death be not proud….

 death is such a strange and freeing and interesting phenomena.

early easter sunday morning, my youngest brother william allen harris, 54 lost his battle with bone cancer. it was a rough road for bill, he suffered a lot at the end, i hear that bone cancer is excruciating and from seeing bill, that’s most certainly true. it was a relief for him to be gone, to no longer be suffering, but at the same time, his death brought up many, many issues for me. silly things, that i am sure everyone thinks about, but it’s really taken me for a loop.

i am more thankful now than i have been at any other time that i am married and had children. bill died alone in a way that i think very few people understand. he had never been married, never had any children of which any of us are aware. he didn’t have many close friends, none locally, and while it was his choice to spend much of his life alone and he spent a lot of time in his life keeping people at arm’s distance from him, but one has to wonder, at the end, if he thought it was worth it.

on top of that, we, as his living family, were responsible for taking care of disposing of the contents of his life. we spent monday and tuesday cleaning out his apartment. he didn’t really have much and it was sort of sad and pathetic to see the pains he went to to ensure that none of us felt slighted by division of his meager possessions. it’s amazing how in a couple of afternoons one can dispose of the contents of another human beings existence. that is still bothering me.

we had some of my brothers things still in a box, and one of the things we had planned on donating to an area charity was some liquid methadone that he had been given when he was still at home. on tuesday night, my nephew decided it would be a good thing to try to get high on, so he chugged like half the bottle, his girlfriend and mom woke me up early wednesday around 5:40am because he wasn’t breathing well at all. he was bluish grey, i breathed for him while my sister called 911, and we spent the next two days in the hospital. the boy was scared, but what would make someone do that to begin with? it’s not really what we needed in addition to my brothers death this week, and it’s made me more sad than i can even express. i had told him before that he needed to be out of my house by april 1. i told him i loved him like a son, but he is an adult now, and he needs to take care of himself. if he was making any effort at all, i wouldn’t do this, but the boy literally lives and exists right now only for the next high and it’s not a healthy thing for anyone, so i feel as though my choices are very limited with regard to him. i am sure he’s going to attempt to manipulate me, but i cannot allow it. right now i think the best thing i can do for him is let him go and stop enabling him to continue this destructive pattern in his life. he hasn’t worked or even seriously looked for work in over a year. he’s like my own son, but he has to find his own way in the world. this next week is going to be a tough week.

all of this seems to have placed both myself and my sister into a weird head space. i have been irritable the last few days, somewhat unmotivated, and sad. i am still doing all the things i am supposed to be doing and that i committed to, but it’s with a feeling of sort of going through the motions. i am sure this will pass, but i feel like i want to sort of be a hermit right now.

i have a bellydance performance this coming friday, and we have been rehearsing hard. a fire performance on may 3 is also taking a lot of rehearsal time. i will check in when i can. i am slowly trying to catch up on reading here. thanks so much to those who have stopped by. i still need this place, perhaps more than a realized.

it’s been a rough 15 months.

peace.

feeling blessed again….

so, i froze my ass off last night. as one of my fire family stated "wow, this is the most fun you can have getting frostbite". heh.

we had a show last night. it was an outdoor show in weather that was approximately 20 degrees, give or take a few icicles =) it was a smallish show, not too many people wanted to brave the weather to see this crazy group of freaks spin fire, but i suppose we were the only warm ones on the whole street =) we made our own bonfire. heh. there’s something entirely unique about spinning fire in the winter that i knew i missed, but didn’t realize how much until we did this show. last year, we performed at northstar, a local ski resort, on new years eve. all of the sensations and everything are different performing in cold weather. instead of figuring out how nekkid you can get and still not get any of your jiggly bits burned, like in the summer or on the playa, you are trying to think about how you can not feel your face but still smile…..how many layers CAN you get on and still look sexy? how many layers can you peel off and not cause permanent damage to the aforementioned jiggly bits? can i effectively spin fire with my gloves on? two sets of gloves on? (this really isn’t a concern for me because i HAVE to wear gloves with one of my fire tools or burn my hands, but i did appreciate anew the coverage they afforded my cold hands).

