"Goodbye to the elms, / to the farm, to the dog." - Elizabeth Bishop

"It's not goodbye, it's see you later." - Cab

Once when I'd just moved back to Seattle from Baltimore I went to a party at Tiffany's. I started talking to someone who would later turn into a good friend.* I told Evan that I might want to be a writer. He said, "Don't say that. Just be one. If you are a writer, write." That statement wasn't really profound, but for me, it changed everything. I said to myself, well, okay, if I'm going to write, I might as well write a blog, for practice, and see how it goes. That's short amounts, and no one expects it to be perfect. And I'm going to do it every day.



It didn't happen every day. It happened in fits and starts. I remember the day I got to 50 posts. I was ecstatic. My friend Kirk told me that I should have my own webspace, to get off blogspot. I was freaking out and unsure of what I was doing even with the incredibly easy blogspot, so I told him I'd wait til I got to 200 posts, that if I was still writing at 200 posts, I'd think about it.



So I kept chugging along and realized just last week that I'd written over 600 posts.



It's been a good run, this little blog. I've loved writing, I forget sometimes that people actually read it. It's made me a much better writer, and disciplined me well - I stuck to it.



But there's a season for all good things. For now, with commitments to school, work, people, and one particular canine, this blog's season is ending. There's also a couple writing projects I'd like to move from the back burner to the front one, without burning them. (Where did that saying come from anyway, the on the back burner saying?) I do plan on focusing my need for blog outlet at my other journal blog, Going Awry, with less frequent but more quality (ideally!) posts. Look there for a post about the 2010 word of the year, coming soon!



For now, adios amigos - I had a blast. I hope you enjoyed it.



XOXO,



Gretzky



*This is why you should go to parties. Because very, very rarely, when least expecting it, you will meet someone who speaks the same language, who can speak their truth in a way that makes your lungs inhale a little deeper. This doesn't happen very often, but when it does, it's magic.

atomic g-chats

rempt: atomic unit of consumption

evs: has to raise $1500 by Friday. NBD.
AND
realized while doing the dishes and tearing up at the Glee cast version of "Imagine," that it's time to prioritize finding a boyfriend.

taft: needs a nap

marsh: it IS beginning to look a lot like Christmas....

maxin: loves my job! Woohoo!

move it, move it, move it

I'm excited Elliott Bay is coming closer. Instead of a bus ride away, I could even walk there. YES!

who wants to go to morocco?

to visit imad and danielle and younis? It will be fun, I promise.

wow, irs, I'm glad my taxes are supporting your auditing efforts

not really. aren't there some white collar criminals you guys could go after?

"he's so cheesy, I can't watch him without crackers" - lelaina, reality bites

Anthony Robinson wonders if we're losing our grip on reality.

I'm not sure I ever had one, actually.

"...it addresses the fact that people aren’t really saying what’s going on inside them" -colin firth,

in the new york times yesterday...on the upcoming movie A Single Man, in which Firth plays a single man mourning the death of his lover in the 60's. He can't publicly mourn because he happens to be gay.

It's so true, so much of what we're thinking often lies beneath the surface and isn't expressed, due to personal choice and/or cultural pressures. It reminds me of Vivi in Divine Secrets, talking about how if people only knew what was going on inside of others, how fragile we are, we'd treat each other differently - better.

I just horribly misquoted that, but that's the essence of it...and then there's ingrid michaelson:

we are so fragile / and our cracking bones make noise /and we are just / breakable breakable breakable girls and boys

Probably I'm reminded of all of these because I'm feeling fragile myself. Death does that, reminds me of our frailty. And how we should be more careful with each other....and of course, it's Advent, the season where we're supposed to be paying attention. Eyes wide, hearts open.

"I enclose the latest product of my fevered brain." - Grandpa

My grandfather died a week and a half ago. It didn't really hit me til yesterday, when I couldn't stop crying, that he was gone.

Even after we'd spent Friday after the funeral sitting around the living room, reading through his files. Grandpa left 2 boxes of files, immaculately organized, in which he kept copies of every letter he'd ever written. He was a letter writing sort of man, so there were a lot:

There was a letter to the church that married him and grandma. He wrote it a year after her death. He said he was thankful they'd married him, and they ought to know he and his wife had stayed happily married for 64 years before she died.

There was a letter to my mother as a freshman in college, on why it was inappropriate to wear short skirts. He gave 10 reasons.

There was a letter to Curley, my cousin, whose room was apparently a mess: Grandpa admonished "a messy room is a sign of a deranged mind."

Grandpa was supposed to die about 4 years ago, when he was diagnosed with kidney failure and refused treatment. Instead, he moved in with my parents, and lived.

He wrote letters to his congressmen. After watching some Senate hearings and getting upset about John McCain badgering witnesses, something he felt a Senator was not supposed to do, he wrote a letter to McCain, asking him not to run on the Republican ticket, as he didn't want to waste his vote.

He went down to the King County Jail on Monday nights and hung out with men in prison.

I took him to see his sister June in Florida after he said he wanted to see her and make sure she was okay before he died. We flew to Pensacola and drove to Mariana. Grandpa told me all about the local history on the way.

He felt bad for stealing some chocolate bars from the Army supply truck when he was stationed at Guadalcanal in World War II. So in August, he sent a letter apologizing and a check for $50.00 to the Army.

He played pinochle with mom and dad, and sometimes the boys.

He told the Covington City Council that in a city in which the median income was $90,000, they ought to be able to afford to keep garbage off the streets.

And he told stories.

He told me once that he'd written Grandma love letters when he was courting her, but he'd signed them "Your Secret Admirer." And then he didn't tell her it was him til after she'd married him, since he was worried she wouldn't marry him.

He told my father about the time he'd argued a case all the way to the Supreme Court and won. It had something to do with roofing, and he'd memorized the roofing code. All of it.

He told me once (while I was wearing a skirt, I might add) that I should wear dresses to attract a man. In the same breath, he said the man I married better be a king.

I'm gonna miss him.

4th of july - no wait, december

I love the ad council. for real. they made these after september 11th in an attempt to stop backlash/hate against certain ethnic groups.

It's not as fuzzy at their home page. And also, you can check out all the other campaigns they've got going on.