I’d Jump Out of the Cake If I Could

Happy 2nd Birthday InWorldz!

I’ll be 42 on Sunday. InWorldz is turning 2. This is fortuitous, added together we make 6. Or 44. I have no idea what I’m talking about. But you already knew that about me.

Big thanks to Teal Freenote for letting me use her photos of the Birthday sims in InWorldz. You can see the rest of her amazing photos here at her Fickr account.  She’s kinda incredible. And considering my desktop died a sudden but painful death a month ago, I’ll  not be taking any pics anytime soon.

To celebrate with InWorldz, visit the Live Artist Stage here. Wander the resident artist’s displays, and be sure to hug your Founders.

Here’s the schedule. Visit this thread at the Forums to keep up with changes.

THURSDAY -March 31
Noon to 1:00: Arimo Teixeira
1:00 to 2:00: Russell Eponym
2:00 to 3:00: Euterpe Queller
4:00 to 5:00: Clairede Dirval
6:00 to 7:00: Mellow Wonder
7:00 to 8:00: Katarina Malaspina
8:00 to 9:00: Rock Doghouse
9:00 to 10:00: Mankind Tracer

Friday -April 1
Noon to 1pm : Arimo Teixeira
1:00 to 2:00: Ceci Dover
2:00 to 3:00: Pippa Exonar
3:00 to 4:00: Rafaella Docherty
4:00 to 5:00: ELiz Watanabe
5:00 to 6:00 : Reno Segall
6:00 to 7:00 : Annan Dreamscape
7:00 to 8:00 : Ichie Kamachi
8:00 to 9:00 :Hunter Montgomery

Sat -April 2
Noon to 1 pm : Zoree Jupiter
1:00 to 2:00:clarice Karu
2:00 to 3:00: Noma Falta
3:00 to 4:00:Torben Asp
4:00 to 5:00:Ronus Lefevre
5:00 to 6:00:Prowess Rayna
6:00 to 7:00:MrMikie String
7:00 to 8:00:Ichie Kamachi
8:00 to 9:00:ChrisThomas Underwood and Melodee McDonnell
9:00 to 10:00 :Annan Dreamscape
10:00 to 11:00:GuitarDebbie Henning

Sunday -April 3
11:00 Am to 12:00 noon: The Follow
12:00 to 1:00:Torben Asp

And the DJ Stage is here.

Schedule:

Thursday March 31
12noon to 2:00;Cameron Greybeard
2:00 to 4:00; Tyraina Talamasca
6:00 to 8:00; Pierce Bezner
8:00 to 10:00; LixxIn Zadark
10:00 to 12:00;Melody Lyric

Friday April 1
8:00am to 10:00; Cameron Greybeard
10:00 to 12:00 ;Boo Zipper
12:00 to 2:00; Pierce Bezner
4:00 to 6:00 ; DJTommy Seetan
6:00 to 8:00; Julianna Michigan
8:00 to 10:00;Healer Ladybird

Sat April 2
8:00am to 10:00; Cameron Greybeard
10:00 to 12:00; Boo Zipper
12:00 to 2:00; Airy Miles
2:00 to 4:00; April Chung
4:00 to 6:00: Tyraina Talamasca
6:00 to 8:00; Kizzer Applemoor
8:00 to 10:00; Cornelius Nerido

Sunday April 3
8:00 am to 10:00; Cameron Greybeard
10:00 to 12:00: Boo Zipper
12:00 to 2:00; Astoria Luminos
2:00 to 4:00: DJTommy Seetan
4:00 to 6:00; Cornelius Nerido
6:00 to 8:00; Hottie Boozehound
10:00 to 12:00: Melody Lyric

As for my own birthday celebration, I suspect my entire family has forgotten, which is fine with me. I’ll have some InWorldz birthday cake, music and artwork instead.

Thank you, InWorldz, for being my home. Looking forward to enjoying the cranky but fun toddler years with you!

42

My daughters have always been schooled at home.  My oldest graduated last May, and my youngest has another year to go. It was my own teacher training in college that led me to homeschool, and I’ve never once regretted that decision.

