Mary-Ann Compton has been held at Sheppard Pratt Psychiatric Hospital in Havre de Grace for the last four and a half months, after it became clear that in-home treatment wouldn't help her PTSD or catatonia. She has been kept there under the watchful eye of countless physicians and psychiatrists, never saying a word.
I'm not sure what to do here. Do I give in and go, or do I stay out of it? I know what's smart is to stay away from her, but is that what's right? She witnessed the deaths of her husband and friends, and came out alive. Nothing about her makes sense, yet she's a survivor. She's a survivor like me.
To clarify the rambling, Craig called me just now. Yesterday, Mary-Ann Compton started talking.
And she's asking for me.
Monday, March 28, 2011
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Sunday, March 20, 2011
A Quick Note
I'll be doing a proper post about this week tomorrow (to be honest, not a whole lot has changed; Aunt Michelle is still hanging in, and a lot of people have told me they're happy for me for getting accepted to MiskU), but for right now, I just need to get this out.
I didn't have to work today (yay of all yays), so I took the opportunity to go into town and run some errands. Afterward, I went to Aunt Michelle's to hang out for a while. She's such a good conversationalist, even when she's really tired; I think she's where I learned how to turn a phrase as well as I can.
Anyway, after I got home, I decided to take a quick nap, because why not. I slept a lot longer than I planned, and only just woke up a few minutes ago. But I had one hell of a dream in those last few minutes. I need to write it down before it all goes -- it's already slipping.
It started off like those damned false awakenings. I woke up, started going about my day, all with that awful wrong feeling that I've described before, the one so characteristic of my nightmares. But as I go downstairs into the kitchen, suddenly everything gets really quiet. There are no sounds from anywhere in the house, like I'm home alone, completely alone, not even the sounds of the cat jumping around or anything. Sitting at the table is Rose. She smiles at me, and the wrong feeling sort of fades out, replaced by the warm feeling I recognized only vaguely.
"Come on," she says. I sit down at the table, which is considerably shorter than I remember, and look at the board game between us. From what I remember, it seems sort of like a combination of chess and The Game of Life.
"It's your turn," she says.
I reach down toward a piece that looks like a cross between a queen in chess and a little sculpture of a lily (not sure how it did that, but it did), pick it up, and start to move it toward a square labeled "Lovecraft Country," moving from a square labeled "Intrepid Reporter."
"Are you sure about that?" Rose asks, her eyebrow quirked in that way it always did when I was about to do something ill-advised.
"Don't listen," says a voice to my right. I look over and see Violet leaning against the archway into the hall. "This is what you're supposed to do. Don't ask why," she adds quickly, seeing me open my mouth to ask it.
"I don't know about that," Rose is standing at the counter now, leaning against it. "Do you really want to leave your family exposed like that? Nikki, and Milo? What about your dad?"
"The farther away from them you are, the better," Vi says.
"Or you could always give up." I don't see who says that, and don't recognize the voice -- nor do I hear it again in the dream; it just vanishes -- but I know that I heard it.
Bewildered at how Rose suddenly moved, I look around to see someone different sitting across from me. A man with black hair and a scar across his neck. It's Zeke -- or what I envision Zeke to look like, I guess.
"Don't hesitate," he growls at me. "Make your move."
I glance at Vi, who nods, then take the piece in my hand again and turn my head back just in time to feel a tight hand grab my wrist. I look up, and where Zeke was sitting, Mary-Ann Compton is now standing, leaning over the table, clutching my wrist, her mouth open in the same expression that I'll never forget, that screaming, but there isn't a scream coming from her, just a strange noise between a rattling inhaled breath and static and that whining noise that televisions make when you first turn them on. I blink and she morphs, like in my false awakenings, and she becomes tall and unnatural and that godawful wrong feeling invades as his hand wraps around my wrist again and again and again and it burns my skin and my flesh down to my bone and my rosary, I can't find my rosary, it's not around my neck and I scream for god, for Vi, for Zeke, for anyone to save me --
Just above my screaming, I can hear Violet and Rose chanting one of those rhymes we used to sing while we jumped rope as little girls: Hey there Mary, what's the story?; save my ass from Purgatory -- one, two, three, four...
