Atomictumor

Picked up the kids and decided to go see Happy Feet.  Pigpen wasn’t really into it, although he was completely into the idea of it of going before the movie started.  He got fidgety about halfway through, and sat on my lap after his second trip the bathroom (when I very lightly swatted the back of his head for taking me to the bathroom just to get out of the chair, instead of to actually USE the bathroom, and he looked at me and said “You don’t do that, Daddy!” with a Clint Eastwood glint in his eye).

We were watching the movie, and not paying attention to it together for a few minutes.  I patted his leg, and enjoyed the closeness of a 4 year old son.  I’d reach over, and put my arm around MastaG in the next chair, and enjoy the closeness of a 10 year old son.

When Pigpen and I were sitting, he quietly said “I miss Mommy.”

I told him I did too.

We watched the movie, came home, ate, and went to bed.

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As I wrote this, I was listening to the music that Bos linked to in an earlier comment, and I listened to the lyrics for a bit (which I tend to ignore in my impatience with things in general, and I saw The Beauty.  Its been about a month, and it took me away for a minute.

I have tears in my eyes.

I miss you, and love you, BJ.

I’m crying for you, and me, and life, and The Beauty, and the pain, and everything, harder than I’ve cried in a long, long time…

i love you.

i’ll love you forever.

After a day or so of work, I’ve got the ‘tumor shiny, happy, and new. The shoutbox is open for everybody to ride on, I have installed a tilt-a-whirl, and you can leave comments! Woot for comments!

OK, this is the deal regarding last week.

I needed that.

See, the ‘tumor has been a large part of my life. Its been my outlet since before most of you came here, and its been the monkey on my back for almost as long. I love the website. I love having a ‘blog’, although dammit, I hate that word.

However, this whole thing got the better of me, and I had to take it down.

I’ve been talking for a month or two about the changes that I expect my life to go through, and I think one of the only ways to effect change like we’re talking about is to rip down parts of your life that don’t work anymore, and put up new ones. That might be part of my talk about moving, although I’d sure miss this house.

I like this house. It, like the website, are something that BJ and I designed together.

Damn elusive point…

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MAN, it is good to have easy posting of my ramblings again! HTML is fun, but DAMN its a lot of work… I’d spend 5 times as long writing than I would making sure everything works! At least it gave me a chance to hone my geekery.

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So, here is my official stance on the organ donation thing, and then I don’t want to talk about it ever ever again.

I was wrong. I knew it when I wrote that post, and I know it now, and I’m sorry. I really am. Those of you that called me out on it were right. You were also pretty tactless (most of you), because you should have known that theres going to be times where I post something so raw and angry and emotional that it will take you aback. I’d love to say thats the last time, but I know it won’t be. This thing sucks, folks. It sucks more and more every day, BUT, at the same time, every day I’m more and more hopeful. The dread of life alone is subsiding, it comes back every once in a while, but the high water mark (hopefully) was hit Friday.

Anyway, point is, I’m sorry. I’m intellectually very happy that 3 fathers, just like me, have been saved from the organ donation list. What I didn’t mention, in my anger, is that all three of them had been waiting a year. You can’t wait a year for an organ, have it transplanted successfully, with meaningful change (the note said the kidney guys were off dialysis, and the liver guy was doing well) and be anything less than grateful.

Gratitude isn’t what I want, tho, because it wasn’t really my decision. I mean, it was, ultimately, but I did what BJ would have had me do. That, and I wasn’t going to use em.

So, water under the bridge and all that.

Except for this…

I shut off comments because I didn’t feel that I needed people getting onto me. Lots of people, who haven’t had this happen, are offering what seems helpful to them, but really isn’t. I’m tickled pink that people care for me, I really am, but sometimes its better just to say “Dude, I care” or something, rather than give a bunch of suggestions.

Jesus, I just read that, and I sound like such a douche. OK, comment away, but if I don’t like it, I might change your name to something like “Rodney Dimplebottom” or “One-Eyed Jack”.

Damn, its good to be back!

So, most every year I try to ignore the impending holiday season until I can’t possibly not ignore it anymore without the kids staging a mutiny (BJ has always broken down before me, traditionally, tho last year SHE was the one that wrote the angry “friggin Christmas” post… I need to find those old archives). This year is not an exception.

