Dr. Seuss's Wife

Helen Palmer Geisel, the wife of the famous Dr. Seuss, had a bad run through a series of illnesses, including cancer. Dr. Seuss began a relationship with another woman, which broke Helen down even further. Distraught, she decided on an overdose of barbiturates.

This is her suicide note:

Dear Ted, What has happened to us? I don't know. I feel myself in a spiral, going down down down, into a black hole from which there is no escape, no brightness. And loud in my ears from every side I hear, 'failure, failure, failure...' I love you so much ... I am too old and enmeshed in everything you do and are, that I cannot conceive of life without you ... My going will leave quite a rumor but you can say I was overworked and overwrought. Your reputation with your friends and fans will not be harmed ... Sometimes think of the fun we had all thru the years ...

I just found this out today an needed to share the despair it made blossom inside me.

Although, as I am happy and in love, the very existence of that dedication and passion for someone can be seen as a celebration of the human spirit - if you ignore the horror of the situation. :/

Little Shambles Goes to College

I dropped my daughter off at college today - and spent a good part assembling IKEA furniture and manhandling the dorm pieces to arrange the room into her ideal configuration. It was a pretty heavy day for her and left me burned out, but she seems to be okay about it and I'm sure she'll be fine on her new adventure.

My first mind fuck was driving into town and realizing I was doing the same thing with my parents 19 years ago. 19 years ago? Damn. I saw all these "kids" checking in, wandering about, getting their bearings (hello ladies!), and floated back to my experience, specifically my experience on move-in day.

I was a suburban white kid rolling into a 4-person room with my punk/goth/indie CD collection. Focus on Biotech (ended: Eng/Psy degrees). I think I'd had one brief conversation with each of my roommates on the home phone. No one had cell phones. I ended up with a brilliant crew: A cool guy with similar music and geeky tastes, a skinny white kid who was in love with rap, and a HS jock who brought his iguana, Gimpy. And while there were some differences in opinion, we were all cordial and had a great and amazing year with each other.

And then the feelings of waste and want to go back. How I could've done things better. I spent my last year in drink and drugs and had lost almost all contact with those wonderful people. But, y'know, get over it; you can't go back; it was what it was.

I'd spent part of last night compiling a mix CD for Little and it was hard to keep the eyes dry.



I was very worried that all of today would be me weeping, but it didn't hit me until my second mind fuck: after driving 4 hours there, spending 7 hours in the move-in process and dinner, and 4 hours back, I didn't lose it. It was walking back into the apartment and realizing that bedroom was now just an extra room. She won't be back for months. Waterworks.

Mini will be fine. She's got most of her family about an hour away and with smartphones, she's just a text away.

Sleep and process. I'll be fine too.

And then Monday is the dissolutionment, but that's another post on the other blog.

Thanks for reading.

In Short: Our Boston Week...

Today was a good day.
Both primary suspects have been stopped for their "alleged" role in the Marathon Bombings, robbery, killing, city shutdown. There is little doubt they planned and carried out this horrific act.

Today was a bad day.
All I see online is "of course they were Muslims!" and "Haha, the libtards thought they were Tea Party/Christians!" All I see online is how Dzhokhar Tsarnaev should be tortured, dragged through glass, waterboarded, ...killed as soon as he can stand. I see on TV shouts of "USA! USA!" for the arrest of an American citizen.

We pull together. We celebrate success.

For those politicizing it and lauding torture: Stahp! You are making us ugly.

My Senior Year Song: Tori's Winter

A little bit about me...

My senior year in high school, I was just popular enough to make it into the Senior Council and while we primarily planned the prom, we also chose the pool from which our fellow seniors would choose our class song.

During that meeting, I was sickened by the stupid, vapid choices presented. But I came prepared. When I was 18, Tori Amos's Winter was such a clear choice for a serious message of recognition of place and growth and fear that I couldn't but enter it.

Here's the song:



Lyrics? Yep:

Snow can wait
I forgot my mittens
Wipe my nose
Get my new boots on
I get a little warm in my heart
When I think of winter
I put my hand in my father's glove
I run off
Where the drifts get deeper
Sleeping beauty trips me with a frown
I hear a voice
"Your must learn to stand up for yourself
Cause I can't always be around"
He says
When you gonna make up your mind
When you gonna love you as much as I do
When you gonna make up your mind
Cause things are gonna change so fast
All the white horses are still in bed
I tell you that I'll always want you near
You say that things change my dear

Boys get discovered as winter melts
Flowers competing for the sun
Years go by and I'm here still waiting Withering where some snowman was
Mirror mirror where's the crystal palace
But I only can see myself
Skating around the truth who I am
But I know dad the ice is getting thin

When you gonna make up your mind
When you gonna love you as much as I do
When you gonna make up your mind
Cause things are gonna change so fast
All the white horses are still in bed
I tell you that I'll always want you near
You say that things change my dear

Hair is grey
And the fires are burning
So many dreams
On the shelf
You say I wanted you to be proud of me
I always wanted that myself

He says
When you gonna make up your mind
When you gonna love you as much as I do
When you gonna make up your mind
Cause things are gonna change so fast
All the white horses have gone ahead
I tell you that I'll always want you near
You say that things change
My dear

And at the end of the day, I won. If by "won" you mean "got it on the ballot."

