Well, we may finding some small bits of normalcy, methinks.  Grandma is still sorting through Grandpa's things.  His ashes are in a silver thing on a shelf in their room.  Finances are being straightened out.  Grandma has gotten back to watching the news.  All three of us manage to get out of the house, though not usually all at once.  Grandma and i have started watering our plants.  We're not in any kind of routine yet and haven't found complete normalcy, but it's actually looking a little better already.  It was chaos after his first stroke and was still chaos when he died.

i have received some of Grandpa's things: two harmonicas (with a lesson book), an ukulele (with 3 old, small books), an empty licorice Altoids tin, a pair of swim trunks, a tank top, a vest, a turtleneck, and five ties (four bow, one normal).

Also, Mom had a big-looking computer problem the other day.  She put a CD with an old Word document on it in her Mac Mini.  The Mac kept trying to read it, but it was unable to open the document.  Any command to eject the CD or view its contents in a window (not Word) made Finder wonky.  She got the Pinwheel of Death several times.  i ended up trying to help after finding out there was a problem, but i kept getting the Grey Screen of Doom and the Pinwheel of Death as well.  We frequently consulted Google and finally got into Boot Manager and ejected the CD that night, though i had gotten it wrong earlier that day in a rather head-desk-worthy way.  It was too late for Mom not to have stress heartburn, but it worked.  That computer has been fine ever since.

Anyway, things have been looking more like life again, though there aren't as many daily routines as there used to be.  i'm waiting to see when Mom and Grandma start working crossword puzzles together.  i wonder if Grandma will start eating Cheerios for breakfast every morning again, possibly with the ever-present sliced banana on top.

At the moment, though, things seem pretty calm.  Grandma's in bed and probably asleep, Mom's in the process of going to sleep, and i'm sitting here with one of my trusty laptops.  It was a hot day, but it has cooled down for the night.  Fans keep the air flowing while the windows are open.  It's quiet enough that the soft noises of insects are audible.  Good night, LJ.

i feel like i haven't been able to quite think straight in days, maybe weeks.  i feel like i'm getting dumber and dumber all the time.  Tonight, i'm even having trouble speaking in correct English impromptu.  GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.  i'm just sick and tired of feeling dumb.  i'm sick and tired of feeling dumber and dumber, like i can't do anything about it.  What is happening to me?  Why is this happening?  i hate this.  i want this to end.

Grandpa died last week on Tuesday night/Wednesday morning.  Every side effect is happening slowly.

Grandpa's at home with hospice care.  One aunt has come to visit.  Don't talk to me about life.

Oh, i've found a reason (besides a possible odd camaraderie among strangers) i wish i could go to the Reason Rally.  Eddie Izzard will be speaking there.  Whoosh.  i hope everyone who goes has fun.

i'm finding myself wanting attention and wanting to be forgotten.  *sigh*  i need to vent, but i don't want to be heard (then, venting doesn't do much good).  fplakdflakjdfla

Exit stage right

"If you don't know where you're going, any road will take you there." - George Harrison, "Any Road" Brainwashed

There have been times when i've waited three to six months to check emails.  There have been times when i've checked my email once or twice daily.  Currently, i check my email almost daily.  That's what brought me to LJ tonight.

Really, i hadn't forgotten, but i started using Tumblr.  Tumblr is good for short things and for things you want others to see quickly, but this is good for nice, longer posts.  Sometimes, it's good to write a long post.  Also, i feel even surer on LJ that my posts won't be read (usually).

About six months to a year ago, i had two wisdom teeth coming in, one on each side of the top row.  That was weird, but i've pretty much gotten used to them.  Now, there is another wisdom tooth coming in on the bottom row.  It feels funky, and a nearby tooth is hurting a little.  *sigh*  If we could afford it and/or i had insurance that would take care of it, i'd opt to go to a dentist.  However, things have been happening and i'm uninsured, so i'm not going anywhere.  i just have to hope that i don't get sick, get in an accident, or need something done.

i've been going through some self-discovery, mostly settling into my skin, relaxing, and seeing just what's going on.  i am not entirely sure whether i'm genderless or sort-of bi-demi-gender.  It's weird.  i've gotten to the point where people referring to me as a woman or girl bugs me or gets me down; being seen as a man or boy also feels inaccurate, but it's a relieving inaccuracy after being seen as a woman or girl for 24 years.  It's wrong, but at least it's not the same old wrong.

Grandpa had a stroke the Tuesday before Thanksgiving.  He says the weirdest things and sometimes needs help getting up from a sit (more than before).  He sometimes has little seizures, too.  He has a hard time counting, but he likes to read short phrases and the time.  Actually, he had gotten in the habit of reading the time randomly before the stroke.  His mind had been going south for years.  One not-so-good development is that he now sometimes behaves immaturely (in a bad way).  He has always been stubborn, but he now adds a certain "I'm two and will show it!" style to it.  He doesn't want to take his medications, either.  He has been really bothering Grandma and Mom.  They've been getting pretty frazzled since he came home.

