Love during wartime.

Tonight was too good not to mention.

We cooked a full meal to take up to the hospital, where my gramps is well enough to get up and around in the wheelchair as long as he stays on the oxygen. Shortly after we arrived and got everything set up in the common area, Gramps decided he had to pee so my grams wheeled him off to handle that, and my family decided to fill me in on an incident that happened while I was gone this weekend.

On Thursday I installed Skype on my grams's computer so we'll be able to talk until I get a phone in SK. Last night, she was in playing solitaire and "minding her own business" when a incoming call popped up from 'Slut93'. Apparently she was so distressed that she rushed into the family room and announced this to the entire family, using the S word itself, which is not like her at all.

God bless my grandparents and their adjusting to the internet just for me.

Then some sort of tit for tat arose out of this involving a debate about whether we all get our orneriness from my grams or my gramps.

Gramps: "At least I never struck a match against my baby sister's hair."

Grams: "No, you just hit your brother in the face with a frying pan."

"I didn't sharpen sticks and hide under the porch to poke my siblings while they were sitting with sweethearts on the swing."

"I didn't use a bicycle pump to blow up toads!"

"You did stick a clothes pin on a cat's tail and then laughed when it fell off..."

"You did that?"

"Well now... I just put the clothes pin on there and then the cat disappeared for a while. When it came back, it didn't have a tail anymore. That's not exactly how that happened."

"And you and Girly stoned Troop Taylor."

"Now that wasn't .... you just let me tell the whole story. Me and Girly were fishing down at the creek, and Troop Taylor -- he was going with Dot at the time -- well, he walked past and threw some rocks down the hill and scared us. So, me and Girly got to thinking on it and we decided, if he's walking that way, reasoning says he's got to come back this way. So we started gathering rocks -- worked all day building a big ol' pile of rocks, me and Girly -- and sure enough, later that evening, here comes Troop Taylor. So we rocked him. Serves him right for scaring two little kids, practically a grown man...."

Gramps also mentioned the time just after they started dating when he was showing off and told his buddy to drive them to pick up some beer. My grams told him what he could do with his beer, and his date, if he expected her to sit around and watch him get drunk. To which he responded: "I meant root beer." Smooth.

This was after she told him she would only go out with him if he didn't wear his stupid Navy uniform.

I have no idea where we get it from.

Our love to admire.

What a great last weekend. Saying goodbye for a year is oddly uneventful -- how do you conceive of a year apart? I don't think it's possible. And, by now, goodbyes are so routine. We always worry that we will change, and change away from each other somehow, but in five years it has never happened yet.

Loads of poetry talk. It's easier to be motivated when we're together. The letter poems are the new Paris: '09, which is now just Paris: Eventually. Hopefully the poems don't go the same route. But I'm starting to think about the world in different terms now, and the biggest upside of Paris is Stephanie anyway.

I think if we can get the poems in some sort of presentable form, I may cash in all those hours spent lugging books and standing behind merch tables, making photocopies and tracking down obscure bird calls. Maybe one of the poets will have mercy and give us a little advice about what to do with them. Of everything I've done, I think I have the most faith in these poems. Having faith is dangerous though -- you can always get shot down.

Still, I know when I show them what we've done I'm going to get in trouble. For not taking myself and my work seriously. Which, as we discussed this weekend, seems to be the main problem in my life thus far. I don't want to take anything at all seriously -- least of all myself -- but everyone else seems to expect me to. The professors used to tell me, if you don't take your work seriously and present it as such, no one else will either. I don't really want people to take my poems seriously, though. Just enjoying them would be more than enough for me.

I don't want to think about making copies of things and holding onto drafts and writing serious bios and talking about myself as though I matter.

I have loads more to say, but we're up to the hospital for my grams's birthday tonight. Then hopefully my visa will arrive, booking a flight....

My correspondence may be a little lapsed the next few days. Forgive and forget, please, my dear ones. I'll get it together eventually. Sorry for the rushed, haphazard posting.

P.S. -- I finally bought Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential on Friday and my life automatically got better. Just as the G Man found a spare copy to shoot my way, as well. Sometimes you're just twice blessed.

I will miss the home thing. A little.

I'm calling from the diner.

I miss Brooklyn diners. I don't even know what we'll do without them.

Fuck in all the possible ways the word may be used.

I'm trying to stay cool. I really am. I am trying not to be engulfed by a fiery ball of passionate rage.

If there's nothing you can do about something, there is nothing you can do about something. And you shouldn't let it get to you. Right? Right.

So. Yesterday, after trying all day on Friday to get through to the Korean Consulate in Dallas, we had decided just to drive down there, when I thought I would try calling information and see if they had a different number. Information had no Korean Consulate listed in Dallas. To make a long story short, there is no Korean Consulate in Dallas. I don't know why there is a phone number listed for one. I don't know why there is an address listed for one. Because it doesn't exist.

The only Korean Consulate in Texas is in Houston, which is six hours away and currently ravaged and destroyed by Hurricane Ike.

