So it’s not news that I am a geek. Like a super nerdy geeky mc geek kind of geek that can tell you who shot first, why Brad McQuad was a god and the devil at the same time, name all the weyrs on Pern, point out exactly when Piers Anthony became a total pedo, explain the stack but not THACO (cause FUCK THACO) and bore you to tears by quoting Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

GEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK. kay?

Now, because I am a holy chao geeky geek, a lot of my friends (yes, even geeks have them, it’s post Lord of the Rings movies, that’s where we all found each other) are amazed that I don’t watch Critical Role. It took me ages to even watch Vox Machina because I knew it was based on Critical Role and couldn’t be arsed.

To catch up those of you that went to the good parties in high school, Critical Role is a group of people getting together to play Dungeons and Dragons on camera on purpose. I assume they’ve got some good characters (since that’s what Vox Machina is about) and there’s lots of laughs and adventure and joy and fun.

That’s not what my gripe is- and I do agree with the mister that for a lot of folks that haven’t yet rolled a nat 1 and faced the consequences (thunder crash and evvvilllllllle GM cackling), Critical Role gives them an idea of what the whole D&D thing is all about before diving in. Yeah, cool, I’m totally good with that.

Where I’m not okay is the idea that people will watch it, longing to be a part of a circle like it, to play a character and to have all the little inside jokes. I don’t listen to a lot of podcasts, either, cause I want to sit and shoot the shit with my friends and get to know them better as opposed to listening to some douchebag’s opinions on shit I only marginally care about til they slip in a sly commercials.

See, when I was growing up, that circle was the place for everyone. The kid who suddenly needed to shave and did so inexpertly around his zits. The guy that got all nervous around girls and went from highly intelligent to unable to form a coherent sentence. The chess/math/ham radio club meeting attendees.

And yeah, the girl with the cleft lip.

At that table, you became someone else, someone who stood against unimaginable foes and beat all the odds. You had friends. You had jokes that made sense to no one who wasn’t there when it happened, could never make sense without hours of context. Because you had to be there.

Being able to create that and be a part of it.. it’s magic. And the idea that people are standing on the edges, looking in at the magic when they could be stepping into it and helping to create it… well, it makes me sad.

So what’s my point? Well, if you’re watching week after week, keep an open mind to actually playing. It’s okay, we’re out of high school now, and Geek is the new Chic. Might as well get in on it and make a little magic of your own.

But, dude. Don’t watch Mazes and Monsters. It’s an awful flick and I think it may give kittens cancer everytime someone rewinds the VHS tape.

If you haven’t seen this, please take a moment and watch.

At 3:30, the rant takes a turn- ‘We sure used to be’. What’s hurting my heart as I listen to this again is that this is the lie of our times. Because in a great country, everyone is recognized for their value. All those great things Jeff Daniels is talking about, what we built and strove for and achieved… some people were credited that, yes, did amazing things.

If the last couple of years have shown me anything, it’s shown me that there’s always a cost. And as you sit in your safe, clean home with a cupboard full of food and money in the bank, you get to enjoy all of that because someone else is paying the cost.. and not getting to enjoy even a minimal level of comfort and security. Maybe it’s the person who works in the meat packing plant, worried about ICE coming in for them or their friends and family. Maybe it’s the person putting in 35 hours a week at Walmart who is worried about getting off on time so they can get to the food bank and make sure there’s dinner and breakfast and lunch. Maybe it’s the server who just got stiffed on a tip that they needed to fill an insulin prescription.

It’s great to believe in an informed electorate… but when you are thinking about the very basics of staying alive, when the fuck do you have the time or energy to listen to NPR? And when the news has spent over a hundred years focused on the story of the straight white male population and you happen to not check those boxes, why would you trust them to tell your story or stories like yours in a way that matters?

I’ve heard that it is brave to love without counting the cost. Now, I’m thinking to be brave, you have to live while seeing the cost to others and try to make a difference where you can.

Bree loves me, and on the days when I’m lucky, she doesn’t prove it.

Yesterday was not one of those days, so Mr. Lizard joined Mr. Lizard Bits, and Mr. Leakyfeather Bird in the great hereafter.

