Going home is good. Got two meals I didn’t have to cook (ok, I had to put a burger on the grill, but that’s hardly ‘cooking’), two loads of laundry done, a few groceries courtesy of mom (riiiiiiiiiiice!), snuggle time with kitties, and time to just hang out.  Jeremy and the kids were there for a while, too.  I quite enjoyed myself.

Played in my garden for a while before dinner.  Two of three lavender plants are doing good… the other one looks kind of puny.  St John’s Wort is up and at ‘em… feverfew, spearmint, and peppermint are good… oregano is making a slow comeback… and I can already see the tiny little starts of columbine leaves.  Trimmed off all of last year’s dead shoots, cleared the redbud leaves (the nice thing about putting your garden under trees… it insulates it for the winter for you), loosened the soil and sprinkled it with fertilizer (read: chicken pooooo).  I’m not replacing anything that doesn’t recover… except maybe the sage. I’m not sure what’s going to happen with that, since I had to take it to the ground last year.  I might just pot a little bush out on the patio here, and bring over my smallest lavender bush.  Just depends.  I still haven’t gotten a handle on how much sun this place gets… but my little window herb planter dealie is already sprouting, so it must get some.

Tomorrow; read anthro book, study anthro exam, write cover letter.  IT NEVER ENDSSSS.

Packed up, checked in, boarding passes printed, and ready to roll. I’m absolutely amazed at the awesome power of Space Bags. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Space Bags are the best thing to ever happen to Planet Earth. FO SHEEZY. With all my shit all nice and compressed, I had ample space to get lappy packed for travel, too. So I’ll be able to check in on the online-world a wee bit more often than if I had to steal Kev’s compy.

I’m also clean, groomed, and smelling of oranges. I fucking rock.

Since I’m not gonna be home for x-mess, Mom decided tonight was Christmas Eve. I opened my pressies, and had them open theirs. Being skint as I am this year, I couldn’t afford much better than your run-of-the-mill gift-set, but they were chuffed: a box of Walkers Shortbread cookies, Earl Grey and English Breakfast tea, and a pair of mugs. Aye… some things I’ve carried back from over The Pond will never fade… we loves us some fukkin’ Walkers.

It’s just too bad I couldn’t get anyone else to like Marmite. SIGH. Ahhh I remember last Christmas, I got a leetle pot of Marmite, and had my brother try it… and he strained his neck, he was gagging so hard. Hahahah.

[pottymouth]
OH HELL I COULD TOTALLY BRING MARMITE. YES. I AM PACKING SOME MARMITE RIGHT FUCKING NOW. I WILL TORTURE THE FUCK OUT OF KEV WITH SOME MOTHERFUCKING MARMITE, YEAH!!
[/pottymouth]

As for my motherlode, I have a nice warm set of flannel sheets (RAWK!), a half dozen little ceramic jars for my herbs and botanicals, and a pair of latte mugs I fell in lurve with, each emblazoned with “Naughty” and “Nice” on either side. All I have to do is swich hands, and BAM! People will know what I’m all about that day. HA! Ah love eet!

I can’t lie… I’m gonna miss being with the fam this Christmas. Thanksgiving wasn’t a big deal, because we really don’t do Thanksgiving much. Christmas, though… yeah, that’s different. I love the family, the baking, setting up the Christmas Night party spread, cranking tunes. I love the Wensleydale, the Appleton, my spinach cheese balls and whatever heavily herbed cheeses look good that year. But who knows when the next time will be when Kev and I can spend Christmas with his crew? I am kind of stealing him away from everything down there… so it’s only right that I pop down this time around. We’ll have a few years-worth of of cheese-fest, at least.

Hmm.

Welp. I guess there’s only one thing left to say:

Kev: “I’m so gay. There’s something about you that makes you a dude.” [slight pause] “What a horrible thing to say!”
Me: “No, no… well if it helps, everyone online thinks I’m a dude until I’m like, ‘No, no, I have tits, seriously.’”
Kev: “…well bring ‘em here!”
Me: [chuckles]

Wait, no, that wasn’t it. I mean:

Happy Holidays, everyone

Fair, productive day so far.  I have my paper for tomorrow almost finished… just need to wrap up the ending and clean up the edges to make sure it doesn’t sound like a retarded seventh-grader wrote it (which is about how I feel right now, and not for lack of self-esteem… just out of sheer exhaustion).  Then to just get caught up on my German.  Half ugh, half yay.  I still rather enjoy it, but for the life of me, I can’t remember any of the fucking verbs.  I think, should I ever attempt a trip to  Germany or Austria, I’ll just resign myself to being the idiot that says weird shit like “me plate” and “you car?”