So, despite the fact that the Dallas Consulate is listed on every ESL website, and if I had known it didn't exist, I could have handled this all a month ago, I find out that if I overnight my documents to Houston, they can have them back to me by Friday or Saturday. And probably have my visa by the time I'm supposed to leave on Monday. At this point, I'm not taking any chances -- not only do I listen to the automated message about what documents I need to send on the Consulate phone line, I check the website AND I call and speak to someone in the office. They all list the same three documents. No I don't need to send anything else. They are sure.

This evening, I got a phone call from Houston saying that they need three additional documents. Just in time to completely fuck my chances of leaving on Monday.

And that's not all, folks. Mike called to make his appointment with the Korean Consulate in New York today -- apparently, they have no operating phone lines at the moment. He'll have to call back tomorrow.

Deep breaths and the serenity prayer are the only things I have left. That, and cigarettes. And Mike's not even here to smoke them with me, in a haze of seething-rage-turned-dilapidated-apathy.

What did I do wrong in a former life?

And I never wrote a letter to my home.

I don't sleep more than a few hours a night now, even if there is no reason to be awake at either end of the day. But I don't feel tired. I think I feel less tired than when I sleep more.

Made it to bed by one last night (some miracle) and so was up by 5 am. It's been nice to spend some time sitting and talking with my grams. She's been going nonstop -- Gramps still isn't home from the hospital, and of course the tough old bird still works full time.

She's got her faults, and I am inclined to go easy on them, because I got a lot of my own faults from her. But she's still a saint as far as I can see. And while those faults do contribute to some problems, they are moreso part of something else that helps her to carry us all through these things. Stubborn, determined, tenacious -- refuses to give in to emotions. She's a bitch on wheels more times than not, but you see the softness in her when things like this happen, as well as the dogged strength.

I'm glad for the time home with my family, especially with everything that has gone on these last few months. But I think too that I've disturbed the fabric somewhat. They think of it as me leaving them all over again. Again saying things here aren't good enough for me.

Supposed to arrive in SK on September 30th. I won't say I will this time, because I'm tired of doing that and then changing it. Knock on wood. That's in 12 days. My gramps may not even be home by then.

Do I even need to say that I feel guilty? Of course I do. And if everything hadn't been pushed to the extreme already, I may be able to buy myself another month. As it is I've already bought six or seven. I don't need to get into all of it. I'm sure everyone understands.

Sometimes you don't think -- you just do. Grams has taught me well there.


Bob Dylan: I Was Young When I Left Home

Flobots: Handlebars

That old fucking rugged cross.

Mike, I thought you would appreciate this.

I don't normally sleep with the television on. I normally can't sleep with the television on, but this past week it's been easier than trying to fall asleep in the dark and quiet. For some reason completely unknown to me, the tv tends to default to the local religious nutjob station during the night. Maybe it's a sign from God. Or proof that the Evangelicals control more than we think.

Anyway.

This morning when I woke up there was some program on called "The Twin Towers and The Cross". And this little frosted southern woman is talking to a firefighter who worked during the rescue on the phone.

"Oh yes, terrible. Just terrible. Now, Sergeant, can you tell us about the smell? What did the air smell like on that morning?"

She stares intently at the lens, eyes closing slightly as she licks her lips and he gives his answer.

"Mmm. Yes. Soooo terrible. Now tell us about the beams that formed a cross...."

The Sergeant relays the story in sort of normal person's terms -- it was a horrible morning, everyone was exhausted and completely shell shocked, and suddenly they look up and see that some fallen beams vaguely resemble the shapes of crosses. The symbolism (yes, symbolism) strikes a chord with the tired, traumatized workers and causes them to pause from going through the motions and mourn for a moment.

"Oh! How magnificent! How unbelievable! Miraculous!"

Yeah, lady. The molten metal beams melded together in a perpendicular fashion really fucking made up for the loss of thousands of lives. At least we know God is with us. Well. Those of us who didn't have to die because of the fags and the feminists, that is.

"Now, can you tell us, Sergeant, will the rebuild incorporate the crosses?"

At this point I turned it off. But you've got the general idea.

Now. There's this little turd of an attendant at the hospital. A seminary student. Fine, fucking great. I've got a well-developed interest in theology myself. You can't judge a book by it's goofy fucking clueless grin, right? Every time we walk through he asks how we are. Fine and how are you?

"Oh I'm blessed and highly favored."

.... Excuse me? Did you just say that in an Intensive Care Unit? Did you just say that at all?

'Blessed' I'm fine with, and quite used to. 'Blessed' is only a slightly condescending way of pointing out that you're a religious person and your day is better because of it. 'Blessed' is also a valid answer at times, as far as I'm concerned.

You can shove 'highly favored' right up your ass.

I'll just skip right to the point. The vast majority of Christians I've met want to believe that bad things can't happen to them. Religion is their way of feeling in control of the world, as though they have the upper hand on the chaos. If you live your life right, and follow steps A, B and C, then God will bless and protect you. Ipso facto, if bad things happen to you, you must have done something to deserve it. Or you need to be taught a lesson.

