Sorry Everybody
chase and i make a statement.

i was reading a canadian's blog and it reminded me of this page which can do a little to bring understanding far and wide.


painted this in taos NM in july 2003
Posted by Hello
- posted by barbara @ 12/31/2004 07:55:00 AM  0 comments

 
Surfing - BlogExplosion.com
fridays feast updated a little" i thought okay what the hell, i'll do it. it's a meme...

Friday, December 31, 2004
Feast Twenty-Nine

*I usually don't "theme" the questions here, but decided to do it this week in honor of 2004. Happy New Year 2005 to all of you! Come back next week to see the fancy new look!*

Appetizer
Using only 5 words, describe how 2004 went for you.

tired, lazy, harried, recovering, broke

Soup
Name something you did in 2004 that you'll probably never do again.

blowing off christmas.

Salad
What did you learn about yourself in 2004?

that i am strong yet never unaffected

Main Course
What notable news event from 2004 will stand out most in your memory?

the asian tsunami disaster.

Dessert
Name something you purchased in 2004 that you really, really like.

how about love? i LOVE my chihuaha

- posted by barbara @ 12/31/2004 06:33:00 AM  0 comments

 
Reality Bitchslap Radio: Grey Boston....Grey C.C.
check out reality bitch slap radio...CC should be on real radio, and he's the reason i've been doing the audio blog. enjoy
- posted by barbara @ 12/31/2004 01:59:00 AM  0 comments

 

- posted by barbara @ 12/30/2004 08:58:00 PM  0 comments

 

bekah
Posted by Hello
- posted by barbara @ 12/29/2004 06:39:00 AM  0 comments

 
Blogthings - What Kind of Intelligence Do You Have?

Your Dominant Intelligence is Linguistic Intelligence

You are excellent with words and language. You explain yourself well. An elegant speaker, you can converse well with anyone on the fly. You are also good at remembering information and convicing someone of your point of view. A master of creative phrasing and unique words, you enjoy expanding your vocabulary. You would make a fantastic poet, journalist, writer, teacher, lawyer, politician, or translator.

- posted by barbara @ 12/29/2004 06:37:00 AM  0 comments

 
Yahoo! News - Miracle girl survives tsunami on a door
a miracle of one girl. is this the most devastating natural disaster in the planet's known history? i wonder...
- posted by barbara @ 12/29/2004 02:57:00 AM  0 comments

 

- posted by barbara @ 12/28/2004 02:21:00 PM  0 comments

 
Yahoo! News
news about the massive earthquake and tsunami floods that have killed thousands of people in asia. we were living in a casino, playing video games, gambling, eating out, not paying attention to the news at all. on the way home yesterday we stuck to music on the radio. little by little i began to hear the story. i needed to see the videos.

the scenes are eerily familiar. i dreamt such a scenario in redondo beach, CA, 20 or 30 years ago. the water flowing through the streets and over the sidewalks is an image i dreamt and still remember. in my nightmare i was at the intersection of beryl and catalina, and it was clear that this was a major natural disaster. the flow of the water over roads and sidewalks blocks away from the beach is what i recall most vividly from a dream that i had so long ago. the images and videos i've seen today evoke a sense of deja vu.
- posted by barbara @ 12/27/2004 09:24:00 PM  0 comments

 

- posted by barbara @ 12/27/2004 04:42:00 AM  0 comments

 

- posted by barbara @ 12/25/2004 09:58:00 AM  0 comments

 
what santa brought to our room at circus circus in vegas...


almost 9 am and i've been waiting for the boys [in the adjoining room] to wake up for some time now. guess i really did have them convinced there would be "NO" christmas...i'm the one who can't quite go all that far.

see their stockings? hand knit, personalized christmas stockings is a tradition started by my mother in 1947 with the birth of my oldest brother. each person married into or born to a member of our family has one, complete with name and date of birth. See how Bekah's is hung off the TV cabinet? the first year without her as christmas approached it was her stocking that rocked me to my toes. i dreaded opening up the cedar chest to fetch their stockings because there was no longer a purpose for bekahs, or a daughter to sit on the floor unloading her stocking for hours.

so i turned it into a mailbox. that first year my yahoo group "bekah" was quite active yet and i posted a request for friends and family to write their feelings for her stocking. since then, when i find a note at her grave i tuck it into her stocking, and i've continued to write to her each christmas - different from other days, a letter to bekah for the express purpose of putting it into her christmas stocking.

i wonder if this is portrayed as pathetic or sad...for me, it is a grief recovery aid. what was i going to do, burn or discard bekah's christmas stocking? here's this tangible reminder of the daughter whose absence is a dark hole within my consciousness in the space she owns forever. i hang her stocking there, and hope it pleases bekah as much as it does her mother.

anyhow, hopefully soon i will have other pictures to share: rory's face when he gets his surprise...andy's eyes when he sees what santa brought...yee ah ah aha. how can they keep on sleeping so long?