Now, since I had the unpleasant experience of briefly desecrating Mr. Bits (Cliff Notes version- it involved his head between my bare toes, screaming in tongues, and the realization that when the situation calls for it, I can, in fact, fly), Mr. Rick Wellman is called upon to perform the solemn, manly service of laying Bree’s proofs of love to rest.

What I think Rick does to accomplish this-

He removes whatever covering I have placed over the dearly departed, and sighs with melancholy regret. Gently, he wraps this vessel in a shroud, and lifts it with ineffable kindness to lay within the embrace of mother earth, that it might live again. Blowing taps on his bugle, he holds the last note, poignantly, then salutes the fallen. He then comes back into the house with a slow, solemn nod to convey that the ritual is complete.

What Rick probably actually does-

Takes the plastic bowl off the dead freakin lizard, sighing with annoyance at the damn dog. “How the hell is a dog with two inch freakin legs fast enough to catch and kill shit?” he wonders as he lifts it by the tail, carefully walking around the side of the house to the trashcan so I won’t see him to dispose of the poor lil bastard in the trashcan. Stomps back around the house, through the door, nods that it’s safe to go back into the bedroom now and hits the shower. Shakes head at Bree.

What really happens? No one knows.

Hello again, my sometime readers from your favorite sometime writer.

Like probably most of us, I’ve got a lot of thoughts going on in my head.. and I can point to Buffalo or Uvalde or Sandy Hook or the fact that a lot of us cocked our head and blinked when we heard Bowling Green and tried to remember what atrocity took place there.

But I think it has more to do with recent exposure to people and listening to what they say and watching what they do. How they treat one another. I think it has to do with reading the words of our educators, listening to the talking heads.

And a lot of thinking and feeling about all those things.

Well, cool, Ari, what does it add up to for a Gen X keyboard philosopher?

We talk too much. Communication isn’t just braying words out into the air (or flinging careless characters out into cyberspace). For communication to happen, you have to have a sender of a message and a receiver of a message, and both have to understand what was communicated in the same way.

We have become a society of senders. We are piss poor at receiving, and due to sender fatigue as they repeat over and over and do not choose their words or methods with care, the intent and clarity of the message is getting lost or distorted so that the receiver doesn’t get what the sender intended. In fact, we have become very good at receiving the wrong messages entirely.

I think to a certain extent, we speak now without even expecting there to BE listeners. And that’s really just creating random mouth noises. I don’t know about you, but I find noise to be pretty frustrating, especially if I can’t make it stop. Especially if it’s not directed to me as a receiver in any way, and yet I still have to hear noise. Somewhere along the line, the indoor voice went the way of the dodo, and I miss it deeply.

What we also have going on is a deep undercurrent of fear and frustration. If you happen to sleep well, safe and assured that tomorrow will be a better day, that you and yours are safe under a blanket of freedom and justice for all, I envy and pity you. While I’m not saying I lie awake at night waiting for someone to break in and commit nefarious acts on my kitchen appliances so that my brownies never bake evenly again, I would be lying if I said that I wasn’t very aware of the mounting examples of where safety isn’t a guarantee. Grocery stores, theaters, entertainment venues, not even running errands.

Sure, there’s a certain amount of unavoidable risk- I get into cars, I could get into a wreck. Chances are pretty good that I won’t- but the key is… that’s unintentional harm. That’s existed in my brainspace since I was a small child and realized accidents happen. It’s not a fun thing to think about, but for most of us, it’s part of the air we breathe and we accept it.

What I (and I think a lot of folk) have a harder time accepting is the idea that there are people out there who are committing intentional harm against others. We don’t know who, where, or how, but we know we are less safe. And there’s no action we can take to predict or try to be more safe beyond barricading ourselves in our homes (and I understand if you do that with weapons and act sufficiently paranoid, SWAT will get involved).

