It's just that, you know, dead brother.
Burying William meant going back to the familial graveyard, thus reliving the times I lost all the other people I love who are also buried there, which is just gut-punchingly miserable, but of course I'm Episcopalian and repressed (so...basically Episcopalian) so it's not like I can do that thing...what's it called? I saw it on TV once...right, show emotion.
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| Replace Patrick with a pudgy gay Latino boy and you've got my future life |
Aside from the whole Being a Rock for the Family role, which I was born to play (see also: Mame Dennis, which would be a lot more fun because of the bitchin' tulle bedjackets) grief is an intimate emotion, and I'm not comfortable putting that sort of intimacy on display.
Instead I waited until I got home, sent HLB on some errand (I think to find skim milk. I swear, it's like searching for the golden fleece here. You can get a pinata full of prescription drugs for like, thirty pesos, but locating skim milk requires a full-on Indiana Jones expedition, minus the Nazis...usually) and then hid under the blankets with a flashlight and a packet of really disgusting Skittles a friend gave me just in case I accidentally started to like Skittles (nope) and Felt All The Feelings in the privacy of my own leaky Mexican cottage...like a lady.
So thanks for your patience, and I'll be back in the regular saddle again soon. Also, if anyone can think of something to do with a depression-sized bag of "darkside" Skittles, you just let me know.
1. Slingshot.
ReplyDelete2. Seagulls.
If they hadn't meant for skittles to be used as a weapon, they wouldn't have made them so aerodynamic.
You can make slightly disgusting skittles flavored vodka?
ReplyDeleteThat is repulsive but intriguing. But repulsive.
ReplyDelete...but intriguing.
That's BRILLIANT. We don't have a ton of seagulls here, but there is a fighter squadron of pelicans who are the bane of my existence. Plus the stupid cowbirds that eat Dozer's food and poop all over my tomatoes. Daisy, you get the Reader of te Week award!
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure I could actually drink something this color: http://mixthatdrink.com/skittles-vodka-tutorial/
ReplyDeleteMix the skittles with some M&Ms when the young nephews come to visit.
ReplyDeleteOh I wouldn't drink it. I don't enjoy vodka, and only have it in the house for making homemade vanilla extract. But still, there's something trainwreckishly interesting about it.
ReplyDeleteIs that a betrayal? I remember once reaching for a handful of M&Ms and getting Skittles instead. I still think it's the source of about half my trust issues. I bet the kids WOULD like them though. "Screw nutrition, children! Get rid of the gross food your auntie doesn't like!"
ReplyDeleteYou take your time, Plumcake. As for the skittles, this doesn't exactly seem like your scene but you can make 8-bit, "retro game" images with Skittles! http://www.geekologie.com/2010/12/get-inside-me-8bit-nintendo-sk.php (This is pertinent to my life because I'm a teen librarian with library teens who love retro games and minecraft.)
ReplyDeleteAlso, I bought your favorite dancing dress for a wedding this weekend, and damnit if I don't look fantastic. I owe it all to you! Thanks again for making all of our lives a bit more fashionable and fabulous.
My crazy cousins (god love em) made Skittle-flavored vodka for our yearly get together, and I don't think I'll ever forget that AWFUL taste.
ReplyDeleteYou take all the time you need. And I'm sure you've mentioned more local nuisances than just the pelicans. Flick those skittles at anyone who has it coming.
ReplyDeleteThank you for being so open and honest on the different processes and forms of grieving. (Also, book 2 of Spenser's _Faerie Queene_ has a diatribe against what he considers to be excessive displays of mourning. It's all very anti-Catholic and anti-Spanish, which is to say perfectly Elizabethan and the sort of thing that might make a WASP glisten with glee.)
ReplyDeleteAs for the skittles ... substitutes for poker chips? I have played many a round of poker with whatever things we could find in the house. The downside to playing with almonds or raisins is that you will eat them. The upside to skittles? The kitty remains intact.
Hang in there, kid. It takes as long as it takes.
ReplyDeleteIf you can manage Skittles, you can persevere though anything. You have my admiration.
ReplyDeleteoh, that's me^
ReplyDeleteEpiscopalians, like Moscow, may not believe in tears, but we Chinese take it to the opposite end of the spectrum. You know your people are hardcore about grief when there is a thriving niche market of professional wailing choruses to aid the tearduct-handicapped.
ReplyDeleteHildy and her chevron self totally puts Auntie Mame's bedjackets in the shade, sorry. Though Mame is the better interior decorator. Every time I have to purchase another piece of plywood from the Scandinavian lumberyard that is Ikea I think longingly of her fishbowl fixtures.
Mix the Skittles with the skim milk until the colour turns an aesthethically-pleasing brown. Pour the mixture into your favourite antique cut glass pitcher. Then pour the mixture down the sink. Because neither is fit for consumption.
I hope HLB came back with something better than Skittles because gross. The only thing grosser is feelings (fellow Episcopalian) or perhaps hugs. Use the skittles in a mosaic next time your feeling crafty?
ReplyDeleteI don't believe that you owe us anything. Your writing is a grace that sometimes we get and sometimes we don't. :) I hope you are comforted soon. Spoon your dog! Fuzzies are the best, and we can fully relax around them!
ReplyDeleteI handled my brother's death in much the same way. He was my WORLD but I wasn't about to openly display my grief. (Lutherans and Episcopalians must have things in common.) I do my grieving in private, thank you very much. I would rather drink Skittle-flavored vodka (and I don't even drink) than shed tears in front of people.
ReplyDeleteYou don't need my permission, but take all the time you need. You'll be back in full swing when you're ready.
Being one of God's "Frozen Chosen," I completely sympathize with your inability to show extreme emotion under almost any circumstance (pet illness aside). The best thing to do is take a couple of stiff shots Herradura or Don Julio, and watch that fabulous sunset off the Baja coast. It's truly the best way to cope with those pesky emotions. I've done it a few times, myself. As for the Skittles issue, give your supply to some local kids, and tell them it's sweeter and messier than chiclets...they'll love it.
ReplyDeleteBeen there. But heres the good news, you can cry. A lot of people can't, even under the covers with a flash light and bag of Skittles.
ReplyDeleteEvery time I come back to your blog and read about the loss of your brother (not that you are mentioning it a bunch. I just like to check back, and with the same story, comes the same impulse), I find myself baking or cooking something as if I could digitize it and email it to you. Texas+funeral=offerings of food to the bereaved. So here is my virtual offering to you (sorry I had to eat it, since I don't think they'd let it through customs): One large container of Thrice-Drunk Real Texas Chili- (which I fed once to a boy from upstate New York. I couldn't tell if he was crying from the heat level or just the epiphany that chili is NOT A SOUP) and 6 bourbon chocolate pots-de-creme. Now that my unspoken condolences have been delivered, we discourse over heretical chili with beans, whether tomatoes are an acceptable addition, and where I got the darling demitasse cups out of which you are eating the aforementioned dessert. (Inherited from my grandmother, of course.) I ask about your Crazy Uncle; we swap stories of lunatic relatives until I've made sure that you've eaten enough to satisfy my strangely unshakable belief that grieving people don't eat (empirical evidence notwithstanding), and then I get up to leave, murmuring about how you can reheat the chili and do tell HLB hi for me. Empty demitasse cups in hand, I leave to let you emote in solitary peace, knowing that at least you'll do it on a full stomach.
ReplyDelete