hot pizza, coffee, and cider tastes MUCH better when it’s freezing outside and the slice of pie you take from the box is steaming and fresh with gooey cheese goodness. people with backpacks carrying warm liquid goodness should be sainted, i am sure. trying to figure out if the smoke rising is coming from your breath or your fire tools is an entirely unique experience. so, you get the point. it’s also a great good to have one of our members (who is an attorney) have his office a block away from the festivities so we could defrost between sets.

the bottom line, however, is that it was FUN. this crazy, zany, dysfunctional fire family of mine, i adore them. i hope i always feel about them the way i do right now, because this feeling, this is good. not one of them is perfect (nor am i), but we all share the love of this crazy art form and i think we all genuinely care for each other. i sometimes think the last year would have been much, much more difficult for me if i didn’t have these people around me, just being who they are, but accepting me for who i am.

one of our members had a really close call on a car accident on his way home last night. i am glad he’s okay. today, i remain grateful for my life and the people in it.

happy friday, everyone.

*peace* 

returned, from adventure….

 last week i spent with my honey in austin, texas. a good friend also moved there recently. i hope things work out for her. she has a man who loves her, but it’s very different there from anything she’s used to. people are strange, as jim morrison would say….

i saw lots of cool stuff in austin, things i’d not seen before. i had never been to a presidential museum and was able to visit the lbj presidential museum. it was very interesting and i bought a book about lbj during his white house years. i admire what he accomplished and feel bad that his enduring legacy seems to be the vietnam war when he gave this country to so very many other wonderful programs.

i also visited a cave that was cut off from human existence or interference for millions of years. it was very cool. there were little tiny bats hibernating on the ceiling. individual bats only, that we saw. they are such fascinating little creatures. their appendages and features are so tiny, but so detailed. one bat even had little condensation droplets on his fur, and he was most definitely in a deep sleep.

i saw the stevie ray vaughn memorial down by the river. that was cool and it felt good to pay my respects to someone who died way too young.

i saw how my husband is when he’s at a conference. much like he is at home, he likes to hibernate and not go many places. heh. that was somewhat amusing. i was afraid he would be mad at me for wanting to scamper madly around this place i don’t know if i will visit again but he seemed okay with it and glad that i wasn’t mad that he didn’t want to do anything.

i was indoctrinated into the ethos of texas state history, which i have to admit is a little frightening for me. i also saw a mexi-arte museum that made me feel like i was honoring my roots, even if i took a phone call while in the gallery space. i was the only one there, and i thought how sad that more people don’t enjoy such things that are low cost or free.

we stayed at a swanky resort-type place compliments of the government who sends all sorts of army it types to these conferences for networking squared….networking and talking about it stuff. heh.

i also ate some awesome food. i had texas bar-b-que, and tex mex food that was yummy and tasted very different from stuff that we have here. i also had some really yummy greek chicken, hummus, and tofu fries. leave it to americans to find a way to make tofu unhealthy. fry it up, baby =) they were good though, served with a sweet and sour sauce for dipping. i couldn’t eat them all, though =)

the university in austin was amazing. relatively speaking, i work at a smallish university, but it seems that austin and the university have grown up together in a symbiotic, incestuous relationship, sharing space and all being the center of this community. i saw a student services building that looked like a sky scraper to me. parking there was REALLY outrageous, i should tell people here who complain about parking. more than three hours in a garage is a minimum of $8. there are lots of city buses that go all around there. and so many people, in that small area! all with longhorn clothing on, it seems almost cult-like. perhaps it’s just so striking because it’s ORANGE.

i think i last wrote about blood moon, and there’s more to write, but perhaps not today. today feels nice. it is bitterly cold here. it’s been almost a year since my mom passed away, and i am feeling grounded and generally happy. i don’t really believe in regret, but wonder if i did everything for her i could. i miss her still, but know she would be proud of how we are conducting our lives. i feel her sometimes, around me.

