Reading: Just finished World War Z yesterday. Went through the first two books of Keys to the Kingdom, via audiobook, on the road trip back to SoDak over the holidays. The Book of Lies is waiting to hang out with me during my lunch break.
Playing: Some Left4Dead to go along with World War Z. Lord of the Rings Online.
Planning: Some physical stuff ™ for the weekend (gym, backyard-work, biking?) Don’t Rest Your Head this coming Wednesday.
Wearing: Jeans, black not-quite-bowling-shirt, a grey fleece vest, and my Red Wings.
Writing: New Madness Talents for DRYH, new pages/revisions for Hidden Things.
Whew
Been a long while since I’ve posted (on this blog, anyway — I’ve been busy elsewhere on the internets, but not here), lets see about updating a bit.
Bloggish
I’ve revised the code on the site a bit to be a bit more small-browser-window friendly and just generally more readable. I’ve also resurrected average-bear.com as a kind of collective repository of everything I’m posting on all my sites, and updated a bit on Facebook and Flickr.
Writing
I got my 50k words down for NaNoWriMo, but Humorless itself isn’t really done, so I expect I’ll be going back to that in the new year… once I’m done with the latest round of revisions on Hidden Things, which is my next big to do.
Travel
Just got back from the 1800 mile round-trip to South Dakota to visit family. Very good to see everyone and the little girl made out like some kind of mad toy bandit, so it was all win for her. Plus I got to take my girls to Mount Rushmore, finally. I’ve been there many many times, but neither of them had, so that was fun. Slight damper on the joys of the season: ear and throat “thing” that I’ll be dropping by the doc’s this afternoon to pick up medicine for. Ugh… Also, I seem to be carrying five extra pounds of stuffing and pumpkin pie around. Bleh. Time to seriously shop for a replacement for my poor destroyed elliptical.
Recent Reads
Hearts in Atlantis (which I just realized is a terrible terrible pun on the part of the author), one or two of the Witches/Discworld books, and two of the Keys to the Kingdom books by Garth Nix, thanks to the local library’s audiobooks section and a very, very long road trip.
Sing along with the President Elect
We have been told we cannot do this by a chorus of cynics… they will only grow louder and more dissonant… We’ve been asked to pause for a reality check. We’ve been warned against offering the people of this nation false hope.
But in the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope.
For Kaylee
Equitable?
So Colin Powell is a “RINO” — a “Republican In Name Only” — according to the mouthpieces of America’s political “Right”, following his endorsement of Barack Obama for President.
Really? Okay, I can accept that. I can even accept that some folks want Powell out of the Grand Ol’ Party. To those folks, I’d like to offer a deal.
We’ll take Powell.
You can have Lieberman. Please. With my blessing.
((Here ends one of the rare political posts of the season.))
Fly on the Wall…
Biden, Obama, and the gay marriage thing
In last night’s vice-presidential debate (potentially the most-watched VP debate in the history of television), Joe Biden spoke very succinctly and directly on the subject of gay marriage vs. legally-recognized civil unions.
IFILL: The next round of — pardon me, the next round of questions starts with you, Senator Biden. Do you support, as they do in Alaska, granting same-sex benefits to couples?
BIDEN: Absolutely. Do I support granting same-sex benefits? Absolutely positively. Look, in an Obama-Biden administration, there will be absolutely no distinction from a constitutional standpoint or a legal standpoint between a same-sex and a heterosexual couple.
The fact of the matter is that under the Constitution we should be granted — same-sex couples should be able to have visitation rights in the hospitals, joint ownership of property, life insurance policies, et cetera. That’s only fair.
It’s what the Constitution calls for. And so we do support it. We do support making sure that committed couples in a same-sex marriage are guaranteed the same constitutional benefits as it relates to their property rights, their rights of visitation, their rights to insurance, their rights of ownership as heterosexual couples do.
[snip of Palin’s response]
IFILL: Let’s try to avoid nuance, Senator. Do you support gay marriage?
BIDEN: No. Neither Barack Obama nor I support redefining from a civil side what constitutes marriage. We do not support that. That is basically the decision to be able to be able to be left to faiths and people who practice their faiths…
Now, lots of folks are unhappy with his statement to varying degrees. Heck, I’m unhappy about it, but perhaps not precisely for the same reason — I’m not unhappy with the stated Obama/Biden stance (because I want them to win); I’m unhappy that civil liberties in the US have progressed only to the point where – today – this stance is the best we can possibly hope to hear.
Let me explain.
In his interview with Couric, Joe Biden talked about about Roe v. Wade and said: [I paraphrase] “I think it is the best possible ruling we can currently have within the United States.” He went on to break down the basics of the ruling-in-practice, trimester-by-trimester.
And he’s right, I think. In a country as incredibly diverse – both socially and religiously – as the US, Roe v. Wade goes about as far out on the “Choice” limb as you can go before the branch breaks.
Similarly, I think his answer on whether Obama/Biden supports equal legal recognition for gay couples was (and this is a phrase Obama’s former law students predicted would characterize his presidency) ruthlessly pragmatic. Do I wish for more and for better? ABSOLUTELY; it hurts my heart to know that some of my friends are not treated equally in this country.
However, if I am realistic (or ‘pragmatic’) about it, I readily recognize that the stance that Biden took in his answer is as progressive as a national candidate can be, today, in the U.S., and still have any hope of winning.