- posted by barbara @ 12/25/2004 08:51:00 AM  0 comments

 
Underground Stream
Ili shares her observations and experience re: christmas. and i was going to make another audio blog entry to read the following poem which she reminded me of:

The tears were a relief
A strong breath of air
That came in gasping,
Ran out a scream,
And burst wide open,
Wet and salty
On the cheeks
Of Alive.

but andy called! which means blog buds and droppers in, we are out of here for the next three days. yay

have good ones everybody. peace. love. be careful driving. amen
- posted by barbara @ 12/23/2004 07:41:00 PM  0 comments

 

- posted by barbara @ 12/23/2004 07:52:00 AM  0 comments

 

vibrant geometric
Posted by Hello
- posted by barbara @ 12/23/2004 06:39:00 AM  0 comments

 

just after the blackout this morning
Posted by Hello
- posted by barbara @ 12/23/2004 06:25:00 AM  0 comments

 

1 red rose
Posted by Hello
- posted by barbara @ 12/23/2004 06:07:00 AM  0 comments

 
RIP "_______"
now this is a cool site. say good-bye...to the famous and dead.
- posted by barbara @ 12/22/2004 03:17:00 AM  0 comments

 
pissed, for the moment
who chews out the boss when he fucks up
- posted by barbara @ 12/21/2004 10:10:00 AM  0 comments

 
it's for real
i know because CC got his IPOD. SO, this is my link for y'all to pick up some kinda great bargain while concurrently helping me toward an ipod of my own...i've chosen the baby blue one. i'll share.

Hey-

Check out this great site that is giving away totally FREE iPods!

I've joined and I think you should as well.

It's a completely legitimate offer, and this company has already given away $4 million in FREE stuff!

All you have to do is join, complete an online offer, and refer friends to do the same. That's it!

Here is my referral link. To help me get my iPod, click this exact link to join, or copy and paste it into a browser:
http://www.freeiPods.com/?r=8218803
- posted by barbara @ 12/21/2004 03:03:00 AM  0 comments

 
dear bekah -written on my lunch today...

dear bekah, 07-25-01
Posted by Hello

12/20/04
Dear Bekah - I'm leaning over the hood of the car with the sun heating my backside like a furnace. I am at work and feeling remarkably cheerful. i think because: In three days! WE BE GONE oh yeah....

We'll get to your grave in daylight today or tomorrow the latest babe. i want TIME there, to stroll, read headstones, admire the decorations, visit Jimmy [suicide - 39] Reggie [murder - 19] Betty [72 - natural causes] Johnny [17 - suicide] Ollie & Leroy [one of bekeha's boy's grandparents, who raised him] the ducks and the turtles. Etcetera.

I read instead of painting becasue i found that i could print my blog after all and for whatever reason i found it refreshing, restful, comforting, a source of peace as it were.

Always the world turns and so much history and drama, high celebrations rank tragedies. I am where I am supposed to be, moving forward however slowly or haltingly it might seem to the blessed uninitiated.

And i won - flirted - bought two tickets to a concert in February!