i decided to have christmas spirit this year. i bought a live tree and decorated it. i have been making cookies, and cooking a lot. it feels nice. my sister doesn’t live with me anymore, and this, too, i think is a good thing. she seems happy doing what she’s doing, and as much as we still depend on each other, i think it’s healthy for us to exist on our own, too.

that’s all for today.

peace.

new inspiration, fresh start?

why is it that new blogs always make one want to post more? it's like, you have to rebuild everything in this new and interesting place. i have a number of other blogs, i don't post often in any of them, and yet, here i start yet another one and make two posts in two days. i suppose i could be considered fickle. eh. not sure i care.

today was a good day. i don't have to go to work for the next nine days and i am really, really happy about that. i get to go to austin texas next week. i've never been there and i am pretty excited about it. i spent all day today printing out places i'd like to see, maps from the hotel to those places, and how i am going to get there. we will see how it all works out.

i was seriously bummed because bellydancing class got canceled tonight. it spat snow for a little while this morning and looked pretty menacing, but didn't do much else with the flakey white stuff the rest of the day. it's continued to look like it might though, so i guess they didn't want people driving out to the community college with the potential out there. heh. maybe i will dance to some dvd's tonight, or just chill and take it easy.

i'd really like to buy a digital camera this weekend. we will see.

i think that's all for now.

peace.

hmmm....

another blog. well, well, well. i've been blogging for about ten years, i think, and have never had one here. maybe it's time to integrate all those personalities =) or not. i am a GEMINI. many people know me as that. i am also a mother, a wife, a bellydancer, a fire freak, a black rock ranger, a burner, a cynic, a pagan, a unitarian, a liberal, and sometimes, a mess.

welcome to my nightmare...

peace.

time goes on….catching up…blood moon 10/20/07

 it’s been so long since i’ve written. i feel sort of guilty, but not really. i see some friends doing the NoJoMo and i sort of feel bad. there’s all sorts of stuff happening, having tons of fun and living life, the issue just becomes having enough time to get it all recorded =)

of course, i started all this, and now i have to go to a meeting. i will continue when i get back and post when it’s done. wooo hoooo =)

okay, meeting is over and my head just feels marginally like exploding =) it’s for a summer program and it’s horrible that we have to plan things so far in advance, but also pretty cool. hopefully i will be able to do some cool new stuff this year with all that. here’s hoping.

so, what the last month and a half has been like for me? it’s been awesome!

about ten days after my last entry, i went to sacramento to dance with an awesome set of ladies. we got invited to unmata’s blood moon regale and it was awesome! they do a fire show on friday nights, and i had contacted the leader of unmata to possibly set up some workshop and when she wrote me back, she invited us down to perform! i had posted this on the message board for the fire troupe and never really got a response, so i sent some personal emails and started organizing the gig. we rehearsed, we reworked pieces, i anguished that people who didn’t volunteer didn’t like me (only briefly), my wonderful dance sister got us great rates on a hotel, we made plans, i printed maps, we even went on a scouting trip down to the area. finally, by october 20, we were ready to go =) there were going to be a total of 12 or 13 of us, some staying most of the weekend, some heading back directly, and some heading back the next day.

we got there with relatively little incident. one of our members is having a rough time, so we were there for her and listened a lot on the way down. i am glad we could be there for her, she’s going through a rough time. we got checked into the hotel, and in pretty short order, all of us were there and in our rooms. i was rooming in the mini suite with the craziest and most wonderful lady ever. it took us no time to get settled in and we explored a little bit, chilled, and before you know it, it was time to get ready for the show…..

the show was AMAZING! everyone at this show was doing fire, but i think the thing we realized is that everyone else were dancers who used fire as a prop, we were fire spinners who used dancing as a prop. not sure if that makes sense, you might have had to have been there, but it made perfect sense of the time! i am so thankful that i received the training in safety that i did from our folks! some of those safety folks didn’t really seem to know or understand what they were doing and some of the performers were kind of scary. even though we might not have been the greatest dancers, i still think we brought something unique and interesting to their fire show. i have never been more proud or felt more accomplished in my life, because this one, *I* did. i arranged it, and it was a huge success. i was a little freaked out about having to eat right before the show which all the other little skinnies wanted to do, but i dealt well with it and only felt marginally like melting down =) we did find an awesomely cool little brew pub within walking distance of the hotel though, so that was good =) note to self: fringe and fire don’t mix well =)

