Title Goes Here

My papaw is in the hospital. He has congestive heart failure. I'm having self esteem and self worth issues. I feel like no one ever listens when I talk. I'm in love with a person who's completely oblivious to the fact that I'm even here. That love makes me hate myself. I feel lost. My wheels are spinning in place. I'm going nowhere fast. I don't know which is more scary: success or failure. I don't know how I could possibly mess my life up any more. I'm on the verge of tears all of the time. I'm afraid of things that shouldn't even be problems. I saw my friend curl up comfortably into a ball under a hoodie of mine all the while having extra space and I didn't eat for two days. Even now the thought is enough for me to skip a solid meal or two. I keep thinking about my Aunt Joy and how I can't stand to lose anyone else in my family right now. I don't know how I could handle it. I'm frustrated and disappointed constantly with those closest to me. I want to punch something. These are the things I'm feeling and this is the only way they'll come out. Yay, prose.

I'm unhappy.

I don't have anything witty to say, or anything clever. I just needed to be honest for once and just say it. I'm unhappy. I'm starting to forget those once familiar feelings of elation, of joy. I feel like my world stopped when my aunt passed. I haven't been able to muster an honest smile. The kind that you don't feel with your face, but the kind that you feel with everything you are. I used to be like that. I used to really laugh. I used to really smile. I always put up a front. I don't like to let people in. I just sing, gloss over life, tell every one that it's OK. I'm not. I'm not OK. I keep dropping hints that I need someone to just listen for a change and not a single person shuts their mouth to open an ear. I'm not angry. I understand. We all have lives to live. I just wish that the pause button wasn't stuck on mine. It's like I'm trapped in the moment that I found out that my Joy died. January sucks.



Today's also my younger brother's birthday. He would have been 20 today. Which, I admit, is the most bizarre thought to me. I can't picture him past that little blond-haired, blue-eyed baby boy that he remains as in my memories. You know what, I'm just going to go on for a minute here. It's my blog after all.



I have three memories of Kyle, my little buddy. I remember one morning when my mom was having trouble waking him up, as he was always a really heavy sleeper. I don't know if that was just how he was or if it was just the disease that he had. There's not a lot known about his disease, which means no one probably knows. But anyway, I remember I took one of his favorite toys, the kind where you either turn a little knob or push a buttion and it makes a fun little noise and a little figure pops up. If memory serves, it was a Sesame Street toy. I remember thinking Groucho was funny. So, I took the toy, laid it next to his head, and then just started pressing the buttons, one by one until I heard my little brother start crying.



Another time I remember standing in his bedroom while my mom was holding him on the floor. You couldn't really ever put him down because he would start crying since he couldn't breathe lying flat. I went into the kitchen and grabbed two baggies from a drawer. I put them on my hands like they were rubber gloves. My mom asked me what I was doing and I told her that I was pretending to be a doctor. She asked why. I said it was because it's all that Kyle knows and I wanted to play something that he liked. My brother was in and out of the hospital for his entire life. Once they figured out what he had they realized that there was nothing that they could do.



I have one more memory of my younger brother. As part of his treatment he was forced to sit in a carseat and suck on albuterol for a while a couple of times per day. My mom would always use this time to her andvantage and go outside to smoke. I would sit right in front of my brother the entire time she was smoking. I would just plop down and talk to him. I knew how much he hated his machine. He would cry and fuss; but, if I was talking to him he would calm down just a little bit. My last memory of him was when I was chatting up a storm, and while I did so my brother fell asleep. I knew how much he hated that thing. It was weird for him to fall asleep. I got scared but I couldn't really figure out why. I ran over to my brother, who was three years older, and told him that Kyle was asleep. He didn't understand why I was panicked and said "Let him sleep." I ran, frustrated, to my other brother, eight years my senior. "Kyle's asleep! He's asleep!" I kept crying. My elder sibling was just like "So, what?". I run down the hall to the front door just as my mom is coming in, I was screaming "He's asleep! He's asleep!". She understood what I meant immediately. She took him into her arms and yelled for my dad. I went to wake him up. He understood, too. My father called 911. I watched them take my brother away. I never saw him again.

