In Which I Do NOT Drop a Baby

I have become rather adept at pretending to like children.  Really, the act is almost too good, as evidenced by the incident which took place on May 10th, at approximately 4:36 PM.

Let the record show that I was working.

A woman had come in to my place of business with her baby, a child who had only known life outside the womb for a few short weeks.  The baby was ensconced in a stroller/crib.  You know the ones...they look like a crib, but, you know, on wheels.  Woman wanted to try things on, and parked Baby in it's croller just outside the dressing room.

My coworker (let us call her Leela to protect her identity) was attempting to entertain the child with such devices as silly faces, and soft, cooing noises.  Baby seemed to enjoy this, and it kept Baby from becoming upset whilst it's mother donned various articles of clothing, such as are sold in the store.

Leela was called away, and Baby became agitated.  Not wanting Woman to feel she needed to stop in her quest for new garments, I stepped up to the croller, in full view of Baby, and smiled.  Baby smiled back.

I then spent several minutes engaged in what I believe is a rather cruel game known as "peek-a-boo".  I managed to convince Baby that I had disappeared from existence the moment my hands passed in front of my face, only to magically reappear upon drawing them away.  Baby seemed delighted to discover that I was still alive every time my face became visible.  Still, Baby began to twist and squirm, seeming to search for something which was absent.  Was Baby looking for Woman?  Or was Baby merely becoming distressed by the number of times I vanished into nothingness only to return whole and seemingly unharmed from that abyss.  How many times can one really visit such a place before one is simply gone for good, Baby wondered...perhaps.

Fortunately, Woman had completed her task, and relieved me from my duty to Baby.  I took those items she wished to call her own in exchange for money, and she picked up the fussing Baby, and cradled it in her arms lovingly.

But then, alas, a cardigan caught her eye, and it pleased her.  She wished to admire it on herself before deciding to own it, and she turned to me beseechingly.

"Do you mind holding her while I try this on?" quoth she.  My blood ran hot then cold.  My arms came up in a gesture of defense, and my feet took one or two shuffling steps backward.  Everything seemed to be happening in slow motion as several thoughts at once clamored for my attention.

Of course you can hold Baby...what could possibly go wrong?

What if I drop it...have I ever actually held a baby before?

You won't drop it, and really, can it be that much different from holding a cat?

Yes.  Yes it can be very different.  For one thing, cats land on their feet if you drop them.   Babies...erm...bounce.

But you were sort of getting on, you and Baby.  It's actually rather cute when it's not screaming...

But it can turn on you in an instant.  Oh sure, you're friends now, but any moment Baby will transform into a shrieking rage monster with huge, pointy teeth, and a taste for entrails.

Yes, better not.

"Oh, um...no, I'm not really..."

"Oh, OK."  Seeming to sense my fear, Woman set Baby back in the croller and proceeded to contemplate the cardigan.

I let out a deep sigh, and congratulated myself on having narrowly avoided disaster.

But this is a dangerous road I walk, pretending to like children.  Sometimes (and I only confess this to you because you are my closest confidant) I even think it might not be pretend.

They terrify me, and yet I am oddly intrigued by them.  After all, was I not once one of their ilk?

It is an interesting question.  Very interesting, indeed.

Regards,
Julia


PS-The above is a slightly exaggerated true story.  Also, I had a conversation about dinosaurs with a little girl yesterday, just so you know I'm not a complete monster.  We decided that while we would not like to meet a dinosaur in person, they are really cool.

Ghost Spider

Sheesh.  Every time I sign in to update my blog, there has been a complete overhaul of blogger.com, and they show me page after page explaining why the old blogger was crap, and this new version is the best thing since sliced bread, and I'm like, "OK, but can I still, you know, SEE my blog?  Cause I'm in a writing mood, and you're harshing my buzz, dude."

Ugh.  The window where I write the blog part of my blog is all different looking now.  I don't like it.  I fear change.  And just what, exactly, are all those buttons on the side?  NO!  DON'T TELL ME.  DON'T EXPLAIN ANYTHING, JUST LET ME WRITE, DAMMIT!

OK, I'm stalling.

Here's the thing.

This is the thing.

The thing is...