after the show, we decided to go back to the room, and our room ended up being the gathering spot. that was cool, there was tons of booze, we even picked up a stray brand new army officer somewhere, and were all up way too late, to the tune of after 4am, and then crashed for some much needed rest. the next day was all about shopping and being pampered. we had scoped out this awesome little vintage store on our way down and wanted to hit that again. we spent hours there, everyone managed to find something they liked and then some of our party left while others stayed longer and we shopped some more. we found this cool little bistro on the street and stopped there for lunch. the food was amazing….so much so that we pretty much ate the next three meals there!

my stress for the night happened later when we were going to the next show, the dancing one. i had done my homework and printed a bunch of directions up for the places we needed to be. the issue became that i didn’t label any of my directions, so when the time came to go to the show, i took us to the wrong place! i felt really stupid after having had some catty thoughts about other people, the universe gave me back a big ‘ole raspberry =) we had already valet’d the car, so we decided to cab it to the venue. what followed was the most harrowing e-ticket cab ride i have ever experienced in my life, but it was fun and i felt so ALIVE!

their show was amazing. i can’t believe these folks work on this all year and just get an idea for a piece they have to do, and no one sees the finished product until days before the show. it looked so well put together, it was really impressive. i might post some video if/when it happens.

sunday was brunch, tired but satisfied, and the end to an amazing weekend. i love my fire family. there’s so much i am leaving out, the little details, but i am currently feeling like ADD girl and can’t seem to stay focused on this, so i think i better end it. i will leave myself with some images from the weekend, in words:

• cute army officers can be smart too…..hooray for napolean dynamite quotes
• hot grrls rule and knock my socks off….and hot takes many forms
• i have the greatest friends in the world….we are truly a family…we annoy each other but there is an underlying caring that cannot be replaced
• being a freak in a brew pub turns lots of heads when you jingle by
• hooray for lacy purple underwear
• boooo for crusty purple eyeliner that requires a layer of skin to be removed with it
• i love fire more now than i ever have

=)

that’s about it.

peace.

keeping on….

i am trying to get back into the habit of reading and writing almost daily if not every day.

when i got home from burning man this year, one of the things i decided to try to change in my life was caffeine consumption. i am going to try very hard to give it up. so far, i have been successful by not drinking any coffee or tea that isn’t decaf, and that only rarely. my big challenge right now is diet soda. i LOVE diet soda and i had bought a case about a month and a half ago that was not caffeine free that we need to finish up. after that, no more for me, or i will buy the caffeine free variety. i need to get d to help me finish the rest of that soda! i am marginally interested that in going to fast food places and such, VERY rarely are you able to get a drink that is both caffeine and sugar free, aside from water. i guess i need to drink more water, eh? heh.

i think i caught a wee bit of a cold from one of the midgets we encountered this weekend. for whatever reason, i was feeling super run-down last night and i think i might have been asleep by 9pm! i had a wee bit of a sore throat, which i believe was from nasal stuff, so i medicated myself with some night time stuff and conked out. i did make dinner for my family right after work, made it to fire class yesterday, although i didn’t feel like doing much (didn’t dance, that is), picked up my poi half-heartedly and spun one time when i got to cold to function without burning something. heh. then headed home early and sacked out. maybe it was still just recovery from the weekend. i feel okay today, but slept in AGAIN, made myself about half an hour later than normal from work and STILL feel a bit tired. hopefully, i can OD on echinachea and vitamin c for a little bit and knock this out, if it’s a virus, before things get ugly. i hate being sick!

my daughter has been seeking me out lately to say hi, connect with me and make sure that i hear about her day and happenings. she’s doing really well in school and i can’t tell you how happy this makes me. she’s first in her class in her math class, and doing well in the others too. it feels great to have that young woman in my life and in my house. her housekeeping skills still leave A LOT to be desired, but i am hoping that will come with time =)

have a great day, everyone.

peace.