and here i am.  i’m still alive, and i guess i am okay, but  my world has shifted.  i’m alone, in this house, by myself.  the family i thought i created over the last three years is gone.  what do i do next?  i already feel lonely, and sad.  i guess that will get better with time.   even with the dogs -thank god for my dogs!- the house is so quiet, too quiet,  and empty.  i feel like a hermit.  i’m scared that there will be days that go by that i don’t speak to anyone.

i also know that everything is going to be alright.

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I’m currently looking for a small bowl of popcorn my youngest child seems to have spirited off some where. Let me know if you find it.

Earlier (and unrelated), we were about to go downstairs after playing in her room for a bit. Sitting on my lap, she looked at me and with all the sincerity I suspect a two-year-old can muster said “I not sad anymore. I happy now.” She then proceeded to take my head in her hands, one set gently on each cheek, looked me square in the eyes and told me: “You my favorite dinosaur.”

*UPDATE: Found it!

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oh, christmas.  how it feels like anything but.  sandwiched in between my hard-of-hearing grandfather, who is spending the first christmas in seventy-four years without my grandmother, and my father, whose quirks and behavior have caused both my sister and i to recently hypothesize about him possibly being aspergerian.

it’s weird and sort of laid back on this holiday trip.  i’ve been reading a lot and playing a lot on my laptop, having been blessed with the christmas miracle of poachable wi-fi from a generous -or more likely unknowing- frankenmuth neighbor.  i finished the last twilight book with some sadness but am now pleasantly ensconced in the hour i first believed.  i love the feeling of being comfortably settled in the middle of a good book – it’s dependable and there whenever i want it.

when it’s not really quiet around here it’s ridiculously painful.  my grandpa, in his deafened state, has also grown picky of late – in food, of action…  he reamed me the first night we were here for my lack of capitalization of his name, said that i could do what i wanted to with my own but that he wanted a big E and a big H.  he spends hours a day playing sudoku, laying on his bed, and i swear sometimes i can hear his mind whirring busily.

i have such a difficult time listening to my father talk to him.  he raises his voice and when my grandpa still can’t hear him, he shouts at him – as if the irritation and agitation are something he can’t hear, either.  no amount of persuasion causes him to pause before one of his screamed tirades. he just can’t see what is wrong.

i miss todd.  this is our third christmas together, yet not actually together as 600 miles separates us again.  i find myself still reluctant to do christmas with his family, although we all gather together for easter and thanksgiving.  i think it’s still ties to my mother.  even if christmas current is nothing like the christmases with her, it is still tied to her memory.  as if doing something with todd’s family would cut one last tie.  things with him are still off, and i’m not sure i know what to do anymore.

my youth pastor and i found each other on facebook.  i always liked him a lot and thought he was pretty cool.  i remember thinking how cool it was that a pastor had once been a bartender and still enjoyed margaritas.  he sent me a message that asked, “So…where did I go wrong that you list your religion as: “confused”???”   i wish i had an answer.

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the day is almost over, and i am somewhat relieved. i felt so strange this year, not overcome with the usual tidal wave of grief and sadness that has overcome me for the last four years. i kind of missed having the tears fall, a tactile reminder of my loss.

it’s not that it gets any easier. it just gets…different.

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I make up for emotions through intensity. That is: I don’t cry often; I don’t have too many highs or lows really. But I manage to get very intense, very focused and very stressed.

A couple of weeks ago, I did a phone interview with April for her class. One of the questions was “When was the last time you cried and why?” It worked out well; it turned out that “Son of Rambow” had caused me to tear up a few days before.*

Imagine my surprise when I teared up this morning, over some actually emotional. I was listening to Ballboy and damn if those Scots don’t know how to handle moroseness. In my long line of scanning pictures through Scancafe, I got email telling me my latest batch was online.

This batch is special for several reasons; the main reason is that it includes several hundred pictures of my father that I have never seen. Not only have I never seen these, but I don’t think anyone has seen them in decades; my mother has probably never seen them even; they were packed away with my grandmother’s things and only recently found. These are only photos I have of my father as a child — without these, his life began sometime around the time he married my mother.

And this morning, I sat in a coffeeshop, watching people in chilly fall air walk by, listening to someone sing to me about the beautiful downsides of life and I felt tears come to my eyes. And not just once, but twice over 10 minutes.

It just surprised me. I got on the train 10 minutes later and switched music to something a little louder and rougher (Rotors to Rust) just to see if I can wrestle free of this mood a little.

But man, there is something totally neat about seeing old photos that you have never seen before of people you know and love.

* Generally, I have found that any story about an underdog overcoming obstacles will get me. The most classic example is “Babe,” which I promise will always cause tears in the final scene or two.

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remember how i used to write about september 11, worrying that people were forgetting, that it was becoming just another day?  i still feel that way, but worry that i, too, with time, am feeling as though my emotion is… lessening.  i’m ashamed of myself.

i had a horrible panic seize my heart last night when trying to talk to zane about what 9/11 was – i couldn’t remember the year of the attacks.  i know it’s a simple detail but it seemed so … disrespectful.  like i couldn’t be troubled to remember exactly when it happened.  i feel guilty and worry that with more time the anniversary will really become just another day.  how horrible.  i feel awful – that i am awful.

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i’m hard-pressed to convey how intense this week has been.  production in CA – i don’t think i have ever worked so hard in my entire life.  but it was so fucking fun…  i’m sitting in my rapidly-emptying greenroom with that pit-in-my-stomach, end of summer-camp feeling.  i will exchange email addresses and promise to write and do so with fervor for a little while, until that newness wears off and this week will stand alone in my memory as one solitary time.  i didn’t expect to feel melancholy at this point.

i surprised myself this week – proved to myself a lot about what i can accomplish when i bust my ass.  by october 1, there will be 17 professionally-shot and produced videos of me available on the internet, teaching the writing section of the SAT test.  i worked as the “talent” for silicon valley-funded start-up company, and had a camera crew following me around.  i shot footage on the street, and had onlookers applaud at the end of a take.  it’s pretty cool to stand back and marvel that this is my life.

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