Home

After a relatively debacle-free day (despite our flight from JFK to Logan being canceled due to the "blizzard" and having to be picked up at JFK, which is the same distance from my house as Logan so it's whatever), I get home to discover that my beloved rabbit, Mr. Bunnykins aka Buns, the greatest rabbit who ever lived, is dying. He is having some type of neurological issue, which is always the hardest to watch in animals (and in people). He doesn't appear to be suffering at this point, except he can't get up. We feed him and help him to his water and give him as many yogurt chips as he'd like and cuddle with him until he falls to sleep, but it breaks my heart when I open his cage to help him do something and he tries to get up to come over to the opening to the cage so I can give him the kiss I always give him every time I get him and every time I put him back, but he can't get up for his kiss. So I melt into a puddle of tears and kiss him and hold him until he is practically drenched in my tears.

I've had Buns since between the fifth and sixth grade, and I'm a junior in college now. That would make him about... ten years old or so, give or take a few years. He's on the high end for the life expectancy of an indoor rabbit, he's been treated well his entire life with us (we adopted him from the Humane Society, his previous life is a mystery), allowed to roam around the living room and to play with the cats. I never even scolded him for all the things he's destroyed, like blankets, shirts, shoe laces, or the time he chewed through the electrical cord for the lamp in the living room (this rabbit must have nine lives).

He's mostly just one of the best friends I've ever had. He always greeted me when I got home. A lot of the time my cat wanted nothing to do with me, my dog is too flighty to care, but Buns always cares about me and comes right up asking for a kiss on the nose, and he always gets it, and I always scratch him in the soft spot right between his ears.

I feel like I betrayed hi by being gone for four months when I knew he was old, and I knew he wasn't terribly well when I left. He apparently just got really sick in the past week, since Friday. I hope he isn't suffering, and if he appears to be suffering we will not allow that to continue. He deserves so much better than to suffer anything, he is such a good friend and a gentle soul.

Now my cat is laying on one side of my legs as I'm lying in my own bed typing these words and my dog is laying on the other side, eyeing me to make sure that I don't leave ever again.

My mom and two of my very best friends picked me up at JFK, which was just too wonderful. I was so happy to see them.

I'm so glad to be home. I wish Buns could live forever, but I know that's an impossibility. Soon, and hopefully with little pain, he will be with my daddy and Candy and Kashi and Ducky and all the little creatures that went before. I firmly believe that God has a special place in Heaven for animals, and I know that Buns will have an endless supply of yogurt chips and enough newspaper to rip up for ever.

Going Home

Today is my last full day in London. We just got back from Belgium last night. Brussels, Bruges and Ghent are all very beautiful cities, full of history and absolutely spectacular architecture, but they had a horrendous snow storm while we were there (on a walking tour, no less) which put a damper on things, so to speak.

Disneyland Paris was really cool, but it was no Disney World. The food was terrible and the service was pretty awful, but it was really cool to go to Disney in France. The experience itself was worth it, but I wouldn't voluntarily go back again (at the very least, I wouldn't pay money to go back again).

I've been MIA on the blog for a while now because of finals and last minute traveling and such, and I assume that once I get home I'll be pretty busy with the holidays and seeing friends and family, so this may be my last post for a while. Finals are over now, and home is less than 24 hours away.

Everybody cross your fingers that the snowstorm predicted for Saturday-Sunday isn't as bad as they're saying it's supposed to be, so everyone can get home to their families for Christmas. Gosh I can't even wait to get home!

Dear Mother Nature,

To my dear and beloved friend, Mother Nature, how are you? I know we don't speak that often, as I rarely get sick.

But please, I'm absolutely begging you, don't give me the flu when I am going to Disneyland Paris this Friday. Don't give me the flu when I have two papers to write, four exams to take, two more trips to go on and my life to live.

Take my appetite, I'll drink tea. Give me a sore throat and a hellish-cough, I'll take cough drops and sudafed. Give me aches and pains and make it near impossible to get out of bed, I'll take advil. But don't give me all of the above combined, and more.

Hope you're having a good laugh at my expense, Mother Nature.

Sincerely,
Rachel


p.s. we're fighting

And if I'm Gloomy, Please Listen to Me, Till it's Talked Away

Paper writing makes me gloomy. I'm one down, two to go at this point. I finished my paper on Leonardo. What talent, too bad there is barely anything on this Earth left from his genius hand. It was between Leonardo and Michelangelo, and I have no doubt that Leonardo was the more genius of the two, and that Michelangelo was probably a psychopath and definitely a narcisist, so he doesn't really deserve my words.



I've been in a Billie Holiday mood ever since Hillary left yesterday. I'm just about the most pathetic creature there ever was. I was not at all homesick until Hillary got here, and now I can't stop thinking about home. Everything about it makes me giddy.

I'm going to miss London though, it's such a dreamy place. I'm going to miss the way the lights in Piccadilly Circus reflect in the glittery pavement after a gentle London rain. I'm going to miss meandering through the halls of the National Gallery, or sitting on the steps of Trafalgar Square, staring out over Parliament, Big Ben and the Eye. I'm going to miss the plays and the musicals and how you're never too far from home in London. I am far from my home though, my real home, my creaky hardwood floors and my soft mattress, with the permeating smell of cats and rabbits and dogs and people all intermingling, with a warm cup of tea sitting beside the green chair in the living room. I miss traipsing into the house with my best friends at 10 pm, greeting my tired mother and taking over the living room of the basement, having tea parties or hot chocolate parties or pizza or everything in sight. The house feels so right when all my friends are there, because they're like a family to me. My family is so small, just me and my mom, and my best friends really make me feel like I have bunches of other sisters (and my brother Rob of course).

There's nothing in this world more pleasant to me than to be sitting in my living room, surrounded by my friends and my mom, drinking tea and talking or watching a movie.

I think when I get home, I'm going to hold on to those last few days in the house with all of my heart and all of my soul and make it last forever before I move to the apartment and everything changes. I'm ready for change, I just hope I remember what it feels like to be in my little brown house, surrounded by the best friends in the world and my mom, and to know that there is nothing better.

"Depressed" doesn't even begin to describe how I'm feeling right now.

Hillary left this afternoon to go back home to Boston, and oh how jealous I am of her. I can't wait to get home, I'm probably going to kiss the ground, the customs officers, the baggage handlers, everyone. I love it here in London and I've had such a great time but:

I. am. ready. to. get. my. ass. home.

I haven't been homesick this whole time. I've been sick of traveling, sick of being "on" all the time, sick of not being near my animals, sick of being around strangers 95% of the time and sick of not being with my family and friends, but none of that even compares to how sick, physically and emotionally, I feel over Hillary leaving.

I had to write about it because I can't just lay in my bed and cry all night, so I need to get this out.

Twenty-one days feels like an eternity. I'm just about ready to throw in the towel, but I know that would be ridiculous since I'd miss finals and fail all my classes. I just want to go home so badly at this point that it's the only thing on my mind.

Hillary brought me four of those easy mac in a cup things where all you do is add water and microwave, and I ate one for dinner tonight and I nearly cried with bliss, it was so delicious. I can't handle the food here anymore I think it will drive me insane. I miss my mom's leek and potato soup, I'd even take her crumby tendony chicken right about now. My roommate's family was here this week also and they fed me a homecooked dinner one night and I just about died.

At least when I'm missing Hillary when I'm home I can go for a drive in Rhonda and clear my head and blast my music, or wind down the streets of my town to the park, and hop out and smoke a cigarrette with my friend, or fall asleep in the green chair in the living room with my cat on my lap, watching the food network. But now I sound like my mother, which makes me even more miserable.

My roommate doesn't get back until tomorrow afternoon, so until then I am alone in this big old room. Loneliness is setting in.

I just hope Hillary knows how much I love her, and how much it meant to me that we could spend our one year anniversary together, and that we could start a new year together in Paris. As soon as I get home and we move into the apartment things will be absolutely blissful. I'm just hoping I don't feel this despondent for the next twenty-one days.

London, Paris and the Adventure of a Lifetime

What a city. Paris is beautiful! It's like London, only in French!

We stayed at the Best Western Nouvel Orleans, and if you're ever in town you should definitely check it out. The accomodations are small and cozy, but the beds are comfy and they have typical Parisian balconies overlooking the rues.