To me, the whole Christmas tree decorations and stuff is a hassle. Its just an unnecessary expense of energy. I don’t get sentimental about holidays, or dates, or stuff, so I’ve never been one to sit back and say “ahh, I love the holidays”, but I have been known to woot when they were over.

Yes, I’m a grinch. I admit it.

However, we need to go ahead and get the ball rolling on the tree and what not, so maybe this weekend, maybe sooner, we’re going to roll out to Skunk Ridge Tree Farms, our Christmas tree killing field of choice, cut down one of those bastards by hand, and drag the dead arbor to the house, like a mighty trophy of yore.

Then we’re going to wire that bad boy up, put some breakable stuff on it, and maybe put faux dead branches around the TV and, if I’m froggy, some electrical illumination devices around the windows.

—

We went to BJ’s folks house today, hung out, and watched the second Pirates of the Caribbean movie (I had chinese food, yum).  BJ’s Dad says that her Mom isn’t doing much different, that when people are over, she’s OK, but at night she still cries herself to sleep.  Hes not sure how long it can hold out like this.

I can’t say I’m particularly worried, but I think I have a bad attitude about the whole thing.  I feel like if I’m making it as well as I am, theres no excuse for everybody else not making it (after all, we were friggin soulmates and all), but while I feel that, I also understand that I have no idea, so I should just keep my damn mouth shut.

Or something like that.

So, I try.

Anyway, he mentioned that she wasn’t going to do Christmas this year, which kinda irritated me, because she always did that for the kids, rather than for BJ (and me).  She just doesn’t want to be reminded of all of the ornaments that BJ had, or gifts she’d get BJ, or stuff like that.  BJ was her baby, and a very coddled one, so to speak.  Her parents never said no to her, they indulged her, and loved the hell out of her.  Thats why I keep my damn mouth shut, because theres stuff there that I just won’t ever know.

I digress.

So, I asked her, within earshot of MastaG, if it’d be OK if we came over this weekend to help put the tree and decorations and stuff up.  She agreed, and acted like it was a good idea.  Not sure if it was or not, either I’m tough loving her and getting her out of the mope that she’s in by forcing normalcy on her (like we’re doing here), or I’m torturing her.

If I’m torturing her, that kinda sucks, because there are a BILLION things I’d rather do than put up MORE Christmas friggin decorations… why couldn’t BJ have the decency to get sick in like, June or something, so maybe we could just go to the beach?

—

Which reminds me of another thing, an oddity I’ve noticed in myself.  I’m finding myself, in conversation, talking like I’m glossing over her death.  Instead of “death certificates”, I tell folks that I went to pick up “her certificates”.  Or, I notice myself saying “we”, as in “We’re going to put up the decorations” or “We were going to get that present for Pigpen”.  I know, as I say that, that theres not a we, but its more of that automatic stuff.  It doesn’t bother me, I just find it interesting, because a week ago I wasn’t doing that.

This feels like its been forever.  It really feels like months have gone by since BJ was alive.  I can’t even really imagine what it was like anymore, to have her in the living room, messing on the computer.

I feel, sometimes, that I’m running this whole “dead wife” thing into the ground.  I came up with a plan today, but I’m not sure if I’m going to enact it.

I’m going to hit a point, pretty soon, where I’m not going to have much more to say, because things will go back to uneventful here, and I’m still not interested enough in the outside world to write the way that I used to here, back before this started.

Don’t be suprised if you swing by here one day and find a placeholder, instead of the actual ‘Tumor.  I won’t take it down, I’ve worked too hard for it, but I think I might need to enforce a break on it, and if I find myself constantly compelled to come here and write, I don’t think I’m ever going to get that break, and let that wound start to scab over.

I think I may have aired it enough, and Bos has his own place to write now…

So, I rolled out this morning to meet the SSI people, so that I can claim my government sanctioned weregild. I got there, as requested, 15 minutes early, to a mass of people huddling outside the door.

A little like on the Statue of Liberty, but no half naked girl in a robe.

