Everything Else

I have the weirdest hair: all the "normal" reds, like auburn, copper, strawberry, and henna-based look brassy or kind of pink on me. Which I cannot explain. I have (oddly shaded, impossible to get from a bottle, sort of mousy) reddish brown hair if I don't dye it, so I don't understand exactly what the problem is. Or maybe I do; come to think of it, my natural "reddish" is a fairly deep red, as long as it's not exposed to the sun, which will turn it almost blond and kind of brassy. I know! This is all very weird. I think I might have inherited all the hair colors from the last three generations of my family on both sides; nothing else could explain it.

I mean, I have just enough of a natural wave to my hair to rule out the idea of it being "straight", but not enough that anyone would think it's naturally very wavy. Unless I scrunch it, even the least bit, then poof, it's like, very wavy. If I keep it shorter and layer it right, I can scrunch it with just water and hair spray into natural-looking, almost spiralish curls. And the fact that it looks normally thick, but feels even thicker and is almost impossible to brush or get through with combs or implements of any sort (snags, knots, and general unruliness have apparently ensued since my toddlerhood: I brush it no more than six times a year for that reason alone, and only because at that point I'm desperate to get the knots out and to simultaneously pretend my hair is straight simply because I've combed it into something resembling real straightness) is beyond explanation, but also true. I gave up trying to figure any of it out a long time ago.

So anyway, as I was saying...classic red of any hue has always looked pretty bad on me. And I've tried ALL the classic reds (and browns, blacks and blondes; I've done it all except the pink, purple and blue in the title - my hair has actually been green twice through no direct fault of my own, so I can't cop to never having it uh, sort of moss-colored). So I picked up burgundy yesterday - a nice cheap bottle of Colorsilk (it over-dyes like crazy which, if your hair is as porous as mine, washes out all over the place, turning your shower, towel and anything else it touches pink even after 3 shampoos and rinses - so maybe don't try this at home, kiddies) - and I have to say, seriously, I love it.

I only bought it out of 1) desperation - I'm tired of the brown-blacks I've been wearing all winter because they look so harsh in the warmer months, and 2) defiance - burgundy was the closest I could get to a fuck-the-world color and still keep my fairly normal job and get other fairly normal jobs in the future. I've seen burgundy on plenty of other women - in person, in all sorts of lighting, indoors and out - and have never, ever thought it looked good, not even once, so the fact that I like it on me just proves everything about me from my natural hair color to my skin tone, is really, factually just plain fucking weird. It looks that good, just so much better than any other shade of red.

Which is all my long way of saying that some of you do know, to a tiny extent, and most of you don't want to know, not to any extent, what I was doing right now a year ago. I've never written about it and don't know if I should but I'm tired of holding it in. My mom had been self-shocked out of a near-coma by a sudden failure to take her next breath, and her next breath, and her next, so she was moaning and gasping the words, "I can't breathe" and pointing to her mouth while gurgling and choking, so unfortunately the hospice nurses ventilated her. With my permission. It was half-assed sort of my idea; they suggested it but I was like, OK, I guess...I know she hates it, but just go ahead and do it, and may God help us all.

She really hated being ventilated, so this time she pushed the tube away with actual force, started crying and shaking her head, then suddenly propped herself up on her knees, straight up with perfect posture, and proceeded to walk all over her bed like that really fast while yelling, "Help me" over and over again in the most awful, strangled, yet still deep and booming voice for the next ten or so minutes. No one could calm her down or make her stop moving. Least of all me, because the first stupid thing I said was, "Mom! Stop! Your stitches!" which she paid no attention to at all. She just kept yelling at me, and at all of us, to help her.

The second stupid thing I said was, "Mom, we are helping you! We're trying to help you! Stop! Chill!!!" That did it. She stopped cold and did not seem to so much as blink for an entire minute, frozen as still as a mouse on her knees, staring at me, mouth wide open in shock. Then she gave me an eye roll that could have slayed twenty people at once and turned her attention to the nurses as she begged them to help her. From that moment on she flat-out, blatantly ignored me, no matter what I said or how hard I tried to get her attention after that.

