has also made race an issue like it hasn't been in the last 40 years or so, and it is truely amazing how far this divide has set us back as a country. I have been simply so scarid that i have been unable to sleep since results were announced. And lastly, all i want to say is Sarah Palin 2012 if we all survive the next 4 years.
In less incediary news, i am going out of town thursday and will be enjoying a little flordia repreve from all this coldness, even as i write this on the home computer i am shivering. Just in time i think because this whole week has worn my nerves practically raw.
Mom has booted me into facebook today against my wishes. I just "loved" seeing how all members of my graduating class have moved on with their lives and despite the fact that i enjoy being newly free, that is really all that has changed since i graduated. Pathetic, right? Not really the confidence booster it should be considering i really need to calm down a bit. I am so stressed out and worried that it feels like my senior year of high school, minus the out of control pluse rate and thyroid the size of a small bus. Never slept much then either. It is 2:30 in the morning or there abouts, not sure if this clock has been switched over and yet i still have not considered going to sleep, i am afraid that the only thing that changes as i get older is i get more nostalgic, and the only new things in my life since high school is i finally got up the courage to dump my abusive ex, my kitties, and minus 40 pounds, none of that replaces the exciting life i never had, not sure if i would want it if it were offered.

Remembering continued.

I have this phoebia, have ever since i can remember of death. It extends to anything related (execpting food i guess) and I just get this feeling in the pit of my stomach of fear, unrelenting indescribable fear. It is the reason i never wanted to be an archaeologist despite the fact that i love archaeology because i couldn't force myself near the bones. It even extends to dinosaur bones, which i won't approach willingly. That is perhaps the single thing which inhibits my ablity to say good bye, that fear of the casket and what lies inside has always terrified me. The way my mom tells it, she blames it on my grandpa wilson. Long time ago, which i don't remember because i appear to have blocked it out, when my wilson grandparents lived in nashville i was apparently staying with my grandma at the time and she had a heart attack or something (like i said i blocked it out a long time ago) apparently i held her hand and said "Grandma don't die" over and over (i wished i could have done that last year) and that grandpa blamed me for the whole thing later, saying it was my fault that she almost died. And that that created this Phoebia. The way grandma used to tell it (and this is one of the things I loved about her) it was my saying "Grandma don't die" (remember i was very little at the time) that saved her. It was a cute story and i can't remember the event although i wish i could and i can't prove it actually happened but it is what i was told. Both of my grandpas were always sort of cold to me, although i always tried to be a good grandaughter. Nevertheless, this is where my mom thinks i got it and i blocked it out so long ago that i couldn't remember what really happened now any way because unfortunately i spent so many of my formative years with grandma and recently those images have began to fade. What was once so vivid that i thrived on the recitation has now become so lost in the mist that i hear snipits of her voice and remember remembering and often times what i hear is myself telling a story of what she used to tell me. As far as grandpa hoff goes, i have completely lost the sound of his voice, he could speak to me now from wherever it is that spirits go and i would not know him. I forgot every time we ever spent together and i only remember myself telling my original recollections. and each time i realize that i forgot something i swear i remembered before it feels like i lost them all over again and it is so hard to feel it over and over and remember that i am forgetting them, it does not help the coping as you might expect, instead causing a whole new pain, this time it is of a different loss, like a whole has formed where a person used to be and nothing i could do would fill it. Used to be whenever i could not sleep I would remember grandma reading to me and hear her soothing voice in my head and now i struggle to remember the look of her face when she smiled and the sound of a little gospel drifting softly soothingly and i can't anymore and it hurts. Even now as type this it feels like i am loosing something again and you don't know quite what it is and yet it still is there and it haunts and you dwell on it . And as far as a better place goes, if there was such a place and i did happen to make it up there, would I remember them even there or would they just be a dead stranger to me? It is scary to forget and almost impossible remember the events which made people so special to me and it doesn't help to forget, it doesn't make it easier to move on and it scares me (probably because that is what killed my grandma Wilson, the forgetting disease, when one day the body forgot how to work and that was it). I wish i could remember any event a special moments instead of remembering myself remembering. And i wish i could never forget how special each and every moment is and to loose them is absolutely the worst side effect to my life and how strange it seems that mathematical theorems should push away those voices. How long will it be before i forget aunt caroline, the sound of her voice, which even now, even 7 months since i last heard it sounds as if it were so far away, or through some sort of fabric, muffled and distant and it will heart renchingly,be gone soon enough. And where there were sounds of joy and happiness will be empty voids as it has been twice before.

