watch the little daisies grow, little daisies grow

We're going to a bar tonight. In Gloucester.

So are the words that started last evening. I had been feeling down, as I have been prone to doing lately, and the Engineer was going to the city to have a sausage party with the Amazing Larry. My former plans had fallen through and I was looking at a night of solitude. Miss Stephanie and her husband, DJ Juttin, drug me this place in a not-very-great part of South Jersey.

It was called The Pirate's Den. I shit you not.

One of Juttin's co-workers is in a band (called Malicious Intent, even the name put my spider senses tingling) and they were playing. We were going to have some drinks, some smokes, some laughs.

Upon arrival (and the getting there, like the old cliche says, was half the fun), I noticed another band's kit sitting by the door. On the bass drum was the name of a death metal band that I knew all too well from my misspent high school career. I nudged Miss Stephanie and we giggled quite a bit, then the familiar faces started looming out of the crowd.

You remember Tara, don't you?

Oh jeez.

I holed up on the other side of the bar (under the 'Rave from the Grave' poster, complete with flying-V guitar playing zombie, hilarity ensued) with a Malibu and diet Coke, continually sharking the crowd for ex-boyfriends that I had no desire to run into and play a round of "Wow, how've you been?!"

I won't get into a blow-by-blow of the night, but I will say this: some things never change. Even after almost twenty years. It is truly astonishing how little some people change.

The rest of the night was spent being Loud, Party of Three at a diner and driving around with Ween blaring. I was seventeen again. Only this time, it was actually legal for me to be drinking.

I needed it.

oh, and also:

Thank you to the generous soul that gifted me with a year's paid time and another year's worth of extra user icons.

I don't know which one of you did it, but you rock.

(no subject)

Things are so goddamn weird.

Last week, we had thought my mother was two inches away from death's door. Her breathing was laboured, each breath was thought to be the last. Now, this evening when I went to visit her, she wasn't quite as bad.

Don't get me wrong, she wasn't doing jumping jacks and whistling Dixie, but she actually got up from the bed without assistance (though I hovered around her) and was a bit more responsive than usual. I did have to feed her though, which was another first experience for me that I truly believe I could have gone without. She's still in pain, she's still miserable.

I'm glad that she's not quite so much on her death bed, but at the same time, I can't handle this yo-yoing back and forth. I know she'll never make a full recovery, so why bother granting this false hope? I'm not being my usual, charming pessimistic self, mind you. I'm being honest. She will never be the same ever again and if any medical professional told me different, I'd probably launch my foot in their ass for being a goddamn dirty liar.

Last week, I made phone calls and discussed funeral arrangements.
This week, I don't know what to do.

I just don't know what to think.