Distracted By Something Shiny

A few posts from my FB this last week. It’s so weird to think it’s been two years since Mom passed, yet a part of me thinks she’s in that house down the street still, surrounded by her stack of used books, sitting on the sofa with Winston. It’s too surreal to think they’re not there. Also, I still think Grandma & Grandpa are out at the farm, playing gin rummy for nickels and making sandwiches for their grandkids, gum in the bottom kitchen drawer and Pepsi in the fridge. Dad said they’ve got an offer on the farm and they’re gonna accept it. He managed to buy a small portion to go hunting on, but the rest is being sold, including the house. I’m glad, in that it won’t be sitting empty, dark & alone anymore...but sad too, because it will no longer be The Weston farm. Until Sis & I bought this little house together, the farm was the one place I thought of as Home, far far more than my childhood home. So September has been a strange month of letting go.

( Anyway, my posts... )

If you read all of that, thank you.

I was in the waiting room at the doctor’s when I saw the news on my phone that Stan Lee had died. I started crying before I could get any words out. It felt like my heart was shattering right there. I haven’t felt that way quite so hard since we lost MCA of the Beastie Boys - another man who, like Stan Lee, helped shaped my formative years.

Look, I know Stan was 95, but guys, he seemed timeless to me. He’d been old since I was a kid, but he was always full of life & wit & wisdom. He changed lives with his stories. He changed *my* life. He changed the world. He got the best of life and he made the most of it and brought so much to the world. I'm so sad for our loss. For the world’s loss.

I honestly feel like a family member has died. Stan Lee was a part of my life since I was seven years old and began getting a subscription to a Spiderman series in the mail. That’s 33 years of his stories, his spirit, his words, having an influence and impact on me. So you’ll understand when I say I have to go and mourn, because my Grandpa Stan just died.

I’m sad to lose him, but glad to have had him. RIP, Stan Lee.

‪My sweet old man pupper passed away last night, here at home, in his crate with his favorite blankie, my mom’s pillow & his stuffed monkey, Marcel. Winston was my mom’s dog & we were honored to give him a home when she could not.




Sir Winston 2003-2018
He was a good boy

Today is a strange day for me. I wish I had gotten to Mom's grave, just to make it feel a little like *something*. But alas, it was too wet to be pushing my chair across the grass of a cemetery - not very accessible places, unfortunately. But in Mom's honor, I did want to post a little something. After I got my IPad - but before I got my IPencil and was still doodling with my finger - I went through a phase of drawing little tree doodles. One night, when I knew my mom had had a rough day, I doodled her a Cherry Blossom tree. She always had an affinity for them. I sent it to her and she said, "What's this for?" and I said, "For you. Just because.


Mom's Cherry Blossoms - dodger_sister

Because that's how Mom taught us to be. It didn’t have to be a special occasion for her to bring you home something or bake you something or offer to help you with something - it just had to be that she was thinking of you. That's all. I joke a lot about the things I learned and inherited from my parents being the *naughty* things, but I know, they gave me a whole lot else. So on this day, I share with you - Mom’s cherry blossom tree.

So it has been a long couple weeks here. Every time I start to make a post about it, Idk where to start. And the longer I wait, the longer the post gets.

About a month ago my mom hurt her back and was in screaming agony and we took her to the ER and they said there was nothing wrong, she just had a UTI, that's all and they sent her home with no pain meds, just some muscle relaxers. She stayed with us for three days because she couldn't even sit up on her own and then we took her to her doctor on Monday and he was like, "For the love of God, go to the hospital!" It took them a couple of days, but eventually they found a break in her sacral spine, which is basically the connector of your spine to your hips and your pelvis. She had been having lowkey back pain all summer and they also found some slightly healed hairline fractures, probably what had been bothering her all summer, but her regular doctor - who is a terrible doctor - just kept telling her it was arthritis and giving her steroid injections - which is actually the worst thing you can do for brittle bones - never sent her for an x-ray so eventually one of those hairline cracks turned into a full on break.

( Under the cut. )

Now we're just waiting, it's just a matter of hours, as soon as her lungs get too tired to work on their own, that'll be the end. Unfortunately because she is infectious and I am on auto immune suppressors, I haven't been able to see her since she went to the hospital. Both my brothers, my sister and my aunt are all up at the hospital with her though, so she won't be alone and scared at the end.

And I swear that's only a quarter of the story, so much has gone on in the last month, Mom has been through so much, and us in turn. I just don't want her to suffer. I'm going to lose my mom, but I just don't want her to suffer. Thank you in advance for all your support and kind thoughts.

We had a loss in the family today. My father's roommate, one of my little brother's closest friends, someone we'd all known nearly 20 years, since he was a 15 year old boy, passed away this morning.

There were four boys - two brothers, Lucky, and then my little brother. They all met as teenagers. They all bonded as brothers. They grew up together and stayed close, even as they grew into adults. When my mom threw my little brother out at 16, one of their parents took him in. When my brother was living with my dad at 17 and found out Lucky was living in the park more or less, my father took him in. These four boys - men now - introduce themselves as foster-brothers, and it is pretty much the truth.

( Any lucky penny will do fine. )

My dad inviting him into his home like that gave Lucky ten more years. As my sister said today, that may be the greatest thing my dad has ever done, giving that kid ten years he didn't have otherwise. He wasn't quite my brother, but he was my brother's brother and my father's son, and that makes him family. That bedroom at the end of the hallway will forever be Lucky's room.