Showing Hillary around London made me so terribly happy. I do love London a lot, and I'm going to miss this town when I leave (in twenty-one days, can you believe it!), but I absolutely cannot wait to get home. I miss my cats and my puppy and my rabbits. I can see it now, I'm going to walk through the front door and be smothered by a big old blind kitty who is going to give me scratchy tongue kisses all over my face (especially my eyelids, because she's weird) and she is going to make me carry her 15 pound self around for an hour or so and when I finally get her to calm down and realise she isn't dreaming I'm going to be pounced upon by a slobbery dog, who is then going to make me carry her 40 pound self around for an hour or so. The rabbits won't slobber, pounce or smother, they will just see me and jump all around and give me those big rabbit eyes and silently ask me for yogurt chips. Buns will request that I give him a kiss on her twitchy nose and that I rub him between his eyes.

Gosh I'm such a sucker.

But back to London and Paris. London is a fun town, and it was awesome to be able to share it with my most favourite person in the world.

Paris is just amazing, and fortunately they have very effective public transportation. We saw the Eiffle Tower at night, all lit up and glowing. We went to the Louvre and saw the Mona Lisa, which was okay but I've seen better art since I've been here (and there are better Da Vinci's elsewhere).

Walking around Paris was by far the best part of the little trip. Walking through the streets and little cobbled alleyways, arm in arm or hand in hand. Notre Dam was impressive, but the little Sant Chappelle across the street was better (but not free). I hope to get back to Paris someday, and to get back to France someday as well, just like I hope to return to Spain and Barcelona, and Norway and Oslo.

We had dinner at this little Italian restaurant (if there is one Italian place in a 5 mile radius, I can find it simply by following my nose, trust), both nights. We had the same waiter both times, and he remembered our orders (and laughed when I got the same meal and said 'I'm not very adventurous'). On the second night we had our glasses of chianti, our still water, our pastas, and then our desserts (she had the fruit tiaramisu and I had this DELICIOUS sorbet with fresh fruit with CHAMPAGNE, ugh it was like I literally died and went to heaven). When they brought our dessert out the waiter comes over to the table and hands us to LARGE glasses of amaretto (and the two cups of tea we ordered, post dessert) and said "from us" with a smile. They totally knew it was our one year anniversary, and they made it so entirely special.

When we got back into London last evening, we were starving and exhausted, so I brought Hillary to Marleybone High Street, where all the cute little restaurants are (and the best gelato in London, if I didn't know better I'd swear I were Italian), but we were so hungry that our eyes were bigger than our stomachs and we barely ate any of our food. We stopped at a bar on the way home, after sharing a 1/2 bottle of red wine at dinner, and I had a double shot rum and coke and she had a double shot vodka cranberry and then we shared a pitcher of a drink called "purple rain" which is basically vodka and lemonade and anything else they feel like throwing in. We stumbled home in the rain, got ready for bed and passed out.

I got her to the airport today with 70 minutes to spare (they close the check-in for flights 60 minutes before departure, so we were sincerely hustling), held her hand and played with her soft brown hair the whole time. When we kissed goodbye while she was running to get to security I felt the biggest pang in my heart. I miss her so much, I miss home so much. It's like taking someone's heart and ripping it right out of their chest, and then sending it over 3,000 miles away.

But I'll only be here for another twenty-one days, and then I can go home and everything will be perfectly right with the world.

Hope everyone in the States had a very happy Thanksgiving!

Alt for Norge

It's 5:40 am here in London. The sun doesn't rise until 7:33 am, and (hopefully) Hillary will have been here for about 30 minutes by then. I leaving for Heathrow shortly to pick her up and bring her back to school with me, then going to my class then showing her around the city for the rest of the day (and letting her get some sleep and shower at some point).

Norway... was... AMAZING!! I always wanted to go to Norway, but it always looked a little too much like New Hampshire to me. But truly it is an absolutely beautiful country. Oslo is such a wonderful city, the architecture clearly has some very Eastern influences, the people are all so friendly and willing to help and it's easy to get around on public transportation or even just walking.

And it wasn't even that cold.

Our hostel was in the red light district, but it wasn't even that bad. There was a strip club a few doors down that we had to walk past every night, but everyone was friendly. Even the prostitutes on the corner were friendly. One night we saw someone passed out in the crosswalk right in front of the hostel, and promptly ran up to the hostel to watch his friends and passers-by get him into an ambulance. Practically no one goes out during the day in Norway, everyone waits until the sun sets (and it sets early in the winter) and then they go out and get pissed beyond recognition. We stayed away from the bars and the clubs, because Norwegians can get pretty wild when they've been drinking.

I've honestly never laughed so hard in my life. My stomach is literally in pain from laughing at my friends so much. There were seven of us, and we would go back to the hostel and sit in our room, which was this narrow hallway of a room with two bunk beds (we had two rooms all together) and just laugh and laugh for hours.

On Saturday, which was our only full day, we went to Vigeland Park, which is the statue park with the huge fallice. We got up early and it was a very crisp morning, but when we were there the sun was just coming up. The roses are still budding, some are even blooming, just like they are here, making me think maybe the flowers are just confused because of the bizarre summer weather we all had.

We saw Akershus, which is the old Castle and Fortress right in the middle of Oslo fjord. We watched the sunset from the battlements of Akershus, taking in the beauty of Norway. We also saw the Nobel Peace Center! It's so cool to be able to say that we've been there!

We went to the Oslo National Gallery and saw Edvard Munch's The Scream among many other very famous pieces. I believe that the National Gallery is the most robbed art museum in the world, and if you even breathed on a painting the wrong way an alarm went off. My friend actually TOUCHED a painting, because it was "shiny," like a fool, and the security guards came running like she was actually going to walk off with it.

Norway (particularly Oslo, and I'm guessing the other major cities like Bergen) is an extremely expensive country. It's one of the wealthiest countries in the world (who says socialism doesn't work?), and also one of the healthiest with one of the highest standards of living. They tax the hell out of you though, and don't even get me started on kroner. I nearly wept when I went to the ATM as soon as we got there and my options were anything between 500 and 2000 kroner (which is approximately 50 and 200 USD).


This is us, getting ready to leave Norway, taking our last picture in front of the Opera House


The inner view of the Viking Ship


A ship from The Viking Ship Museum


Oslo at Sunset


Sunset


Sunet over the docks


The Nobel Peace Center


In front of the Royal Palace


The Royal Palace


Vigeland statue Park


Being a creep


Angry dancing baby?


My obsession with flowers


And again

It was nice to see the country my father's father left behind. I hope I get to go back some day soon.

I may not be back here for a while (or I may be back every day, it depends on what we do). Hillary and I celebrate our one year anniversary this Friday, in Paris. We leave Thursday afternoon and return Saturday evening, then Hillary leaves back for the states on Sunday. If I drop off the face of the Earth for a week, have a great week, everyone out there!

Another Letter I'll Never Send

As I'm leaving for Norway tomorrow, and I will be there until Sunday, I feel compelled to write something that I have been giving a great deal of consideration for a long time now.

Dear Daddy,

On Saturday, November 21st, 2009 at 5:05 pm (Eastern Standard Time) it will be twelve years since you lost your battle with cancer. It will be twelve years since my big, strong, courageous Daddy gave up his last breath. Sometimes it feel like you took me with you when you went. Sometimes it feel like I can't even go on another minute for the sadness of the whole thing. And then I remember how badly you wanted to live, how desperately you loved life, and clung to it with every fiber of your being.

Life was a gift for you. You never took it for granted, even before you were diagnosed with cancer. I remember when you scooped the little baby cardinal out of the pool one summer and cradled it and quickly fashioned a make-shift nest to stow in the pine trees so that its mom would her it calling to her and she would come rescue it. You had such respect for life, and such an understanding of nature. I miss playing basketball with you, when you would lift me up so high so that I could make a dunk. I remember the time you let me ride my bike by myself on the sidewalk around the neighbourhood for the first time, but you had to drive alongside me the whole way. Some woman pulled over and asked me if you were bothering me and I casually replied "no, that's just my dad."

I loved everything about you, your thinning grey hair, your blue-yellow eyes, your bright smile. You were all legs, just about the tallest man I've ever met in my life. It doesn't seem fair that cancer could come and steal such a healthy and wonderful person.