I love you Bekah. I miss you so, so much...give us hints and share our travels, won't you precious girl?

amen
Eternal love
hugs and kisses

Mom


the cemetery during the holidays
Posted by Hello
- posted by barbara @ 12/20/2004 05:57:00 PM  0 comments

 
Finding Comfort Amid Grief
Finding Comfort Amid Grief

since bekah died Loved Ones has been my saviour in so many ways, yesterday again they brought christmas to us - a very good thing, especially for the children. and they got some publicity too...if you click you may have to register to read the article; but it's the LA times, usually worth a look.
- posted by barbara @ 12/19/2004 12:17:00 PM  0 comments

 
DatingGod: I :( Xmas
katherine sure loosed a floodgate with her explication of why she hates "xmas." she starts her post off by apologizing in advance: i'll just preface my remarks with two well known words: bah humbug.

bah fucking humbug.

once upon a time dec 25 was my favorite day. actually for years on end, it was my favorite day. "the best single day of the year" - kinda reminds me of how i always believed that i lived in "the best country in the world...." but i digress. then i was the little old lady who lived in a shoe [had so many kids she didn't know what to do - and poor, which everybody knows it blows to be poor on christmas] - there were a couple "non" christmases, tight and gulty christmases. i re-established the keeping of a home and again had the space and the means to celebrate with my family in the manner in which we had once been accustomed, or at least make a fairly good show of it.

then bekah died. truthfully my devotion to christmas was not so much about the presents, it was the people. not just the sparkling of the lights but the wonder in the children's eyes as they beheld them.

this year my son with the two little ones will do christmas with them on his own, as the other two sons and i are blowing christmas off. we'll be in vegas, vive las vegas! rory will ride fun rides and play carnival games with the siblings of another murder victim [their brother shot to death 2 years ago] while andy and i play poker for hours and hours. may even have a few drinks with my son who was 21 in october, and with my friend who has lost a child too.

the only christmas song i feel like hearing this year is the one by the Kinks: Father christmas, give us some money/We got no time for your silly toys...:)

i'm blowing off christmas and i assert my absolute unequivocal right to do so at least for this one year. the last three christmases have been grotesquely bereft occasions through which i struggled not to cry and faked happiness as if it would be blasphemy not to be happy on christmas. not this year - but what's this residual guilt i'm trying to ignore, why must this be an issue?

it's been ingrained in me and all of my family since infancy - christmas was never about religion, except [for me] maybe in 1966 when i was 11 and thought i wanted to be a nun. i married a jew and even turned jewish [to gain his parents' approval/acceptance., not the most valid possible reason for the choice]. i still had to have christmas. my children could not grow up without christmas! there was no stopping santa claus after all. we had to be together open presents eat steak and eggs. i had to go beyond broke and stay up fifteen hours past bedtime wrapping and stuffing stockings.

its ubiquitousness on the street in the ads on the radio makes it hard to forget what christmas used to mean to me, and what my children and i have for the past three christmases bravely pretended it did still [for the little ones if not for ourselves]. it was joy and love, lights and smiles. peace on earth good will toward men.

not that the commercialism hasn't disgusted me for ages, but i have not yet been able to resist kowtowing to the fantasy of perfection on christmas. anyhow. i can be and am in fact lonely quite often, but lonely on christmas somehow seems worse. hopefully for katherine her planned solitude will not bring on a painful melancholy.

anyhow, Katherine will be burrowing. i'll be escaping i suppose. but this year anyway i won't be faking joy or going broke. that is refreshing. :)

still, the chill in the air reminds me of all the best christmases. the MADD vigil [what christmas is now about is well illustrated there], rory's wistful fantasies, happy memories juxtaposed with - reality. grab me from behind and mug me with the grief that seems as fresh as when it was brand new, and yet so familiar we can finish each other's sentences.

i miss her SO FUCKING HARD that i must lament again and again although the protest has gotten somewhat old: someone who is supposed to be here is not and will not be again.

bekah should be here.

i'll close with another two words just as well known and, believe it or don't, just as sincere. if only every human alive on this planet could have it...if only the unjustly deceased, were still humans alive on this planet. if only if only if only...it is what it is. to y'all:

merry christmas. :)
- posted by barbara @ 12/14/2004 01:00:00 AM  0 comments

 
Pentagon debates deception abroad:
WASHINGTON -- The Pentagon is engaged in bitter, high-level debate over how far it can and should go in managing or manipulating information to influence opinion abroad, senior Defense Department civilians and military officers say.

Such missions, if approved, could take the deceptive techniques endorsed for use on the battlefield to confuse an adversary and adopt them for covert propaganda campaigns aimed at neutral and even allied nations.

i find this interesting...it had seemed to me that the bush administration is so powerful, too powerful...considering that gw and his buds have absolutely no compunction about lying to the american public, why would there be any debate on this issue? hmm...purely academic i suppose, an exercise put on to represent the government as giving a good goddam?