Those are the first three memories of my life. I don't remember anything before that. It was like that was when my life started.

See, this is all I wanted. I wanted someone to just hear me out for a minute. I feel better now that I have just talked. I didn't even talk about what I really wanted to talk about, but it helped. Thank you all.

Aim for the moon, because even if you miss you'll land in the vacuum of space and die a rather quick, painful death as your blood essentially boils.

Best. Title. Ever. EVER.

I've been in quite the funk for about a week now. It's not like me to be depressed, or even sad in the slightest of ways. I usually go from happy to pissed and skip the doldrums altogether. In fact, my little motto is "I don't do sadness, not even a little bit. I just don't need it in my life. I don't want any part of it.". It's from Spring Awakening, yeah be jealous. I figure the best way to get out of this little rut of a life is to set goals for myself. Nothing too extreme, just things to which if I were to put my mind I could actually achieve.

So here is what I deem a very doable list of things that need doing and/or things that should have been done a long time ago and that I'm finally getting around to doing.

1) Get myself some job.

2) Get myself some car.

3) Stop using the turn of phrase "get myself some" unless I'm actually going to "get myself some".

4) Move out.

5) Lose 50 lbs before I start school back up.

6) Start school back up

7) Broaden my culinary horizons by foraying into the realms of cheese making and meat curing.

8) Go to another country.

I think that that list is reasonable. Si, se puede. Maybe if I feel like I'm accomplishing something I'll feel better. Adapt and overcome. WWGRD? Why do you have so many positive sayings to make you feel better? Why are you speaking in third person all of a sudden? Why are you so damn sexy? Why not, people? Why not?

Music for the Moment- "Light"

I feel like I talk about music a lot, but I love music. So...cope. That's what I'm doing. In fact, that's what I'm trying to do. I use music to help me cope with life, and I feel like that's what I need to be doing right now. Friday-Sadness. Saturday-Hope. Sunday-Recovery. Today-Back to sadness, a little bit.

Today is the first day of term for my former fellow culinarians. I'm sitting at home doing some housework, listening to a lot of music, and trying to find me some job. I recently procured (through completely legal means) a copy of the soundtrack to Next to Normal. It's helping get through this time. I figure this is a healthier coping mechanism than, say, alcohol.

I can relate to this musical, which is why I love it so much. It's about a family coping with a mother's craziness after her son dies. He dies as an infant but she entertains delusions of his existence sixteen years later. She eventually tries to commit suicide and we follow her through her and her family's recoveries. I relate to this musical inasmuch as my younger brother died and my mom never fully recovered. She has attempted suicide more times than I can count through various means. She's a little crazy, but I love her anyway.

This song is the finale. I've listened to it a million times. This song just says a lot of things that I can't.

"Light" - Next to Normal

We need some light.
First of all, we need some light.
You can't sit here in the dark.
And all alone, it's a sorry sight.
It's just you and me.
We'll live, you'll see.

Night after night,
We'd sit and wait for the morning light.
But we've waited far too long,
For all that's wrong to be made right.

Day after day,
Wishing all our cares away.
Trying to fight the things we feel,
But some hurts never heal.
Some ghost are never gone,
But we go on,
We still go on.

And you find some way to survive
And you find out you don't have to be happy at all,
To be happier alive.

Day after day,
Give me clouds, and rain and gray.
Give me pain, if that's what's real.
It's the price we pay to feel.
The price of love is loss,
But still we pay.
We love anyway.

And when the night has finally gone.
And when we see the new day dawn.
We'll wonder how we wandered for so long, so blind.
The wasted world we thought we knew,
The light will make it look brand new.
So

Let it
Let it
Let it
Let it
Let it
Shine, shine, shine.

Day after day (day after day),
We'll find the will to find our way.
Knowing that the darkest skies will someday see the sun.
When our long night is done,
There will be light.

(There will be light.
There will be light.)

There will be light.
When we open up our lives.
Sons and daughters, husbands, wives.
Can fight that fight.
There will be light.
There will be light.
There will be light.
There will be light.

I feel like this song is going to keep me sane, and if I've learned anything from this musical it's that sanity is a good thing.