I was in the flower garden on the side of the house when you told me you were sick. The tulips had just come in and the air was fresh and rich with spring. We had just moved to the new house, it didn't seem fair that you should get sick.

I remember being in the kitchen, many months later, when mom told me you were dying. No one ever candy-coated the issue for me, no one ever treated me like a child. I would go up to your bedroom every day after school and lay with you and Candy, reading or watching videos or just talking. I was so scared to let you out of my sight.

When you went to the palliative care unit at Hartford Hospital, we all knew you were very near the end. Ducky and Candy took it the hardest, they loved you so much. Ducky died within a week of you, she couldn't bear to live in a world without you. I know Ducky is curled up on your shoulder, I bet you can hardly get the darn cat off of you. It took Candy eight years to follow you home, but I know she's sprawled out across your lap right now, like any giant overfed black lab.

It's a lot easier to pretend like it doesn't hurt that you died, as I imagine it's easier to pretend that a lot of things in life don't hurt. But it does hurt that you died. It hurts every single day of my life. It hurts every single day of mom's life. It hurts every single day of Becky's life. We miss you so much.

Twelve years is too long for a daddy to be away from the people who love him. But I know that someday, when it's our time, we'll all be together again, and there won't be pain or fear. There will just be boundless love and happiness.

I'm blessed to have had a father who loved me more than the sun the moon and the stars. I'm extremely blessed to have had two parents who loved each other more than oxygen, and loved their child with every fiber of their beings. I'm equally blessed to rest easy knowing that my mother and father will love each other into eternity, and my parents loved me and wanted me. I only wish that my daddy could have been there to see me walk across the stage at graduation. I wish you could have been there to give me flowers when I performed in orchestra concerts and competitions. I wish you had been there to carry me home when I broke my arm (roller-blading on the ice) when I was ten. I wish you had been there on my sixteenth birthday to hand me the card you had made and the beautiful pearl necklace you made sure to get for me before you passed away. More than anything I wish you were there when your three beautiful grandchildren came into this world. I wish you could carry them on your shoulders, cradle them gently in your strong arms, walk with them wrapped around your legs.

Life would be so different if you were alive today daddy, who knows if it would be different for the best or for the worst. I often say "I would not give just anything to see my daddy again," but the older I get, the more I believe that to be a lie. I would give anything to see you again, to smell you, to hug you, to hold your hand.

My last memory of you alive is curling up alongside you in your hospital bed, two nights before you died. We both fell asleep alongside each other, you with your arm as my pillow and me with my arm wrapped around your stomach. I have the best memories of you. Thanks for being the reason I can honestly say that I had the greatest dad ever.

Love you forever,
Rachel

British Museum

If there is any one place in London that would cause me to want to stay here permanently, it would be the British Museum.

I remember going to the National Gallery every day for the first few weeks we were here, like I was trying to become one with the paintings or something hah. The whole time everyone kept telling me I needed to get over to see the British Museum.

But it's "the British Museum." Sometimes I don't even know why I'm IN England. The English weren't particularly nice to my ancestors, and quite frankly they weren't very nice to anyone's ancestors. I really have no interest in learning about the history of a people who managed to rape and pillage and decimate entire populations of people on almost every single continent (and who continue to do so even to this day...). Moving on though.

Eventually I made my way to the British Museum. Let me just say, it is NOT a museum about everything British. It's basically a HUGE building filled with random collections of artifacts, sarcophigi, pieces of architecture, totem poles, tribal dress, etc. etc. from all over the world. When you first walk up to the building, you are immediately awe-struck by its sheer massiveness. It looks like an ancient Greek temple, it doesn't look at all like it belongs plopped in the middle of London.

This is the top of the entrance, I need to try to get it at a better angle, I took this picture the first time I went and I was all fumbly with excitement.



Then you get inside and you're confronted with these massive triagular windows on the ceiling. It's simply incredible, the amount of light flowing everywhere. It is HUGE, both inside and out. It's not a museum you can see in one day, so good thing it's free! This is the main area, which apparently used to be a green but is now a lot of things (anything but green though).



These are some bearded men. They look kind of like the statues with the glowy eyes from The Never Ending Story Shows you how much I paid attention whilst walking through the museum. It's a knowledge overload.



I do remember that these were taken from the Parthenon. The Greek parts of the museum are ASTONISHING (not that the rest of the museum isn't...)



And this is the Rosetta stone! Cool huh??



We went to the British Museum today for my Renaissance Art class to see the Prints and Drawings room where they have the sketches of such famous Renaissance men as Leonardo, Raphael, Michelangelo, etc. It was AMAZING to see their sketches up close, not behind glass or anything. They're very protective of the sketches, don't get me wrong, but the room is intimate, only something like 10-15 people are let in at a time, and it's a HUGE library-like room, with lots of workers bustling around cataloguing things, but it's so quite and it's like it's just you and the Renaissance. It's really very beautiful.

I do love it here, a lot. I was walking home from the museum today, alone, and I thought to myself "Self, I don't think I've ever felt quite so alone in my whole life," but it's not a bad kind of alone. It's like being totally and utterly alone on a distant planet, away from all other people and life, but it's okay because you have you and your thoughts and your imagination. I probably feel like that because the people in London are so unfriendly, they can't even be bothered to say "hello" or even to make eye contact. But it's nice, this alone-ness. I think I might just miss it when I go home.

This is my "I'm so happy to be in London" face :)



If I don't post tomorrow or Friday, have a lovely weekend world! I'm off to Norway to become one with my inner Viking. I think I'll start going by Rachel the Red hahaha

Healthcare Reform

I'm not buying it. I've been a socialist since the day I was born, and I just plain am not buying this crap.

Now... the United States is one of the most backwards countries in the world (admittedly, there are POCKETS of backward-ness throughout the country). I was watching Religulous last night (it was a great film, I definitely recommend it, but more on that later) and Bill Maher said that the U.S. is one of the most profoundly religious countries in the developed world (on a list of thirty of so developed nations, we rank right before Turkey, which is the "most religious" "developed" nation). We're still shoving religion down everyones' throats, including our own country-men.

So tell me why the Catholic Church has such a big hand in this Healthcare Reform (oh, and why the Catholic Church has the right to send millions of dollars in the effort to make sure that I don't get my rights?). Don't we hate the Catholic Church? Wasn't that the biggest issue in electing JFK, that he was a Catholic? His allegiance is to the Pope, not to our country.

Sometimes it makes my head spin.

My cousin is a neo-con (*puke*), and he's just about the scariest person I've ever met in my life. He's always battling me over facebook status etc. saying that Obama is a communist, a marxist, a socialist (because those words OBVIOUSLY scare me?) and that Healthcare reform will be the END of our great nation.

No... it won't. In fact, it would be AWESOME. Yes, please, for the love of God, REFORM THE SH*T out of healthcare. Reform it till it can't be reformed anymore. Then maybe people wouldn't have to die from treatable conditions. Then maybe people with conditions (for example, chronic asthma, of which I am a sufferer) wouldn't be denied healthcare due to a pre-existing condition. I can't help that I live in the U.S. and my industrial nation gave me asthma as a youngster.

I also can't help wanting to just grab naysayers and take them to Canada, or the UK, or ANY of the Scandinavian countries, etc. and show them what a country with universal healthcare looks like. It is r.e.a.l.l.y. OK.

I have a feeling this is going to be the start of a new "red-scare" if this Healthcare reform doesn't pass.

And if it passes with the abortion measure, well, welcome back to the 1950's and 60's of back ally abortions and coat-hangers. We never liked our women that much anyway.

This whole argument about "well I don't want my children to have to pay for someone else's healthcare" sounds a lot like classism to me.

I have private healthcare (care of my mother) and when I graduate college, I'll need a job with benefits or a spouse with a job with benefits (or both!). I can honestly say that whatever needs to be done to fix the compeletely messed up (and murderous) insurance industry, needs to be done. Increase taxes (let's start with the upper "class" though), do whatever needs to be done. Just make sure that no more innocent lives are lost simply because they can't afford it. They're Americans too, they're human beings too, and they MATTER. We all MATTER, and in the end, that is what this whole argument boils down to.

This boy is a hero

Will Phillips, a 10 year old elementary-schooler from Arkansas, is exercising his Constitutional right to stand in silence while the Pledge of Allegiance is recited. He refuses to recite the pledge because, in his belief, it does not apply to all Americans, namely GLBT Americans.