At least I can sound like a proper caveman.  Can you imagine if I said “I plate”?  Pah!

Anyway, I failed to mention last night that Dad is back home, because I was freakin’ tired.  I twittered it, though, so you can’t say you weren’t informed… you can only say “I didn’t look hard enough for the information.”  So take that.  But yes, Dad is home, and sore, but I’m happy to have him back to Diddly-Dadding around.

Now I guess I should actually start working on that homework I was talking about.  But not before “wow”ing over how amazing it is to feel so loved by such a wonderful manboy.  Sometimes I get so happy I could barf.  And I hope it’s not like, barf barf.  I would think love-barf should be made of glitter and roses.  But I don’t think glitter is something a body synthesises.  Maybe roses, if you’re a vessel for the Holy Virgin, but glitter?  Nah.  I digress!  No one has brought me such happiness, fulfillment, and contentment before.  It’d almost be like ‘peace’ were it not for us both being kind of childishly chaotic.  I think it’s as close to ‘peace’ as either of us will ever get.  And it’s pretty damned nice.

Yesterday afternoon and evening were a bit better.  Dad was very much dad-like again, which is always a comfort.  And according to Mom, who wrote me a nice note before crashing out to catch some sleep, his night went much better as well. He slept more easily, and for longer stretches of time, and his respiration stayed in a good level.  She’s confident enough to try and work tonight… good deal, considering yesterday morning she was thinking of taking a leave of absence to keep a closer eye on him.  He should be able to come home Monday as planned.

Wish I could say the same for my night.  I came home, sat in the car for a while, left again, came back, had a beer, and then had a mild panic attack.  Which wouldn’t have been such a bad thing had I not been on the phone at the time.  I needed the release, without worrying about reigning it in for the benefit of party-two.  He wanted to stay on the phone with me.  I got nagged about hanging up, he wanted to stay that much.  I guess that should be a comfort, but… I don’t know.  There’s a very, very delicate balance between “leave me the fuck alone” and “please don’t go”.  A sort of, please be there, allow me the comfort of knowing you’re there, but don’t be so present that I should worry about what you’re thinking when I need to worry about calming myself down.  I guess it’ll take some practice.

After that episode, and after I had fully recovered (took about an hour?), the night went alright.  Still feeling a bit overwhelmed by this whole mess of life, but the worst of it has been expelled.  Like having a zit on yer ass, I reckon.  The pressure is off but it’s still going to hurt for a bit.

In other news, thanks to Kev’s inquisitiveness, I found out that Peter Heppner has indeed released his solo effort, imaginatively titled “Solo”.  International release dates are, unfortunately, still being negotiated.  But with the glory of the Inter-tube, who needs international release dates?  Soulseek to the rescue!  It’s not as great as Wolfsheim — only a few songs pack a somewhat similar sort of punch — but it’s still pretty good.  ‘Alleinesein’ was probably his best choice for a debut single, and definitely my favourite.  ‘No Matter What It Takes’ is also pretty striking.  The rest?  Well, it’s going to take some time to bond with.

To those who commented on LJ, thanks for your words.  Your thoughts and prayers mean a lot   Now, if you have a weak stomach, you probably ought to think on not reading this.

Dad went into surgery this afternoon as I was out gathering overnight-supplies and running other general errands.  Rushed to finish everything up as quickly as possible so I could meet back up with Mom.  So we sat.  And sat.  And munched the little bit of protein I brought up.  And sat.  TV. Sat.  Wait.  The surgery lasted nearly four hours, which is pretty freaking insane for a laproscopic procedure.  But well, the doc did say it was quite possibly the worst gallbladder he had ever seen.  Full of rocks, pus, infection, nasty, and all sorts of fun… which burst as they were pulling it through one of the incisions.  So they spent a good hour, hour and a half, flushing out the infected-explosion.

But he came out and went back to his regular room on second floor.  He’s looking good, in a lot of ways.  All should be clear, but there is still the chance that they didn’t get everything all flushed, so they’re probably going to keep him til Sunday so they can closely monitor him and drop the big-shit antibiotics.