When my kids were wee beasties, I spent a lot of time reading aloud to them. They would play and listen while I read The Hobbit, The Sword in the Stone, or The Little Princess. I did great voices, and I’d read until my voice gave out- always hours a day. When my kids got older they took turns reading too, and my oldest does a terrific Bilbo Baggins still today.

We had a few favorites that we read more than once. Tolkien, L’Engle, Lewis… and, of course, Douglas Adams. The Hitchhiker’s Guide was an instant hit, and over the years we’ve all taken turns reading it out loud to each other.

When my youngest daughter was eight, she gave me the best birthday gift she could imagine giving – a hand towel. She told me to “always keep it with you cause it’s massively useful.”  It was a plain blue towel, but I knew what she meant, and it became my most prized possession.

And so over the years, my family has been giving each other hand towels. I’ve got hand stitched, hand painted and hand sewn towels. Towels from every state we’ve ever visited, and at least 2 towels for every birthday.

Our hand towels have become our symbol for “hang in there.” When a friend is going through a rough time, it’s our habit to send them a copy of the Hitchhiker’s Guide, wrapped in a hand towel. When we need a good laugh, we give each other goofy towels. I’ll never forget my daughter reaching into her purse at my Aunt’s funeral, and handing me a small hand towel. It wasn’t just something to wipe my eyes, it was a way to say “we’re here together.”

I went to my Mom’s house today to clean and pack up a few things for her. She’ll be in the brain injury center for a while. And while I was looking for her insurance papers, I came across all of the hand towels that my girls have given her over the years. They were folded up in the bottom of her china cabinet, next to my Aunt’s silver and my Grandmom’s china. I packed up two of them to take to her. And I tucked one into my purse.

Cause they’re massively useful.

Thank you guys for your comments, emails, tweets, texts, and smoke messages. I got them all and I’m overwhelmed by your kindness and warm hugs. I think when you’re going through hellish times, it’s natural to feel isolated and alone, and to forget that others have gone through rough times too, and have made it back into the sunshine. Thanks for the reminder, both that you’re there, and that there’s sunshine. You guys are like virtual hand towels.

“Let the past hold on to itself, and let the present move forward into the future.”
— Douglas Adams

Here & Now

This blank page has been sitting on my laptop for hours, the cursor blinking like a second hand. I’m not sure where to start.

There are things that happen in your life that make a line. There’s before it happened, and then after it happened. Births, deaths, marriage, divorce, vasectomy… things like that. After, things are different. Things have changed. You remember before, but you live in after.

I’m in an after now. Now things are different. I’m different.

 
I wrote that back in January, after my sister was diagnosed with cancer. It’s even more true today. A few weeks ago everything changed, and now I live in after. Again.

My mom fell 8 feet and hit her head on a block of marble. Doctors later determined that she had suffered a stroke, which led to her fall. After several touch and go days in ICU, and major surgery to relieve swelling in her brain, she did eventually wake up. But her road to recovery will be long and hilly. She may never be able to care for herself again, and frankly no one can tell us what to expect.

While my mom was in hospital, my sister was admitted to the same for chemo. And while they were both in the hospital, a storm blew over a ginormous tree into my sister’s house, taking out her roof, her living room, and her front porch.

But wait, there’s more. The hits just keep coming.

My 19 year old daughter was helping my ex-husband work on my sister’s house, when she fell from the roof and broke her leg in 4 places. She was admitted to the same hospital as my mom and sister, and required 2 surgeries and 6 pins to set her leg.

Having 3 close relatives in the same hospital at once is like living in a nightmare land where fluorescent lights flicker and you never know the day or time and there are crazy horned midgets around every corner. I might have been hallucinating the midgets- I haven’t slept much in the past few weeks. There was a neurotic nurse who came in every time my eyes closed for more than 15 minutes, screaming “DON’T MIND ME!!!” while she turned on every light. There’s a special place in hell for her, and there are dirty hypodermics there.

Today I’m home with my daughter, finally. My mom is now in a rehab facility, working on learning to move her body again. My sister is staying here with me until her house is made whole again. And for the first time in … three weeks almost… I’ll be sleeping in my own house tonight.