I woke up in a cold sweat with my jaw clenched and my body bent, the rhyme repeating itself in my head.
I don't know why this nightmare is so much different than the rest that I feel the need to post it here. It just felt different. It was so real -- the pain was so fucking real. I'm hypersensitive to touch anyway; my poor hypochondriac mother is already convinced that I have some rare nerve disorder. I was smoking before I went to sleep; maybe my hand hit some ashes, and my dream compensated for it. I don't know. But after all, it was just a dream.
It was just a dream.
I didn't have to work today (yay of all yays), so I took the opportunity to go into town and run some errands. Afterward, I went to Aunt Michelle's to hang out for a while. She's such a good conversationalist, even when she's really tired; I think she's where I learned how to turn a phrase as well as I can.
Anyway, after I got home, I decided to take a quick nap, because why not. I slept a lot longer than I planned, and only just woke up a few minutes ago. But I had one hell of a dream in those last few minutes. I need to write it down before it all goes -- it's already slipping.
It started off like those damned false awakenings. I woke up, started going about my day, all with that awful wrong feeling that I've described before, the one so characteristic of my nightmares. But as I go downstairs into the kitchen, suddenly everything gets really quiet. There are no sounds from anywhere in the house, like I'm home alone, completely alone, not even the sounds of the cat jumping around or anything. Sitting at the table is Rose. She smiles at me, and the wrong feeling sort of fades out, replaced by the warm feeling I recognized only vaguely.
"Come on," she says. I sit down at the table, which is considerably shorter than I remember, and look at the board game between us. From what I remember, it seems sort of like a combination of chess and The Game of Life.
"It's your turn," she says.
I reach down toward a piece that looks like a cross between a queen in chess and a little sculpture of a lily (not sure how it did that, but it did), pick it up, and start to move it toward a square labeled "Lovecraft Country," moving from a square labeled "Intrepid Reporter."
"Are you sure about that?" Rose asks, her eyebrow quirked in that way it always did when I was about to do something ill-advised.
"Don't listen," says a voice to my right. I look over and see Violet leaning against the archway into the hall. "This is what you're supposed to do. Don't ask why," she adds quickly, seeing me open my mouth to ask it.
"I don't know about that," Rose is standing at the counter now, leaning against it. "Do you really want to leave your family exposed like that? Nikki, and Milo? What about your dad?"
"The farther away from them you are, the better," Vi says.
"Or you could always give up." I don't see who says that, and don't recognize the voice -- nor do I hear it again in the dream; it just vanishes -- but I know that I heard it.
Bewildered at how Rose suddenly moved, I look around to see someone different sitting across from me. A man with black hair and a scar across his neck. It's Zeke -- or what I envision Zeke to look like, I guess.
"Don't hesitate," he growls at me. "Make your move."
I glance at Vi, who nods, then take the piece in my hand again and turn my head back just in time to feel a tight hand grab my wrist. I look up, and where Zeke was sitting, Mary-Ann Compton is now standing, leaning over the table, clutching my wrist, her mouth open in the same expression that I'll never forget, that screaming, but there isn't a scream coming from her, just a strange noise between a rattling inhaled breath and static and that whining noise that televisions make when you first turn them on. I blink and she morphs, like in my false awakenings, and she becomes tall and unnatural and that godawful wrong feeling invades as his hand wraps around my wrist again and again and again and it burns my skin and my flesh down to my bone and my rosary, I can't find my rosary, it's not around my neck and I scream for god, for Vi, for Zeke, for anyone to save me --
Just above my screaming, I can hear Violet and Rose chanting one of those rhymes we used to sing while we jumped rope as little girls: Hey there Mary, what's the story?; save my ass from Purgatory -- one, two, three, four...
I woke up in a cold sweat with my jaw clenched and my body bent, the rhyme repeating itself in my head.
I don't know why this nightmare is so much different than the rest that I feel the need to post it here. It just felt different. It was so real -- the pain was so fucking real. I'm hypersensitive to touch anyway; my poor hypochondriac mother is already convinced that I have some rare nerve disorder. I was smoking before I went to sleep; maybe my hand hit some ashes, and my dream compensated for it. I don't know. But after all, it was just a dream.