After waiting about 5 minutes, we were allowed inside, where there was jockeying for position between “Guy Who Brought Two Sisters And Wants Everybody To Know”, “Angry Middle Aged Woman Who Has Been Trying To Get These People Off Their Asses For Four Years And Fix Her Social Security Check And Wants Everybody To Know”, “Loudly Whispering Old Man With Wife Who Doesn’t Understand Why Wife Is Doing This”, and the ubiquitous “Guy In Cowboy Hat” to be first in line to punch in your number and magically get a ticket.

I, being a cosmopolitan IT professional, fully versed in the ways of magical ticketing machines, was content to get my ticket last, and locate the most secluded seat I could find.  LWOMWWWDUWWIDT came over and sat down, were they commenced having the loudest whispered conversation ever (that, or my transformation to a bat is nearly complete) until I was called back.

The angry German I was expecting was replaced by a friendly middle aged guy, who complained about the computer, strained his neck because the monitor was too low (he told me his chiropractor was a good friend), and took about an hour to get everything loaded up.  By the time we were done, I had claim receipts in the amount of Exactly What I Was Expecting (which may mean my transformation to a clairvoyant bat is nearly complete).

Score one for AT and getting stuff done.

Since I was out of oranges this morning (subtract one from AT for slackin) I had a tasty breakfast of chicken biscuits at the CFA, and then dropped off the paperwork for BJ’s life insurance claim to work (4 -6 weeks till payday).  That means I’ve pretty much cashed the girl out.  I think I still have to sell back her school books, then I’ll be done…
—

I was wondering today, if somebody put the born and died dates to our marriage, when would the final date be?  Nov 17?  I don’t think so, because I’m still taking care of her stuff.

The other day, when I took off the rings?   Nah, I don’t think that either.

—

When I got home, I pulled up in the driveway, and saw BJ’s van sitting there.  I involuntarily got excited that she was home, before I stopped myself.

I think maybe when I get rid of the van, that’ll be a good end date for it.

Yes, I just woke up.  From a nap.  After getting up at 10 this morning.

Wanna make something of it?

—

MastaG wants to come home.  BJ’s folks were seeing about angling to watch the boys for both nights this weekend, and I’d get them in the morning in time for Sumgurl’s kid’s birthday party tomorrow.  It does em some good to have the boys over, I reckon, but ol’ MastaG is homesick, so I’m going to pick them up in a bit.  It does me some good to have em home, although, I admit, the quiet is rather nice…

I miss the brats.

I’m liking our little threesome, but I’m not sure how to fill those empty spaces in the day.  Seems like Pigpen watches a movie, and G plays on the computer, and I do something else, which is essentially how it went when BJ was here, but just doesn’t seem right.  I guess thats something we’ll figure out.

I’m thinking today I’ll take them with me to the record store (a bad idea, assuredly), and then, if they haven’t driven me crazy, we’ll go out to eat somewhere.

That sounds good, but the reality of it is that they’ll both be kinda whiney from being up late two nights in a row, and I’ll have to take them home.

—

Along with the threesome, I’m also trying to figure out the relationship with BJs family.  Now, they read this, which is an odd thing to get used to, but I have a hard time speaking my mind around them, because, like my loving mother, I have a habit of saying things that people take the wrong way.  Woot for communication by internet proxy!

See, the whole time BJ and I have been together, we’ve been close to her family, but at arms distance.  We’d head over and see them once or twice a week.  BJ’s dad was always good about dropping everything to babysit the boys when we needed one (frequently, when BJ was in school) or lending us money (frequently, this year), but we wouldn’t often just head down to their house and relax.  I’d get bored, BJ would play on the computer, and the kids would watch TV.

I feel like, now, I should have a bigger part in the thing, but I don’t know how.  When I’m there, I really kinda get the urge to leave, because thats the way I always was.  I mean, yeah, stick around for an hour or two and talk to em, but when we run out of things to talk about, I’m not sure what to do.

I’m really not sure how to handle their grief.  They’re doing it in a very different way then I am, and I feel like I make them uncomfortable, because I’m pretty frank about the whole thing.  I’m probably just thinking that.

Point is, I just don’t know, and I love em.
—

I’ve been reminding myself all day that BJ’s dead, and there hasn’t really been any grief.  I can still remember how her touch, and her presence felt, but its distant.  That doesn’t cause me grief either, just that ol’ longing, and something else that feels a little like the regret, without the guilt.  Maybe its just gret.  I don’t know.

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Alright, I’m outty.  Talk to you guys later.