I believe in a higher power. I'm also a strong subscriber to the theory that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Life is all about the journey, about pushing and extending your limits and taking in all that you can. And hardship, if put to the right uses, fosters compassion. Which makes this world a better place for everybody in it. I do believe that there are things that may not make sense to us while they are right in front of us, but can show their meaning and their value further down the line. And even if everything doesn't happen for a reason, there is usually a way to salvage good out of bad, if you work hard enough at it.

However, life is sometimes random and horrible things do sometimes happen to people just because they can. No one is exempt from that. And no one can control it. It's just our job to make the best of things, to see the symbolism of a situation and gain meaning where we can, not because God gives things meaning, but because we've got to make our way through this world somehow. And it's not ours to judge where we fall in the grand scheme of things and it's certainly not ours to judge where others fall, either.

I've used the morning trying my very best to wade through the surface three ring circus nonsense of the campaign hell and other generalized nonsense that I've been able to catch on American television this week and try to get to things that have actually been going on. As my aunt said yesterday, it looks as though we're in this thing for the long haul, so it's time to start trying to reenter the world.

The first thing I'd like to say? Dear Sarah Palin. The Left doesn't give a damn that your little tart went and got herself knocked up by a hillbilly -- we're just relishing the irony, yet again. We have plenty of other (valid) reasons for not wanting you anywhere near our White House. You judgmental little anti-feminist creationist book-burning green-as-fuck Evangelical nutjob.

Secondly, Mike is right. As he usually is about these things. It is really nice to hear someone finally get angry, and to have that person not be a comedian or an artist, but a politician. And I know some of the worst men in the world have been passionately spoken politicians. But goddamn if it isn't good, way down to the bone, to hear a call for this country to start waking up. I don't know why the Evangelicals hate this Democratic ticket so much, to be honest. Where I come from, this is what preachers sound like.



"What do you talk about when you have nothing to say? What do you talk about when you cannot explain the last eight years of failure? What do you talk about? What do you talk about?"

Then there's the student loan bailout, of course. What can I say about that? Well, when the hell am I going to get bailed out? If the loan companies are getting free money, then why the hell do I still have to give them mine? I'm not going to go into some bitter rant about having to immigrate to make a better life for myself (although the concept is something I find hilarious in relation to traditional American snobbishness and narcissistic paranoia about how the whole damn world wants all of the wonderful things we have), because I'm quite happy to immigrate for any number of other reasons and I certainly don't find my position comparable to that of someone who is merely trying to stay alive, simply because I do have the privilege of a college education to throw into the mix. However. When are we going to work out a way for the average American not to have to choose between taking a shitty job and scraping by for the rest of their lives or going to college for four years and then taking a slightly better paying shitty job and scraping by for the rest of their lives? We won't even get into what ALL Americans still don't have access to....

In other words, this isn't working. Clearly.

Am I the only one who thinks perhaps the government should put its dollars and sense (sic) toward trying to give the next generation access to affordable education and let this horrible current system die a natural (if hopefully also painful and agonizing) death?

My little cousin isn't so little anymore. The little bugger is bigger than me these days and, I daresay, becoming quite the teenager. I did his hair into a Mohawk earlier this summer, which was just my way of showing the baseball playing mini-jock that sometimes being like his 'weird' cousin can be cool, too.

The point is, the kid's been through a lot. Everything I've been through with this family since I was twelve, he's been through since he was two. He's got a mother who loves him to pieces and dotes like you wouldn't believe. But when you're thirteen, sometimes you start to look for something else. That's why when he started to get upset in the hospital room last night, I did what any decent, cool-as-fuck older cousin would do: I pinched his ass.

Well, I didn't just pinch his ass. I shoved him a little first and when he shoved me back, I pinched his ass.

"Caleb, stop squirming. We're in a hospital."

Shocked face. I reach over where no one can see and pinch him again.

"Caleb Dean, I'm serious! Quit horsing around. This is the Intensive Care Unit for God's sake...."

Pinch.

"Aunt Kelly, would you tell your son to behave himself? The nurses can see him goofing around over here and it's embarrassing."

He then proceeded to tell me that he's actually taller than me now, but it's okay because I'm still pretty tall............ for a girl.

Little bastard. He's lucky I love him.

Finally, some good news.

Yesterday they took Gramps off the ventilator and his blood pressure started to rise, which set us back, because in order to get him to take the ventilator in again, they had to sedate him. Since they put him back on the ventilator, I was able to talk my grams into coming home to sleep last night. Which means we all got a decent (if short) night's sleep. When she's not here, we all kind of sleep in shifts and very lightly.

This afternoon, as he comes out from under the sedation, he is opening his eyes a little and actually focusing. When asked where he was, he mouthed the word 'hospital' and is responding once again to requests to squeeze hands.

These are all very, very good signs. Coming on the tails of what was looking very dire just last night.

I'm going to be leaving for the hospital shortly. My gramps took all his pills again, so you know... prayers, thoughts, energy, rain dances... whatever you got would be appreciated. Phone calls and texts are also welcome, given the inherent crappiness of being stuck at a hospital, but if I don't respond, it's a battery thing. Or. You know, whatever.

Mags, I'm banking on October.