Truth be known, Grandma's been bugging me a little, mostly in how she's been treating Grandpa.  She sometimes does things with him that take me back to when we used to fight, and it makes me want to run or hide or die (or melt) or just curl up into the fetal position.  Some of the things she says to him sound...nearly identical to things she said to me.  It's disturbing.  She can be very condescending and has a tendency to say people are stupid, idiots, morons, etc.

Because of the family emergency i just went into, our spending habits have had to change for a bit.  To save money, i am now taking a semester off.  It doesn't feel good.  i really don't like it.  my sleep schedule is screwed up, possibly more than it already was screwed up.  i tend to get up at 2pm now, (seemingly) no matter when i go to sleep.  It's frustrating, especially since i am now the person who feeds the birds every day.  Also, it feels like i've left my life behind.  i'm becoming more of a nobody.  i'm not even posting on forums this semester.  i just want...i don't know what i want.  my mind has been living in fantasies for a bit now.  To keep one toe on the ground, i watch videos on YouTube, listen to the radio, concentrate on feeding the birds or cooking when i do those things, and get out of the house with Mom when i can.  i'm tired a lot.  i'm stressed out a lot.  How am i supposed to relax when i'm stressed out a lot?

Grandpa went into my room on a random whim while i wasn't in it earlier today/yesterday (it's 4am).  Ick.

On the other hand, since my last post, i've gotten a new laptop (MacBook Pro), bought Minecraft, found new video games, and expanded my musical tastes a little.  i had a wonderful time with two math classes, one of which i was taking when i last posted.  i've never felt surer of who i am (that may say a lot or not so much because i've always felt like i didn't know myself), but i feel somewhat hemmed-in and quasi-isolated.  i've been watching and enjoying some games i'd never really been interested in before, like the Metal Gear games.  i really like Hal Emmerich (Otacon), and Solid Snake is cool.

Grandma's trying to be nice to me.  She's been more affectionate with me than usual, though there are still bugs to be worked out.  i hope we can do it.  It would be nice (probably for both of us).

Ah, i think i needed that.  Sweet, long, and good for venting and thinking.  Sorry for i-me-mine-ing a lot.

[edit to add: i found this Writer's Block question: "Which video game character would you like to have as your real-life BFF?"  my answer to this may be, possibly unsurprisingly, Hal Emmerich from the Metal Gear Solid games.  Another possibility would be Neil from Illusion of Gaia.]

Honestly, i wasn't going to post anything...Then, I saw today's "writer's block" idea.  i've had one boyfriend and there is a song that i always associate with him and with when we first hooked up.  Very silly, but yeah.  We had some laughs and fun.  Before i say what it is, i want to make it clear that i neither avoid this song nor go out of my way to hear it.  The things i associate it with don't make me want to do anything for or against hearing it.  It's just a song that played during our prom that we had fun during, and, though we had one awkward slow dance that night, i sort of consider this "our song".

"We Like to Party" - Vengaboys

i think i'm doing ok in school so far this semester.  It's been an interesting semester.  Good classes.  i really need the maths review, so it's good that i'm taking a maths class.

Sam was put to sleep almost 3 weeks ago while i was at school.  It was around the 8th (i've been bad with connecting recent events to days).  Poor guy.  He really wasn't doing well, and he was an old cat.  RIP, Sampson.

It snowed a lot here last week (not this last week, but the one before).  Crazy.  It snowed a touch yesterday, too, but not much.  Yeah...

If you read this, i hope you're doing well.  Yeah...

i was cruising around Tumblr, which i've considered joining but haven't joined yet, and found a meme i thought was nice.  It, does, however, show that i'm not much of a reader. Heh. Here goes!

The BBC believes most people will have read only 6 of the 100 books listed here. Bold those books you’ve read in their entirety, italicize the ones you started but didn’t finish or read an excerpt.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma -Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - A.A. Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Inferno - Dante
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte's Web - E.B. White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Heh, i guess i've semi-abandoned this again.  i do that a lot, don't i?  Oh well.  Anyway, it's been mixed ups and downs, as usual.  The new semester has started, and i'm a full-time student again.  i tried Guinness, which wasn't bad at room temperature but was terrible cold.  Our demigod is away from us for a while.  Uh...yeah.

Ooh, there's some orange in the clouds now.

The new year is off to a nice start.  Like i said, the new semester has started.  All the classes i'm in now seem like they'll be fun and good for me.  i'm most nervous about this Critical Thinking & Reasoning class.  Yeah...Still, it should be very interesting.  Weather-wise, it has gotten up as far as the low 60s this month, which is nice, though it's still getting cold at night.

One of our 2 non-feral cats, Sam (he came to us as a purely domestic cat from across the street), isn't doing well.  *sigh*  i have written the details and edited them out.  i don't like this situation.  (Don't worry, he'll live, but we have to make sure he eats.)

Ooh, the northeast is pink a little above the horizon.

Why is my folding chair the creepiest thing in my room?  Seriously, it looks creepy when it's folded up against the wall by the door.

i like how the sky gradually changes colors and how the colors seem to spread over different parts so beautifully.  Now, it's a deep, rosy pink, almost purplish.

Anyway, so...yeah.  Plenty of things going on.  i'd better go now.  i want to do some things and see if other things have to be done.

Oh yeah, and i was trying to listen to Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me today, but it cut out.  Darn it.  Oh well, i'll listen to it online.