Two weeks later, the masses of our senior class, the masses that could not look beyond this wonderful, last year of their wonder, chose:



I wanna go back? And do it all over? Fuck that.

And that's why Winter holds a special place in my heart and why most of the people I went to high school with still live in Parma, Ohio.

Boehner Has a Sad. Again.

Today John Boehner looked like this honoring Neil Armstrong. I guess someone woke up to scrambled eggs and Merlot this morning.

(from Politico)

Occupy Cincinnati: People Make Me Sad

I posted innocuously about Occupy Cincinnati because I'm totally going to go but because I own a business can't say "I'll be there fucking vampire corporations!"

Someone I consider a friend replied:

Socialism is not among the principles that have made this country the leader of the free world for the past 235 years... Life, liberty, property, pursuit of happiness... Socialism has failed everywhere it has been tried. Know history or repeat it.

Note: America has been the leader of the free world (kinda not so much now) because everyone else was either not industrialized enough, spending their money on kicking the shit out of someone else, or getting the shit kicked out of them.

Note: NOTHING about the Occupy movement has anything to do with socialism.

Note: It's about government-sanctioned corporate abuse of the system, lack of regulations on a financial level that - if they existed on the FDA level - would mean you'd be peeing out your ass once a week (or dead) because no one would make sure your Montsanto crops were anything more than leafy botulism.

Note: [person] knows very little about history, very little about the present. I'd guess he has a psychological receptor for anything that comes from the right-wing AM band. I still consider him a friend but mourn him as a casualty in the war of thought.

Doggie Refugees in Japan

Seriously, teh sads:



Toldja.

Holidays Remix

And so I'm back, from outer space...

As I mentioned in my last post, we had a bit of a rough holiday. In 4 quick steps:

• I ended up going back to Cleveland early for my godmother's funeral the day before Xmas. Pancreatic cancer is a nasty thing.
• Just after the funeral, my 4 year old niece took a header off a small trampoline to land teeth-first on the edge of the round base of a papasan chair. She needed stitches in the side of her mouth, chipped 3 teeth, fractured the front 2 above the gumline, and bled for over 24 hours. My brother-in-law did not make it to NY where he was planning on spending Xmas with his family.
• My mother-in-law unexpectedly passed away Sunday night, right after Christmas. Service was Wednesday. I don't think it's fully sunk in yet for me, and I'm just planning to be here for Mrs. Shambles when the full gravity hits her.
• Thursday a close friend of the family turned blue and almost choked to death at the dinner table. Luckily my sister's a medic.

At this point, while only symbolic, I'm glad we're done with 2010.

I Need You

(I originally heard this song as a cover and they used "paper doll" instead of "baby doll." Annie is queen, so I won't argue, but I like the lyrical change better.)

Eurythmics - I Need You

I need you to pin me down
Just for one frozen moment.
I need someone to pin me down
So I can live in torment.
I need you to really feel
The twist of my back breaking
I need someone to listen
To the ecstacy I'm faking.
I need you you you

I need you to catch each breath
That issues from my lips
I need someone to crack my skull
I need someone to kiss.
So hold me now
I'll make pretend
That I won't ever fall
Oh hold me down
I'm gonna be your baby doll

I need you you you...
Is it you I really need?
I do I do I do
I really do
I need you...

The Music Done Me In

I cry a little more than I used to. But one of the things that I've noticed over the past few years is that music makes all the difference; in every show you might watch, the plot may be stirring, the story may touch a base in your soul, and the connection you make to it may be monumental. But when you get to the end of the tale, the end of the network-sanctioned narrative, there's something that can touch you in the denouement. And that's music.

I noticed it first a few years ago in the final montage minutes of ER. "The story's not that great so why am I weepy?" Again in that episode of West Wing with Mark Harmon as the Secret Service agent. Again in any episode of Cold Case. "I don't care about these people really, so why am I battening down the hatches so I don't drop into throes of sobbing during the last 3 minutes of resolution?"

It was the music.

The music massages the little bits you've collected during the show or movie, puts them all together, works as the glue of emotion, the background of magic that makes that story progress or wrap up or really do something more than just tell a tale.

So: Thank you to every single editor and producer who has added some great bit of music to the movie or the show. You made it happen. And I wept. Thank you.

Because I'm so Chipper These Days

via PostSecret.

Jesus and Politics - Or How About Video Games? And...No, Just Video Games. Fallout 3? Dogmeat? Anyone?

Jesus was supposed to be yesterday, but I'm running a little wrong on the side of time because I finally started getting buried in this game called Fallout 3 for the Xbox 360. Engrossing. Potentially hundreds of hours of gameplay (and downloadable content!) and it's killing my productivity.

