Tag: mom

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Protools

Protools is softare that is used of sound editting. It does everything that you can do with a multie track tape recorder and a mixing board and a bunch ofthings you can’t. It’s got 24 possible tracks and splicing and just like photoshop quickly automates things that used to take hours with razor blades and splicing tape. It’s very cool.
I’ve got some heardware that lets me record up to eight tracks at once (actually, I could go 16, if I attached some other stuff, but only two mic pre-amps) anyway, I have two versions of protools. One for OS9 and one for OSX. I’ve been having problems with both versions. Right now, I can create a file and record to it on OS9 and play it back and edit it in OSX. I haven’t tried recording in OSX yet, but all the other things won’t work in theother operating sysem. I can’t create files in 10. I can’t play them back or edit them in 9. Just thought I’d share.

Installation

I finally got five minutes of bart sound mixed into a file. The file has problems, but we’re going to have the judges look at a websirte to listen to them and the mp3 conversion hides the flaws. Thank goodness, technology is working in my favor for once! The voice-over part is not finished being editted to pieces yet. I have have a very nice sample of jean saying wistfully, “well, i guess that’s unemployment.” My midiverb seems to be on the fritz (what’s going on with my equipment, anyway? did the pentagon test it’s EMP missle offshore or something?), so i added a 13 milisecond delay with 50% feedback at a 20% mix for reverb. Many, that’s got some aliasing… I’d use if for noise FX, but it’s wayyyyy to cheesy. URL of website will be posted here. We’re calling it “Mind the Metro” with a subtitle that somehow explains that metros are the same everywhere, even though they’re different and the universality of the urban commuter.

Other Minds

I spent all day yesterday working in the OM office. I processed email unsubscribe requests so they can send out their giant reminder email. And i put inserts into programs. about 2000 of them. And I put comp tickets in envelopes. I don’t want to speculate on the number, but I’ve heard a rumor that 25% of the audience is going to be comped in. Ushers get two free comp tickets for another night. It would be cheaper to pay the ushers a living wage than give them these tickets. It’s the most generous ushering thing that I’v ever heard of. Anyway, I continued helping Christi with comp tickets until midnight, when I fell asleep on the floor with my head in her lap. Maybe that was somehow helpful.
the festival starts today. they’re playing a piece arranged by Christi. If you don’t have a ticket and want to go to a night aside from tonight, I have an extra ticket. I’ll be plaing on friday night. Contact me if you want to go.

Brain Tumors

Somebody on one of my mailing lists might have one. I met somebody with a brain tumor when I was in Portland and I guess I looked visibly freaked-out when Renee told me because she and a number of other peope asked if I was alright.
The last holy candle has burned out.

Things that keep me awake at night

More brain tumors…

I can’t hear as well in my right ear as in my left. Normally, I just wonder why this is so (I always hold the telephone on the right. I’m on the right side of the band I play in… hrm, but I was on the left when I played in hgihschool band. My tuba bell was on the right though…) and make vague plans to get an earwax removal kit. but at 3:00 AM, it’s a brain tumor. “Can I see as well with my right eye? I don’t think very creativly! Maybe my right brain is being impacted.” Yeah, the thing that are giant at 3:00 AM are stupid by morning.