Administration officials say they are increasingly troubled that a nation that can so successfully market its cars and colas around the world, even to foreigners hostile to American policies, is failing to sell its democratic ideals, even as the insurgents they are battling are spreading falsehoods over mass media outlets like the Arab news channel Al-Jazeera.

the debate was reportedly engendered by a secret directive that remains sealed from our eyes:

The fervent debate today is focused most directly on a secret order signed by Rumsfeld late last year and called "Information Operations Roadmap." The 74-page directive, which remains classified but was described by officials who had read it, accelerated "a plan to advance the goal of information operations as a core military competency."
- posted by barbara @ 12/13/2004 07:26:00 PM  0 comments

 
Webshots - Images of Paintings
one of my albums on webshots - this is all paintings and just added a couple.
- posted by barbara @ 12/13/2004 12:15:00 AM  0 comments

 
Victims Vigil
memorials for victims - remember bekah and so so many others
- posted by barbara @ 12/12/2004 11:38:00 AM  0 comments

 
thanks to banky
here's the thing play yer mp3's and share a line of the lyric to some number of the songs that randomly play. offer a prize [glory] to any reader who can identify the songs.

i read his lyrics and did not know one of the songs. not one. i think that is scandalous, and i wonder if i make the same list will my choices in music be as esoteric to others as banky's apparently are to me?

1. you're not like those other guys, who lead you on and tell you lies

2. saba sibby saba, dooby abba dabba, lee lee low low

3. Is there a place for the hopeless sinner,
Who has hurt all mankind just to save his own beliefs?

4. i thought oh god my chance has come at last, but then a strange fear gripped me and i just couldn't ask

5. Seven years went under the bridge
Like time was standing still

6. So fuck ya'll all of ya'll
If ya'll don't like me blow me

7. Your fingers may freeze, worse things happen at sea,
there's good times to be had.

8. 'matic in dem way, chopper in dem hand
Some a dem have M16 'pon dem

9. Hey...ho...set sail with me
To a paradise out beyond the sea

10. You better watch your back before she turn into a killer
Best for you and the situation not to call the beaner

11. Shoe is on the hand that fits, that’s all there really is to it
Whistle through your teeth and spit

12. My father says that he will leave me cryin'
I would follow him right down the roughest road I know

13. And if I can’t bridge this distance
Stop this heartbreak overload

14. Oooo, bah bah badah
Oooo, bah bah badah

15. But I’ll die as I stand here today
Knowing that deep in my heart


that was fun. but i think mine are easy.

:)Funny & Interesting
- posted by barbara @ 12/12/2004 10:07:00 AM  0 comments

 

1 FLOWER
Posted by Hello

so i suppose that asking "who reads me?" was a declaration that i was up to learning the truth. two great guys read me, and admit it in public. johnnie walker, he's either spinning some real cool fiction or living the life that books are made of. and nico of negative subspace, who just writes feelings in a wonderfully personal yet anonymous way, and who was gone for awhile and i'm really glad he's back.

bekah
Posted by Hello

i had to claw nearly beg and virtually quit my job to get a pittance. is this the story of the rest of my life? i think not. it is saturday night i have driven all day in the totaled out volvo with metal showing in the front tires the hood held down by a coat hanger and somewhere around 330,000 original miles. and i bitched and bitched about the traffic [kee RyST it was bad, for a saturday], then glory explained it all with one word: "christmas."

ain't doing that shit this year. i have permission, and a date in vegas with my 21-year-old son, a rendezvous we've been planning for maybe 10, maybe 13 years...he's all the gamer his mother is i believe, and all the scrooge for the holiday that has traditionally been the biggest most important blah blah. etcetera.

i remember fondly the year his older brother and sister tore through their presents without waiting for me to wake up...i'd been up until probably 5 am or so and swear to gawd they musta waited for the first snore to attack...i nearly cried, that year. i think it was my first as a newly single mother and i had - typically - gone overboard making sure there were many presents. plenty from santa plenty from mom...

i slept and woke up in the living room to find it trashed. those greedy kids, john and bekah, had not WAITED! the rule was you get the stocking as soon as you wake up but everything else unless of course it is not wrapped up, you wait until we are all up and together and one person plays santa and we wait and watch as others open their presents, ooh ahh and then only then on to the next...but they had not waited! i'd made up an elaborate goose chase to lead john to his surfboard...it was in the living room, the tinfoil scattered carelessly about. i think this was the year bekah got a big old barbie house and the entire heart family. and by the time i opened my eyes this was all old news to them.