So. Fear. Frustration. Powerlessness. Put all those together in a stew with little pressure bubbles coming up to the surface as more and more of these violent events happen, and you get anger. And no lie, there’s a million reasons to be angry right now. High prices on all the things. Personal freedoms under assault. Can’t find the P on the keyboard (personal reason for annoyance as I just typed oersonal freedoms five times). Afraid for your people who could still get sick. And nothing’s getting any better.

Anger and poor communication skills are a bad, bad mix… and yet, that’s where we are right now. Like usual, I’m bringing this back to me (cause when is it not about me) because I’m the only person I get to make decisions for.

Here they are-

1. Turn away anger.
2. Say what I mean and mean what I say.

As part of my beliefs, the energy you put into the world is on you. And yeah, there’s a lot of times when I want to vent a hearty FUCK THIS. Instead, I’m taking a deep breath and doing my best to let it the fuck go. It is a feeling that doesn’t serve me. And the people in my world? They don’t deserve extra noise grating on them.

And as I type that, I’m snort laughing to myself- when is good editing not the answer?

So it all started when a friend of mine sent me a meme-

And I’m going.. oooh.. that one, I feel. So I’m in cleaning the kitchen, and Rick pathed by to throw away something in the trash can when I held out my arms to him.

Me- I need a hug.

Rick, gathering me up and squeezing gently- Just a day, huh?

Me, nodding- Thank you for putting up with my crazy.

Rick- It’s okay, you’re my hon.

Me, smacking him on the shoulder- You’re supposed to say ‘You aren’t crazy!’

Rick, drawing back and giving me a wide, innocent look- But we don’t lie to each other!

Me, smacking him more- You suck! I wouldn’t hurt YOUR feelings like that!

Rick, grinning and ducking my little, tiny ineffectual hands batting at him- I just said we DON’T lie to each other!

You know, if he didn’t tease me, I’d start to think he didn’t love me.

And I didn’t realize until just now how long it’s actually been. To be fair, I don’t think I have whole packs of rabid followers, thirsting for news of my misadventures.

Maybe just a half a pack, which is about what I can handle anyway.

The time away has been horrible and beautiful all at the same time. To put it perfectly bluntly, I lost my mother and my foster son, I caught covid (and it wasn’t one of those light cases I keep hearing about), I found a new book idea, and I mostly, mostly came to terms with all of those things as best I can.

I like to have things planned and mapped out in my mind.. it gives me the illusion of some kind of control over my life, within a certain set of people I’m connected to. Well, my connections have been pared down to very few, and I’m trying my hardest not to seize onto them as hard as I can and choke them out as a consequence. My chosen family has been extraordinarily kind, thoughtful, and made me see that I can still have all the plans I want, just a little different. And if I think of those that should be with me, that’s okay too.

Is it any wonder that this whole new book world sprang forth from my head, like Athena? Yeah, I wasn’t surprised so much, either.

So that’s the big catch up, for what it’s worth. Now the part you ACTUALLY tuned in for. Rick has decided to get Lasik, and it’s all set up and good to go, leading to this conversation-

Me- It’s going to be weird getting used to seeing you without glasses.

Rick- So, what, you want me to start going without them for practice?

Me- Yeah! That’s really thoughtful of you!

Rick mimes taking off his glasses and wanders down the hallway, hands outstretched- WHOOPS! Didn’t mean to run into that! I don’t think that’ll work so well.

Me, after laughing at his goofy ass- You know I’m writing this up later, right?

Rick- I kind of figured, you normally do when I make you laugh that hard. At least the ones you CAN write up.

He’s not wrong.

Finishing a book is a long goodbye. You put down 90% of the words the way you wanted them. Then, like a good steak or yeast dough, you let it rest before attacking it again.

Then take a deep breath and let someone (hopefully multiple someones) read it. And you take back their notes and get to work again in EDITING.

EDITING is where you saw the movie once, and now you’re thinking about ‘man it would be so much better if’.. only without the if because you’re in the driver’s seat. So you do some trimming and fleshing, some ticking and tying. You second and third guess yourself. You read it out loud, over and over, to make sure it flows.

Sometimes it’s fun. Sometimes it’s not.

