July 24, 2002 - A
"First Steps"
So we are excited and hopeful. Excited, we were, a couple of weeks ago to see Anton and the baby when they came for a short visit. Remember one year ago, when we first welcomed Samantha into the world? She was so tiny then, but she has grown so much in one year. With a ready smile, she cheerfully explores her world. And she does it on her own two feet, she does! Yes, Samantha has already taken her first steps, and walks for a fair distance before needing a support. Anton is such a good, loving father. You can tell she feels so secure in his arms.
Anton proudly holding his thirsty baby
a closer look at baby . . .
Ah, choose an EVIL character, he wouldn't, and that we understand. Still, we are having fun with our two Necromancers, who have passed their baby steps into the fighting lands and have reached level SIX already. If you ask THEM, however, they don't think they're evil, though. ''Heh! Heh!'' they'd just laugh at you, before going about more critter destruction. All in good fun, all in good fun.
Not BAD, at all. And so I leave you today, grinning. Well, I'm grinning. I HOPE you're grinning!
July 24, 2002 - B
"A Fly . . ."
It's not so with a 'a fly in the MILK'!
For a fly in the milk touches ALL of it!
I had this disagreeable surprise when I picked up my mug of milk this evening.
It was not the first sensation of ''EW!'' and ''ICK!'' I've had tonight. Earlier this evening, when checking my email, I found a most unpleasant BASAROV 'bug' in it. This creature has been seen now and then soiling guestbooks of various journallers I read. The crap he leaves is not worth repeating, but suffice to say, it is most ICKY. Somehow he's invaded our pleasent 'WRITINGMAN' list. I do believe John, of the JOURNAL of a Writingman will soon SCOOP the creep out of our lovely salve.
THIS annoying filthy bug will not soil the rest!
So his avid readers patiently wait until then, and curse the bully.
Sad addendum of July 27th: Perhaps more like the milk that got dumped, John posted this sad notice on his main index page:
I regret that I have decided to withdraw my journal and other sections following on the latest attack of my cyber-stalker, on Thursday 25 July, 2002.
I shall be on hiatus while I'm having a general re-think of my approach to on-line journal keeping.
I'll be back with a new improved journal, but I suspect I shall not be reinstating much of what was here prior to July 25.
Fight as valiantly as you may, you can't win 'em all.
July 27, 2002
"The Joy I Declare"
As we didn't stay on that channel long, I didn't learn whether the young man followed her advice. But advice, it is true. I recall with heartache the many years I've wasted on just such sickening pursuits. For they did sicken me. I would worry so much about what people thought of me, I became a nervous wreck. Sometimes, even, the anxiety would build to a fever pitch in which I felt odd chemical changes take place in my brain. I can only describe it as an odd 'trickle, trickle', as my brain felt like a jelly that just became liquified, even though turning colder.
This has been a vex with me. It's been a life long process, and only now that I am in my middles ages am I finally mostly free of its ugly grasp.
But I do not always remember life as this. I was not a nervous youngster. I remember as a youngster being certain I ''was born to do great things!" Somewhere in my childhood, I lost this happy confidence. It got replaced with timidity and shyness.
I can not recall a turning point, as in one point confident to one point not. It was a gradual process. But I do remember a particularly nasty preacher I heard when about ten years old. He blamed ME personally for Jesus' death: ''YOUR sins nailed Jesus to the cross!'' he screamed. I slid down in my hard chair, oddly nervous, terrified even, though I didn't know what specifically I'd done. But, oh, I felt so guilty, just the same.
That guilt stuck to me like a shroud that would not go away for many years. I became imbued with the feeling I just didn't measure up. I could sense it. I was too loud, too awkward, too quiet, too bold, too . . . .
It didn't matter. I just couldn't fit in. Oh, there were times when the veil lifted, and I was not so unhappy. But then it would settle again, on my shoulder, like a reminder I should not forget, should not ever forget.
For I'd killed a God, and I didn't know what other terrible things I'd do. Why did it seem other people absorbed these 'truths' without the soul rending guilt?
Though it did. Their world went on, it held together. It made sense to them. Because it made sense to them, it must be so.
And so I tried to fit in. Perhaps I could be 'redeemed'. But I knew it. I did. I never really fit in. Come my teen years, I had enough curiosity to walk down my own mental paths, and it has been my salvation ever since.
Not Jesus, some fictional somebody who got nailed to a cross. Though doubtless, many Roman prisoners did meet such a painful end. However, I wasn't the one who drove their nails into them.
So I am here, at age forty three, discovering anger in me I didn't know I had. I'm discovering tears I did not know I still carried unshed, for the pain of that adolescent who never felt beautiful, who was scared even to look at that stranger's face in the mirror that was mine.
I would not look long. It was too horrible. I was too fat, too pasty, too retarded-looking. Only a flitting eye movement, long enough only to make sure the part in my hair was straight. I'd shudder at the 'ugly' visage in that mirror.