Within another hour or so she fell into a coma that she'd never come out of. I had nightmares about her yelling, "Help me" while racing around on her knees and cutting me dead with that look of hers, and what felt like actual PTSD that would make me cry day and night at the merest, most superficial thought of it for the next six months. I never got to say anything that was kind enough, or to her mind helpful enough, while she was still alive enough to hear it. And I never got to say anything else she wanted to hear while she was still conscious enough to respond to it. Those were the last words her fully responsive mind ever heard from me, and the last conscious look I ever got from her in return was one of apparent contempt and dismissal.

She was dead about twenty hours from now. Of course I kept watch last year, unable to sleep for those two days, and am keeping watch again now, staying up until dawn last night and again, maybe, though I kind of hope not, tonight. There's something about it that wires me, not in a feel-good or an 'up' way, but in an it-seems-I've-been-force-fed-crack-in-my-sleep-and-will-never-need-sleep-again-as-a-result way. Even insomniacs get tired. When I'm keeping this sort of watch, I don't. Not at all. Not until about the same time most people have their mid-morning coffee breaks, then all of a sudden I can sort of lightly sleep for a few hours, then I'm on my feet again and the feeling of having been force-fed crack returns.

It's been a problem on and off since she died, and usually goes on for two or three days before a work schedule or some other external circumstance forces me to resolve it. But it always bites me in the ass again, usually by the next month or so. I don't know what to do about it or if I should do anything. I know it's because of something I can't explain about losing her, and I was always a night owl anyway, just not quite this bad.

I miss her. I can't tell you how fast time goes by, how it feels like I lost her just yesterday, nor how it doesn't feel like she died, more like I simply misplaced her and just have to track her down properly in order to make everything alright again, and I cannot even begin to describe my disappointment at not being able to tell her I got back with my first love, who she mostly adored and who she thought at one time I should've married (I'm almost relieved to say I don't know if she'd think I should marry him now, given how much he seems to have changed, but the thought of him being so important to me and being back in my life - after almost 25 years, which is almost unbelievable - would have initially shocked and awed her without a doubt, regardless of present circumstances).

I can't tell you how many times a day I go from general missing-her to a damn-I-wish-you-were-here-right-now-to-see-and-hear-this level in my forlornness over it. I catch myself talking, or coughing, or clearing my throat sometimes and realize I sound just like her. My roommate tells me she cannot tell pictures of me, my mom, my sister, my maternal grandmother and my maternal great grandmother apart because "you all look exactly alike" and on the one hand I feel proud she lumps me in with my mom, grandmother and great grandmother in that statement, but on the other hand it makes me miss my mother and wish I could have ever met the other two. I never did. They died within a week of me being born, of pnuemonia they caught from each other.

Hey kids, if you're ever, you know, staring at your stupid Wordpress blog asking yourself, "Hmmm, wonder if that new comment is spam? How do I tell before I delete it?" there's an easy way to know: just Google it, like so. See? 6 million fucking results for an exact quote! Therefore, most likely spam and quite safe to delete. (Yes, even your nearly all-knowing techy goddess hostess here has to rely on Google more and more lately to make sure what she sees is real; the spammers are getting THAT good.)

And for anyone reading this more purely for the Google scripting side of things? How y'all liking that new red sign-in button which has completely fucked my script up? What were they thinking using text-transform UPPERCASE on it? And RED??? Just aaaarrghh it's once again, Google, so ugly *tears eyes out*

ETA on my script, 4-7-13: it's not that I'm not updating it, simply to account for Google's changes, it's just that 1) in moving #ab_ctls and #gbu around to fix G's usual mispositioning of these elements (they never line up centered in Google's own design; I like them to line up centered) I broke something, so now signed-in users see a scrollbar at all viewport widths; need more time to unbreak it and 2) I can't figure out how to remove the wrapper for that stupid dropdown G added to .kv - and by extension .fl (cache/similar links). I want those dropdowns gone, too.