Purgatory

Fundamentalists have the death thing all figured out. You die (or get raptured) and go to heaven where you get to spend an eternity with people who agree with you about everything and get to bad-mouth all the folks in hell and occassionally yell down that they can’t have any of your bottled water.
Catholics always have to go and make everything more complicated. Because of that story with the grape pickers, whether or not you get into heaven has to do with whether or not you’re in a state of grace when you die. That’s it. If the pope cursed god as his last thought, he’d go to the fiery pit, whereas if Dubya Bush’s last thoughts were, “oh my god, what was I doing? Jesus, forgive my misdeeds!” he’d go right to heaven. Everybody is equal in heaven.
except that everybody is not equal in heaven. There are all these saints floating around. Saints are God’s special friends. You can’t square it, if St. Joan of Arc is God’s special freind, how can she be equal with Bob the foul-mouthed butcher from down the street? And what about Bob’s swearing? He was never sorry for it. It was a sin on his soul, even though he was good enough for heaven, he still wasn’t perfect. Hence: purgatory. If you didn’t finish your penance on Earth, you get another shot after you die.
Purgatory is the great equalizer. Basically, non-saints are imperfect and need to cleanse sin from their souls. So they go to a temporary hell for a while and burn for their sins. when a fundamentalist’s mother dies, he gets comforting thoughts of Mom having afternoon cofee with Jesus, bad-mouthing sinners, just like at home. But Catholics geet to lie awake at 3:00 AM wondering if their devout mother is burning for her sins. It can keep you awake for sure.

Say a Prayer

fortunately, like Americans have Mis Manners, Catholics have the Baltimore Catcheism to give us algorythms to handle problems. Your prayers can get folks out of purgatory faster. It’s like writing letters for convicts or something. This is the prayer:

Come holy Spirit, fill the hearts of thy faithful
and enkindle in them the fire of thy love
Send forth Thy Spirit and they shall be created
And thou shalt renew the face of the earth
Let us Pray
O God, who didst instruct the hearts of the faithful
by the light of the Holy Spirit, grant us in the same
spirit to be truly wise, and ever to rejoice in His con-
solation. through Christ Our Lord. Amen.

saying that prayer every day for a month gets you a five year plenary indulgence with the usual conditions applying. I don’t know what that means except five years less purgatory for mom. See, you can say prayers like that and transfer the indulgence to a nother person, provided the person is deceased. Also, in the Middle ages, thrity people fasting for one day was equivalent to one person fasting for a month. after a while, they decided that you couldn’t pay other people to fast for you anymore, so the group fasting fell out of fashion. but if they did it for free, it still counted.
this means that if thirty people recite this little prayer to themselves today, my mom spend five fewer years in purgatory. this is what the internet is really all about. Sending money to debtors, a dollar at a time until they can pay off their credit card debt, or saying prayers for dead people.
My mom sure believed in all this stuff. I’m not too sure about it. It all seems kind of overly structured and fair to me and I’ve seen no sign of anything else God made being fair, but at 3:00 AM, it all seems very reasonable. So maybe I could sleep better at night. Say a prayer for my mom. And that guy on my mailing list who might have a brain tumor.

My Dad

He’s taken up being a camera guy for pledge breaks on KTEH channel 54 in San Jose. Sometimes he films the phone bank volunteers and sometimes he films the host’s finger as s/he points at pledge gifts. One day, he may work his way up to being a sound guy. I offered him use of my mixing board if he wants to practice at home, but he declined. He’s also got a red BMW motorcycle. It’s a nifty looking bike. I haven’t seen his leather outfit yet.

Rock Band

I was drunk. I played the tuba instead of bas. If I’m drunk next week, I’ll play the tuba again. I think learning to play rock while drunk helps with the rock and roll lifestyle thing. I’m ready to be a rockstar.

ELNA

Ok, so I was sitting talking with Christi and Jenya last night about our installation plans when the phone rang. I answered it “Saluton!” since that seems to make telemarketters hang up. But then a strangers started talking quickly and fluently to me in Esperanto! I was flabbergasted. Not knowing what to make of it, I agreed to everything the person said, cathcing only that she was from ELNA. She thanked me about 100 times as she hung up. I have no idea what I agreed to. Maybe I’ll be cleaning restrooms at ELNA headquarters. anyway, I think I might have told her I was Christi. It was very confusing.

right now

Mate is a stimulant tea thingee from south america. It inspitres me to write too many words while avoiding tasks such as walking to the drugstore to get an earway removal kit or working on editting my 11 year old neighbor yelling VJ-style into a mic about how BART is dangerous for little kids.