It was just a dream.
Monday, March 14, 2011
Accepted
This week has been rather eventful; I had meant to make a post a few days ago, but I guess I just got caught up with it. I've been going straight from work (be it assignments or at Wawa) to Aunt Michelle's to spend time with her. And if Angel has a problem with it, she can fuck off.
I was also thinking more about my last post...I feel like I may have made the wrong decision. Well, maybe not the wrong one, but certainly not the smart one. The way Practical Cat worded it, he could have been talking about the FBI. I don't know who PC is -- don't know how influential he is when he's not a psychopathic creeper. If he could've gotten those feds off my tail, or hell, even given me some information I didn't already have, I could have used that. If I'd actually had a sit and thought about it, I would have taken him up and used him. Maybe that would have been dangerous, but what the hell. Instead, he had to do it on a night that I was drunk and emotional.
On Wednesday, I tried on Rose's jacket. I don't know why I did it; it just sort of happened. But when I put it on, I felt something. Something like what I feel when he's around -- that odd, sick feeling -- only spun around. I didn't feel sick or exposed or wrong; it was positive, even warm. It was like the presence of a friend. It was like her. Maybe it was traces of her scent still left on it, stirring up old memories.
I've worn it a couple more times, but I feel weird about it. Positive feeling or not, I don't think that wearing the clothes of a dead girl is exactly healthy.
But I digress. This post isn't about those things. Because for the first time in weeks, I have good news.
This morning, I went down to the office in my house and looked in the little box where Dad puts mail that comes for me. I usually never get mail, but today there were two letters. One was postmarked for almost a week ago (gee, thanks, Dad), and the other looked like it came just yesterday. The first looked like the results from my application for financial aid. The second was addressed austerely to Miss Celeste V. McLachlan; its return address was Arkham, Massachusetts.
I opened the Arkham letter first. The letterhead bore the coat of arms like a prestigious, foreboding statue made of India ink and they used Courier instead of Times font -- an odd choice, but an odd school. "Dear Miss McLachlan," it read.
"It is with great pleasure that I write today to inform you that you have been accepted for admission to Miskatonic University."
It went on for some time after that. The other sheets of paper folded into the envelope detailed housing and course information, access numbers to Net-2, and passwords to the students portion of their website and student forum. I didn't much care for any of it, because I was busy screaming the kind of joyful, creative obscenities that made me happy that my little stepbrothers weren't home. Not because of the swearing, but because I probably would've thrown one of them at something.
The other letter confirmed that I qualify for financial aid. There is now officially no excuse for that pernicious snake of a woman to use to keep me here.
I'm going to Massachusetts in the fall. I'm going to a real college -- not just a real college, but the college of my dreams. I'm going to Miskatonic.
I'm going.
I was also thinking more about my last post...I feel like I may have made the wrong decision. Well, maybe not the wrong one, but certainly not the smart one. The way Practical Cat worded it, he could have been talking about the FBI. I don't know who PC is -- don't know how influential he is when he's not a psychopathic creeper. If he could've gotten those feds off my tail, or hell, even given me some information I didn't already have, I could have used that. If I'd actually had a sit and thought about it, I would have taken him up and used him. Maybe that would have been dangerous, but what the hell. Instead, he had to do it on a night that I was drunk and emotional.
On Wednesday, I tried on Rose's jacket. I don't know why I did it; it just sort of happened. But when I put it on, I felt something. Something like what I feel when he's around -- that odd, sick feeling -- only spun around. I didn't feel sick or exposed or wrong; it was positive, even warm. It was like the presence of a friend. It was like her. Maybe it was traces of her scent still left on it, stirring up old memories.
I've worn it a couple more times, but I feel weird about it. Positive feeling or not, I don't think that wearing the clothes of a dead girl is exactly healthy.
But I digress. This post isn't about those things. Because for the first time in weeks, I have good news.
