This, That and the other thingamig.

[shadowkat]

1. I've decided I don't have the bandwidth to respond to people on Twitter or FB, so I'm doing it in my head.

* I was wondering who you thought was a bigger band in the 1980s: Ratt or Motely Crue?

Motely Crue (considering I've never heard of Ratt. Has anyone heard of Ratt? (Calling on rock critic nerds who are into obscure bands that I've never heard of.))

* Uncle D: "Is there an interest in two short 1 hour sessions on Family History? One on (Father's Side) ancestry, the other on (Mother's Side). This would not be a reading of names, dates, events, and relatives. It would be a general discussion of where the families originated based on research and DNA data. It would also cover the challenges of research, and the major discoveries that opened up the research.Let me know because it will take some time to put a presentation together."

Just don't do this around my mother - she hates that sort of thing. Also, dear god - this has turned into the family reunion/party from hell.
They even posted the weather report for Hilton Head. It's 84/73 and either rainy or partly cloudy all week long. (Which tells me what to wear - basically what I'm wearing now.)

Now that my father has passed, can I divorce his pesky relations? [This in a nutshell is why I'm avoiding Facebook.]

* I love how they expect us to be nice to CW and Nina, but they can be nasty to LW and Carly...

Fandom hypocritical with a huge double standard? Nah. Say it's not so.

* Weird how there is no moral panic any more over taking kids to the opera...

Wait. There was moral panic over taking kids to the opera?? Really?

* What band is way better live than in studio?

The Grateful Dead. They are definitely not a recording band. I never really saw them live - but I did listen to all the bootleg live recordings that my college boyfriend had recorded, and was obsessed with.

I'm admittedly not a fan of live music. I know. I know. I'm weird. Practically everyone else and their dog is...but not I. (I'm going to sit over here in the corner by myself and listen to my music on my earphones in peace.)

Some day, I'll find a heterosexual guy who is not obsessed with live music and/or sporting events and actually prefers live theater - plays and musicals. It's not happened as of yet, but hope springs eternal.

I have quite a few athletes and gamers in my literature course this semester. Are there any easily accessible stories/poems/essays where a sport or game (broadly defined to include e-sports too) is a central part of the piece?

I considered responding but..there were 130 comments. Ready Player Now comes to mind.



2. Crazy Workplace

It's been so insane this week - that I decided to actually pull up the remote computer on my laptop after I got home - to complete a document that I have to send out first thing tomorrow morning. Kept getting interrupted today - I did however manage to send out the addendum. The lawyer and I were celebrating when it got posted. We'd both worked our asses off on the damn thing.

Did this after I took a shower, and threw more things in the hamper. I'm going to do laundry tomorrow night. Hopefully.

At work - talked to the lunch group that meets behind my cubicle, briefly.

Chidi: So are you looking forward to next week?
Me: Trying not to think about it actually.
Co-workers: I hope it's at least somewhat relaxing...
ME (I roll my eyes).

I tell this to mother.
Me: Co-workers kept telling me to enjoy my time off next week.
Mother: They realize you are going to your father's funeral, right?
Me: Yup.

I'm beginning to despise the phrase: "How are you doing?" or "How are you?"
I don't answer any longer, or change the subject. I let silence be my response. And I stopped asking it myself. Maybe we should just retire it completely? I get asking it if you really want an answer - but in the workplace, no one ever does. Actually most people don't want one anywhere.
Let's face it - we don't have the bandwidth for the response.

3. Mother continues to regale me with her funeral plans. This is becoming mother's funeral.

Mother: So I've got an Irish Prayer, and another prayer, and the Celtic Cross on the front, and instead of the obituary which is too long, this prayer...(she recites it and it's very touching - she starts crying during it, and it is moving.)
Me: Sounds very Catholic.
Mother: Well, you're father was Catholic, also Irish.

This is true. My father saw himself as Irish Catholic - as if it were his nationality or ethnicity, a part of him. He identified as Irish Catholic.
And insisted that his kids be raised Catholic and his wife become Catholic. (Mother didn't care - she was Episcopalin and liked the rituals, the idea of a religious faith, and the community. She'd been raised without organized religion and went searching for it, and became Episcopalin in college.)

Like in all things, my brother's peer group kicked him of the religious habit - Protestant Christian Sports/Athletic Camp helped. Apparently, or according to him, they had a nasty fire and brimstone service every day at noon in the sweltering sun - where they reenacted the whole crucifixion. (The Protestants are sometimes nuttier than the Catholics in this regard.) During which, some kids fainted from heat stroke. He and his wife were describing this in gory detail to a Jewish friend of theirs - and I decided it was a performance act. (I think he was exaggerating. I repeated his story to mother, who was aghast. "What do you mean, we forced him to go to K-Life camp? He begged us to go. And he begged us for three years! Your father strongly disliked that camp and kept trying to talk him out of it. But no..." My brother, like my Gran used to say, has a selective memory just like his Grandfather. (She kept a log because my Grandfather liked to make up stuff and change what really happened too.)

I minored in cultural anthropology, which included theology, religion, mythology and folklore in college - and that kicked me of it for the most part. After a while, all religious doctrines kind of fell under the header of mythology for me - and I saw a lot of similarities. We really aren't as different as we think. We just get weirdly stubborn over details. And we not that creative - we tend to steal other people's stories and incorporate them into our own. Lots of borrowing going on. Example? The Osiris myth is strangely similar to the Jesus myth, and the Abraham and Issac myth, and the Mohammad and Allah myth, and the Buddah. I think Jesus visited every culture, and they just interpreted it differently. What separates us is religious doctrine and dogma and philosophy, what unites us is the stories. It's why I like stories better. The rest gives me a headache.

She's also putting up a poster board or some sort of board (she couldn't figure out what to call it - I'm thinking Easel? ) to put all my Dad's photos on - at the back of the church or in the entry way to it. She wants my help with it when I get there - or she'll do it over the weekend.

I've decided to put myself on auto pilot from here on out. And meditate a lot. The CBD had too much sugar in it - so wires me. Also dehydrates. Plus I got more hot flashes when I had a lot of it. So scaling back or trying something else.

I don't want to feel. I don't right now. Kind of numb and snarky.