I’ve longed to be home every moment I was running from room to room, floor to floor, nurse station to station, coffee machine to coke machine in the hospital. I dreamed of my bed, my Bunn coffee pot, my couch and my shower. I’ve ached for my desk and my vodka. I wanted my family together and safe.

But now that I’m here, I am totally overwhelmed.

Dealing with my completely immobile daughter is hard. She’s got the best attitude in all the land, but she’s utterly helpless and still drugged to the gills. The pain meds make her vomit, but the pain is unbearable. She’s so uncomfortable that she’s crying in her sleep.

Watching my sister’s hair fall out in clumps on my kitchen floor while she threw up in the sink had me totally undone. She begged me to just shave her head, to get rid of the patchy thinning stuff, and so we sat on my back porch tonight and cut her hair with the number one guard on the razor. She now looks like a pale little monk.

I offered to shave my hair in a show of solidarity, but she accused me of stealing her thunder, so I get to keep mine.

Max tells me I’m strong. But I don’t feel strong; I feel like curling up in the fetal position in the corner and sucking my thumb like a toddler. I feel like driving my car until it runs out of gas, and then walking until my feet give out, and then rolling under the closest bush and digging a hole to hide in. I feel like crying, but I’m scared I’ll never stop.

I miss that neurotic nurse, because at least she knew what she was doing. I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing. I don’t know how to soothe my sister’s nausea. How to keep my daughter from bumping her pins. How to reassure my 10 year old niece that everything is going to be okay. How to be the strong one.

Because each time I think we’ve come through, and things can’t get worse, and everything’s gonna be okay- something new comes along to push me on my ass again. And I sure don’t have the energy to push back.

I wanted to come home so badly, but now I’m scared to death being here.

So, this is after. Sorta. This is more during. I have no idea what after will look like. But I know that we’ll never be like we were before.

But right now, this moment that’s happening around me, that’s what is most important. Not the past, not the uncertain future- now. Right now, my niece is drawing on my daughter’s cast while she sleeps. It looks vaguely phallic, but it may be a tree. Here and now, my 17 year old is making ice cream and singing along with Jack Johnson. My sister is curled up in a chair with a book and a quilt, and she keeps absentmindedly rubbing her palm along the stubble on her head. Now, my dog is sleeping at my feet- and god I missed him. Right here, right now- that’s the part that matters most, and that’s what I need to remember.

I Am Murphy’s Bitch

I never run out of coffee. We can be out of toilet paper, vodka, bread and milk for days at a time (and happen to be out of all of those as I type this), but I never run out of coffee.

This morning, when I got up at the ass crack of dawn to drag myself out to petsitting,  I was shitfaced from staying up far too late and I needed some java. Stat. I fought with the coffee filters, poured the water, and went to add the coffee- only to find an empty jar. I looked 6 more times just to confirm; I was out of coffee. The humanity!

The only place to stop for coffee on my way to my job was a Burger King. I dislike Burger King on several levels, and I never stop there. Ever. But I’d have stopped at a Sarah Palin rally for java this morning, I was that desperate.

I should have known there was going to be trouble when the speaker guts at the drive-thru were hanging out of the box. I could hear the person on the other end, but he couldn’t hear me. After several attempts to get my message across, I finally just screamed COFFEE!!! COFFEE!!! COFFEE!!!! at the speaker wires. The guy must have heard me through the window, because he finally told me to drive around. But then he forgot that I could hear him, because I heard him say “Crazy lady” as I pulled forward.

So I drove around, but didn’t quite make the turn as tight as I should, and found myself a few feet away from the window. I had to really lean to hand the guy my money, and I swear the fucker dropped it on purpose. I swear I saw him smile. I had to get out and pick up all of my quarters that I had dug out from the bottom of my school bag, and of course half of them were sucked into the abyss and couldn’t be found. I had to dig out three more.

Then, THEN, as if I weren’t already on the verge of postal, the little fucking BK guy finally brings me the coffee, and he only leans about a fourth of the way out to my car. He could lean much further, but he’s just standing there, looking at me. He knows what I need, he knows I’ll do anything for this damn coffee, he knows he’s got me by the short and curlies.  He’s messing with me, because he knows he can.