God bless this young man, and take care of him too. It's hard to fight for what's right, but he is 10 and he is standing up to his peers and his teachers and his administrators and saying "Something is not right with this country, and this 'pledge' does not apply to all Americans." When I was 10 I thought about art class and what I would make today, I thought about playing my squeeky and shrill violin, I thought about playing on the playscape and avoiding getting splinters, about petting the horses behind the elementary school during recess. I didn't much think about things that were bigger than the immediate future, much less things that were any bigger than just me. We need more adults (and kids) like Will Phillips, what a brave young man.

Well You'll Never Find It, If You're Looking For It

My mom is leaving for India this evening at 10:25. 10:25 on the East Coast is 3:25 am in London. I'll be sound asleep.

I had a nightmare last night that my mother died. I'll spare you to morbid details. It was so scary that I opened my eyes abruptly and stared at my ceiling for hours, wondering... what would I do if something were to happen to her?

I couldn't handle being an orphan.

Sometimes I feel orphaned in this whole thing with my mom's friend Naveen. It's not fair that he has two parents, a brother who has a wife and a son, a sister who has a husband and a son, dozens of cousins with families and children, all of whom he considers to be his immediate family. It's not fair that he has taken my mother from me, the only person I have. Sure I have aunts and uncles and cousins. I have a sister and a brother-in-law and two nieces and a nephew. All those people love me, but no one loves me like my mom. We've been through so much together, it's impossible for anyone to truly understand our relationship. It's impossible to articulate how much I love my mother, despite all of the terrible things she's put me through (I know I put her through a lot in the not too distant past, as well). It's like loving someone or something so much that your heart might rip open.

But then Naveen came into the picture, and slowly took her away from me. I feel so helpless, like I'm standing on the beach, and a riptide has come and swept my only parent away from me.

It's like having my father die all over again.

November 21st will be twelve years. I have no anniversary for when my mother was taken away from me. And I can't even mourn her loss without being called crazy, but I do mourn for her. She's going to a strange country, not even to a major city but to a tiny village. Naveen's parents have never even left their village. My mother will be treated as a woman, which means she won't be respected at all. She will be respected even less because she is "unmarried," even though she was once married. She will be treated, effectively, as a teenaged girl: worthless. And she is willingly going to this country. She is getting on a plane for 18 hours to fly to a country where she will be treated like an outcast, like a stray dog.

She'll be there until December 5th. I feel like I will have many nights of laying awake for hours, staring at the ceiling, unable to sleep, unwilling to sleep when sleep only brings dreams of torturous things.

I feel completely and totally alone. No one understands, no one tries to understand or wants to understand. It is utterly heartbreaking to have this happen and be unable to prevent it. I'm powerless. This is my least favourite feeling in the world.

I hope she has a safe flight, a comfortable journey, and that she comes home safely.

Veterans Day

In Flanders Fields, the poppies blow,
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place, and in the sky,
The larks, still bravely singing, fly,
Scarce heard amid the guns below

We are the Dead. Short days ago,
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders Fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders Field.

- In Flanders Field, John McCrae 1915

This poem was written in World War I by a Canadian solider serving for United Kingdom. Sophomore year in high school we had to choose a theme and find poems related to that theme. The theme I chose was war, and naturally I came across this poem. I've never been able to get it out of my head, and I hope I never do. It is so poignant. So beautiful. So well-written. And so simple.

Peace.

Thank you, veterans, for serving your countries, for fighting valiantly and giving your youth, your talents, your lives, your all. It's a job I could never do, and I give you all of the credit in the world for fighting old men's battles for them. God bless everyone who serves, no matter what side you are on. And one day, when old men no longer run the world, when we aren't plagued with old thoughts, old deeds, old wrongs and old rights, we can live in peace, and we can all lay down our weapons, and there won't be any more fighting. Until then, though, I'm praying for everyone who takes up the quarrel, with any foe, and hoping peace comes sooner rather than later.

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

We're home from Ireland. It was lovely, it rained all day Saturday, but it was incredibly beautiful (despite the rain). I love me some old country, it feels like going home for some reason, but it makes me miss Newfoundland like crazy (not that everything doesn't make me miss Newfoundland... but everything about Ireland reminds me of NF). I can't stand how isolated Ireland is though, and how small everything is and how quiet it is and how friendly everyone is...

Hah well at that last part, everyone is very friendly in Ireland (once you get outside of Dublin) for the most part, which is something you RARELY find in London. It's nice to having someone treat you with politeness, it's just very strange (for me, someone who spends the better part of her time being treated like the lowest of the low in my baggy jeans and hoodies on the streets of London. Just because I don't wear Gucci and Versace doesn't mean you have the right to treat me like sh*t, it just means I'm not as tacky and flamboyant as you).

But now onto bigger and better news.

Oh so so so much better.

I can barely contain my joy.

Okay Rachel... breathe...

I'm going to see Cat on a Hot Tin Roof with Hillary in 15 days (15 days tomorrow night, I'm jumping ahead a little out of sheer excitement).

But seeing that play isn't the most exciting part. It gets better.

It's staring... JAMES EARL JONES!! Mufasa... Darth Vader... Oh how exquisite it will be!!

But wait... it is about to get even better!!

It's also starring... PHYLICIA RASHAD!! Now, I know I'm in love with an average of 50 billion women at any given moment, but to be completely honest, Phylicia Rashad is probably the hottest woman I've ever seen (if not at least she is in the top five). She is so hott, with her BA attitude on the Cosby Show, not to mention how drop-dead, breath-takingly GORGEOUS she is. I'm probably going to melt into a puddle in my seat and Hillary is going to have to carry me home. I know I won't be able to take pictures in the theatre, but rest assured my mouth will be gaping open the entire time and I will have palpitations.

Hope everyones' weeks are off to fantastic starts. Tomorrow is Tuesday... ugh... my worst day. My architecture professor runs us all over the city on Tuesdays. Wish me luck please!

Take care out there!

Julie Andrews Jr.

My baby is getting spayed today. Poor little Julie. Wish I could be home to nurse her back to health (though I'm sure she'll be just fine, she's got her namesake's unwavering spirit).

Tomorrow we head to Cork, Ireland, to visit our friend who is also studying over here for the semester. She came to visit us early in October (with two of our friends from Uni in Northern Ireland), so we've had plans to go and pay her a visit for a while now.

I love my heritage, but let me tell you I thoroughly dislike Ireland. As far as I'm concerned, it's dirty as hell (at least the cities, particularly Dublin), and it's a God-forsaken rock of an island, with nothing but sheep as far as the eye can see.

It'll be great to get some nice fresh air out of London for the weekend though.

Hope everyone has a safe, healthy, wonderful weekend. Happy Guy Fawks day to you Brits, as someone whose ancestors you persecuted, I don't happen to be your biggest fan, but you guys sure do throw a hell of a party.

To Whom It May Concern

If you're reading this right now, I mean anyone at all, whether you've commented on my blog before or if you're just passing through...

I have a question for you.

If I moved to Canada, would that be giving up and admitting defeat?

I love my country, my country that hates me. I love Canada too, but it's not my home.

I'm giving strong consideration to finishing off undergrad, applying to graduate programs in Canada and applying for permanent residence in Canada.

Is that giving up?

Please, I need an objective opinion. You may not know me (though if you read my blog, you certainly know a great deal about me), and you may not care to know me, but I need you advice, as an objective party.

Thanks in advance.

- Rachel

Maine... I Can't Believe You!

Epic fail in Maine yesterday. And across the country, as far as I'm concerned.

How can we continue to deny an entire population our rights as human beings, our ability to live freely and pursue happiness?

How can the Catholic Church throw MILLIONS of dollars into the hands of BIGOTS, when there are hungry who need to be fed and naked who need to be clothed? HOW CAN THIS BE?

What the HELL is going on in this world and why the HELL are gay people so scary??

Just because we want to be happy too?? Is that why we're scary??

Well a big F YOU to Maine and everyone who threw their money at the bigots and everyone who voted against equality, because gay people have money too, and we WON'T be spending it in your effing state. We'll go to Vermont, or Massachusetts, or Connecticut, or New Hampshire, or Iowa, or Canada, where freedom rings and rings and rings and won't be silenced.