This morning, I went down to the office in my house and looked in the little box where Dad puts mail that comes for me. I usually never get mail, but today there were two letters. One was postmarked for almost a week ago (gee, thanks, Dad), and the other looked like it came just yesterday. The first looked like the results from my application for financial aid. The second was addressed austerely to Miss Celeste V. McLachlan; its return address was Arkham, Massachusetts.
I opened the Arkham letter first. The letterhead bore the coat of arms like a prestigious, foreboding statue made of India ink and they used Courier instead of Times font -- an odd choice, but an odd school. "Dear Miss McLachlan," it read.
"It is with great pleasure that I write today to inform you that you have been accepted for admission to Miskatonic University."
It went on for some time after that. The other sheets of paper folded into the envelope detailed housing and course information, access numbers to Net-2, and passwords to the students portion of their website and student forum. I didn't much care for any of it, because I was busy screaming the kind of joyful, creative obscenities that made me happy that my little stepbrothers weren't home. Not because of the swearing, but because I probably would've thrown one of them at something.
The other letter confirmed that I qualify for financial aid. There is now officially no excuse for that pernicious snake of a woman to use to keep me here.
I'm going to Massachusetts in the fall. I'm going to a real college -- not just a real college, but the college of my dreams. I'm going to Miskatonic.
I'm going.
Saturday, March 5, 2011
A Practical Proposition
Okay, admittedly, I'm a little drunk at the moment. But honestly, that should come as no shock at this point. I've been drinking more or less every night for the last month or so. And I've been smoking more.
It's like I said all that time ago -- I'm a vice-fueled individual. But that's not the point.
The point is that a few minutes ago, I was contacted again by our friend Practical Cat. Well, contacted is a relative term. But I digress. This happened just a few minutes ago. I was surfing around the net, poking around a few choice sites and sipping my drink, when suddenly I got disconnected. This isn't a rare occurrence -- our MiFi card likes to crap out every now and again. However, as I came downstairs, I was confronted by this:
A note, addressed to (you guessed it) Little Mouse, attached with electrical tape to a jacket and draped over a chair at the table off our living room.
The note, when opened:
Looks like the Cat is offering me some kind of way out. Who does he think he is, bloody Redlight? At first I just got angry. How dare he even talk about my aunt, let alone taunt me with her?
What does he mean "she will not be spared?"
Of course, I nearly cried when I saw this:
Of course, the lighting in here doesn't do justice to the light gray color; Rose always had the best taste in fashion. This is -- was -- her jacket. The same jacket I told her excitedly to buy when we went down to Towson for her birthday last year. We'd gone to Sushi Hanna (her favorite place) and stopped in at a little sex shop down there to giggle at nonsense, and then stopped in at the mall and the Hot Topic there, where she found this jacket. A few months later, she spilled coffee all over it and had a minor panic attack over whether she'd be able to get it out (she was). A month after that, it got soaked when she finally made it to one of the little airsoft games that I play in the summer with our guy friends.
And a month after that, I picked it up and helped her into it, inched it up her shoulders and slowly pulled the zipper up, lovingly situated the scarf just so on top of it, before she drove off to work and never came back.
I read the note again, reflecting on how I was just too damn drunk for all this tonight. And then, for no real reason at all, I thought of Zeke. And I started to laugh. I laughed so hard I had to cover my mouth because I was afraid I'd wake the whole house. The closest thing to write with was a purple Sharpie marker, so I grabbed it, taped the note shut again, and turned it over to write on the back. I'm going to give the Cat a response, all right. I think he should find it just peachy.
Because tomorrow morning, the only message he's going to find is this one. It may not be witty (there's a little too much blood in my alcohol system for that), but it's short and it's sweet and it does indeed convey a message:
It's like I said all that time ago -- I'm a vice-fueled individual. But that's not the point.
The point is that a few minutes ago, I was contacted again by our friend Practical Cat. Well, contacted is a relative term. But I digress. This happened just a few minutes ago. I was surfing around the net, poking around a few choice sites and sipping my drink, when suddenly I got disconnected. This isn't a rare occurrence -- our MiFi card likes to crap out every now and again. However, as I came downstairs, I was confronted by this:
A note, addressed to (you guessed it) Little Mouse, attached with electrical tape to a jacket and draped over a chair at the table off our living room.