how do i describe the looks of my two oldest children, at the time probably 11 and 7 years old respectively, their unstoppable greed, their undeniable glee, their obvious guilt? they pretended not to know the rules but they knew the rules.

man i almost cried and sure as shit did make sure they understood that my joy at christmas was partaking of their joy, which i could not do while sleeping. a couple of hours later, my little boy andy, all of four years old at the time [the one kid who never did find it difficult to sleep at christmas], opened up his bedroom door, saw the scooter standing in front of the tree, and sprinted toward it saying, "He CAME!" and so he did. redeemed christmas that is, andy did, that infamous year.

nowadays it's all infected with the loss the missing her the emptiness where she's supposed to be. this year - maybe from here on out, maybe only this one year - i'm blowing it off.

i have permission. amen

"She was one of those rarely gifted beings who cannot look, or speak or even stir, without waking up (and satisfying) some vague longing that lies dormant in the hearts of most of us."
Posted by Hello
- posted by barbara @ 12/11/2004 10:18:00 PM  0 comments

 
JuxtaFeelin - Who Reads Me?
Who Reads Me? 12/6/2004
Find out who reads you! If you read me on a regular/semi regular basis leave me a note and let me know. Then post this in your diary and find out who reads you. You'll be surprised how many different people read you, and never know who you might become friends with.
- posted by barbara @ 12/06/2004 04:48:00 PM  0 comments

 
The Daily Star
American behavior and self-perceptions reveal the ease with which a civilized country can engage in large-scale killing of civilians without public discussion. In late October, the British medical journal Lancet published a study of civilian deaths in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion began. The sample survey documented an extra 100,000 Iraqi civilian deaths compared to the death rate in the preceding year, when Saddam Hussein was still in power - and this estimate did not even count excess deaths in Fallujah, which was deemed too dangerous to include.

the writer goes on to note

Violence is only one reason for the increase in civilian deaths in Iraq. Children in urban war zones die in vast numbers from diarrhea, respiratory infections and other causes, owing to unsafe drinking water, lack of refrigerated foods, and acute shortages of blood and basic medicines in clinics and hospitals (that is, if civilians even dare to leave their houses for medical care). The Red Crescent and other relief agencies were unable to relieve Fallujah's civilian population.
- posted by barbara @ 12/05/2004 02:16:00 PM  0 comments

 

doors
Posted by Hello
- posted by barbara @ 12/04/2004 08:59:00 PM  0 comments

 
spam poison

found it Surfing - BlogExplosion.com so i decided to get the graphic link...i've not been cursed with spam on my blog yet and aargh i'm afraid to say it. it might be a curse. i hope not, i am properly thankful and so - ok.


- posted by barbara @ 12/04/2004 06:46:00 PM  0 comments

 
Prose Poem Occasionally Rhyming, or Massive Trauma to the Head
"A simple child,
That lightly draws its breath,
And feels its life in every limb,
What should it know of death?"
- Spencer, "We are Seven" Stanza 1


Prose Poem Occasionally Rhyming
or
Massive Trauma to the Head


That Bekah is killed I would rather not learn.

Her father had a head start on his grief. He got to: Hear the policeman knocking on his door. See the policeman standing on his porch. Attach faces and bodies and uniforms of strangers to the genesis of his horror.
Mine is born in the beep-beep-beep that means there is a message, though the outgoing advises callers as to the number of my cell. Knocked offline I dial once, oblivious still to the fact that fate and an evil alcoholic are propelling me inexorably into hell.

It is his wife she has been crying she says we have sad news.

A hush settles over my heart which has spontaneously turned combustible crystal bone china as prone to breakage as a guileless child's.

Again I dial.

Her father. What is it! I am loud I know when I hear what he says I will need to wail...my 17-year-old son has just begun to drive...they live in the treacherous hills of Palos Verdes...my voice rises in rehearsal tell me

Bekah...is dead...her father's voice always tended to fade from the force of his emotion. He never did much care to put his feelings on display. Bekah...is dead

I emote appropriately and tearlessly. I say huh-uh that cannot be - I say why didn't you call me. He says I didn't want to hear what I am hearing. He says I knew what this news would do to you.
How? She was run over or that early on did he say she was hit by a car? Such a huge informative difference there but as of yet we were both unaware. Scarcely capable of belief or even knowing how to believe what cannot be.