But eventually you get to that point… I think it’s somewhere between satisfaction and exhaustion. You look at this thing you’ve created and say, that’s it. That’s as good as I know how to make it with what I know and all the notes I was given.

And you set it loose into the world. Like a little paper ship out on the ocean… only this one is carrying a little piece of you and you hope it’s read. You hope people laugh where you laughed and cry where you cried.

It’s beautiful and wonderful… and then..

Empty.

A lot of writers get depressed when wrapping a project… and yes it feels a little silly to be sad over not seeing your imaginary friends for a while. But it is where I am, and I’ll own it.

It’ll be a bit before it’s available on audiobook, but you can get your copy of The Call of the Crystal on Kindle or in paperback right now. I hope you do, and I hope you enjoy it at least half as much as I enjoyed writing it.

I don’t always like the conversations that start when folks find out I’m a writer… sometimes it’s all about their own book idea, and they’d LOVE an experienced partner to work with, or they’ve got a draft, could you read it?

Once I was stuck at a wedding, and a relative told me very earnestly that they’d had the idea for Terminator years before the movie ever came out, they just never wrote it down. And something something motorcycles. And I was underage, so drinking was right out. That’s when I learned the following- Ah.. how interesting… cock head, nod earnestly, wait for the end. It’ll be awhile. Come to think of it, I may have found the conversation more interesting if I’d ever seen the Terminator movies.

But this question… this question I really love getting.

How do you write a book?

Please understand, I can’t tell you all the ways to write books. I’m going to tell you how I do it. And if you want to know how Stephen King does it, he wrote a fantastic book called ‘On Writing’ that I highly recommend if you’re going to be delving into fiction, particularly genre fiction.

The Preparation-

First order of business- pick a spot. It’s a spot that is comfortable to sit in for long periods of time, with soothing sights and smells. It’s reasonably quiet, and you can see yourself spending long periods of time here. My spot changes sometimes, and no, I’m not absolutely dependent on it (one of my books was finished in the cab of a Toyota Tacoma on the I-40 outside Flagstaff), it’s just a grounding/focusing point. One year, I wrote in my courtyard, surrounded by plants in bloom and the tinkling of a fountain. This year, I was on the new chaise lounge that I absolutely did not want to buy cause I thought it was lame with a side table that had a vase full of fresh flowers and a blanket to pull up over my knees. This area should also remain reasonably tidy… and you may want to plan an extra ten minutes or so before your scheduled writing time to make SURE it’s tidy.

Pick a method- my first manuscripts and short stories were written out longhand. I found myself laying down the writing because I’m apparently really bad at actually writing stuff and it made my hands hurt before I ran out of ideas. Since then, I’ve employed a long series of laptops, from a black and white monitored IBM Thinkpad with 4 megs of RAM to an Asus Transformer 1000, to the trusty Asus Zenpad I just retired this year. I picked up an Asus Chromebook 11.6″ CX22NA-BCLN4 for just over a hundred bucks off Amazon, and I think it’s got a couple of books in it. I also use Google Docs because it makes it easy to access my drafts no matter what device I’m using. Sometimes I’ll want to read over a chapter while I’m out to dinner on my phone and leave myself an editorial note… Google Docs works well for that.. and for sharing with my alpha readers.

Find instrumental music that helps you find your creative mojo- I’ve got a playlist of classic jazz I’ve used for years. I want to stress keeping it instrumental as much as you can, and put your favorite piece last on the list. Always listen to the list in the same order… you’re using this to train your mind that when X plays, it’s time to be doing Y. Stupid human trick, and it definitely works on me. I will say if you’re spending more time grooving to the music than finding your creative center- you need to swap it out. A nice thing about this rule is that if your spot can’t be quiet, you can use earbuds and override the noise.

Scheduling- pick a two hour block every single day and commit to it. I really can’t stress this enough- it’s like building any other routine. It’s okay to skip a day occasionally, but instead of skipping, try moving an hour or two one way or the other. November is my writing month, and on weekends, I’ll typically try to get up before Rick does and nail down my word count (1500) so the story isn’t pressing on my mind and we can enjoy the day together. But I really try very hard not to skip days if I can help it. This is also going to take some expectation setting for the household… I think of it as the ‘you better be on fuckfire before you bug me right now’ rule. If only I was able to make the corgi understand it.