The note, when opened:
Looks like the Cat is offering me some kind of way out. Who does he think he is, bloody Redlight? At first I just got angry. How dare he even talk about my aunt, let alone taunt me with her?
What does he mean "she will not be spared?"
Of course, I nearly cried when I saw this:
Of course, the lighting in here doesn't do justice to the light gray color; Rose always had the best taste in fashion. This is -- was -- her jacket. The same jacket I told her excitedly to buy when we went down to Towson for her birthday last year. We'd gone to Sushi Hanna (her favorite place) and stopped in at a little sex shop down there to giggle at nonsense, and then stopped in at the mall and the Hot Topic there, where she found this jacket. A few months later, she spilled coffee all over it and had a minor panic attack over whether she'd be able to get it out (she was). A month after that, it got soaked when she finally made it to one of the little airsoft games that I play in the summer with our guy friends.
And a month after that, I picked it up and helped her into it, inched it up her shoulders and slowly pulled the zipper up, lovingly situated the scarf just so on top of it, before she drove off to work and never came back.
I read the note again, reflecting on how I was just too damn drunk for all this tonight. And then, for no real reason at all, I thought of Zeke. And I started to laugh. I laughed so hard I had to cover my mouth because I was afraid I'd wake the whole house. The closest thing to write with was a purple Sharpie marker, so I grabbed it, taped the note shut again, and turned it over to write on the back. I'm going to give the Cat a response, all right. I think he should find it just peachy.
Because tomorrow morning, the only message he's going to find is this one. It may not be witty (there's a little too much blood in my alcohol system for that), but it's short and it's sweet and it does indeed convey a message:
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Aunt Michelle
I haven't been around to post for a little while, and I suppose that's my fault. I've had kind of an eventful two weeks.
Firstly, Angel has finally flipped shit about me. A couple of days after my last post, a completely unrelated annoyance (and a completely ridiculous one; I may tell you if you ask nicely, but it's not important) set her off, and she just kept on going until she got to me.
The thing about Angel is that it's not just what she says; it's her tone, her movements, her entire body language that seems to scream a warning like a snake's rattle. I knew this was a long time coming; despite being all comfort and support on the outside, her passive-aggressive nature couldn't be hidden, and she was leaning less and less toward Oh, my stepdaughter has been severely traumatized, so I should back off, and more and more toward This little bitch needs to get over that shit.
I mean, she doesn't know about Christmas. Or about Zero or Ulryc. Or Zeke. And I don't want her to. I would never trust her with that information. And she grew up around...how do I put this lightly? Oh, fuck it -- she's white trash. She was raised around drug dealers and criminals; she wouldn't even let Sheriff Thomson or Detective Goldman in the house if she didn't think it was useful to have a cop friend. She blames me for bringing the FBI around, and thinks that I've been lying and that Vi and I are involved in some sort of shady underground criminality.
So when she was through with me, she stormed right out the door and over to the neighbor's driveway, where the car with the Virginia tags was parked. She got the driver out of the car -- surprise, surprise, it was an agent after all, albeit a younger-looking one than Keaton or de Vries -- and proceeded to tear him a new one. He threatened to call the local police to have her arrested. She threatened to call her boot to go on an important mission in his ass.
Sometimes, having a crazy, cop-paranoid stepmother comes in handy; I don't think I'm going to be followed as closely now. I mean, they'll probably still keep tabs on me, but not car-in-neighbor's-driveway close.
When she got back from doing that, she opened up on me again for lying about Violet and my "online fucking psychopath boyfriend -- what, you think I haven't told that Keaton about all that time you spend on the computer?!" Honestly, I let that slide. Yes, I have been lying to them -- it's not what they think I'm lying about, but thinking I deal drugs with my partner-in-crime Vi and I'm obsessed with a felon isn't nearly as bad as knowing the truth. I don't think they'd be able to handle it.
On a sadder note...one of the reasons I haven't posted is because of my Aunt Michelle.