We WON'T be silenced. Last summer was the LAST time I paid a visit to Maine, the absolute LAST time. I'm never going back to Maine until EVERYONE is equal and until my rights are as important and valued as any heterosexual.

I'm so angry I could just about spit.

My Girls

This song and video is addictive, consider yourself warned.

This evening was the street lighting for all the Christmas lights in London. We went to Oxford street, braving the throngs of humanity who would smoosh us rather than allow us room to breathe.

Jim Carrey was there, though, it was neat to see him. I don't think I've ever been that near to a celebrity before, or that I have a desire to be that near to one ever again hah. People are absolutely rapid.

The lights weren't very impressive, I was thinking they would be something like the Osborn Family Christmas Lights that go up every year at the Disney Studios in Disneyworld, which are absolutely amazing, but alas. It's really not even worth putting up pictures of it.

Today is Hillary's birthday! Happy birthday Billary, three weeks today and we'll be together in London :)

Spain

We had a wonderful time in Spain. I absolutely loved Barcelona and would go back in a heartbeat (and once back, it would be very hard to force me to leave, it is just so entirely beautiful there).

Madrid... however... was a living breathing nightmare. I will NEVER go back to Madrid. Furthermore, I will NEVER fly Iberian Air, EVER again.

My mother had an early flight on American Airlines yesterday morning, so my friend (who had been in Spain with us) and I took the transfer to the airport with her. We got up around 6 am, finished last minute packing and showering and breakfast, etc.

We said our goodbyes to my mother when we dropped her off at terminal one. The transfer brought us to terminal four, five miles away, and we then tried to check in for our flight back to London.

The time changed while we were in Spain. Spain was six hours, then five hours ahead of home, and London was five hours, then four hours ahead of home. You guys on the East Coast changed your clocks back this morning, so now we're five hours ahead of you in London (again). It's all very confusing.

We walked into the 20 minute check-in line empty handed, thinking it wouldn't be a problem since we had our passports and they could just look us up on their pretty little machines. Oh how wrong we were.

We got to the front of the line and, I kid you not, four of the desk attendants got up to go on their breaks. At the same time. So we waited about 10 more minutes and finally someone freed up. But she was on the phone, having a personal conversation might I add, and she had no interest in us.

I don't speak Spanish very well, I have a very heavy American accent and I don't like speaking Spanish because of my accent, particularly around native speakers. But I do understand Spanish almost word for word. I hate it when people assume just because I have white skin and red hair and blue eyes that I only speak English, that I am a dumb American and that I can't understand what they are saying. Molly, if you're reading this, it's like people assuming that you're not Cuban when you totally are, and that's not right at all. Assuming makes an ass out of you and me.

So she was on the phone and we gave her our passports and, because of the time changes and our confusing, we knew our flight got in to London around 2:30 but we had no idea what time it left. I knew it was about a 2 hour flight so I said it either left around 11:30 or 12:30 (major confusion). The woman looked at me and said the only flight to London was leaving through British Airways (an affiliate of Iberian Air and American Airlines, for your future information) at 12:30. I looked at her, perplexed, and explained that we had a round trip from London to Barcelona and Madrid to London. She didn't understand what I was telling her, since we flew Air Europa to Madrid. She was pretty much a c*nt and I could have reached across the counter and smacked the smug look off her horse face.

She said she checked every single flight on Iberian for that day and that we weren't on any of them. She said, because we didn't have a flight to London, it would cost us around 600 euro (that's roughly equivalent to $1100, which is roughly 2 times what we spent on our round trip tickets from Boston to London and then back). Tears were already welling up in my eyes at this point, while I frantically tried to call my mother, who had turned both of her phones off. We were on our own for this one.

She directed us to tickets and sales, where we gave the girl our story and she said she checked all the flights as well and we were on none of them. I could have died on the spot, but she told us to go to information and customer service, which we did.

When we got to customer service, we gave the woman our whole story. At this point we had been enduring this process for the better part of an hour. After we told her our story, her exact words to us were "So?" in the snottiest voice ever. "What do you want me to do about it?"

In my head I was screaming "Hello! We are your customers! Serve us!" But outwardly I was just welling up with tears and trying not to burst out crying, successfully might I add. I held it together very well, actually.

She directed us to British Airways, since the general consensus was that we were probably just confused about which airline we were flying. We got to the queue at British Airways and the woman at the top of the line, who was directing people here and there and everywhere, looked at us and asked us if she could help us.

We said "We don't know, we think we're flying Iberian, but everyone thinks we're flying British Airways, and we don't have a flight and we have to get back to London..." and basically we were about to burst into tears in front of this poor woman, so she told us to go right into the line and they would help us.

We got to the front of the line and went to the desk of a man named Constantine. God bless this man. He was confused about our story at first and thought that we were flying from Madrid to Barcelona and Barcelona to London, but eventually we helped him understand. He said "No you're not on any of our flights."

And then, with a nod and a smile he found us on Iberian Air, the 1:15 flight to London.

All the people we had gone to beforehand who had told us that they looked everywhere and couldn't find us had been lying to us. They had looked us in the eye and told us we needed to pay 600 euro for tickets to London, that we weren't on any of the manifests and therefore weren't booked to go to London.

I am so. fucking. mad. about all the shit that happened yesterday. This man was the only one who bothered to help us. We told him everything we had been through and all the different people we spoke to and he told us that it is a common problem with Iberian (we had a similar, but much less devastating experience on our way from London to Barcelona with Iberian) and that he was sorry that his co-workers didn't do their jobs. An apology from him meant to world, I just wish all the others hadn't put two twenty year old women through such hell, apparently for the sheer fun of it.

So we got on our flight, at last at last, and headed back to London. We were seated in the emergency row on the plane (and because of our bad luck that morning we were pretty terrified that we were going to be the cause of the misfortunate of the entire plane), but it was really nice to have some extra leg room.

We went through customs and got our luggage and got on the Heathrow Express to Paddington tube station. We were so emotionally exhausted (and my friend had developed a nasty cough) and just wanted to lay down and sleep, but we had to soldier on and carry our heavy bags all over God's green earth and all through the stations, etc.

An Australian man ran up to us at Paddington, apparently in distress, with tears welling up in his eyes. He was short, with grey hair and very bad teeth but he was kind and very sincere. He said he was headed home to Australia with his family and they needed 13 pound 50 pence more for the Heathrow express to Heathrow. We couldn't overlook a fellow traveler in distress, so we handed him 30 pound and went on our way. He offered us his camera, anything we wanted in duty free, but we declined. He took my friend's email address and promised us that God would bless us.

The way I see it is, God blessed him for giving us a miserable day and causing us to have pity on a traveler in distress. Everything happens for a reason, the reason we had such a terrible day yesterday was so that we could help that man and his family to get home to Australia. I don't even care if I'm out my last 10 pound because of it, and I don't even care if he didn't really need the money or if he was just going to rob us and say he was going to get in touch with us and repay us, he looked sincere and I'm not one to judge.

I'd want someone to help me if I were frantic and just trying to get home.

Other than yesterday, the trip to Spain was very lovely. It's good to be back in London, though. So good to be back.

Doesn't Anyone Understand?

We toured Toledo today. The city is very beautiful, very old but very very beautiful. We saw the oldest synogogue in Western Europe. It's no longer a working synogogue, but now more of a museum. For a long time in Toledo there were three groups, Jews, Christians and Muslims. The three groups lived in relative peace and harmony, as far as any records can tell.

Then Queen Isabella came and ruined it all and had all the synogogues torn down and all the jews basically converted or killed. Very unpleasant times indeed.

The Spanish didn't take part in WWII (from what I recall from high school history lessons), because they were dealing with their own civil war at the time. Francisco Franco, the fascist dictator of Spain from the 30's until relatively recently, being a facist, let Hitler use his country and his people for target practice for testing out bombs and weapons of destruction. That's where Picasso's famous "Guernica" comes in (I'm seeing it tomorrow, I hope I don't weep). Joan Miro, my most favourite artist, has some very insightful pieces reflecting on the civil war and the years of tumolt for Spain. We went to the Miro museum in Barcelona, which was such an astonishing experience for me. The first time I saw a Miro first hand was in Hartford in 2004, I believe, at the Athenium (if you're from Connecticut you've probably been at one time or another, it's very small but it's a cute museum and I believe it's the oldest public art museum in the United States, but I could be mistaken). He is a contemporary artist, and most of his works seem very primitive and unrealistic, but what you really must do is look beyond the figures, the paint, the frame, the palet, and make the painting something for you. I like art that becomes whatever you want it to become.