Now, you got all that? Cool, planning time!

Put yourself very specifically in your spot with your notepad or whatever brainstorming device you like to use and turn on your music and start making notes. I’m not saying you want to nail down every element of the story/what you want to say- wandering around in your thoughts and words can lend to some of the best pieces you ever work on. But before you start getting in your word counts, you should absolutely have a sense of beginning, middle, and end, along with some themes you want to highlight. Or, if you’re going non fiction, every point you want to make sure you cover.

This one’s hard… stop reading. For about a month before I start a new book, I will not read anything new. I end up being very informed during the month of October because I read a lot of news articles to wean myself off my fiction addiction. (Yes, that’s totally a thing.) I also probably spend too much time looking at social media during this time, again, to feed the need.. the need to read. Reason for this one is real simple- you want to block out all those other voices of writers so you can find your own more easily.

The next one is my big cheat and how I kind of wrote a most of a book without exactly planning to. I think it’s important to know your character, and I got bored with the typical writing prompts (what does your character have in their pockets? fucking lint! next!) and I stumbled on therapy writing prompts. You want to talk about putting yourself in the character’s shoes? Write about why they are screwed up, the events and trauma that got them that way. What’s that? Your character has no trauma? Then why are they interesting? I used this to get to know Nessa as I was prepping for book one, and I found her voice within days. And then I looked over the initial therapy journal entries and read them to a few people, who laughed in the right places, and decided it was a good way to keep going.

And now I’ve been with Nessa for six books. She’s fun.

For non fiction, think about who you are writing that book for, and write to them like they are your best friend, like they are going to find the topic as deeply interesting as you do, if you just bring them along with your explanation. I’ve only done two of these, so the method isn’t as polished yet.

Now- the hard part, and I can’t improve upon Anne McCaffrey’s advice- to paraphrase, apply ass to chair and WRITE. Given the practice and discipline, you’ll actually miss the routine. You’ll hear the cue to get started and be ready and focused in minutes.

I will say, when I first started, it took me 2 1/2 to 3 hours to come up with 1500 words. This last book, I could get there in about 45-65 minutes, and I know that by the length of my playlist and the fact that I didn’t have to have it on repeat. I was almost always wrapping up as the super long extended version of Rhapsody in Blue came on, and from there I’d just lean back and enjoy the music. In time, you’ll get flexible with it- one year I wrote most of my book in various waiting rooms around Albuquerque so I could drive my stepdad to his appointments. That was the year I did a bunch of messed up fairy tales, and the location switches didn’t break my concentration, cause I was already writing in concentrated bursts.

And that’s it.. that’s what I know about writing books, or at least, it’s how I do it. If it helps, cool! If it doesn’t, I’m sorry, that’s really all the ideas I have that have worked for me, I hope you find a way. My number one recommendation still has to do with applying ass to chair and WRITING.

I should be giving my dog a bath right now, but instead I’m going to sit down and right/write? something intensely personal to me that may make some people say ah, I get this or maybe that I’m psychotic. I’m not really sure there’s an in between, so I guess proceed at your own risk.

I’m not kidding about the bath part- Bree took herself out and made herself a different color, and all that dirt is getting all over my favorite purple snuggly blanket that my auntie got me this minute. (Yes, I know it’s weird that I have favorite colors of snuggly blankets- but that’s because I get and have a lot of snuggly blankets.)

I knew this week was going to be hard, because fuckin holidays, man. I don’t know who the fuck came up with this concept that we all have to come together and share food and blah blah fuckin blah. Well, that’s not precisely true- I do know this is a good and right concept and a good and right thing to do, but I also know it’s the time of covid, and circumstances are such that I don’t really have anyone to ask to come and share even if I did feel up to cooking up a storm anyway. As it happens, I am having people to come and share on a different day this week, and I’m planning on outsourcing at least 50% of the effort to fucking Panera Bread, who is currently (and I feel solely) responsible for an unacceptable amount of the fat on my body with their fucking cinnamon rolls.