Michelle Flynn is my aunt on my mother's side, and for a long time in my childhood, she was my favorite person in the world. She's my mom's youngest sister (Ma's the very middle of seven), and she's forty-seven years old now. Until recently, she had gingery, aurburny hair, just like me. I have her eyes, too, the ones that can't decide whether to be blue or green.
When I was going through my big bout of depression in the beginning of high school, she would call me every night just to talk and get things out. She knew how much I'd loved living by the ocean as a kid, and how I felt about boys and school and writing and theater. I say she'd call on the phone because more often than not, she was out jetsetting -- Aunt Michelle made a killing buying, fixing up, and selling houses, or sometimes, renting them out instead. It's a hard field, she'd always say to me. You have to be on your toes, or you'll go under faster than an anemic on Novocain. She could always turn a phrase when she wanted to.
And she wouldn't sell all of her houses; she kept the ones she truly loved. To my knowledge, she had houses in London, New York, Rome, and Los Angeles. But her favorite was her house in Paris; she spent most of her time there, she said, now that she'd established herself in the business and made enough to take breaks. She'd always tell me how I should come and see her there. We sort of grew apart in the last few years, just sort of calling each other every few months to check in, and she came to visit around the holidays a lot.
My Aunt Michelle is dying.
She didn't tell us when she'd first been diagnosed with ovarian cancer a year and a half ago. It took us a few months to find out, and when we did, I saw just how good Irish families can be at circling the wagons. She's been given six weeks to live for the last six months, but we all know that this can only keep up for so long. She came back to Baltimore last Monday and has been staying at her apartment here. Different members of the family have been in at different times, and I've tried to get down as much as I can, too.
Her hair is mostly gone, only withered strands sticking around, and she covers them with a hat that I got her for Christmas the year I turned fourteen. Her eyes are glazed and it looks like she's about to cry all the time. I feel bad for not calling her more over the past few years. She was so amazing to me, but I just got all caught up in my own life. I feel guilty for not pressuring her to spend this Christmas with us, but she seemed so sure that she'd be able to make it to next year that she refused. Now she says she's not feeling so sure, but that it's okay because she never liked Christmas much anyway. I feel guilty for being caught up in this shit and not even giving her a mention in this blog before now, when it's not going to make any difference. I feel guilty for living so selfishly when she's been selfless to her family her entire life, and she's dying.
It's not fair. It's not fair that people like Angel and Keaton and Practical fucking Cat can do so much harm, and they're alive and well, but Michelle Flynn -- who probably never even dreamed of anything as evil as what we're trying to fight -- isn't able to make it to fifty.
It's just. Not. Fair.
Firstly, Angel has finally flipped shit about me. A couple of days after my last post, a completely unrelated annoyance (and a completely ridiculous one; I may tell you if you ask nicely, but it's not important) set her off, and she just kept on going until she got to me.
The thing about Angel is that it's not just what she says; it's her tone, her movements, her entire body language that seems to scream a warning like a snake's rattle. I knew this was a long time coming; despite being all comfort and support on the outside, her passive-aggressive nature couldn't be hidden, and she was leaning less and less toward Oh, my stepdaughter has been severely traumatized, so I should back off, and more and more toward This little bitch needs to get over that shit.
I mean, she doesn't know about Christmas. Or about Zero or Ulryc. Or Zeke. And I don't want her to. I would never trust her with that information. And she grew up around...how do I put this lightly? Oh, fuck it -- she's white trash. She was raised around drug dealers and criminals; she wouldn't even let Sheriff Thomson or Detective Goldman in the house if she didn't think it was useful to have a cop friend. She blames me for bringing the FBI around, and thinks that I've been lying and that Vi and I are involved in some sort of shady underground criminality.
So when she was through with me, she stormed right out the door and over to the neighbor's driveway, where the car with the Virginia tags was parked. She got the driver out of the car -- surprise, surprise, it was an agent after all, albeit a younger-looking one than Keaton or de Vries -- and proceeded to tear him a new one. He threatened to call the local police to have her arrested. She threatened to call her boot to go on an important mission in his ass.
