my mom saw i was awake when she came out to the living room. she on the coffee table and asked me if i slept. i said yes, and asked her the same. she said yes, that she woke up around six and sat in the hot tub. then she started tearing up and told me today would be a crying day. "i don't know why... i just miss him so much. you'd think after three years i'd be more ready." she apologized for dumping this on me. i thought, no, mom, no apologies. just cry. i told her, "you put so much effort into it." she said, "yeah, we put all our effort into keeping him alive and it didn't work." so she sits at the table, crying as she tries to organize the funeral service. she cries, and she won't let anyone take it away from her. "it's no burden."

it hits me in waves. sometimes i think i hear his voice, like he's just walking in the door, and remember he won't. sometimes i remember him reading the newspaper at the kitchen table, and how we'd point things out to each other--when he wasn't in absent-minded professor mode--and laugh and discuss. i can remember everything about the way he ate cereal in the mornings, i think. we sat there so often together when i was growing up. the memories are weird now, because this is a house i never lived in, but the mannerisms are the same, only slightly tained by the way they mutated with the final stages of the cancer.

i suppose these kinds of memories are common, but i feel they are hardly trite.

yesterday i heard them all make and receive probably a hundred phone calls, each upping the depression factor a fraction. today my aunt mary and uncle dick are supposed to stop by. i don't think they are coming to the funeral; they lost their only son tragically earlier this year, so that might be rough for them. my mom and aunt have decided the project du jour is organizing the shit out of our amassed picture collection. my aunt and i are also supposed to return to seattle to do some things and get some stuff. no wedding. kk is flying in tonight, and he called me on my dying cell phone to tell me we needed to act like we get along. we'll see what that ends up meaning, i guess.

my aunt's glasses are crooked on her face now, and she needs to use this computer to check her hotmail. i'm done, i guess.

my mom moves through the house, removing all signs of cancer treatment. she offers us drugs to sell for college money, excitedly telling us she has some really good stuff. these are things she'll no longer need, since the need for them has passed on.

my brother and his wife sit on the family room couch, silent. my sister taps away at valentino, the family computer from intel. she asks me if i'll sleep tonight. above the hum of the fan in the hallway, i tell her i hope so. it's nearly three in the morning, and it seems i've been up forever, but i might not be able to sleep soon.

"they could come at any time," my aunt announces. she encourages last goodbyes and says she will "let" my mom be alone with him until they come.

on the kitchen table is a growing list of people to call in the morning. my sister volunteers to call many of them; trying to be helpful, i offer to call a select few. my mom appears wearier with every name she jots down, as if with every swoosh of her pen she imagines the conversations she'd rather not have with each person on the list.

i feel like keeping public emotions private; i turn sadness into grins. for whatever reason, stress rewires my face all wrong.

my older brother is grasping for words. "he is too young, it's not fair, it's so sad" are the words repeated. honestly, i am glad it came quickly and painlessly as it did. my mom said he couldn't breathe, then the nurse rearranged the pillow so he could sit up, and he said, "that feels better," and died. now everyone reminisces of their premonitions of the death, the ironies and the worries and the "i was going to come down, but he looked better!" everyone regrets their lack of omniscience.

there has been a death in my family. i retreat to the pen, but i can't be alone.

there will be more.

i have been a bad blogger, i know. i apologize. i've been...busy.

no, really. tuesday/wednesday/thursday is a triumvirate of busy for me this summer. especially tuesdays. i have no free time from 6 to 5:30 or so on tuesdays. it makes me so tired and cranky, especially when it's too warm like it is lately and i wake up before the asscrack of dawn. i guess that would be the small of dawn's back or something. the tailbone of dawn.

i want to know why signs spawned so much discussion. you guys are insane. i also want to know why the people in the building behind me listen to such crap music. this is the second time i've heard "i'll make love to you" blaring, but this time i have music going over it and i can STILL hear it. for fuck's sake, people. there is no need to blare CRAP any time of day, but especially not midmorning. it might interrupt my stories. jesus, though, really, this is obnoxious. bjork is not capable of drowning out slick, boring, crappy, CATCHY fucking boyz ii men. icelandic requires more attention to detail than english! dammit!

i scraped my hand the other day on my pump spray bottle of olive oil. i am not sure how i managed that, but it hurts. it scraped off a little triangle of epidermis on my first left knuckle, and i must've also shoved it pretty hard into the bottle, because the joint is sore as hell.

