Barking, whining, chewing, pooping, peeing puppy for sale. cheap.

(just kidding)

Right around the time Karl died, my old blog did too. I had written a very few things to or about him there, and I'd like to transfer them here, you know, for safe keeping. The posts are not dated correctly, but sometimes I reference when i'm writing... Here ya go, blogosphere. We revisit last summer:


He Bites his Nails...
jescope
Aug 9, '08, 11:57 AM
Ok, so from the news of the strange, my cat has started biting his nails. Constantly. Just like Karl.

Missing.
jescope
May 9, '08, 5:34 AM
A part of me is missing.

Today it's been two weeks. This is the longest we've been apart since we started dating in July '05. We knew by August we were in it for the rest of our lives. I just thought that would be so much more than three years.

Elliot is doing well. He's teething - keeps his mind off other things I guess. He's not walking yet, but he's on the verge. I have been showing him videos. He laughs at Daddy on the screen. We both do, but I cry too.

Often it seems like I have these great inspirations in the middle of the night or driving in the car - I come up with words for this - THIS - this feeling, this surreal reality that isn't and can't be the story of us together - a story with an end. I think of something beautiful to say, but then it floats away - it follows a whispy unseen vapor trail along the road, or through the trees, or up into the sky - follows a sparkling invisible thread to where Karl is. Sometimes I can catch a little piece of it before it goes, but the words want to be with him, and so I let them go.

Off with you now, words. Go see Karl.

I'm proud of myself today for being pretty productive. I've been a little of a funk lately, and haven't been able to motivate well. Getting outside this week helped a lot. We went to Purina Farms and the Botanical Gardens.

I cleaned a lot. Elliot's room is all tidy, and I put his rug back down. I'd taken it up when we started housebreaking, and thought we were progressing well enough to put it back out. It made it at least 3 hours before Fin peed on it, so maybe we aren't progressing as well as I thought.

I also cleaned up all the poop in the yard, cleaned the fish tanks, and cleaned up (some) in my room.

It's still strange sometimes - I just end up laying on the bed, staring at the ceiling and thinking about Karl's last moments, and wondering...

It happens every time I try to clean in there - maybe that's why I avoid it so much, and things pile so high on the bed. Laundry on the floor gets peed on, so it has to stay up, and I haven't brought myself to get rid of enough of Karl's clothes yet, because there's still not enough room in the dressers for mine. Blah.

Anyway, a productive day, and the house looks better than it did this morning. So good for me.

Been a busy week. I spent most of the last several days in the studio putting work together for the Third Friday show at Third Degree. Happily, the show was very well received, and I sold two pieces at the opening. Hooray!



I have one piece in the show which is a line of ducks - a big duck and two ducklings. I was a little surprised at how free people felt to pick up the work from the pedestals. Because they couldn't seem to put them back in line where they found them, I spent a large part of the evening getting my ducks all in a row. Tee hee.

Dropped Sarah off at the airport yesterday, so the house is a little quiet. We walked up to Ted Drews last night for a concrete. Walking with a puppy, a toddler, and an custard shake, well, challenging.

At the moment, Elliot's in the kitchen sweeping, but he's not quite the housekeeper Sarah was.

Looking forward to a quieter week, hopefully seeing a few friends, but mostly hanging around the house. Woot.

Last night I went with The Legal Team (or members thereof) to the Hamels Foundation "Batter Up" poker tournament. The event was meant to be a celebrity poker fundraiser, linked up with the All Star game here in St. Louis. Unfortunately I think they overestimated the draw of a tournament with no prizes, and the depth of the pockets (or willingness to reach into them, anyway) of the St. Louis upper crust.

I have to say I had a great time. I thought, going in, "I'm going to totally embarrass myself, going out in the first round." and I was right on one count. I did embarrass myself, but not going out. Instead I started out my night by spilling my drink across half the table as I reached for my first pot. Good thing it was my second drink, and I'm a lightweight. The buzz kept me from crawling under the table and hiding, or resigning outright to flee the mortification.

I redeemed myself slightly by taking a big pot on an ace-low straight several rounds later. I did not get a second second drink, so I was safe to scoop up my winnings with abandon. The very next round I got pocket aces, so I bet pretty strong. Half the table called me. When the flop showed the third ace, I went all in. Let me tell you, going all in when you have nothing is just kind of blah - a last ditch effort to save your skin. All in when you've got some chips to lose (or win!) - it's quite exciting.

Two others went all in to match me, but three of a kind, well, sure enough it beats two pair. Woot!

Our table broke after that, and I was reseated with players who had the cash to buy more chips. This is where it got a little less fun. As I watched a few of my competitors sign their credit card stubs, and have $2000 more in chips plunked down to play, I felt a little out of my league. But I managed to hang on through enough rounds to get to the Final Table.

Here's where it got kind of strange. There were supposed to be two "heats" of poker, and I'd wondered at the start how they would deal with determining a winner. I thought perhaps they would play down to a final 4 in each heat, then have a final table. Maybe the waiver we signed at the start - the one that said "I acknowledge that this game is only for fun, and that no prizes of any kind will be awarded, nor will there be any betting or gambling of any sort allowed." - should have clued me in, but I was still thinking this was a tournament. Playing for bragging rights would be fine by me!