I go through motions of motherly grief. Gather from him numbers demand that he bring Andy to me...Andy must be here bring him to me. From somewhere in the rubble the shattered refuse of my heart I know that Andy must be with me. He agrees.

In the silence where that call used to be, I try on my brand-new grief. Obviously this is way too big for me. Certainly it is much too pricey. My girl is not currency, she is the heart and the soul of me and you know, she is a lot of what is good about me.
I must have my family next to me. Telephone call number three: Bekah's big brother commences crying instantly and continues crying constantly. Later I learn he does not eat for the better part of a week.

What did her father say to me? I do not believe. Let me see...call the police. My ex-husband tells me my daughter is dead can you verify that information for me? A man says yes unfortunately Rebekah expired after being struck by a hit and run driver. Someone killed her with a car cold-bloodedly. He says officers are making an arrest as we speak. He is forced by his position to respond with insanity to my utterly logical pleas. When I tell him exactly what I think, he has no answer at all for me.

You have my deepest sympathy, he says to me.

I am not crying why at this time. I am not crying at all. I am a tax-paying citizen lodging a complaint. This makes absolutely no sense to me. Sorry to say your sympathy does not do crap for me. She is 21 years old she is perfectly healthy. She goes to school she holds a job she is planning all sorts of things. If she is dead that shoots her plans all straight to hell. I tell him well, that is really messed up. I give him many opportunities to change his story.

I am so sorry, he repeats.

If I wail very very loudly will I begin to believe? I wake up Rory practicing. I say yes she is dead. I tell my little boy what I do not believe. I call Lizzy, she knows already. A lot of people know before me. Please put Paul on the phone with me...nobody who knows her has seen my girl since before she was even supposedly deceased. Give me a reason to believe what I cannot believe...what I do believe I should not have to believe. It should not be this should not be
Paul cannot talk, not really. He is fully owned by abject grief. He is who she was going to see. He chokes and tells me tearfully, "Bekah was the love of my life." He was inside the building too far to hear a thing...needs a smoke on the street there's an exciting scene...choppers flying flashing lights flares lots of peeps. What's up with this he thinks, then sees: Bekah's car, parked across the street...? Suck in breath, her little blue bag on the ground? Panic rising even before he sees Bekah's Skechers in the street. She loves those shoes. What does it mean?
The firemen will know. He makes his way to the engine shielding bystanders from the sight of a large red pool. Paul's anxiety level gains him early access to the truth. She's been transported and pronounced they say eyes somber and shot with pity. He says, "So? Is she okay?" He says this so that later on we will have some comic relief.

Hours in the "living" room, her brothers her father and I. Wailing tearless will I ever cry? Mind watching Bekah die countless times shuddering why creeping in. Trying to fathom whether I can bear to bury her without one more hug. Her father says this is what happened. They came to the door.…
At the hospital they said we are sorry to inform you that your daughter died. He broke down and cried her father said
And the doctor went on to say you do not have to identify
She sustained a massive trauma to the head.
We have her ID you can be satisfied
It is definitely your daughter and we are certain that she is dead.

Then I start getting to know coming to learn
About the crystallization and the facets and reality
Of what was once useless worry and formless dread
They are saying here's your horror own this nightmare
As I stare sleepless at an untouched bed
Massive trauma to the head.

Are her eyes intact? I wonder but cannot ask, if her eyes were shredded I cannot face that fact, though I say I must know everything. It only means I will strain their vocabulary and their tact, will test detectives and attorneys on telephone calls with questions not much less gory than the facts.
The detective stalls. Searches words. doesn't matter, not really.

None of us ever heard worse.

In a few days a few details dropped casually and then I'm crazy saying let me know first. Don't make me look. She should look. I notice inside all this noise it is quieter than it has ever been for all of the past 21 years. Wait for the tears in a state distinguished from dead by not much more than a single beat or breath ... wiped out in an instant

Massive trauma to the head
I learn that Bekah is dead.

- posted by barbara @ 12/04/2004 10:53:00 AM  0 comments