I have this story that I've been working (AKA long hours spent staring at the screen punctuated by short bursts of typing which ultimately result in one or two sentences) on for-what seems like-ever.  It's not finished.  Not even close.  But I'm oddly tempted to start posting it here anyway.  Just throw caution to the wind and let the pages fall where they may.  Hear that wind?  Some caution is about to SMACK you in the FACE!

"Chips" fall where they may.  I actually couldn't remember the real phrase for a moment, but "pages" seemed appropriate.

I know, I know: more stalling.

Let me tell you a true story:

The other day, I found a spider hanging out next to my bed.  I mean, right where I put my head, and this dude was just hanging there, like some kind of pervert, waiting to watch me sleep.

I caught him in a glass and then, because he was trying to make his escape, drowned him with water.

And now I feel bad.

Usually, I leave spiders alone.  They kill other bugs, which makes me happy, because then I don't have to kill them.  But when a spider is all up in my business, I tend to mush it.  Still, I try to make the deaths quick and painless.  So why did I drown this one?  I don't know.  I panicked.

I'm sorry, Mr. Spider, if I caused you undue pain.  Please don't rise as a spider-ghost and goad all your still-living spider friends into amassing an army and marching on my apartment at dawn, so that I may be dragged from my bed and sentenced to death by hanging.

Why hanging?  I don't know, I just figure spiders have a lot of rope to work with...

What is it with me and bug stories lately?  First Bee Pimp, now Ghost Spider?

I should maybe mention that I am drinking and blogging again.

Hey!  Don't you judge me!  Tuesday is like my Saturday.  I didn't work today and I don't work tomorrow.  Technically, this is my weekend.  I can do whatever I want.

And now I have succeeded in distracting myself and you from the whole purpose of this post...

Just kidding, I didn't forget about the whole caution v. wind thing.  Let me see if I can make anymore headway on this story, maybe clean up the first bit somewhat, and I'll think about posting some of it.

Lates,
Jules

Now where is the "post" button...

Seriously.

Where...?  Oh there it

The First Step Is Admitting You Have a Problem

My own mother is encouraging me to drink and write. Doesn't she know that that is a dangerous combination?

Let's be honest, I did crack another beer...

And here I am, composing another post. Now, if only I remmebered how to sepll.

Whatever, I'm an awesome drunk-speller. I did just get 60 points on words 2ith friends for "moot". Yeah, that's right. I am awesome.

Now if only I didnj't keep having to get up to pee...

Seriously, though, as hilarious as I am, drinking and posting is a real issue with people all over the internet. And our biggest tool (haha, "tool") to combat this very real danger? Awareness.

So, if you know someone who is drinking and blogging, please. Make them aware, that you are aware.

That is all.

You Can't Prove That

*Pretends it hasn't been forever since she last posted*

So, Deirdre and I were walking home from work today, and this GINORMOUS bee suddenly dropped down between us and hovered for a moment, keeping pace with us.

If I didn't know better, I could have sworn I heard the bee say, "Hellooo ladies!" in his most pimp-daddiest of bee voices. He then stretched his wings around both of our shoulders and said, "What's a-BUZZin?"

OK, that's not true. The wings around our shoulders part, not the other stuff. That other stuff totally happened.

It's possible that I have had two beers, and am a light weight, and therefore am mildly-buzzed-(see what I did there?)-posting. Which is probably better than drunk-posting, which could lead to many tears and regrets later. It's possible. But you can't prove anything.

Uh oh, Cold as Ice by Foreigner just came on...time for a dance break.

That was awesome. I have some sweet moves. And you can't prove that I don't, because you did not just see what went down on that dance floor AKA my rug.

This concludes your evening of Drinking With Julia.

Please tip your waitresses. Or waiters. Tip somebody.

Less Thinking, More Slow-Motion Sword Fighting

Don't you hate it when you are watching some show which you think is just mindless entertainment, requiring no thought beyond, "Dude, cut your hair, it's driving me mad" when suddenly...whaBAM! it ends an episode on a completely ambiguous note and you are suddenly forced to THINK about it and decide for yourself what it all meant?

That totally just happened to me. And this is from a show the whole first season of which was so clearly marked in black in white, good versus evil, that they actually had the bad guy KILL A KITTEN! That's right, folks, no gray area here. And suddenly, they want me to THINK? The end of the episode was literally a conversation amongst the main characters half of whom believed the chippy they just met was the Creator, and the other half certain that she was a fraud.