But just as we were getting down to the final four, the MC announced that the second heat could take their seats. We all looked at each other a little perplexed. Our dealer continued to deal, and we continued to play for 10 minutes. Then the Woman In Charge In The Shiny Coat came over and said we were done. We had to clear out.

What?

Huh?

We didn't. The dealer said he'd never seen a tournament end like that, and he decided this wouldn't be the first. But Shiny Coat went ahead and seated several new players, all with heavy stacks of blue chips, at our table.

Don't get me wrong - I was going out, and soon. I had maybe 2500 left, and the chip leader had easily ten times that. But I wanted the chance to play out against my final table, not against a random group of newcomers. It's a different game playing against 4 people or against 7... but either way I was out a few rounds later.

My friends congratulated me heartily, and I heaved a sigh of relief knowing I might be remembered as the only woman at the leaders table rather than that floozy who spilled her drink. Here's hoping, anyway.

I could go on about how disappointed I was in St. Louis to fork up the cash for even the opening bids in the silent auction, or to advance bidding in the live one. But, having been involved in fund raising in this city before, it was really no surprise.

The biggest problem, I think, was that the 'celebrities' never materialized. Sure, Billy Bob Thornton may have bought a ticket, but if he was in town last night, he was at a different party. Pair old money St. Louis against itself, and it's not going to budge. These people all know each other, and whatever they have to prove, well, they aren't going to prove it with generous spending. Pair them against Hollywood, however, and I think you'd have seen a totally different show.

St. Louis, and maybe the midwest in general, has this inferiority complex that I think the organizers could have exploited had they worked a little harder to get more big names in the door. Celebrities "On the Guest List" may have got people to come out, but didn't get them to shell out $3000 for sports memorabilia. Now, give them the option to get in a bidding war against "Big Names" from either coast, and well, *then* they'd have something to prove.

sometimes i do this thing where i look through my old photos or blog entries searching for something that happened this day last year, or at least around the same time. i ponder what we were doing, and remember the good times we had.

it's hard tho - especially with the photos. as i scroll closer and closer to August, my stomach starts to knot up, as if somehow if i stopped scrolling, time would pause, and we wouldn't get to the last photo - the last week, the last moments.

it's the photos from the summer that start the tension. first grant's farm, then national night out, then the zoo... by the time we get to our last (first!) "date night" and the photos by the river, it's really awful. then, there it is, the last picture i took - karl holding a cranky, squirming elliot.

then he's gone.

as we draw close to a year, i look back now at moments without karl - times that i cherish, but that were bittersweet - my vacation in florida, the one we never took together; elliot learning to walk; decorating for the holidays; visiting friends and family... life going on.

we went out tonight to 'let them eat art' in maplewood. it's a little art event in honor of bastille day. karl's and my first date, a strange and tangled day, included a stop at the soulard bastille day flea market, and ended in the bottleworks parking lot with our first kiss.

our niece sarah is visiting this week. we may head down to soulard in the morning for knicknacks and memories.

i need to remember to take my camera.

I just can't seem to settle down tonight. I've been crying for about 2 hours. For a little while I just stayed in bed, curled up with a pillow, but I couldn't shake it. So I logged on to FB for a little mind numbing.

Not working.

So, instead, I headed over to Matt Logelin's blog to see how he and Maddie are faring. He had a link to another blog - this one a parent who lost his baby daughter recently. Both were exploring the idea of "One more moment" and how desperately they would love just a little more time.

I don't think I could do it - face the moment again when he'd be gone forever. Not for just a minute together - not for an hour. A week? Maybe. A year? Absolutely. But a moment? I really think it would make me crazy. I've been able to be strong looking in his eyes in photos and hearing his voice in videos, but to have to look in his eyes for real, and know he would be gone again? In a moment?

No. Thank you, but no.

And Elliot - how could Karl see him, and not have a million questions, and a million more requests? So much to tell him, and no time to do it? And would he know?? That's been something I cling to - that he never knew he was dying. I desperately hope he passed in a deep sleep, and wasn't tormented by what he was losing.

I could never bring him back just to let him go.

But when it hurts like this - when I can't stop crying... I try to hear his voice and feel his arms around me. It's so hard when the one you miss is the only one who could really comfort you.

Tonight the thin spots are just a little thinner then usual. Just hope I don't wake up with a hangover - dehydrated from making too many tears.

"They viewed me as someone whose house had slugs - a suddenly Public flaw. I liked the slugs - occasionally I'd kill them for others or myself. Flushed down the toilet where their fate was a mystery - shrug. Survivable I suppose - or dissolved with pesticide - but mostly I liked the slugs.

I liked their trails over the carpeting in the garage -> Their Physics defying Presence on the walls - their slowness"

Reading Karl's undated journal - maybe 2003? Maybe before.

The 4th of July is unsettling in my neighborhood - I'm not sure, tonight, if I hear fireworks of gunshots.

Either way, I need to pack.