So, because I knew this was going to be hard, I took the week off. Didn’t want to inconvenience people with my feelings or what I do or don’t feel like getting engaged in. Plus I have a book that is about 2/3rds of the way done that I want to be done, so, no day job this week. And Rick took off two days too, but not the whole time and I thought that was a good thing. Two days to be alone with my book and my feelings and wrangle them into some kind of fucking control. Because bursting into tears while watching Deadpool and playing Magic is not fucking okay in my book, and I can’t be trusted to not do that right now.

(Quick aside- my stepdad fucking LOVED Deadpool. We could (and did) watch it together a thousand times, and always laugh when Deadpool flings his busted ass hands out there and says All the other dinosaurs feared the TRex. And I’m not saying a slight snicker or giggle- we would fucking laugh like loons, like it was the first time we’d seen it. Only now, while I’m laughing, I may also start crying, it’s just the way shit is.)

Two days to wrangle that shit to an acceptable level isn’t a whole lot of time. Which means I needed help… more help than what Panera cinnamon rolls (you fucking delicious bastards) could ever provide. So yesterday, I wrote my two thousand words (why thank you, yes, yes that is quite a lot of words, I shall take my bow here), put dye on my hair that first outraged then bemused my mother, and turned on Daniel Sloss.

(Quick aside- yes, I fucking know we’re never going to get through this if I can’t stop with the asides, but that’s really more my problem than yours. Read on if it entertains you, fuck off and close the browser if it doesn’t, alright? When my stepdad and mom moved to Albuquerque and they started to understand the things I do to my hair when I’m feeling puckish, my mom would have commentary, but my step dad would also just smile and tell me how great whatever mishmash of wild colorology not found in nature for human hair looked with utter sincerity. I love my stepdad.

My stepdad was colorblind. And I never called him on it. In fact, half the time I didn’t even remember that fact until I was out the door, and then I’d laugh myself hoarse.)

If you haven’t seen Mr. Sloss (and I strongly suggest you do, he’s on Netflix), his central point is that sadness, for him, requires laughter to move on. That happiness and laughter are not always equal- so laughing at the sad or terrible or painful things that happen in your life doesn’t mean you’re happy about those things, it’s a part of processing.

So I watched him and I thought about the parts I can laugh at from what has happened to my little family over the past year or so. And there ain’t so much there that isn’t awful in some way, too. I have a habit of examining the situations and people in my life from all the angles I can see or conceive of. Yes, this does make me fucking exhausting to live with, I am sure, and yes, Rick IS a fucking saint. But the more and more I saw of my mother over this past year, the more and more I had to see and admit and understand things that I never could as a child and never should have to as an adult. And I realized that what I hurt most from is that not I’ve lost my family, it’s that I’ve lost the ability to think the good parts were truly good.

Look, we all have those shiny memories you keep on a high, high shelf, where they can’t be harmed by anything flying crazily around below. You look up at them from the far distances, and they are still shiny and so pretty, even though they are getting farther away, but it’s okay because you can still see them. Me, because I’m me, I’m wading in the muck below and it’s casting new light on that shelf. And me, because I’m me and maybe not always terribly bright, I plucked those shiny memories off that shelf and turned them over in my hands. And I found every one of them is a tarnished mess. They weren’t shiny at all except by my own flawed perception. I know, yikes, right?

And let me be 1000% clear to anyone still soldiering on here- it wasn’t that these people died that caused this. It’s their own actions, and the actions of others in being who they are that caused this. Don’t feel like you have to defend them or try to make up for something you think you or someone else did wrong. It isn’t going to change the way I feel or how I see things, and that’s okay. Yeah, it’s fucking rough where I’m standing right now, but in a lot of ways, it’s an impetus to how I want the rest of my life to go, so those shiny things I keep on my shelf from now on are real, okay? So please don’t patronize me about it, just be you and Imma be over here being me. We’re cool.

So, today is my last day to kinda groove on my own without bringing down the rest of the world (ie Rick) and I’m still not quite where I need to be.