No. I don't want to decide for myself. I want answers!

I kinda think she was the Creator. But if she was, she would have known...but then again she did know about that other stuff...but, come on, the real Creator would never...

I don't know.

Ugh. This show is too much stress on my heart. Every week it's "hey! we have this great plan, let's watch it all go to pieces as one or more of us almost get killed and/or horribly tortured and/or turned evil."

There was a lot more fun in the first season, back when all we had to worry about was Darken "Kitten Killer" Rahl.

Just had to get that out. Thanks. I'm done now, you may return to your lives.

Hold On To Your Hats, This Story Just Got A Lot Longer

Other titles for this post I considered:
Stop The Keyboard, I Want To Get Off
Hey You! You're Not Supposed To Exist!
and
How A Guy Named Ashleigh Ruined My Life

So, I think I've talked about how characters can surprise you when you're writing a story, right? Sometimes you're writing along when you suddenly realize that this character wouldn't say that, or would react like this instead of that. It's a result of getting to know your characters and making them real enough to allow them to speak to you.

But what happens when a character you didn't even know existed suddenly pops up in your story? That's exactly what happened to me.

I've been working on another short story called The Story of My Death. Yeah, I know, really cheery, but I promise it's much more upbeat than it sounds.

And there I was writing along, all la-di-dah (that was an impression of me writing awesomely) when whBAM!!! CHARACTER ATTACK!!!!

I kept writing, my fingers not yet having caught up with my mind, and before I knew it, Grayson had a brother. Grayson, by the way, is one of the main characters of The Story of My Death (hereafter known as SoMD, because I'm lazy, and/or can't be bothered).

I finally stopped writing only because I didn't have a name for this brother character. He caught me off guard, I wasn't prepared.

A short conversation with my sister later, in which we discussed old-fashioned boy names which parents who named their son Grayson might like, and we came up with Ashleigh. Ash for short, of course. And the second my sister said it I exclaimed, "YES! Ashleigh is perfect! That is sooo him." And then I vomited. (Not literally.) Because now he has a name, which means he's staying. And the fact that I knew it was his name the moment I heard it means I can't just press the delete button and forget he ever happened.

I still tried, though. I tried to continue writing as though he didn't exist. I told myself he added nothing to the story, he was just a distraction, the focus ought to be on Anika and Grayson...

But Ashleigh? Ashleigh fights dirty. Do you know what he did? He JUSTIFIED HIS EXISTENCE. DAMN HIM. Not only that, but he added a whole new dimension to the story, and now there is no way this will ever be a short story. At best it will be a novella. At worst, it will be just another full-blown novel that I never finish. I thought I already fixed that problem. See, originally, this idea was a full-blown novel, but I rethought it into short story form. CURSE MY BRAIN AND IT'S LOVE OF LONG, COMPLICATED PLOTS!

I'd scrap the whole thing, but I really love some of the writing I've done on it. Which is also why I'm going to share today. Just a snippet.

Before I do, let me just mention that other "life" stuff has happened, about which I was going to write, but every time I sat down to write about it, I just sat there feeling blocked. So I'm not going to write about it. I really want a break from, you know, thinking. Hence this very silly, ranty post.

Okay, here is the promised blurb:

"What is your dream?" Grayson asked.

I sighed deeply. "To live forever."

He cocked his head at me like a bird. "Why?" he asked. He didn't call me silly, or laugh it off as a joke. He simply asked 'why'.

"Because that's how long it takes to learn the secrets of the universe."

"What about the secrets which death holds? You can't learn them by living forever."

"And who says death holds secrets," I retorted. "Perhaps all it holds is death."

He grimaced; a spasm of fear. "Yeah," he said quietly, and then we were silent again. I was too lost in my own thoughts to spare much for him. I had made myself depressed again thinking of my imminent demise. The more I spoke to him, the more certain I was of my choice, and with that certainty came the realization that, yes, I am going to die, and it will be entirely of my own doing.

I resented him suddenly; resented the years he had before him, stretched out like a great winding road which disappeared over the horizon into the unknown. What would he witness in his lifetime? An end to war and hunger? An utopian society dedicated to self-improvement? Or a dystopia, hell-bent on consuming itself with its own greed until nothing is left but dust and char. Or perhaps a new world altogether? He might join a group of colonists bound for a distant planet, pioneers of the kind that had once conquered the New World. Would that conquest be as bloody as the previous ones?