I leaned and leaned, and eventually I touched the cup, but couldn’t get my fingers around it. I had to unbuckle again and open my door and lean further, and just as my fingers touched the cup, he leaned back inside to say something to a guy at the counter. The cup went with him.

Before I even knew what I was doing, I jumped out of my car and stood at the window with my face inside. When the little shit turned back around, he jumped in surprise and let go of my coffee.

In an amazing feat that I shall never be able to recreate, with ninja reflexes I’ll never have again, I caught it before it bounced off the counter.

I was so proud. You have no idea how easy it is to feel graceful when you’re as much a klutz as I am. Simply walking down a flight of stairs without falling can make me feel like I won an Olympic medal in walking. I jumped into my car with a grin a mile wide, feeling like a million bucks. I had not only thwarted the pimply little asswipe at BK, but I had saved my coffee from certain death. I only wish my girls had been with me to see it.

I carry  my own creamer with me when I’m getting coffee out, since the likes of BK don’t tend to carry soy creamer. So I pulled over and doctored my coffee with soy and splenda- and I didn’t spill a drop. By this time I was Queen of the World! Didn’t spill a drop I tell you! It was gonna be a good day.

I pulled out, and turned onto the road, and sipped my nectar from the gods. It was actually really good- go figure.

I turned NPR back up, and drove off to my client’s house feeling like I should buy a lottery ticket. I was actually thinking that very thought when I came around a curve to see a cow in my lane of the road. It’s such an absurd thing to see that it took my brain a few seconds to register that it was real. 5:30 in the morning and only 2 sips of coffee- my brain wasn’t sure.

By the time I decided it was really standing there in the road, I was almost upon him and I had to swerve. In slow motion I whipped the wheel to the left with one hand, because the other hand was holding my BK Joe. I missed the cow by a couple of feet, but I had a hard time gaining control after the swerve, and when I overcorrected I threw my coffee into the air.

My ninja reflexes failed me this time, and the coffee bounced off the dash and the lid popped off and coffee went everywhere. All over my windshield, my dashboard, my face and my school bag. It exploded and covered everything.

I pulled over on the right side of the road and stopped. Looked back to see the cow still standing there. Looked down to see a puddle of java in my lap. Looked up to see a film of coffee and soy all over everything. And I felt like myself again. Back to being Murphy’s Bitch.

I wiped the windshield as best I could, called 911 to report a cow in the road (I do, after all, live in Appalachia), did my petsitting job and came home to deal with the mess. The worst part was the coffee pooled in the defrost vents- I’m sure that’s gonna smell bad later when the sun comes out.

And my school bag is now stained and wet- but you’ll be pleased to know the books inside were safe and dry. There is that. My car will forever smell of spoiled soy milk, but my books were saved.

I never did get any coffee.

iShare, uShare

“Don’t blog it, then everyone will go there and we’ll all look the same!”

A friend actually said this to me. She made me stop and think, about a few things.

1. Are resources so scarce in InWorldz? Admittedly, there are a few things that are scarce, great hair being one of them. But really, new creators are opening stores daily, and if we don’t tell each other about them, they won’t make it! Word of mouth is the number one source of advertising in InWorldz.

2. Do we all look the same? I don’t think so. We could wear the same hair and skin, but our shape and our own styling will set us apart from each other. I admit that I don’t want to look like everyone else, but I don’t keep good finds to myself just to prevent it. I count on my own unique way of doing things to set me apart.

c. Is my friend keeping good finds to herself? I’ve been trying to figure out her password all morning to see if she’s holding out on me. If she is, there’ll be hell to pay.

So I’m blogging this new hair store that’s opened. When I saw that Vanity Hair had opened, I ran over there thinking it was Vanity Designs reopening. The hair I wear more than any other is from VDI, who closed months ago. But I was pleasantly surprised to find a whole new store and brand. Tabata Jewell is the creator, check her profile for LMs. These aren’t your run of the mill ‘dos! These are fun, dramatic and perfect for pics.

Feel free to go pick up your own, I’m not scared. I’ll still look like me, and you’ll still look like you. And I expect you to share your new finds with me in return.

 

 

 

Hairs: Vanity Hair, Tabata Jewell

Skin: Pulse

Sweater: Tesoromio

Pants: Sassy