I have not posted for a long time. It’s because I was bummed. First, there were two news-helicopter situation within blocks of my house in one day. Some folks decided to rob the bank I always use the ATM at. They shot the two folks tring to put money in that self-same ATM and one of them died. And then, in just a few blocks the other direction, a disgruntled ex-employee of some company took hostages and killed himself. These were bad things, but what bummed me out is that nobody called me to see if I was ok. It’s not like I require such a call, since I am ok, and when I used to receive them, I found them midly annoying. But now I am mom-less and receive no such calls. That was the weekend before Thanksgiving.
Of course, the holidays are a major bummer too. I’ve had Thanksgiving with Christi’s family for the last few years, but my god-mother invited my nuclear family over and I was going to accept. My dad told my brother and I both not to accept and he went for some undisclosed third option also. I think he may have sat home alone. This also is a large change, because usually my mom would be trying to convince me to have thanksgiving with her instead of far away, which would be mildly annoying. Now I get told to scram.
But all is not doom and gloom. I saw my last living female relative during this just passed weekend. She was my grandmother’s first cousin and is a nun. She’s elderly and sent some confused communications during my mom’s illness, so I was worried that she wouldn’t be well, but she was doing much better than I expected. We went to see the movie Adaptation with her. those of you who have seen it may be thinking, “that’s not a very nun-friendly movie!” You’re right, it’s not. There was some confusion because it stars Nicholas Cage and she thought it featured John Cage. So it was not at all what she was expecting and since she’s mostly blind, she couldn’t see it very well, which is a good thing for her in this case, I think. The convent nurses told me not to take her to see anything that wasn’t G or PG rated, but they were kidding. I think.
And we saw Christi’s grandpa. Normally, he holds himself ot a very strict schedule, but we threw it all in disarray. Normally he eats a particular TV dinner for each night of the week, but he went out to dinner with us two days in a row, which is unheard of for him. We went to see Christi’s cousin in a school play. The cousin played a head in a box on a table. The play was terrible. The kids did the best they could with what they had, but they really did not have much. It was a valliant effort. christi’s cousin was the best actor in the play. All of the charecters were highly bizarre, yet somehow the cousin managed to be beleivable as a head on a table, no small feat. I’ve heard that their school is in dire economic straits and so has to use plays with very very low royalties. someone needs to write low-royalty plays for highschools.
the auditorium has a WPA mural painted in the foyer. It’s a very nifty mural and it shows workers and other nifty themes. It’s too bad the WPA is over, it was the only time during US history that the government actually supported the arts. This may never happen again.
Christi is reading all of Ned Rorem’s diaries. They’re amusing because of his terribly pretentious bon-mots. I told Christi that I was going to keep a terribly pretentious journal for when I rise to star-dom as a composer. she encouraged me. Then I could publish my journal under the title Self-portrait of the Composer as a Young Woman or something else equally awful. She suggested maybe I just keep a blog. I may need to start another blog, since this one does not adequaltely come off as a celebration of my genius. Ahem. Nevermind.