yesterday, i was walking back to work in the afternoon, and i ran into casey. i had the pleasure of him not recognizing me. i *love* that. i waved, he was confused. hehehe. i am going incognito with the sunglasses and the black rag on my head.

the dust floating in the air that's caught in a sunbeam is totally perfect accompaniment for this song...

listening: bjork - it's oh so quiet

who would've thought a post that talked about signs would generate such a flurry of commenting by my friends? you guys are weirdos. do i need to talk about m. night shamaylan more often or something? dude has a cool name, but i am unimpressed with the flicks. what can i say.

it's 9:40 and i'm so, so tired. i think i am definitely going to bed at 10.

i went to northgate mall today on the bus. i needed to get a bra (for me) and pantyhose (for my mom) at lane bryant up there. i was in and out of the mall fast enough to catch the same bus going back that i took there in the first place. i thought that was amusing.

chris came over, and we were just going to hang out, but as we were making dinner, christine and jesse stopped by and were cute and hung out for awhile. then chris's friend marcus came by and chris amused us by playing my weird goodwill records. i have had "use your streamer with imaaaagination" stuck in my head since chris first scratched it yesterday. it was crazy shit.

and now i am tired and listening to music. hurrah. tomorrow is the fulldayofdoom--work, class, bus, imdb. i am also going to meet angela-from-#n00n's friend ryan in the park in the evening. he's cool. he gave me a bunch of new music when i met him a couple weeks ago. i hope i have more energy by then. i may have to resort to the caffeine addiction again. the days i drink coffee, i tend to drink a lot. other days, like today, i am not interested except maybe for a headache. heh.

ok. sleepytime is now. now is the time for sleep.

listening: death cab for cutie - styrofoam plates

hello, waking the fuck up right this moment.

i haven't blogged in a few days. odd, eh? it comes in spurts, i guess. some days are like that. i still don't really have anything to add.

friday was pretty fun. i did laundry and watching brazil after class. i fell asleep. i was very tired. i am always very tired these days. then i went grocery shopping, which is always a party. i got these graham crackers from trader joe's that are heavenly, thinking that i was going to olympia today and my mom and i could have graham cracker ice cream (as previously discussed, of course), but my aunt discovered yesterday that she couldn't take me, so no olympia ice cream for me, at least not today.

friday night i met christine and chris outside the varsity (after buying a bag of red vines to stuff in my purse) to see notorious c.h.o., margaret cho's latest concert film. it was a fucking laugh riot--definitely worth the $8.25, especially considering it would have probably been just as funny in a real concert (it was filmed at the paramount here in seattle) and cost $40 then. chris and i were quoting bits from it at each other for the rest of the next day.

yesterday chris and christine came over and we had salmon burgers for dinner. it was superyum. it was as close as we could get to a good old-fashioned summer barbeque in my porch-less apartment. thank gosh for the george foreman grill.

then we went to see signs. i had many criticisms of the film, not the least of which was the ending. it's all pretty scary until...wtf, like fuckin' wizard of oz shit. i guess i won't say more for the sake of falling off the "spoiler" cliff, but damn. also: heavy-handed and pedantic. this movie was made for the post-9/11 crowd. pukey. so many pukey elements. also, and i know certain friends of mine from high school will disapprove of this statement, but i dislike mel gibson.

this morning i dreamed that i went to see some movie instead of going to imdb, but at 2:30 (when i needed to be there at 2, apparently) i looked at my watch and realized i was late, and left before the movie started. i paid $8.25 to watch previews in my dream, then i freaked out because the buses were very late and i didn't have my supervisor's phone number or anything. i hate these "i'mlatei'mlatei'mlate!!!" dreams.

so i am not going to olympia today, which makes me sad, but i will see my parents--or at least my mom and probably my brother--on saturday for my cousin's wedding. i still need to buy shit for that. shit. i should do that today. i think i am also going to goodwill today and digging for records to fuck up. we have been fucking around with records a lot now that i have my 1200, but i very quickly realized the new necessity of another deck and a mixer. that is some crazy fun shit.

mmkay. i have nothing more to say. that is my life update. hope you enjoyed. someday my voice will return, i'm sure.

listening: death cab for cutie - why you'd want to live here