I turned on Alice Fraser’s Savage (it’s on Prime, you should totally watch it), about this gloriously beautiful, funny woman who lost her mother that she dearly loved after 33 years of illness. Sprinkled throughout the show, there’s recordings of her speaking with her mother, in which her mother tells her what it’s like, looking back on her life.

OK, so not a completely parallel experience, but some insights remain.

What turned on the waterworks this time was Alice’s mother telling her how clever and lovely she was, and how she trusted Alice to represent who she had been well. And Alice did do an utterly fantastic job at blending the transcendent with the mundane. It’s really a beautiful experience to watch this… even better when you don’t cry all the way through it, I’m sure. I mean, I watched it before and enjoyed it immensely before all this got started.

Now- here’s my point and I think what I need to let go of before it fucking poisons me.

I was with my mom when she died. I’m sure that sounds all beautiful and like there was hand holding and last words and a Hallmark moment of perfect understanding before her soul whisked away from the frail shell.

It wasn’t like that. I walked in and sat down, and my mother wasn’t there. She was staring right at me, struggling to take each breath, but she looked right through me. I hadn’t seen her in months, because she didn’t want me to see her, and that hurt.. all that wasted time. Right then, I felt it most keenly, that she felt all this vanity or whatever, and all I saw was my mom who didn’t want to be with me. I half expected her to focus on me then tell me to leave at any moment, but I sat down anyway.

Have I mentioned that I’m really stubborn sometimes? I’m sure you may have noticed that on your own, though.

I sat down and I tried to pray. When I couldn’t do that, I tried to talk to her, and give her the words that are what I think the only ones that matter when you’re at that point. I said I was here and it was okay.

And that was it.

Which takes me back to Alice Fraser… her point was that only the unfinished can contain the infinite. And that’s what I need to remember and hang on to. Not the regret that my mother was who she was that cost what it’s costing. Not what I did or didn’t say or what I did or didn’t do- the infinite is still there and always will be. Yes, there could have been joy and healing and acceptance. And there could have been spite and damage and harm. I’m never going to know that, and I feel guilty to admit to being relieved.

It just is. What a Zen concept, no?

I was really lucky in getting the time with my stepdad that I did, to hear all that he had to say and to say all the things he needed to hear. And even as we walked away, I felt a strong sense that it wasn’t final, that we’d see each other again somehow, somewhere, somewhen. And I was glad.

I didn’t and don’t have that feeling about my mom, and I need to let go of the guilt for being at peace with that. Because only the unfinished can contain the infinite.

So, if you came along with me this far, don’t worry, I’m okayish. I knew this was going to be a hard week, and the folks that have reached out, I appreciate you. If folks read this and decide they should reach out, that’s fine, I appreciate it, but don’t be surprised if I’m not feeling all that chatty. It’s a lot of feels.

So. Lots going on today.

First, it’s a day to recognize our veterans- thank you for your service.

Second, it’s the anniversary of when we moved into our home, many years ago. I remember I was helping to move a mattress when I slipped off the driveway and retwisted my bad foot, so I had to go back into my walking boot and was not in a great mood. It also cut down on how much we could move in that day. But, Mr. Wellman, being ever resourceful, brought in my pup (Mr. Indiana Jones, yorkie terror extraordinaire), all the couch cushions, Kung Fu Panda on dvd, our R2 projector unit, and a frozen pizza.

We snuggled down in the cushions and ate pizza and watched Kung Fu Panda on the wall and it was magical. Indy kept running from room to room, astonished at how much SPACE we had.

And today… well, today we brought mom home, and put her next to Rod.

So, a lot of thoughts and feels and talking today, which led to the part that you actually clicked on the link for in the first place.

Rick- long sigh

Me- What’s up?

Rick- Just thinking.

Me- Bout what?

Rick- All the things.

Me- You can’t think about all the things at the same time, that’s how you have aneurysms.

Rick- Why did you think I was sighing?

And we laughed and it was magical all over again. I’m truly convinced that if you can laugh, you can keep going. If it’s between laughing and crying, just laugh so you can keep moving forward.