The most endearing and interesting part of the game is that I have been befriended by a dog named Dogmeat. I know. It says the words "dog meat" in my inventory and I imagine the 6 HP it provides is delicious as much as it is irradiated.

But this is a dog. A real, live, video game dog. And she chooses me as her master.

And I've got to live up to that.

In the Fallout 3 Wasteland, you never know if you're going to bump into a stupid raider that Dogmeat will tear into until you can get a relatively close headshot with the combat shotgun that will make his "momma had a baby and it's head popped off" pop off with requisite spurting blood OR perhaps a small army of super-mutants will crush Dogmeat in three bangs of a water main pipe.

And when that happens, whether you are there to see it or not, you get an impersonal dialogue pop-up that simply states "Dogmeat has died" and an "OK" box.

No, damn you! It's not okay! She's a dog! A dog! She ran after the super mutant on the third floor to protect ME and it took me a while to get up there and he clubbed her with his nail board and I couldn't get there with a stimpak to fill her HP and - SHIT! - a whimper and that fucking box again. Again!

Yes. It happens again and again. Why? Because telling her to stay there brings up a whimper (and if you tell her to stay somewhere and get carried away and forget where you left her, she's gone). So you keep her with you and when you say "Good boy," she barks like fucking Lassie (I realize my disconnect in animal gender, but I do have two female cats: Dorian and Godot).

Then Dogmeat dies. And you lament your decision. You start over at the last save. Because you keep her with you and you move on. The thought of your dog dead will ruin the rest of the game. And she's actually helpful as an alert most of the time with that growl and because for the love of all things Holy, the BEST thing she can do, the reality of the situation, the dialogue choice under "Talk to Dogmeat" that states "Go away and never come back again" makes me want to vomit and cry in that pile of puke for being such a horrible human being.

I'm not sure how I'm going to feel recruiting a Goul named Charon, whom I just met.

I doubt I'll replay as an evil character, though I long to blow up Megaton. I don't have the stomach.

And don't even ask me about Mass Effect 2. Until 2012 when I finally get to it.


I don't think anything about this post is right. I admit it upfront. And yet I'm certain I'm not alone.

And you should play. Obviously, it's engaging. Engrossing.
Happy Tuesday.


UPDATE: I've downloaded the Broken Steel component so I could pop the Level 20 cap. And I now have to deal with some terrible enemies that actually scare me, though I've not even entered the storyline of the download.

Funny plus: Puppies! It's a new perk you can choose at level up so if Dogmeat dies, you can return to 101 and have a new piece of the litter. Litter? I guess the female thing is not so wrong with Dogmeat.

Lost Dog

You ever turn a corner or get out of your car or just unexpectedly see something that turns your act into accidentally walking into a bus, but one just big enough that it plows right into your stomach?

That was me tonight hitting the gas station for smokes after a networking event.

I parked, got out, and gave all the crap scotch taped onto the glass of the AmeriStop a rudimentary glance and then

BLAMMO!

I saw something that looked like this:



Scrawled like that, a faded poster, copied with a cheap nickel copier, terrier in the slightly-skewed picture on the sheet. The "C" was in caps. And no name of the dog. No phone number. Just a sad, silent plea.

And I looked, thought "Aww, sad." Then read the last line and just about fell over. Then supported myself on weak knees as it processed that there was not dog name or phone number.

And for that instant, I don't think I've been that sad in a very, very long time.

So I share with you.

I'll be in the area again next Tuesday and will get a pic if it's still there. I hope to God I just missed something and my memory fails me in sorrow and there was contact information on that poster.

The Other Night...

I was leaving a meeting. It was dark. As I drove down the street, I first saw a pile of something in the middle of the street. Wondering what that was, I was aware of a couple on the side of the street, a woman in the throes of something and a man who was pulling a garbage can out into the middle of the road. As I approached, he waved me on.

I wondered what was going on for a few seconds, and as I passed the garbage can, I looked down to see a small terrier, a tiny dog, lying, lifeless. A large pool of blood surrounded its head on the asphalt.

And I wanted to scream, to jump from my car and yell "What the hell happened?" and "What can I do?" but I just kept driving.

I just kept driving.

I think I know that the poor animal was dead. At least I hope it was.

And the whole drive home, I wondered about the person that hit it: did they notice? did they care?

Eight years ago, my wife's dog was hit on a similar road, and the minivan never slowed down. Unfortunately for her, the dog lived and had to be put down.

But what about that dog? Who would do that?


This post has nothing to do with anything except that I don't know where else to dump my sadness from seeing that dead dog on the street - not a dead dog on the side of the road that you pass at 30 or 50 mph, but a dog that someone was putting a blockade in front of it, so no one would defile that furry body.

It was horrible. It will haunt me for years.

I cannot imagine what people who actually fight in wars go through.

That is all.