Also Google: Hear Me This...obviously there are extreme dumbasses in charge of Google's code which is apparent when looking at basic elements of the CSS like inheritance. Seriously. What. The. FUCK?

You folks have two pages that people hit more often than any other pages on your entire fucking set of domains: 1) the results page for any search they type into any Google search box and 2) Image results. This is not hard.

If people hit the former more than the latter - and they do - and you all KNOW that they do - then you don't give that page the body classes .spr.tbo.vsh and the less-hit Image results pages the body classes .spr.tbo because now overrides are going to apply to both views making changes made to the Image results pages by coders like me apply to the search results pages, too, at least until any changes made to the third body class (.vsh) can finally pass through DOM to get applied as overrides - which is wrong, any changes applied to .vsh should be applied first simply because that's the first page most people hit - and its the most popular (this mistake also causes scripts to flash-on-page-load AND design elements to literally move around on the page, all at the same fucking time).

The inheritance should be, and I cannot believe I have to type this out (because, come on, I am not the best or even all that great of a coder, and so why am I of all people feeling like I'm the only one out there stating this?), the other way around. You guys are KILLING me. Which, of course, some of you are probably enjoying - a lot.

I think we're crazy to do this
Even crazier to want to the rest of our lives
I think had we done it way back then
We would've been envied above all:
Him, the beaming handsome man marrying
My young blushing self, so enthralled
And so clueless how to make it work at all.
But that's what he always liked about me,
How enthused I was, quite easy
With letting him call all the shots
I was happy that way more often than not
But here I am now in a world of change
Letting decidedness wrap me in chains
Until he turns to me, then the pain
Etched across his face makes me wish
My old, more careless ways,
Which I still have no trouble invoking
Could soften even one fine trace,
But I've tried and they're not working.
There is no ignoring nor walking
Away from it, no scolding nor coaxing
Nor giving chase to it,
Pain is the one thing he's got
That's stronger than me
I think we're crazy to do this
I think we're crazy

Just wanted what you'll never know:
Wanted to be happy with you
Wanted our dreams to come true
Wanted you for me to come home to
Always, always
Sometimes love is unbalanced
In the air
Relinquished with little care,
A heart lies bare, hurting, hurting
Sometimes I think with me you're just flirting,
Jealous and demanding and deserving
Of nothing I could offer you
You take it, shake it and throw it off with both hands
So why do you ask why I won't stay true?

Especially my Jewish friends and acquaintances laboring under the misconception that God doesn't love you: RTB. Read the Book. Read the Book. Then go read it again. It's very simple - here, have it in list form!