Sometimes, having a crazy, cop-paranoid stepmother comes in handy; I don't think I'm going to be followed as closely now. I mean, they'll probably still keep tabs on me, but not car-in-neighbor's-driveway close.
When she got back from doing that, she opened up on me again for lying about Violet and my "online fucking psychopath boyfriend -- what, you think I haven't told that Keaton about all that time you spend on the computer?!" Honestly, I let that slide. Yes, I have been lying to them -- it's not what they think I'm lying about, but thinking I deal drugs with my partner-in-crime Vi and I'm obsessed with a felon isn't nearly as bad as knowing the truth. I don't think they'd be able to handle it.
On a sadder note...one of the reasons I haven't posted is because of my Aunt Michelle.
Michelle Flynn is my aunt on my mother's side, and for a long time in my childhood, she was my favorite person in the world. She's my mom's youngest sister (Ma's the very middle of seven), and she's forty-seven years old now. Until recently, she had gingery, aurburny hair, just like me. I have her eyes, too, the ones that can't decide whether to be blue or green.
When I was going through my big bout of depression in the beginning of high school, she would call me every night just to talk and get things out. She knew how much I'd loved living by the ocean as a kid, and how I felt about boys and school and writing and theater. I say she'd call on the phone because more often than not, she was out jetsetting -- Aunt Michelle made a killing buying, fixing up, and selling houses, or sometimes, renting them out instead. It's a hard field, she'd always say to me. You have to be on your toes, or you'll go under faster than an anemic on Novocain. She could always turn a phrase when she wanted to.
And she wouldn't sell all of her houses; she kept the ones she truly loved. To my knowledge, she had houses in London, New York, Rome, and Los Angeles. But her favorite was her house in Paris; she spent most of her time there, she said, now that she'd established herself in the business and made enough to take breaks. She'd always tell me how I should come and see her there. We sort of grew apart in the last few years, just sort of calling each other every few months to check in, and she came to visit around the holidays a lot.
My Aunt Michelle is dying.
She didn't tell us when she'd first been diagnosed with ovarian cancer a year and a half ago. It took us a few months to find out, and when we did, I saw just how good Irish families can be at circling the wagons. She's been given six weeks to live for the last six months, but we all know that this can only keep up for so long. She came back to Baltimore last Monday and has been staying at her apartment here. Different members of the family have been in at different times, and I've tried to get down as much as I can, too.
Her hair is mostly gone, only withered strands sticking around, and she covers them with a hat that I got her for Christmas the year I turned fourteen. Her eyes are glazed and it looks like she's about to cry all the time. I feel bad for not calling her more over the past few years. She was so amazing to me, but I just got all caught up in my own life. I feel guilty for not pressuring her to spend this Christmas with us, but she seemed so sure that she'd be able to make it to next year that she refused. Now she says she's not feeling so sure, but that it's okay because she never liked Christmas much anyway. I feel guilty for being caught up in this shit and not even giving her a mention in this blog before now, when it's not going to make any difference. I feel guilty for living so selfishly when she's been selfless to her family her entire life, and she's dying.
It's not fair. It's not fair that people like Angel and Keaton and Practical fucking Cat can do so much harm, and they're alive and well, but Michelle Flynn -- who probably never even dreamed of anything as evil as what we're trying to fight -- isn't able to make it to fifty.
It's just. Not. Fair.
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Ulryc
Just checked the comments on my last post. It looks like we've lost Ulryc.
I just...I just can't put into words. He was a great advocate in our cause, and a good friend.
And if we're going by what Vi has decreed, it looks like it's just you and me now, Zeke. Personally, I like to think we're not alone; we've still got Lucien and Baibre, and Jacky and Allie, and Branwen and Distilled. I try to remember it like a mantra, even as more of us get picked off. We're not alone.
I'm not alone.
I just...I just can't put into words. He was a great advocate in our cause, and a good friend.
And if we're going by what Vi has decreed, it looks like it's just you and me now, Zeke. Personally, I like to think we're not alone; we've still got Lucien and Baibre, and Jacky and Allie, and Branwen and Distilled. I try to remember it like a mantra, even as more of us get picked off. We're not alone.
I'm not alone.
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