But this wasn't meant to be a rant about Miro.

In Toledo today, I noticed there to be a lot of graffiti of swastikas. I don't understand how anyone, particularly someone in Europe, particularly someone whose country suffered under a fascist dictator for decades, could possibly promote the fascist way. Don't they know how their parents and grandparents suffered? Don't they know how all the people of Europe suffered? Fleeing from bombs falling here and there, shrapnal everywhere, air raids, no food, never knowing if you'd live to see tomorrow or if your children would live to see the end of the war. Or worse, if you were one of the direct victims of the fascists, if they stuck you in a ghetto and then huddled you into a cramped box car and sent you off to never be seen or heard from again. Spain is a Catholic nation, don't they know what the Nazis did to the Catholics? Don't they know, don't they understand? How can anyone draw the swastika without silently killing their soul?

Sadly those aren't the first swastikas I've seen in Europe. There is a little shrine, with candles and swastikas in chalk on a stoop near my school in London (in one of the most affluent neighbourhoods in London, might I add). I got so angry and sad when I saw it, that I blew both the candles out, and I don't even care if CCTV saw me do it. They're English, the Nazis tried to wipe London off the map of the world, don't they understand?

On a MUCH happier note, I just got word that Obama signed the Hate Crimes Bill into LAW! How awesome is that?

Perhaps there is hope after all. Yes, I'd say there is a lot of hope. Things are getting better all the time :)

http://www.hrc.org/13699.htm


Miro, 1973, "The Smile of a Tear" very appropriate for today

Eleven Months

We are in Madrid this lovely warm evening. It's been a very long day of traveling and touring and eventually eating, so now we are resting for the night.

Today is my eleven month anniversary with Hillary, and it is sad that we have to spend our anniversary apart.

However, we'll be together next month for our one year anniversary. We'll be in Paris then, it will be que romantico.

I can't believe it's been eleven months, it feels like just yesterday we were driving home from Ani, got hungry for Wendy's and spent the better part of an hour sitting in a dark parking lot eating and talking about life, silently telling each other that we couldn't put on this facade anymore.

Love happens and it knocks you right off your feet. It's the best, most stupifying feeling in the world, to be sure. Perhaps numbing is a better word for it. I don't know if I like the feeling of numbness, or fluttering about, but I do love being in love with a wonderful person and I am very glad that we found each other in this big scary world.

There is no one out there who would climb mountains with me on a whim, who would stand by my side from 3,000 miles away, who would so thoroughly entertain me while simultaneously captivating me. I fall in love with every pretty face I see, but I have never been so completely in love with not only a pretty face, but a wonderful mind and a beautiful soul.

Here's to Madrid and eleven months with Mogli.

Barcelona

Welcome to Barcelona!

This city is AMAZING! I wish I had come here to study abroad instead of crumby old London. There is so much here, and the weather is beautiful and there are palm trees everywhere.

And the food... magnificent.

Tonight at dinner we shared our meal with a little black cat who was walking amongst the tables. She was a skinny little cat so I dropped her some of my salmon. But she wouldn't eat any of my salmon, which was curious because she looked hungry. Then she disappeared. A little while later she returned, followed closely by a kitten, who proceeded to consume all of the salmon I had dropped for his mother. I stroked the cat while she watched her kitten eat, and I swear she was smiling at me. I fed her some salmon so I was certain she had eaten, and she ate every last drop. Then another kitten came, and it all got too crazy and we were leaving the restaurant but it broke my heart to part with the cat, she was such a sweet cat, and she knew exactly how to make me fall in love with her (it's probably because I miss my Kitty).

Earlier this evening, we were walking down to the beach so my mother could put her feet in the Mediterranean Sea, when we came across a man on a bike. Not just any man on a bike, though, a man on a bike wearing... only a bike. He was completely nude!

I got pictures. It'll take me a while to figure out whether Americans are sexually repressed (in that we giggle at nudity and think it's obscene) or if Europeans are too sexually liberal.

Barcelona is amazing, we've walked all over the city so far. This morning we went to Monserrat, which is this really interesting old Monastery in the mountains outside of Barcelona, but it's more like Disneyland in the mountains, with music and dancing and food and liquor. It was awesome.

My internet isn't working (I'm writing this on my friend's laptop right now) so I will upload pictures when I get back to Londontown or if the internet in Madrid works after Tuesday :)

Mr. Obama and the Human Rights Campaign

I watched this for the first time tonight.

Despite my feelings regarding the president at the current time (call it disillusionment, all the hype from the election turned into a huge post-election let down, but everyone can identify with that, within and without the LGBT community), I think the man did a good job. Whether he did a good job of pulling the wool over our eyes or whether he sincerely meant what he said, it doesn't really matter.

The fact of the matter is, there is progress. It is slow. Much slower than it should be. Much slower, I think, than anyone expected it would be. Perhaps even in my lifetime there will still be mountains to climb.

But as a hiker, I suppose, I have to admit that the unclimbed mountains are far more alluring than those which are climbed daily. The unchartered waves are more daring than the warm bay waters. The forest is more tempting than the field.

We can all feel this movement heating up, swelling around us, becoming bigger with every pulse in every vein in every crowd at every rally.

And in the end, we know that love wins. Love always wins. Love wins in Revelations, oh you who would quote God's word. Love wins in every story ever written. And if you would argue that no, love does not always win, I would tell you to read between the lines, and perhaps then you would see that yes, in fact, love does win.

This is about the pinnacle. The peak. Triumphing over hate. The journey there is long and arduous. Dangerous, perilous, often sorrowful. But some day, in some sleepy little down in America, a little child is going to read in their history books about how LGBT individuals were persecuted, and with the hard work, dedication and compassion of LGBT individuals, leaders and supporters, they overcame and are now treated as equals.

And that little child won't be afraid to be who they are,

because love always wins in the end.

Everyone Deserves a Chance to Fly

I saw Wicked the other day here in London Town.

It was absofreakinlutely phenomenal. I love love loved it. It made me kind of sad and nostalgic, though, because (although it was my first time seeing the musical) my friends from school and I (my best friends at school) would after get together at night and sit around and sing songs for Wicked. I remember sitting in my car, my baby Rhonda, blasting Defying Gravity, my friends all around me shouting the words and trying to keep up with Idina Menzel and just laughing and laughing and having a wonderful time just being together and being utterly silly.

I wish I weren't a grown up, almost constantly.

Yesterday we walked around Camden Market. The place reeks of incense, in fact the smell still lingers on the clothes I wore yesterday. Incense reminds me of high school, coming home after a long day and lighting a stick of incense and just relaxing.

Tomorrow I have to get up super early to meet my professor at the train to go to Cambridge for an out of class field trip. I like to sleep in on Fridays (or travel), but it will be nice to get outside of London for a bit.

Then next Friday we leave for Spain where we'll meet up with the Madre and have a wonderful time, to be sure. I'm excited to see my mom, I've missed her. I wish my sister and the kids could come visit, but I know that's impossible. I feel terrible that my baby niece will be five months old, almost six, by the time I get home; and about 10 days after I get home my oldest niece is turning seven! Where does the time go?

I also feel pretty bad that the thing I am looking forward to the most out of this whole trip is seeing Hillary. I've been trying to convince myself that I don't miss her, that I'm fine without her and that four months isn't that long to go, but it truly is. I can't wait for her to get here so I can show her how amazing London is, walk her along the lake at Hyde Park and take her into the little used book shops near the British Museum. I'm looking forward to Paris, too, eating good food (hopefully!) and drinking great wine. But mostly I'm excited to see Hillary, and I might not even care if we did anything the whole time that she is here (besides the fact that I want to show her around and for her to see as much as she possibly can in the short time that she is here).

It's strange, I never thought I'd be in love. I certainly never thought I'd find anyone like Hillary, she's perfect for me.

But no more of that mushy stuff. Hope everyone has a productive Friday and a wonderful weekend :)

How Do You Cope?

No one has ever asked me that question before, until last night.