Goodbye, Calvin. You'll be missed.

I was so busy over Christmas that I never got a chance to make one of my tribute graphics for George Michael. I can't believe we lost him. Yes, when I was a kid I listened to his music, but that wasn't what made him such an interesting and iconic person to me. It was the way he shaped gay culture and the way he was a pioneer in gay acceptance, because he fought back against the image that they forced upon him for so long. By being in the spotlight he felt like he had to conform or give up his dreams as a musician, and eventually he let all of that go and spoke out on the AIDS crisis and the stigma of AIDS and the gay man...and just in general, he was an amazing and very brave person and talented man.

Jump forward a few days after that, where I was still feeling bad about George Michael, and then we lose Carrie Fisher. Which I can't even wrap my head around. I am heartbroken. I am devastated. I have cried for this loss. I knew she was quite ll, but she had been doing so much better, I thought she was stable and out of the woods. And then she was just gone. The first woman I ever truly looked up to. Before Audrey Hepburn even, there was Princess Leia. Before She-Ra and Teela and April O'Neil and Ororo Monroe...there was Princess Leia. And then after that, there was Carrie Fisher. The more I learned about her and her struggles in life, and the way she fought back against them and against society's stigma of her mental illness and the societal culture of sexism, and just in general told the world to 'fuck it' when she didn't like what she heard, all the while dealing with her own demons and anxiety (something of which I know a thing or two about) - the more I found her to be the hero that she played in Princess Leia. I am sorry we have lost her. I'm sorry we won't get to see her reaction to the fascist presidency we are about to get. I am sorry we won't get to see her storyline finished in Star Wars. I am sorry we will miss out on so many more words of wisdom from our favorite space-mom.

As if all that wasn't bad enough, but the shock of losing her daughter sent Debbie Reynolds on her way as well. I feel so badly for that poor family and everything they have lost. And, because I am me, I have been worrying about Carrie's dog, Gary. It was his job and life to take the worry and stress away from her. But who will now take the worry and stress away from him? Hopefully her daughter will bring him comfort.

Rest In Peace, George Michael. Rest In Peace, Carrie Fisher. Rest In Peace, Debbie Reynolds.

My grandmother passed away yesterday. It looks like she went in an instant, no suffering. And at home, like she always wanted. We tried, since Grandpa passed, to convince her to move to a senior apartment. She wouldn't hear of it. It always broke her heart that Grandpa didn't get to pass at home, and she wasn't going to stand for it herself. She almost always got her own way, after all. My grandma was one of those people that you always thought was perfect and then you grow up and realize, naw, she's just human. But even then, you couldn't help but look at her in some way like a person of iconic legend. She would have told you that she was a just a silly old woman, but she was so much more.

She lived through horrid poverty and family illness as a child, married my grandpa less than a week after graduating high school and turning 18. Chased his naval boat across the country, with my 3 month old uncle on her hip. Ran the little village general store all on her own. And oh, she pitched a fit when Grandpa said they were buying a farm. She wanted nothing to do with it. But then there she was, fixing breakfast at 3am so Grandpa and their boys could get to the farm chores. Adopting every stray cat she could get her hands on. She loved a good dog, but Grandma was a cat lady, thru and thru. She never wanted that farm, but oh boy, she wasn't leaving it. She and Grandpa were married for 70 years and she lived just as long as that down a dirt road, at the end of a dusty driveway, in an old farmhouse surrounded by corn and barns and the echoing sound of our childhood whiffle ball games still ringing on the wind.

The last of my grandparents to go, survived by three sons, ten grandkids and fourteen great-grandkids and that is her legacy, the one she is really proud of. Most people would have thought Grandpa was the glue that held this family together, but it was Grandma all along.

She always joked that when she finally got to heaven, that Grandpa would ask her, "What took you so long?!" But neither one of them have to wait another day.

Together now, they can rest in the peace they've so greatly earned.

Ava Marie - May 3, 1925 - August 30th, 2016

Photographer unknown, but Grandma loved her hummingbirds, so that's why I chose this one.

I am sad and happy. Happy because I GOT MY NEW IPAD!! It's rose gold and so pretty, I keep stroking it. And it is way lighter and smaller, but with the same screen size so I can still see. And I got a new art pencil to go with it, which I adore. And a protective screen this time - no seven different cracks in the screen and protection from my droppy hands. Plus 128 gb, when my last one had 13. I finally have room to update and my apps work again and it is glorious. I've named her Lewis, after Dr. Susan Lewis, as she will care for me when I'm sick.

( More under the cut. )

I did a photo shoot with them in some of my favorite outfits and as soon as I'm ready, I'll put them to bed one last time.

I am getting tired of making these. We have lost too many good ones this year. And the year before that. And the year before that. I feel like ever since Cory Monteith, it has just been one loss after another. And like Cory, this one was taken far, far too young. I remember first seeing Anton in an episode of ER. So young and quiet and conveying the oldest soul, like watching a boy with the wisdom of thousands of years under his skin. But then I'd see videos of him behind the scenes or on the red carpet, and he just seemed like a silly, sweet dork. Good-hearted, very intelligent and just plain sweet. Having watched his work since he was 11 years old, it is very hard to think of him as being gone. We can only hope he didn't suffer. I honestly can't believe we lost another one. This has to stop.



“Who would have thought I’d live so long in such a short time?”
- Pavel Chekov, Star Trek New Voyages: Phase II
RIP Anton.