1. When Eve disobeyed God, He knew for sure all people would disobey Him. That we'd sin. Do you know what it means to sin? To sin is to disobey out of a lack of love in your heart. Yes, I said love. It means to act for yourself and not first think of others. Not even the One who created you. That is the definition of sin.
2. Once the Fall took place, you might've noticed God didn't hold anyone's hand: Adam had to go out and chop down brush, Eve had to bear kids in pain, everyone had to sew clothes and so on. This was God's way of saying, "PARTY OVER, not gonna be Mr. Nice Guy anymore, so scram and leave me to cherish my memories".
3. And they did. Neither Adam nor Eve really missed God much, they just missed how cushy their lives were before Eve decided she had a better plan than God. They'd offer Him stuff from time to time but their attitudes were like, "Meh, whatever". God noticed the futility of this.
4. Then, of Adam and Eve's first born kids, one actually murdered the other in a fit of jealous rage - over God! God had enough and kind of broke the whole party up, sending the murderer off to propagate elsewhere while continuing to break Adam's back with hard work and Eve's insides with more children.
5. Fast forward hundreds of years; none of this crap goes well; people fight, kill, party hardy, build towers, and do other stupid things to express how much they really don't mind not having God in their lives. Somewhere along here God drowns most of them but they eventually re-propagate and do the same stupid crap that got their relatives killed in the first place.
6. God, knowing these people don't love Him, decides to hire Moses, another murderer, to write down His laws. He knows every law will be broken, and sure enough they all are! Finally He lets them be sold into Egyptian slavery: he tried and got nowhere so let the Egyptians have them.
7. Finally, finally, the Jews wake up to the fact that a) there's a God and b) if they ask Him often enough, He might just help them out of Egypt. God's all like, "Excellent idea" and decides to take them up on that - just a hair over 500 years later. He's still kinda pissed at them about - well, everything. Any good father who just wants decent kids who don't run around like heathen worshiping other dads would be pretty pissed, too, don'tcha think?
8. When God finally agrees to free them from Egypt there's dead kids, adults, women, insects, frogs and lambs all over the place, just the works. He's still angry with and distrustful of his people so he doesn't want freedom or victory to come too easily, but he's even madder at the Egyptians for leading them around by their noses for over 500 years, which is a long time, so He puts one heck of a serious hurting on them, too.
9. Where are we so far? Oh yeah: God gives Adam and Eve the world. To thank Him they eat an apple He said not to touch and shrug him off like, "Yeah, whatever" once they're caught, so God gets mad and boots them out of of Eden. Then he gives them the Law but they thumb their noses at that, too, worshiping images of other dads and partying like it's 1999. Now he's freed them from slavery in Egypt and given them a nearly perfect, completely nutritious homeland to partake of and what do they do? Are they happy and grateful? Do they at least try to love Him in return for it?
10. Oh heck no: now they need Kings, because if they won't love and listen to their real Father, maybe they'll listen to the men they elect to act as fathers of their land. But this doesn't go so well, either. Finally God gives up - for realz this time - and decides to send a Messiah to teach them what love is. The end.

If you're not picking up from all this (and I'm not even pretending that's close to a word for word Bible translation but let's not be picky: it will suffice) that according to the Bible it was us who screwed up our relationship with God, not God who screwed up His relationship with us, then read the Bible again. If you think God owes us anything after the Fall? He doesn't.

He doesn't owe us the next breath that comes out of our bodies. He didn't owe us our first and won't owe us our last. Anything He does for you is a favor - not because He doesn't love you - he does - but because even His own people have proven time and time again how little they love Him in return, so there's no relationship for Him to act on accordingly. There's no reason for Him to want to help you. It's as simple as that.

Sometimes I see complaining about how the Jews are so persecuted as a people as so much whining. It's awfully easy to say that one entire group has always been the target of God's punishment, but it's also easy to blame a Biblical God for your problems - no matter which religion you and your people adhere to - while failing to recall what the same Bible says led to those problems in the first place. It's also awfully convenient to say, "I have a rotten father who doesn't love me," and forget you have a symbiotic relationship with Him that fails when there's not enough love in your heart for Him to make up for whatever character He feels you may lack.

In the simplest form possible:

• God loves us. He created us to live in a state of perfect love with Him forever.
• We don't love him - or each other - enough - not nearly as much as we should. So we act in bad ways that will hurt others, which often also hurts Him.
• He still loves us, but our lack of love for Him - and each other - troubles Him deeply and sometimes gets Him mad.
• A lot of stuff has happened since the day this deeply unbalanced love affair began. There's an entire Book filled with the stories. Go read them!
• God still loves us. And no matter which Abrahamic branch of the religion you adhere to, he's still coming back to get us into a more perfect relationship with Him, no matter what, because His love for us is that strong.

So? Try to be grateful for what you've got. Look forward to the future. It might be all you've got, but it's still more than you may ever actually deserve.