Thank You

Thank you to everyone for your thoughts, prayers and overall support.  Some moments are easier than others, and some moments it still hurts so horribly bad.  If anything, I’m just grateful for all the fantastic individuals I have in my life.

Also, I’ve been fortunate in that my family has always been so loving and that both of my parents were/are incredible jokesters.  Despite all the intense pain and hardships, there was so much love and so much laughter growing up.  And as much as I laugh, I don’t regret one single moment of it.  I hope to always be able to laugh as much as I do.

Life is as simple as it is precious.  Life’s lessons are as simple as they are multimodal¹: Love and laugh as much as you can no matter what.  That’s about all there is to it.

¹I would like to thank Doug Neill for his infamous and fated use of the word “multimodality” in my PlattForm interview back in 2006. **

Wings

There’s only so much I can say right now…BUT first and foremost… THANK YOU to everyone for their support.  All of your thoughts and prayers are certainly guiding us through this horrific and trying time.  I honestly don’t know where/how I’d be without all of the absolutely wonderful people around me right now.  It’s unbelievable.  I am so so so so lucky and blessed.  Thank you.

The moment I heard this song–back in 2005–I thought of my mom.  I remember getting the biggest goosebumps and crying the first time I really paid attention to the lyrics.  Not only is this one of the bands I respected the most  (musically, at least), but the lyrics…God, I remember standing at the last KC Tool concert in 2005, watching those green lasers flash across Kemper, listening to the lyrics and getting the chills.  If you know either my mom and/or me well enough (and the backstory on the lyricist), you’ll know why this song hits me.

Regardless, it’s still beautifully written, haunting and touching.   I think I told her the backstory on the song and lyrics but she never heard it.  I’m positive she agreed that the song was wonderful at the time; I just hope she understood this part of me before she left or at least understands now.

You believed
You believed in movements none could see
You believed in me

A passionate spirit
Uncompromised
Boundless and open
A light in your eyes
Then immobilized

Broken, broken
Fell at the hands of those movements I wouldn’t see
Yet, it was you who prayed for me
So, what have I done to be a [son] to an angel
What have I done to be worthy

Daylight dims leaving cold fluorescents
Difficult to see you in this light
Please forgive this selfish question, but
What am I to say to all these ghouls tonight
She never told a lie
Well might’ve told a lie
But never lived one
Didn’t have a life
Didn’t have a life
But surely saved one
See? I’m alright, now it’s time for us to let you go…

Listen to the tales and romanticize
How we follow the path of the hero
Boast about the day when the rivers overrun
How we rise to the height of our halo

Listen to the tales as we all rationalize
Our way into the arms of the savior
Fading all the trials and the tribulations
None of us have actually been there
Not like you

Ignorant flippants in the congregation
Gather around spewing sympathy
Spare me
None of them can even hold a candle up to you
Blinded by choices hypocrites won’t seek

But enough about the collective Judas’
Who could deny you were the one who illuminated
My little piece of the divine

This little light of mine
The gift you passed onto me
i’ll let it shine
To guide you safely on your way
Your way home

What are they going to do when the lights go down
Without you guide them home to Zion
What are they going to do when the river is overrun
Other than tremble incessantly

High is the way but our eyes are upon the ground
You were the light and the way, that they will only read about
I only pray, heaven knows when to lift you out
Ten thousand days in the fire is long enough
You’re going home

You’re the only one who can hold your head up high
Shake your fist at the gates saying:

I have come home now
Fetch me the spirit
The son, and the father
Tell them their pillar of faith has ascended
It’s time now, my time now
Give me my, give me my, wings

Give me my
Give me my wings

You are the light and the way
That they will only read about

Set as I am in my ways and my arrogance
Burning all through tossed upon non-believers
You were my witness
My eyes, my evidence
Judith Marie, unconditional one

Daylight dims
Leaving cold fluorescence
Difficult to see you in this light
Please forgive this bold suggestion
Should you see your maker’s face tonight
Look them in the eye
Look them in the eye, and tell them
I never lived a lie, never took a life
But surely saved one, hallelujah
it’s time for you to bring me home

*Please listen to the song in the previous post if you wish.  Warning: It’s LONNNNG.  No, really.  Even for Tool, it’s LONNNNG.

Love you, Mama.

Peggy Jane

Through Rotten Rita and Ravishing Ruby…

I miss you so much, Mama.  I love you!

Wings for Marie (Pt. 2)

I’m in a South B*tch Mood

Do you ever find that you’re always in a certain mood on specific days of the week (over and over and over again, in my case)?  I’ve discovered a recent pattern in my mood[swings]:

• Sleepy Monday
• Blah/Unnecessarily Stressed Tuesday
• Don’t Give an Eff and I’ll Bite Your Head Off For No Apparent Reason Wednesday
• Space Cadet Thursday
• Apathetic But Happy Friday
• Perfectly Fine Saturday/Sunday

Also, I’m doing Phase 1 of the South Beach Diet up until the vacation.  IT SUCKS.  All I want is a freakin’ bagel with some tasty cream cheese followed by some yummy pizza followed by a gigantic dark chocolate chunk brownie.  Is that too much to ask?  Siiiigh.  I can’t even drink on this thing, which makes Unnecessarily Stressed Tuesday thru Apathetic but Happy Friday even more difficult.

I just have to make myself remember “BEACH”…but all I REALLY keep thinking is “[Son of a] b*tch!”

Maybe they should rename it the South B*tch Diet…because I’ve turned into a raging one.

Monday Randomization (4-20 Edition)

Awesome laughing baby #2 (I think I’ve only posted one other laughing bebe one here):

Random of the Day–Techno Chicken:

Tuesday Tittlizationizm

I want this!

It's like a giant cotton ball!

That’s right!  It’s suspended in the air and held up by magnetic force.  I can only imagine the kinds of injuries one (i.e. me) would get after moving the wrong way on it, disrupting the magnetic fields… oh well.  I think it rules.

Monday Randomizationalizm

Internet Randoms: Creepy Velvet Hole Baby

Anyone else freaked out by this?

They both look too friggin happy...

B**BS!

NOTE:  I’d never wear these, but I think it’s a cool idea.  I’m always impressed with that something “different”…

From Christian Dior's Spring 2009 Collection

If you're going for that "Topless Dancer in High Heels With a Topless Woman Holding Me Up" Look

Nikon Experimentation/Spring Snow

Okay, so these pictures are also a little outdated (i.e. last weekend), but oh well.  Here’s me playing with my camera and Paint.Net after a little Spring snow…

I enjoy the green buds on the trees contrasted with the snowflakes. Dang it, this pic screws up the layout of the blog. Oh wells.

So dark and brooding