Internet

Not having the internet at home really stinks. I have had so much going on the last few days that I could write about but none of it seems important now. I have to write it in the heat of the moment so I can properly rant and rave – once I sleep on it, I find I’ve lost my passion for the subject.

You are thinking I could write it down and type it in later – which I do all the time. Well, if I can’t type it in right when I get home then chances are it will never make it to the blog. I have several posts in this spiral that will never see the light of day.

I come to the library, posts in tow, but by the time I answer emails there is precious little time to type in all the posts. Most of them I find uninteresting and wonder what the hell I was thinking when I wrote it. I’m amazed how much I bitch – or, as I prefer to think of it “vent”. I’m such a laid back person that I find it curious how I can be so emotional when I write some of the posts. I suppose I should really sleep on all of them – maybe then I wouldn’t post the ones I don’t really mean.

But I also tell myself that this is the place where I do vent and I need that outlet. I tell everyone I know who reads the blog that it has many things in it that are the heat of the moment posts – that a lot of stuff can’t be taken as how I actually feel. I put the negativity here so I won’t carry it with me inside.

People make me angry, people hurt my feelings and people make me depressed – but at the end of each day I find myself thanking God for all of them. We are all a big family and if families didn’t squabble, they wouldn’t be much fun.

Whew, that brings back all the times my son and I would play devil’s advocate at family gatherings – working my sisters up into lather. I look forward to doing that again when I move up there. I love debating and expect that people can back up most of the things they proclaim to be fact. My son is a lot like me – have I mentioned lately how much I love and adore him??

Merry Christmas, Mom

“Merry Christmas, Mom” is a phrase I haven’t been able to say to my mother for over a decade. You’d be surprised how such simple things like that can elicit such strong emotions. It’s Christmas time and I wish I had the opportunity to talk to Mom just one more time. But the sands in the hourglass have shifted closing that chapter of my life forever.

I have some bad memories of my childhood, yes, but they seem to have faded into the archive vault in my head – no longer able to hurt me.

Most of my memories now are from the more fun things we’d do – like UFO watching. If you haven’t read “Advantages of…”’s post “Midnight” from 6/28/06, about our UFO adventures, I highly recommend it. You can find a link to his site under “blogroll” on the right of the screen.

I remember searching the paper for disasters – pretty much any kind as long as it was on a grand scale. Finding one for Mom to read to me was a real treat. Yes, I know how that sounds but Mom like disasters and her reading them or telling me about them was one of the few moments we felt really connected.

I’d ask questions about why earthquakes, avalanches, mud slides, etc., happened and she’d tell me to look it up in the encyclopedias we had. If I needed more information, the school library was also an excellent resource. Thus my love of research was born – I loved finding answers to all my questions.

I miss how Mom would laugh – always with her hand covering her mouth as if she was afraid it might explode from her uncontrollably. The real reason, of course, was her embarrassment over the way her teeth looked but we never cared.

I remember nights of cowering on the couch together as we watched another terrifying episode of “Creature Feature” or “Twilight Zone.”

We’d also be found on the couch when episodes of National Geographic would come on about Jacques Cousteu or the great mysteries of the world. Mom and I would try to figure out what great scientists couldn’t – like the theory of Atlantis, the disappearances in the Bermuda Triangle, and how the stones came to be at Easter Island. Of course, the more outlandish the reasoning, the more fun it was.

We’d look at travel books – marveling at the majestic mountains, the Painted Desert, the Grand Canyon and the clear blueness of the oceans. We’d talk about how “someday” we’d see it all.

Of course I could go on and on. Her love of reading and writing inspired the same in her children. She also enjoyed drawing along with an artist on TV and even took a few art classes. She was good though she didn’t think so. That trait was not something, unfortunately, that was passed on to me though I try my hand at it every now and then – trying to will the creative juices within to flow onto the canvas. It never works.

For those of you who really know me, reading this post will make you smile. You’ll realize why I love to go out at night with my telescope to gaze at the stars, why I’m fascinated by the cause of disasters, and a whole slew of other “strange” interests I have…like scary movies.

I am a combobulation of my past – a dim reflection of all the good things my Mom shared with me. We are all, whether we like it or not, a shadow of our mothers to some degree.

I wish I could tell my Mom one more time how much she meant to me and how much I still miss her after all these years. “Merry Christmas, Mom.”