Saying good bye

The hardest thing i have ever been asked to do is to say goodbye. It seems like it would be such a simple thing and yet i can't bring myself to do it. This weekend prior i buried my aunt caroline and i could only bring myself to go up to the casket once, after the funeral service and that simple action made sure that i sobbed my way to the car. I have only ever lost three people and you'd think I would be greatful for it. But each and every single one is just as painful as the preceeding one and it really doesn't get easier to say goodbye to people you love. What is particularly painful is that people always shrug it off, she's in a better place they say well it doesn't help matters and I personally believe there is no place better than to be here with your family. And all the problems that insue are part of living and there is no more precious gift than the abilty to simply live. I wish i could just say see you later instead of good bye knowing that we would see each other again but i can't shrug off such a loss so casually. So for today i am going to post pictures of the loved ones who I have lost and tell you why they were so special.

The first is My grandma wilson (pink sunday hat picture), a singular individual, she loved everyone and kindness was as much a part of her as sleeping and eating are to everyone else. Moreover she was the person i always felt safe with and trusted instinctively. There is no doubt in my mind that she loved me just as much if not more than i did her and i feel her loss more than any other as she meant everything to me. I keep a baby picture of myself that she always had near her bed, so she could see it every morning. On the back she wrote that she wanted me to have this and she could not love me more if i were her own daughter, it is my greatest treasure. I lost her in september of 2007.

Then we have my grandpa hoff. He was a interesting man, with a special sense of humor. He adored airplanes and old cars and was a fantastic chef, he made this incredible mac and cheese which was so think and gooey that the fork came away completely coated in cheese. He also gave the biggest bear hugs, conveying more love in one hug then most people have in their entire body. He was an artist at heart, his pieces displaying his trademark precision and exactness. He was incomperably intellegent and funny and very sweet and although not much of a people person was a wonderful person to know. I lost him in july of 2005.

My Aunt Caroline (not pictured) passed last week, it was a tough blow especially considering that she was very young by comparison to my grandparents who had passed. I was quite fond of her and i do miss her very much. She has really been all I have thought about for the last week or so and I think i am still in shock. I was very brave and didn't cry until the visitation but i have not really stopped since. I will also never forget the image of Camilla (can't spell, not sure if that is right, sorry) just sobbing at the conclusion of the grave site services. No one moved for the longest time, just watching her and feeling that pain with her, i was trying not to sob with her because i know it was my instinct to. Aunt Caroline was such a special person, one of those people who were always heart-warming and kind and there was no one like her. There is no real way to describe her which doesn't refer to her strength and love and both qualities defined her so completely. Moreover the family is going to have to sell her home to pay the medical bills and i just know that the pain that will cause will be akin to that the family feels today, that stinging hurt that never really goes away. What i would give to be in the financial position to help i would give every dime to make sure Camilla did not have to sell her grandmother's home. The very concept that 3 tragic events chained together will so utterly demoralize them is a very heart-renching prospect. They lost the family dog, cricket, this morning if you can imagine such a thing, all those horrible things chained together will mean that Camilla in particular is going to have to use her trademark upbeatness to stay above water. I badly want to be up there helping in any way possible, I have been struck by an inane desire to help, somehow. I am not religious person but i would gladly pray every minute of every day if i thought it would help.