This is where we are. There is not one minority group in the US that enjoys 100% equality with white, anglo-saxon males. Not one. I’ve been standing right there and witnessed my brother-in-law discriminated against for the color of his skin; I’ve listened to people tell me that, in their opinion, his ‘mixed’ (their term) children were always going to have a hard life… and they thought it was a shame; that it would have been easier if those kids had not been born. It’s sickening; moreso because this is an improvement over the past.
TRUE equality for all Americans is, historically, something that happens step by step in the U.S. The fight never really stops, and it’s never really won.
But the steps do happen.
In (for instance) 1988, any Presidential candidate that gave the same answer as Biden would have been committing political suicide. But not last night.
Last night was a step.
It was small, and it was disappointing because some of us can SEE where we’re trying to get to, and these smaller, careful steps are INFURIATING, but for me, Joe Biden’s statement was heartening, because it is (in my opinion) absolutely as far out on the limb as you can go right now, without the branch breaking. Barack and Joe took a look at that important question and they chose the most progressive position possible, today.
Because that’s what you do, when your ultimate goal is to get all the way to the very end of the branch — you go out as far as you can possibly go.
Then you wait for the tree to grow.
Then you take another step.
That’s how the fight goes.
The last part
Three days after we got home from our trip to South Dakota, I heard my phone chime to announce an incoming text. It was about three in the morning, and while I have a few calendar reminders that routinely ping my phone, there’s absolutely no reason for that to happen at that time of night.
In short, if I was getting a text at that time, someone was sending me something personally, which means they were also up.
I pushed out of bed, pulled clothes on, and somehow found my phone. It was Mom.
On our way to town grandpa failing rapidly.
I shot a text at my sister, who bounced one back inside of two minutes. She was up.
Right.
I sat in front of my computer, looking at the phone. I knew I wouldn’t sleep, so I flipped on one of my MMOs and ran around in the game while I waited for word that my grandfather had died.
The text came at a quarter to five, then the call. His breathing had simply gotten more and more shallow and then, finally, stopped.
I don’t remember what I did after the call. I imagine I must have kept puttering around at that game until Kaylee woke up about an hour later.
((Just at this moment, it occurred to me that I haven’t logged back into that game since that morning.))
I got her ready for school, headed to work, and waited for someone to tell me when the funeral was going to be.
No, I don’t mean I simply sat there, but in my memory, the day is monochrome, punctuated by moments of Turneresque color during which I was talking to one family member or another.
Smaller memorial on Friday. Funeral on Saturday. Burial at his old church, so far out in the country it’s five miles of gravel road to get there.
Right.
I made flight arrangements, using up most of my Frontier miles from two years of flying to see Kate. Kate would be staying in Denver, since her mom was coming into town, and of course Kaylee wasn’t coming either.
I’m not sure about the rest of the week.
Friday, 5am, I’m at the airport. Boarded, fly to Omaha, rental car to Sioux Falls, then a drive to the farm with Bonnie and Reggie and the kids, the backseat filled with the sounds of Spiderman 3 on DVD. I rode shotgun, reading Little Brother and sharing the best parts with my sister as she drove.
We stop at the farm, wash off the road dust, eat some supper, and get ready to go. I’m one of the few in a tie for the Friday evening memorial.
His hands are so cold.
They polished his wedding ring.
It doesn’t look like him. It doesn’t look like him at all. His mouth is too wide, like the Joker without face paint – christ it’s horrible. Mom’s found one place you can stand and look at him and it looks okay; where you can’t see his mouth. I stand there.
The flower arrangements behind the casket are roses, wheat stalks, and the tail feathers from ringneck pheasants. Perfect, really.
The ceremony started. Pastor speaks and asks anyone else who wants to do so.
My aunt gets up and talks about grandpa as a teacher.
My sister gets up and reads a poem, then pulls out a wicker basket filled with all the different types of candy he used to ‘hide’ in his candy drawer in the house, just at the right height for the grandkids. She passes it through the crowd.
She hands me the mic as she sits down, knowing I’ll say something. I always do, don’t I?
I try. I try my absolute damndest. It takes me six tries to get through the first sentence; to explain who I am and why I’m talking. Trying to talk, anyway. Dad isn’t looking at me, and it’s because I’m having as hard a time as he would have, which is why he had the good sense to stay sat down.
I talk about how he lived, filling up every day with stories. Laughing. Really living. That laugh of his, that chuckle. I think I repeated myself a lot.
I try to explain what he was to us, a grandfather only his 40s when I was born — another parent, another kid to play with. A friend.
My friend.
There’s some kind of snack service afterward. We stand in small circles and tell funny stories about my grandpa and any number of hunting adventures, mis- and otherwise.
When we get home, we pull out a huge set of dominoes and play Turkey Feet until we’re gasping for air between laughs. It helps.
Saturday morning, we have to be in town at 9:30. This is the general service. It’s more impersonal, I suppose. The casket is closed. The Masons do their thing after the pastor speaks, then we all exit outside.
He’s brought to the door of the church, and the pallbearers will carry him to the hearse. That’s us; the grandkids.
There are nine of us there, out of ten. We are grown now, with kids of our own, and we carry our grandfather, who taught us checkers and gave us rare coins on our birthdays, out of this life. The casket is heavy. We move through the crowd in a private bubble filled only with the sounds of shuffling feet a very quiet sobs. As a group, we pass a very dark milestone in our lives.
We drive to the cemetery on old county roads. The gravel, the barbed wire fences along the road, the summer-going-to-fall grass on rolling hills; all of it is home in a way that no other place will ever be.
We set the casket above the hole.
The honor guard comes to arms, turns to the treeline and fires their salute.
Gun smoke in an autumn grassland.
That was my granddad.