Basically my story starts out with a bunch of twenty-year olds drinking and having nothing to do. But the drinking and nothing to do part is unimportant. The debauchery was only the bridge from polite conversation to indepth conversation.

We started the night out with five of us, sitting in our dorm room, drinking and talking. By the time we left the room we were all feeling good. We went to a bar and I had a few drinks, and by the time we left the bar I was almost too drunk to walk, but I did all right. I can still remember everything clearly, and that's all that matters.

We went back to our room, five of us had become six by this point (we ran into one of our friends in the dorm lounge). We all went back to the room and listened to music and talked (loudly) into the wee hours of the morning. I was trying to stay awake to talk to Hillary at 2:30 am my time this morning anyway (9:30 pm her time), so it was nice to have some company while I waited. We never got to talk anyway, but staying up late was worth it.

Eventually the numbers dwindled and six became four. We were all sitting around in true college fashion, drunk and wrapped in blankets to keep warm in these chilly London nights. We were also playing truth or dare, and since we are all too lazy to accept any dares we all chose truth. The main topic was, naturally, sex, because what else is there to talk about after all?

So it is understandable that I was very taken aback when my friend (a new friend, might I add, who I only just met a month ago) asked me how I cope with my father's death. Thankfully I was sober enough to not cry in emotional drunken sadness, but too drunk to give her a concise answer.

So I rambled on for the better part of fifteen minutes about how people who didn't watch their parent literally waste away and die before their eight year old eyes are clueless as to how I feel, and that it is an incredibly lonely place to be. I have so much pressure on me to be the best, to never cry, to never show weakness because I'm my mother's rock, I'm her one constant. And she's my one constant, so she feels compelled to be strong for me. We have to be srong for each other and neither of us can ever cry or ever grieve or ever shout out in fear and sorrow and anger.

But I mess up, I'm human, and sometimes I'm not constant and sometimes I'm weak. All the time I'm messing up and I am disappointing someone because I can't be what everyone wants me to be.

The hardest part of having to cope with my father's death is that my father was my best friend. The strongest love I've ever felt for another living thing in this life I felt for him. He was amazing, one of the greatest people God ever put on this Earth, and I'm not just saying that because I'm sprung from his loins. He was truly amazing, and a definite blessing to everyone he met. No one on this Earth can compare to my father, my love for other people can't compare to the love I still have for my twelve-year dead dad.

The saddest part of his dying is that his grandchildren never got the chance to meet this man. This man who would have loved them so much.

I don't really cope with it. I don't cry about it and I don't talk about it (unless someone directly brings it up, ordinarly). I still feel like a trapped eight year old, lost and alone searching for her daddy everywhere and never finding him because he is long gone. I guess I'll always feel like an eight year old, lonely and heartbroken and wishing God would have taken me instead of smashing my heart into tiny pieces of jagged glass that can never be repaired.

And that's what I told them, in a long drawn out soliloquy of no tears and no other noise besides the hum of my soul coming out of my mouth.

I don't know if they heard me, or if they know how sad I am and how fragile I am. But I do know it felt so so so good to be asked how I feel about my father's death. No one has ever asked me that in twelve years. No one has ever wanted to know how I feel before. And finally someone asked, and it was the most relieving experience I've ever had. Finally someone cared about me and my ability to handle something no eight year old should ever have to handle. I just felt so good.

HRC Gala on Saturday

Can I just say that I am sooo GLAD that the gays are going to be picketing the HRC gala on Saturday in DC.

I wish I could be there to fight the good fight with them.

I've got some choise words for Barack Obama, he's just about my least favourite politician right now. At least the Conservatives don't SAY that they are going to do a damn thing for our rights. But Mr. Obama, you lied. I'd rather gouge my eyes out with hot pokers than vote for a Republican, but you can rest assured I won't be voting for Mr. Obama again. Fool me once...

So, to everyone who will be picketing the Gala, I salute you, and wish I could be among your ranks. Godspeed, maybe Obama will get the message that we're here, we're queer, and we vote and pay taxes too.

Fall

It has become apparent that fall has, at long last, arrived in London.

Much to my dismay, might I add, since I enjoy wearing short pants all year for the most part. The air is getting damp, the leaves are sweeping to the ground in little orange and red puddles. The evenings are chilly, and the bottoms of my jeans are often wet and grainy from being dragged all over the city.

It's almost not fair to have to sit in rooms and read about people who are very much alive in the pages of hundred year old texts, people who did things and loved and lived and lived, and we are cooped up and confined to a classroom and a white board, or a power point slide show or a visit to a museum where the professor will butcher a piece that otherwise would have brought a tear to your eye.

Fall always reminds me of walking to my house after school. The bus dropped me off a block away from my house, and I always remember the sudden surge of excitement at the end of the day when the last bell would ring and then that feeling of disappointment, sitting on the bus and bouncing up and down up and down and knowing it would all have to be done again tomorrow.

Walking home in the fall is particularly vibrant in my memory, probably because there are so many smells in the fall. I think there are far more fall smells than spring smells even. There's the smell of leaves, leaves that you couldn't smell all spring and summer and now that they have made their way to the ground you finally get a good wiff. And then there is rain. It rains a lot in the fall, at least in the Northeast (and in London, it is very very damp), and the smell of the rain falling from the sky, clinging desparately to the bare tree branches and the few remaining leaves. It's all very romantic.

I remember walking home and having nothing better to do than to have conversations with myself (this was before I had a car and I would just turn the stereo on high to drown out the thoughts in my head). Inner conversations of course, I'm not the crazy lady who talks out loud to herself (not yet anyway). I'd think about everything from algebra to charlemagne to why life was so hard to how I didn't think I could do it all over again tomorrow. High school was such a drag.

Sometimes while I was walking, I would look around and notice that I was all alone. I live in a bedroom community, my friends and my teachers and my mother know me, but none of my neighbours even know my name. I would feel so utterly alone. And then there would be a gentle breeze, and the leaves would all start to rustle. The leaves would be swept up with the wind, and they would kind of march alongside me, the breeze pushing them along.

The leaves walking alongside me in the gentle fall breeze always made me feel like I wasn't alone, like it was worth it to get up and do it all again tomorrow. I would cut through my backyard, which opens out onto a side-street, and slosh through the muddy grass. The leaves wouldn't roll alongside me in the grass, but it was okay because the gentle breeze remained and, not unlike the warm hugs of summer, the cool breezes of fall are also friendly and gentle in their own way.

It's strange to look back on times like those and think of how insignificant they felt then, and what lasting memories they have become.

I never feel alone in the fall. I feel like someone is watching me, a lot of the time, specifically in the fall, and I can't help but wonder if it isn't my daddy watching me, knowing that these months are the hardest for mom and I to get through. This year will be twelve years since he died. I always say I wouldn't give anything to see him again, to hear his voice, to touch his scratchy face, to play one round of basketball with him, but secretly I would. I know he's in the leaves, he's in the trees, he's in every raindrop and every muddied blade of grass. He's everywhere I am, everywhere I've been and everywhere I'm going. But it doesn't make me miss him any less.

I know it's just me being wishful and hoping that my daddy is watching over me, but I know it's just my heart and my mind playing tricks on me, hoping to see him walking up the path, open the door and catch my eight year old self flying into his waiting arms.

But it's just the breeze, and just the leaves rustling in the gentle changing of the weather. The sky is getting grey and the days are getting shorter. Soon it will be winter, and there will be frost on the bare tree limbs and the flowers will all be long dead.

I do miss being alone and introspective, I hope that there are still lonely and introspective teenagers out there, and that they don't feel so alone when they feel gentle breezes or rain drops that fall on bare cheeks. I hope no one feels so lonely when they hear the leaves rustling in the wind, and that everyone has a marvelously beautiful fall, wherever you are.