Coffee again; Still no alcohol, but plenty of hope.

I just rolled my eyes at that title. Wow, I even unimpress myself. Sweet. I'm not changing it. Effort people, effort.

So, I've had a night to ruminate on yesterday. It sucked. Everybody knows that. But today feels different. Today I have hope. I know that I'm not done. I'm going to keep on learning, except now it's more like an independent study. I'm home schooling myself. I'm going to try new things, and I'm going to rock them. I'm going to cure meats, make cheese. I can do it, and you know why? Because I believe that I can. I'm not afraid.

That's something I've come to learn, and it's probably the most important lesson in all of cooking. Don't be afraid. Try new things, do something new and different. If someone asks me if I can make something the first thing to come out of my mouth is YES. Well, I don't yell it. That was for emphasis. OK, I yell it sometimes.

I earnestly believe that there is nothing that is impossible for me to cook. I have confidence in myself, and I don't think that it's completely unfounded. Am I the best chef in all the land? Not yet, no. But I have drive, ambition, and a thirst for this life. I may trip; I may fumble; I may even fall flat on my fucking face. I'll get up, brush myself off, and keep on cooking.

That's all that yesterday was. I tripped over my own two feet. Today I'm standing back up. This time I'm making sure that my shoes are tied before I run around the kitchen. I'm learning. I'm becoming a better person. I'm becoming a better chef.

And on a last note, I'm listening to all of the music in my library on my computer and it's on shuffle. It just started playing "For Good" from Wicked. That song was for yesterday. Today, "The Bitch is Back".

I'm drinking coffee and there's not even alcohol in it...fail.

Today was the worst day of my life. It was my last day of culinary school. I went to school, cleaned, signed my withdrawal form, and left. It seems fitting somehow that today was a complete nonevent. No one mentioned that I wouldn't be there on Monday; but, it's better that way because I would have lost it if they had. I probably won't see most of those people ever again, which is OK. They'll forget me as I'll forget them. They may think about that one kid that sang a lot, but that's the closest they'll come to remembering me. I'll weave my way seamlessly out of their lives, as if I was never a part of it at all.

I felt numb on the way home. I wanted to feel something but I just couldn't. It may seem like I'm over reacting right now, but I'm just having some problems coping at the moment. Right now I feel like I did in high school, back in the dark ages. Those times where I just wasn't me. Back before I came to terms with who I was. I feel lost. There's a fog around me and everywhere I turn there is nothing, no one. I'm just done. I'm going to sleep and maybe I'll feel human when I wake up in the morning. If I'm lucky I won't.

Whatever.

I'm a grammar Nazi, mein Freund.

I also don't speak German. So, here's the deal. I love language. I'm the kid that likes to read books on English grammar just so that I can lord minute details of my native tongue over my peers. My biggest pet peeves in the world are who v. whom, ending sentences with prepositions(or prepositional phrases), and the simple things like their v. there v. they're. Am I guilty of these things occasionally? Yes, yes I am. Are these crimes so heinous that one should face a tribunal upon their(see, here is where this one goes.) committal? Maybe.

There is one crime, one horrible act against English nature the for the likes of which I shall never be at fault. That is legitly. I just threw up a little. Those sounds should never be uttered in sequence. Legit? With that I can deal. However, if you add an -ly trying to make it an adverb, fuck you in the ass with something hard and sand-papery. You cannot go around taking the middle out of words all willy-nilly. The establishment will fall people, it will fall! Thinking of which, Heinz, fuck you, too. Est'd? Really? REALLY?!? Burn in hell!

OK, I may have lost my shit there a little. Whimsy, calm the fuck down.

I have one more thing to about which to bitch. I know that recently(by "recently" I mean the last couple of years) it has officially been deemed "correct" to end a sentence with a preposition. I have one thing to say: Homo don't play that game (Yes, I refer to myself as Homo. Yes, you are jealous.). Also, it is not OK. You're wrong, I am right. Na na na na boo boo, stick your head in doo-doo. No truer words have ever been spoken. Also also, I took great care to not end sentences with prepositions in this post. It's a little awkward at times, but you'll deal.

And I'm spent.