Category Archives: The year on the edge

The Vitamin D trip

By nopasanada | Published: March 1, 2009

“Life’s not always fair. Sometimes you can get a splinter even sliding down a rainbow.” ~Cherralea Morgen

Before I left I had already dubbed this trip The Great California Adventure. Which is surprising for someone of my pessimistic nature because it’s usually “This trip is going to suck and I’ve made myself think it’s going to be awesome but then I end up in tears. P.S. I hate everyone”. But this trip really was The Bestest Trip Ever. It’s set the bar high for every other vacation I go on which means that Austin is now on notice.

I would love to dwell on how amazing I felt during this trip but I really cannot bring myself to do so at this very moment. So here are photos in lieu of wit and stories as I prepare for four days of work and a funeral to finish off the week.

Friday will probably be a long-winded drunk blog post because come on now, don’t you think I deserve to drink the entire bottle of wine? Yes, yes you do.

Also posted in Grace in Small Things, Va-cay-cay-cay | 10 Comments

Onward

By nopasanada | Published: February 28, 2009

“A man’s dying is more the survivors’ affair than his own.” ~Thomas Mann

When someone dies it’s hard not to sit down and meticulously go over each bit of your own life. It’s like being a child and finding a rock; we start to examine every surface, running our hands over the smooth edges and the rough bits, looking over and under wanting to figure it out. The little things in life feel new again.

I took a trip for vacation and a little inspiration. To enjoy Vitamin D and wear flip flops for just a few days. And the week that I decide to throw caution to the wind and dig my heels into something new and something I have always found far bigger than myself or what I could ever be capable of…well…that week is met with a bit of heartache and sorrow.

My mother’s sister died yesterday while I was busy relishing in the ideas that Helen Jane and I had bounced between each other the evening before, my aunt died in her sleep just as she wanted to. With my mother sitting next to her and because after six years of waging war against breast cancer she grew tired or so my mother said.

I could go on and on about how my mother is living a life quite similar to that of Joan Didion’s ‘year of magical thinking’. And that I am trying my damndest to think of what, if anything I can do for her, but really I’m just a kid inspecting my life in response to this death. Even though we knew that it was coming just like the death before, it is still difficult. You’re heart still tugs a little especially because it’s breast cancer; that disease that we talk and talk and talk about and I will run a 5K for come May and it has now come to kick me in the ass as well. But instead of giving a big fuck you to February for being just as terrible as January, I suddenly feel a little bit more inspired. I want to be more positive, to try a little harder, to be a better me and hell, I want to just be. I don’t want to think too much about the what if’s and the failures but at least make a bit of a leap in hopes of hitting success.

Death fills me with cliches but really it is just a reminder that we only get a chance to do this once. So now I feel that much more compelled to make it count.

Also posted in Familia | 15 Comments

I would if I could. But I can’t.

By nopasanada | Published: February 22, 2009

“Some people get lost in thought because it’s such unfamiliar territory.” ~G. Behn

I’m spending the next few weeks here, there and everywhere. With people who will hopefully motivate me and propel me. By the end of March I envision myself as The Little Helicopter That Could. But apropos of this and all other sundry thoughts of a casual Sunday morning, I ask you this: If you could live anywhere, where would that be? Don’t say Fiji or Belize or something based on warmth and the proportion of hot naked men to women, but based on the real things. Things like friends, family, job opportunities, etc. I’ll go first and in no particular order:

1) Northern California

2) Austin

3) Washington, DC

Also posted in Just asking | 33 Comments

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

By nopasanada | Published: February 16, 2009

“You must start with a positive attitude or you will surely end without one.” ~Carrie Latet

In the event someone says to you, “It’s not broken but we’re sending you for a surgical consult to see about having the bone in your toe shaved down” and says so with enthusiasm because orthopedics is fun, kids! Then the proper response is a polite, “No thank you” because that person is holding your foot in their hand and touching each and every toe including the one that ate roast beef. And each time he suggest ‘surgery’ and ‘bone scraping’ with glee he presses down on the most painful part of your arch. But after saying, “No thank you” do remember to ask if shaving the bone might bring your shoe size from a hefty 11 to a more delicate size 10. He might just say yes as you look at him with your big brown eyes as you describe the cutest pair of mary janes. Be sure to add a gentle tear rolling down your cheek on cue. Doctors dig tears and sad stories about babies and women with a bit of a shoe fetish.

Posted in The year on the edge | 12 Comments

Seven days

By nopasanada | Published: February 2, 2009

“Tears are the safety valve of the heart when too much pressure is laid on it.” ~Albert Smith

Whenever there’s a death in a coworker’s family or a serious illness a mass email is sent out to all 300 plus employees detailing our colleague’s struggles and where condolecses and cards can be sent. A few months ago my friend Paul (who reads this site and likes to quote it back to me on a regular basis which is AWESOME when he’s reminding me of that time I wrote about puking in my bathtub) had surgery and a mass email went out. So The Roommate and I joked that if that were ever the case – if either of us found ourselves in some awful predicament – the world need not know about it. I don’t want my entire office getting an email detailing my successful bunion removal surgery. Though knowing me it would be something like “Heather Barmore is at home recovering from successful liposuction. Cards and well wishes can be sent to…”

When my grandmother died a week ago Friday, my mother and I were both adamant about who should know. When two days later my mother’s sister happened to have emergency heart surgery and my mother fled the building? The entire office knew. There is nothing more awkward then going to get sugar for your coffee while people give you the pity look and start to approach you with outstretched arms because surely an awkward hug will do in a time of grief.

I don’t do sympathy well and I’m not from a group of people that generally are into expressing love and devotion by touching one another. Then again, I’m from a family who thinks that alcohol is the Devil’s water, believes that they brought me into this world and will gladly take me out, and swearing will easily get you beaten with a belt and yet I haven’t been kicked out yet! Holy fuck!

Last week has disabled my witty gene. The part of me that thinks it’s really funny to make jokes about that time that January bent me over and pulled my hair. Last week fucking sucked. But I do that a lot. I’m good with hyperbolic claims of how awful something is and it’s usually something stupid that can be remedied but this past week wasn’t. When you feel like your family is going to be picked off one by one and you’re living in a poor woman’s Joan Didion novel and you wish there was a Great Big Book of Bereavement to get you through 72 hours of family time, your mother crying, you making your mother cry, swearing at your family, and bonus points for your inordinarily large uncle having the audacity to call you fat while your mother sits by and laughs. My God, I wish there were a how to guide for not tossing yourself off the highest precipice in the New York metropolitan area.

I’m fucking exhausted and still not willing to start doling out blow jobs to February for being superb for a whole 25 hours. I’m still too deflated from pessimism and that horrible feeling that comes from sitting in the first pew during a funeral and knowing that there is strong possibility of it happening again before the year ends, to even remotely high five anyone for getting me through January. Perhaps next week or the week after. Or maybe the one where I’m in California drinking tequila with a few of my favorites. But for now it’s a limp ‘Hey. How are ya’ to February even if it keeps nudging me on the shoulder telling me to cheer up. Right now my heart’s just not in it.

Also posted in Familia | 13 Comments