the recap, the round up, the status report

Seems like a whirlwind, but at the same time, like a gentle smooth glide.

To sum up:

I am on spring break. I love it. There is nothing finer than being told you must stay away from school for a while. I even managed to skip my last class (intentionally) and tried to get drunk with fellow class mates. Key word here is tried, since I learned there's a world of difference between 19 year olds who don't know how to drink and 29 year olds who are well practiced at it and have a lot of alcoholics in the family. Yeah. Different amounts of alcohol are required, different types of drinking style are employed, and taste is occasionally optional. Fun though. And I learned more about yaoi in five hours than many of you will ever care to know. Probably more than I'll ever care to know. Anyone else want Japanese manga gay porn? Just let me know and I'll share. Neil was the nicest most patient boyfriend ever and even came to get me and help me get my car.

So, to celebrate the fabulousness of my vacation, I took the money George Bush probably should've been putting into our declining infrastructure (but instead gave me in something called a rebate) and bought myself a new computer. The first truly new computer I've ever owned. It may not be super spiff to all of the fabulously equipped computer people out there, but to me it's the coolest thing since sliced bread. I'm finally getting to enjoy the little pleasures of the modern modern age: no stuttering, a DVD player, being able to run a program and download something and listen to music all at the same time. My friends and my beloved have kindly set me up with every program known to man, and, along with a little help from UT's public licensing program, in 2 days I've transferred everything from my old baby to my new bright and shiny darling. She purrs, she sings, she makes me happy.

And then, not only that, but I gardened! My arms and back and shoulders and legs are all sore from digging in the dirt (and despite my best efforts, dirt remains under my fingernails and toes). It's little, it's young, but it's *our* garden. We even bought edging, so my herbs are separate from the grass. Strewn in the dirt along with the bigger plants are four entire packets of wildflower seeds, so hopefully in a couple of weeks we'll have little fledgling bluebonnets and other lovely Texas natives. I've got half a dozen plants left, and need some more soil. We've got big plans for stepping stones, bark to cover the parts that won't grow grass, and the leaves are finally beginning to show up on the trees. I can't wait for Maija & Ryan to visit now, because they'll hopefully get to see it all in it's first flush of growth.

Speaking of visitors, managed to grab a cup of coffee with a friend from LA in town for the weekend, and it's funny to see Austin through someone else's eyes now. Sure we've only been here a couple of months, but I see now that it was time. Whatever life we're making here, it was time to leave LA. I loved that city, and she and I were bitches together in the grand scheme of things, but Austin -- Austin's got this warm snuggly feeling, this relaxed and sunny heart, that doesn't really hold with all of that uptight shit. He said that I look happy, and I don't know if that was just polite hyperbole or if he truly meant it. Regardless, he said it, my heart lifted, and I grinned back. It freed something in me. I am happy here. Quite.

Other stuff happened. It may get chronicled. It may not. Isn’t that the way of it?

girlfriends, sisters, lovers, friends - yeah, so?

I just got an email that I've received at least 10 times in the past 10 years. It's one of those cloying tender and gentle missives, reminding me to stay in touch with my girlfriends, my sisters, my family, because they will stick with me through thick and thin, they will support me and love me and remind me of the good times when times are bad. And, I'll admit, there are times when the sickeningly sweet idea goes down quite well (I do, after all, love me some sugar).

But this time, this time I just want to scream instead. Why? This is the only type of email I receive from my sister. This is the only type of communication I have with her. This is the only way she shows me she cares in my day to day life. No phone calls, no letters, no emails with text she wrote herself. Instead there's this bizarrely personal impersonal email telling me to value her and my other girlie friends because they'll be the ones who are true. And you know what I say to that?

Screw Impersonal. Screw forwards. Screw her little safe feeling that she's connecting with me. I tried at one point to write her actual emails, to say hi and check in, to call on the phone and just *be* present in her life. I didn't get shit back, except for more forwarded emails. If I wanted forwards I'd sign up for them.

Give me something, anything, resembling a real conversation, a real talk, a real connection. I'm closer to friends who live in AUSTRALIA than I am to my own sister. Make that plural, sisters. And sometimes, sometimes it just disgusts me.