"I'm not sure I'd like to live forever," he said suddenly, cutting into my thoughts. "It seems...lonely."

"Yes," I replied absently, "it is."

Pets Don't Have Funerals

I wrote this a few days ago, but held off on posting it. For one thing, it's not my most eloquent piece of writing, and I kept meaning to go back and edit it. But I kept putting it off, and finally realized that I didn't want to edit it. This was an exercise in pouring out my thoughts and feelings, and editing it would defeat the purpose.

Also, I worried that this would in some way make my mother feel...I don't know, guilty maybe? Well, Mom, you shouldn't. I understand that this is something that needs to be right for all of us, and you are the one who has been taking care of Kim while she's been ill, and none of us wants to do this if it's not time.

Maybe I'm being overly sensitive, I just don't want you to take it the wrong way.

I'm over-hyping it, so I'll just post it already, and stop rambling.

Pets don’t have funerals.

My cat, Kim, is dying.

I knew it would happen someday and even fancied myself ‘prepared’ when she began to go downhill, but I don’t think you’re ever prepared for death. I was beside myself when my mother told me she had made the appointment to put Kim to sleep. Kim, for all that she is a cat, is my oldest friend. I have known her for 19 years (most of my life!), and we’ve been through a lot together (High School, College, and a hurricane, to name a few).

Put that way, I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised by my reaction to the news that she was going to die, but I was. And the thing that distressed me the most? The fact that I couldn’t be there when it happened. I already bear the burden of guilt that I haven’t been able to take care of her for the last few years, and now I couldn’t even be there to say my last goodbyes?

So everything was postponed, the amount of fluids she was getting increased, allowing her to temporarily bounce back, and we are now in a state of limbo, waiting for her to take another turn for the worse.

And while I’ve been waiting, I have tried to explain to myself and to others why, exactly, it is so important to me to be there.

My conclusion? Pets don’t have funerals.

Why do people have funerals? They’re not for the dead, who are already gone from the world, and therefore no longer care about some ritualized goodbye ceremony. True, many funerals have a religious component with the idea that a final blessing might send the spirit on to its final destination. But if that is a funeral’s true purpose there would be no need for mourners, just the dead and a religious authority of some sort. So the truth must be that a funeral is not for the one who has died, but for those he or she left behind.

It is a chance for us to grieve, to let go, to remember how that person enriched our life and attempt to make sense of our new existence without them.

When my grandma, June Parker, was in a car accident, I went to PA to visit her in the hospital. I remember my mother saying that I probably wouldn’t be able to come for the funeral, so this way I could still see her and say my goodbyes. But when she died, I couldn’t not go to the funeral. I wasn’t OK with the goodbye I’d said, because part of me still had hope that she might wake up, that she might recover, no matter how slim that chance was, part of me hadn’t really let her go. I didn’t want to miss the funeral, the chance to mourn with other people who had known and loved her, the chance to hear people talk about her, stories from her life, things I’d never even known. I went to the funeral, and I let her go, and when I did, I freed myself. I became free to miss her and love her and keep her in my heart, with me always. If I hadn’t, I think I would still feel like I had unfinished business with her, that I’d failed her in some way by not loving her enough to mourn her properly.

But pets don’t have funerals.

The only real chance I’ll have to experience that kind of letting go is if I’m there when it happens. And that will be hard. But death is always hard.

Many people would be dismissive of my feelings for Kim. After all, she’s just a cat. Right? All I can say to those people is: You have never truly known the love of an animal. Just because they can’t talk, doesn’t make their emotional impact on your life any less. And Kim is an exceptional cat. When we lived in CO, and she was an outdoor cat, she used to follow us whenever we went on walks. We would decide to take a walk around the block, and halfway down the street we would turn around to find her following us. Once, we tried to down to our grandmother’s house. We got all the way out to the street behind our house and she was still following us, so we had to turn around for fear she would get lost or hit by a car. I think she must have abandonment issues, she wanted to be certain we could make it back home, because goodness knows us humans aren’t nearly as clever as cats, and we might get lost or hit by a car.

Anyway, that’s why I want to be there when it happens. To scratch her ears and tell her I love her, and that she’s been an important part of my life.

Because pets don’t have funerals.