03.09.08 9:10 am

wow. strange new world in here with the new dland design. i'm not sure i'm a fan of it. the comfort of old familiar is gone. does EVERYTHING always have to change? sigh.

daylight savings today and yet i'm already up and awake on a sunday sleep-in day, and writing in here no less. wonders...

i've been thinking about why i've stopped writing the last few years. am i hiding? what am i hiding from? am I running too fast to stop, look and write? have i moved on from needing it as a touchstone and a nurture for myself? Then why the constant nag in the back of my head... you should write... you should write... eh. i dont know. i'm already bored with this topic.

it's not like i have nothing to write about. big things have happened the last few months: i turned 40. stepfather killed himself. father died of a heart attack. attended my first-ever caucus (along with about 3/4 of the democrat party). boyfriend moved in. etcetera.

ya know. stuff like that.

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firstly, the big milestone of my 40th birthday came and went. i made sure to celebrate it in a velvety dark kitschy club with 30 of my nearest and dearest, which proved to be a wise decision, and much better than the competing alternative which was to bury myself alone in a room with a bottle of rum. so yeah. nothing much has changed, i did all of the fretting and mourning about it my entire 39th year, so i'm over it now. it is what it is. i yam what i yam.

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so nextly on the list...

my psycho scary violent sociopath monster of a gun-obsessed stepfather blew his head off thanksgiving weekend, in a public park in boulder, co. he was 60. apparently he had been living pretty much as an indigent for the last five or so years, sleeping in his truck on my mother's sister's property, hiding from the government and collectors (we assume). he lived off savings he had the first couple years, then when that ran out, instead of asking for help or getting a job (he was an engineer with security clearance to work on satellites for over 25 years so he supposedly was employable), he resorted to breaking into my aunt and uncle's house to raid the refrigerator for food. spent his last years riding his bike around town, spending most of the day in the library on the computer. we haven't had any interaction with him for at least the last 8 years or so. maybe more. its all a blur.

i had to sign off on the body as next of kin. sur. real.

my mother called to tell me while i was at work. i had no idea how to feel, so my body reacted for me. nausea and an instant mother of a migraine. i found out later my sister had the exact same reaction. needless to say, although no grief for this man has surfaced, nightmares of our life with him have. raucous weird wake-up frozen dread nightmares. but they are passing. the grisly method with which he chose to end his life was just a striking reminder of the level of violence he was capable of, of what he shared with us.

it has brought a welcome closure of sorts. we now have an end to that hideous story. and luckily, the body count was limited to one. the alternative endings were much more gruesome and possible. what a relief to lay that time bomb to rest for good; no more looking over our shoulder, wondering when it would strike again.

sigh. literally.

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that is all for now. but i WILL be back. i will.

yup.

yessir.

(you should write... you should write... you should write...)