Love Your Neighbour as Yourself

One day an expert on Moses' laws came to test Jesus' orthodoxy by asking him this question: "Teacher, what does a man need to do to live forever in heaven?" Jesus replied, "What does Moses' law say about it?" "It says," he replied, "that you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind. And you must love your neighbor just as much as you love yourself." "Right!" Jesus told him. "Do this and you shall live!" The man wanted to justify (his lack of love for some kinds of people), so he asked, "Which neighbors?" Jesus replied with an illustration: "A Jew going on a trip from Jerusalem to Jericho was attacked by bandits. They stripped him of his clothes and money, and beat him up and left him lying half dead beside the road. "By chance a Jewish priest came along; and when he saw the man lying there, he crossed to the other side of the road and passed him by. A Jewish Temple-assistant walked over and looked at him lying there, but then went on. "But a despised Samaritan came along, and when he saw him, he felt deep pity. Kneeling beside him the Samaritan soothed his wounds with medicine and bandaged them. Then he put the man on his donkey and walked along beside him till they came to an inn, where he nursed him through the night. The next day he handed the innkeeper two twenty-dollar bills and told him to take care of the man. 'If his bill runs higher than that,' he said, 'I'll pay the difference the next time I am here.' "Now which of these three would you say was a neighbor to the bandits' victim?" The man replied, "The one who showed him some pity." Then Jesus said, "Yes, now go and do the same." (TLB, Luke 10:25-37)

Hope everyone is having a great Sunday, and that everyone has a wonderful week.

Everyone Jump Upon the Peace Train

Now just tell me this song doesn't bring a smile to your heart :)

God bless all you who crave the Peace Train, who ride the Peace Train, who conduct the Peace Train into tomorrow.

And it's getting nearer, soon it will all be true :) God bless you Yusuf Islam, may every last person on this Earth hear the call of peace.

Happy October!

The Boys Wanna Be Her

We're seeing PEACHES... TONIGHT!

I am so effing excited I can hardly stand it. I love Peaches, and I hear her shows are absolutely out of control. She's probably the coolest chick who ever lived and if I go home with her, Hillary totally can't be upset with me.

But no, for reals, that would never happen.

But I am VERY excited about seeing Peaches and dancing and being up until 3 am. I hope I get a picture with her, she's doing a DJ set so it's not like she'll be up on a stage or anything. Totally going to get her autograph :)

If you're in London tonight go to the Bath House and see Peaches!

Love Dares You to Care For the People

This is our selves... under pressure

I always idolized Freddie Mercury (who doesn't, though?). Ever since I've gotten to London, "Under Pressure" is on repeat in my brain. I feel like this song is a great characterisation of this city (or any city for that matter). Everyone is doing their own thing and they forget that they aren't the only person on the face of the earth.

You should check out my other blog: Across the Pond and comment on my posts! I'm having a fantastic adventure in London so far :)

You Can Hear the Whistle Blow a Hundred Miles

Mary Travers, of Peter, Paul and Mary has died at the age of 72.

It's a very sad day for folk music, for the generation of peace loving individuals who sprouted out of the 1960's, and for people like me who were raised with the tenants of peace and love and grew up listening to artists like Mary Travers.

She was not only radiantly beautiful, but she was kind, and courageous, and she had a damn good voice.

If I Had a Hammer

I'll always remember listening to her on tape, riding my bike around the neighbourhood, or watching Peter, Paul and Mary on the television and feeling completely connected to the lyrics they sang.

The saddest part of the death of such an icon for the peace movement is that there seems to be no one taking up the torch for the cause. I have no power, or fame, or money or really very much talent, or else I would have taken up the cause long ago. People with power, with sway, with the funds to do wonderful things and the talent to command people to listen just simply are not using those gifts for the right purposes. I hope someone comes along, sooner rather than later, who will remind us that justice, freedom and love are the three greatest gifts. I also hope that before any more wars start, that we might be reminded of where all the flowers have gone.

Where Have All the Flowers Gone?

New Blog

I've created a new blog where I'm going to compile all of my pictures, thoughts, adventures, etc. from London over the next four months or so.

The blog is called Across the Pond

I suspect I'll do a great deal of blogging from that one, so things might get kind of dead around here for a while. However, I do like to come here and rant and rave so I suspect if I ever feel the need to do that, I'll come here.

This is basically my way of saying that, if you want to keep up with what's going on in London, or what's going on with me, you should probably look up my new blog. But don't forget about The Ray! 201 posts later and still going strong! Check in every now and then here to see if anything is going on, but definitely check out the new blog, I think it will definitely be worth your while!

On Pet-Dumping

I was browsing Craigslist (I frequent the pet section, because I'm hopelessly addicted to animals and I always convince myself that somehow I can help the person out who is looking to rehome their cute little bunny) when I came across this post and it really resonated with me. Pass this along if you feel so inclined, and be sure to give credit where credit is due. I take no credit for the following, I simply say bravo to you, M. Clark (whoever you may be) for saying so eloquently what I feel every day of my life. A commitment is a commitment and a family member is a family member and it is our responsiblity as higher forms of life (as it were...) to care for the lower forms of life, and to treat them with respect and dignity.

On Pet-Dumping

I recently read an online article called "Why You Can't Afford a Dog." The author encouraged families facing financial difficulties to consider the money-saving move of giving up their dog. After all, feeding a dog and providing veterinary care cost an average of $800 per year, and times are tight. The author encouraged dog owners to find temporary foster care for their animals – though what sort of temporary foster care she imagines exists for dogs, I don't know - or to surrender them to already-overcrowded shelters where euthanasia is common.

I was horrified.

I was a dog-loving child. The emotions I felt for my dog were, in my tender years, akin to the emotions adults feel for their babies. I recall two primary fears in early adolescence: the premature death of a parent or sibling, and the inevitable death of my dog. I would have chosen to move to a smaller house, share a bedroom with my two sisters, and never buy another record album before I would have chosen to give up my dog. Fortunately for me, my parents understood that. Once, in my adulthood, my mother said, "I never understood people who would take their children's pets away. What message does that send?"

I can't imagine a parent who wants this to be the message they teach their children: that family members are disposable; that when they become inconvenient, we just throw them away; that material things are more important than living things.

Thinking about taking your dog to the shelter? Consider this before you go.

Things You Should Give Up Before You Abandon the Pet You Promised to Love and Protect:

1. Premium cable TV: $100 - $150/month
Standard cable TV: $39.99 per month.
Cheapo, local-only cable: $10.40/month.
No cable: $0.00 per month.

What you can buy for your dog with your savings:
Taste of the Wild Grain-Free Kibble (high-end!): $38 for a 30-lb bag, which feeds a medium-sized dog for 2 – 3 months.

2. Gym membership: $480/year
Walking up and down the hills of your local park one to two hours per day, plus tossing a stick, playing tug of war, and wrestling with your dog: $0

What you can buy for your dog with your savings:
"Basic Manners" and "Beginning Agility" classes to help him become a better doggie citizen.

3. Cell Phone Plans: $600 per year (low-end) to $1800 per year (high-end, with texting, etc.)
TracFone service: $60/year (Low-end, minimal calling – seriously, that's what I spend, with minutes left over.)

What you can buy for your dog with your savings:
Average healthy-dog veterinary care: $300 - $500/year.

4. Music for your two teenagers:

300 downloads from iTunes: $387 X 2 = $774
Medium-quality iPod: $100 X 2 = $200
Total = $974
Allowing the teenagers to baby-sit and rake leaves until they can afford their own music: $0. (And actually, let's throw in a net gain of, say, $500 for the invaluable lessons about delayed gratification, hard work, and knowing that it's a tough, cold world where Mommy and Daddy won't bail them out all the time.)

What you can buy for your dog with your savings:
Emergency surgery, stitching up, antibiotics, and follow-up care for a hypothetical dog - not my dog; he's not that dumb! - who hypothetically runs into a stick while frolicking in the woods, stabbing himself in the chest: $800.

5. New Honda CR-V: $23,500; use for 5 years = $4,700/year
5-year-old Toyota Corolla: $8,995; use for 5 years = $1799/year.

What you can buy for your dog with your savings: Wow! You can take in grandma's Yorkie, and make him a friend for your dog. Then Grandma can still see him sometimes, even though she's moving into an assisted living community. That will make her so happy!

6. Your Credit Cards: Cost on a $10,000 balance at 10% = $13,777 over 16 years
Cost on a 10,000 balance at 20% = 22,241 over 25 years.
Cost of buying something with $10,000 cash: $10,000.

What you can buy for your dog and Grandma's dog with your savings:
Fur coats, caviar, manicures, and spa treatments.

If you love your children, show them that you honor your commitments. Teach them that we care for the less powerful gently and with compassion. There are always smaller houses, smaller cars, and less expensive food. There is never, never another family member to replace a pet carelessly tossed away.


Copyright 2009 by M. Clark