And nowww… I think I’m going to get some solid food, a nice stiff drink to settle my nerves, and start looking forward to a good night’s sleep.

Dad went in for his scan today… got all prepped up and, well, didn’t get the scan cos of turning green-to-white with every shade in between, and nearly hitting the floor.  He was taken over to the ER, where he had a CT scan, which showed that yep, it is his gallbladder, and it’s chock full o’ rocks.  Then there’s the persistent fever he’s had since last night on top of that, meaning infection.  I overheard his Doc saying his abdomen was “red hot”, IE, on the precipice of getting critical.  On the one hand, I’m not worried much, because I’ve been-there and done-that already, narrowly missing the complication of pancreatitis.  On the other hand, Mom is worried.  And that worries me.

I wake up this morning (Wednesday) at about 7:30, suddenly bolting out of bed in an “oh, SHIT!” style, rushing around to find skivvies and trousers and shirt when I realize… wait. My alarm didn’t go off. Maybe I should check the damn phone before I get in a panic. Yeah, I didn’t have to be awake until 8:30. So I stand there for a minute, debating whether or not to just stay up, wake up, and study up for my exam at noon. I come to the conclusion of “fuck it” and fall back in bed, where I have a dream that it’s the end of the world, so Addy, Terro and I are all hanging out being very angel-ho! and trying to organize some salvation. Meanwhile, Adam, a dude from my German class, is an archangel in the dream… who is hiding in a fridge because he doesn’t like this whole “end of the world” business.  At any rate, the world decides to stop ending, so we’re all, “hooray”, as Adam crawls out of the fridge. And then my alarm goes off, and my day actually begins.

It begins with me finding my brother downstairs, who tells me that Dad is in the hospital. That would’ve been nice to know, oh, I don’t know, when he was being taken to the hospital? Sorry, sorry… that just bugs me that I don’t know this shit until way after it’s happened. I immediately start conjuring ideas up about how I could maybe, probably, possibly use this to get out of having to take my exam at noon, but nah, not if it isn’t serious. And I know, I know, that makes me sound like a horrible selfish bitch, but hear me out. It’s rarely serious, cos of Dad is a whiner… you know the ones that think they’re dying if they get a case of the sniffles? Not in a hypochondriac style, but a big ol’ pitiful baby style. That’s Dad. Not that I’m bad-mouthing it or anything… he’s cute as a button when he’s sick. At any rate, turns out it may actually be something, in the area of the gallbladder. Which again, isn’t serious, but hurts like a motherfucker anyway. So I’ve made sure to be extra nice and not poke fun of the sickie. He was released, and is scheduled for a test tomorrow. If it’s NOT the gallbladder though… well. Hmm.

Went on into class, banged out my exam. Didn’t go so well. I swear to god, I did actually write “Chuck E. Cheese’s” as a movement which led to the development of social work as a profession. Also, some other “prominent” figure in social welfare was listed by me as being “so not in Wikipedia”. I only choked terribly on about a fifth of the exam, which, if I get every other question right, isn’t bad. But I never count on getting everything else right…

Came back home to watch over Dad while Mom ran errands, happy for the excuse to skip out on Micro. He slept. I reorganized my papers and notebooks. Made a pizza run, and settled in for the debate. And, when I first started writing all this, I had quite a bit to say about McCain’s Healthcare Plan of Epic Fail, plus a sidetrack into just what’s wrong with the American education system (adding more strength to the idea of being a school counselor… srsly), but… now I’m just not much in the mood for that sort of talk.

Sadly, what I really DO want to talk about isn’t something I feel like talking about in a public setting… and not really even in LJ, either (though those on LJ know a bit more detail already). Just private, thankful thoughts on just how strange life is, and how lucky I am, and how amazed I am that everything I ever hoped for, but shrugged off as unrealistic, was actually very real — very attainable. As I said tonight… were it any other time, under any other circumstance, with any other person, I would be shitting my pants right now. But for once, for the first time… I’m not scared of the uncertainties and difficulties that surely lie ahead. I’m actually entirely comfortable with this. Excited about this. Hell, I even feel like I need this. This is the path set out before me, and not taking that path would defy all reason.

Knowing myself as I do… I know that being able to say that is pretty fucking monumental.