I believed this shame was good, for was I not 'the wretched sinner'? I did not confess my fears. I don't know if they would have re-assured me. I walked funny. One leg shorter, or higher on the hip or something. I still 'walk funny'. Gramma tried not to shame me with knowledge of it.
Yet I knew I 'didn't fit', wasn't pretty. I knew. Such knowledge gets engraved on one's back as if it were chiseled in. Chiseled in with those disapproving looks. Ah, the futility of it all. And yet I had the strength to rebel.
And rebel, I did. I would not be pretty, by giving into their standards of what a woman should be.
Though a hard and lonely path it was. And I'd learned the fear so well. It was easier to shy away from others, than to face their stares. In my own mind, I could be King (or Queen). That body was just that weird thing that carried my mind about. It was best not to think about it too often.
But as I read 'Wuthering Heights', how I identified with Heathcliff. His love would not choose him, the dark sheep, dark elf, outsider. I feared I would not find love, the kind of love in which your beloved looks at you, and to them, you are beautiful.
But I did find that love, for mind, separate from body, could write letters. And I did, and someone became attracted to that mind. That Laura found its beauty shining through my hither to inadequate frame has became my life's greatest blessing.
Fragile it was, though, in our early years, for I believed no one else could. But then Julia did, and there were two. Gradually I learned others could genuinely like me.
And soon I lost most of that old fear. But oh, the ''Somebody's talking, I thought I heard my name'' fear, how it had nagged at me. ''They're talking about me. I am a thing to pity.'' And shame would come. And shame would come for the shame, settling itself into me, like a heavy chill.
But then gradually, I could think, ''What IF they don't like me? What's the worst that could happen? So they don't like me. What if they think me too strange, too nervous, too this, too that?'' And finally, the liberating thought, ''What the hell if they do?'' I may not be beautiful to them, but that does not mean I don't have my own beauty. And then, comes a feeling of wild liberation. I can be raging me. I can be quiet me. I can be . . . Whatever I am . . . I can be me.
And not have to worry about someone else's judgments. Let it be, let it go, I am free and loose with this freedom. I can love me, simply, quietly, and happily. I can, and the joy of that I declare to the heavens. I love me. I can say it now. Not shyly, and in whispers, but with a happy smile. I breathe large this new liberation, and smile.
July 28, 2002 - A
"The Sad News"
Julia went with her, as I was having a sinus headache, and stayed home. I bought the spells, camped Kaaldar, and brought up Bonevivant to explore the Nektulos forest. I expected Laura and Julia anytime. But the wait was so long. Our regular phone line was open, if they needed to call. So I kept on playing.
No call . . . I hoped they were merely out somewhere after the ride. Finally I hear Julia at the door, but NO LAURA! She'd waited two hours and Laura hadn't shown. So we went out to look for her, at all the points the bike trail intersects with the main roads. No sign of her anywhere. I was crying, as I comptemplated calling the police and emergency.
When I got to our door, there was already a card from the police, with instructions to 'call this number' and a name.
They'd call back. Nervous moments, then the ring. Laura had collapsed on the bike, but a fireman saw her and gave her CPR right away. An ambulance soon followed, and they'd brought her to emergency care.
NOW she's in intensive care. I brought medicines, so they'd know her condition, and her doctors were notified. Before her regular doctor showed up, while she was still in emergency, one tall, slender gray haired physician told us she'd had a heart attack. However, they were concerned about brain damage. They will do tests today and tomorrow to determine the amount of damage to her heart and brain. Then her regular doctor showed up, short, thin and dark skinned, from India, bearing a print out, among others, of one of Laura's original papers she'd prepared for him. The nurse looked at them, appreciating Laura's thoroughness in describing her various conditions. The cardiologist will study the tests they'll take today and tomorrow, and tell us what he recommends.
So there we saw Laura. All kinds of tubes are coming in and out of her. Her nose was bloody. I asked why. They said they initially try to put the respirator tubes through the nose, but if there is an obstruction, they use the mouth. I patted her hands and stroked her forehead, which both feel warm. Her heart's pumping good. She looks to be sleeping, they gave her a medicine to make her sleep. BUT SHE'S ON A RESPIRATOR! The nurse said sometimes that's just to get the patient 'over the hump', and they soon resume breathing on their own. We won't know anything until after the tests. But they did prepare me 'for the worst', asking what Laura's wishes would be, should her brain not test out as it should.
So we are here. Julia's preparing food for us. A good thing, for left to my own initiative, I might not bother. Fish, green beans and carrots are now before me. I do appreciate her thoughtfulness.
Everyone at the hospital was so nice. They were quite understanding of Laura's gender differences. A short, brown haired woman with a faint German accent, MONICA, I believe her name, was especially comforting as she sat with us while waiting for the intensive care room to be set up. Such a gentle spirit, so nice, when we are so frayed.
And we are so frayed.
July 28, 2002 - B
"We'll Not Give Up Hope"