I’m answering all of the condolence email I got. Well, at least most of it. If you are expecting an answer and don’t receive one, here you go:
Thank you for your email. It means a lot to me.
I hope you are doing well
— celeste
Just because it’s a form letter doesn’t mean that your email didn’t mean a lot to me. It’s all true.
I hardly slept last night. I was worried about oversleeping, so instead I didn’t sleep at all. I was eating breakfast when I relaized that it was a friday morning and I had only allocated one hour to reach Cupertino from Berkeley by 10:00 am. What’s worse is the carpool lane closes at 10:00. I encouraged the Dentons to hurry. Maybe they did. We left after 9:00. There was a coffee truck overturned on 880. We got to the church at 10:20-something. I was suppossed to be there by 10:10 to be a pallbearer. And Christi took the guest registry-type book home with her to repair a page, so people were signing a photocopied sheet. Most everyone had arrived by the time we put the book in place.
We pulled the casket from the hearst and placed it on a trolley thing, wheeled it to the church vestebule and then places a white sheep called a pall over the top of it. Then we wheeled it inside and sat in the front of church and cried for the whole mass. The cantor sang in te slow pseudo-operatic, wild vibrato style popular among catholic cantors. I was upset with him, but the music selection was good. The organist and I had talked on the phone the night before going back and forth about the music. Most catholic music is not good. But we narrowed it down to Taize. S/he’s so good, even protestants use it. Andway, I thought it was good when he sang Ave Maria. But throughout most of the mass, I felt a wild desire to stab him. Christi’s boss told me later he thought the cantor was good, so I finally decided that I was just unhappy and so disliking the cantor, but it wasn’t his fault.
Monsegnour Milani’s sermon talked about mom in vague terms from the notes he had taken from us. He did know my mom from when she lived at home with her parents and he was their pastor. The readings were from the book of wisdom, psalm 23, a letter of Saint Paul to somebody and the beatitudes. At the end, Marilyn Quentin, mom’s friend got and spoke about taking piano classes with her at DeAnza Community College and being a docent with her at the museum and about how they used to talk for hours and hours. I was glad she spoke. After the mass, we processed out and then milled around for a while, waiting for the Monsegnour. Shyam Nigrani’s wife was there. He was my dad’s old coworker and I was friends with their daughter. Also, Autumn, who I worked with at Netscape was there. I need to call both of these people. Beatrice came again. Margie came. Tiffany, Luoi, GI Jen, Brian and Sarah K, Vince and Tammy and Sarah D all came too. There was a good crowd. A bunch of Chuck’s friends were there. Many of them read the newspaper announcement, because apparently Chuck didn’t tell everyone that he should have. Mary Lou came, as did Hubback. Charles, Christi’s boss came. The Bonasiches came. They run the orchard in Hollister. The Vidiviches came. All the CGC people. That’s the singles club my parents met at. It’s called the Catholic Graduates Club. For Catholics who were out of college, which seems to have meant thirty-something. My dad was still in school when her joined, but he was a resuming student. Anyway, the register thingee plus the photocopied sheet gives us a list.
The fake cops started up their motorbikes and blocked traffic and we got on 280 and went to Gate of Heaven Cemetery in a auto-procession. Apparently, one of the fake cops was almost run over. They looked just like real cops in CHP look-alike uniforms and with look-alike bikes, flashing amber lights instead of blue and red. I think people were fooled. One of them successfully pulled over a semi-truck. There was a short ceremony at the grave site and then another rodent-like mortuary employee thanked everyone for coming and we went to my dad’s house.
Alottas Catering did the food. They catered my mom’s parents’ funerals too. My dad called me a few days ago and asked about vegan food. I told his to just have some salads and maybe a three-bean salad and the vegans would be fine. And then maybe he could get a lasagna too. So when I arrived, there was a lettuce salad, a fruit salad, a three bean salad and a meat lasagna. I can’t say my dad doesn’t listen to me. Brother bob brought a million desserts, including his great pear tortes. Tammy or Sarah D or somebody brought a quiche. Someone else brought a plat full of cake slices. There was a lot of food. And red and white wine.
I talked to a bunch of people, I think. I sort of floated through it. Near the end, Margaret Schieck, my godmother, pulled me into a another room and said that while my mom was sick and could still talk, she asked Margaret to look after me and she promised she would. And she said she wanted me to consider myself part of her family if I want and Christi too and her kids know about me and Christi and everyone is ok about it and even if my mom hadn’t said anything to her, she wtill would have wanted me in her family because she’s known me her whole life and she’s my god mother. I just kind of cried. Christi has been asking me all day what we talked about and I can’t speak it because it makes me cry too much, but i can type it. So now all my blog readers (both of you) know now. The whole time my mom was sick, I kept thinking that Margaret was going to have to assume her duties as a godmother soon. I guess she was thinking the same thing. I didn’t know that my mom ever knew she was dying. the time she was still talking was probably when we were still doing radiation treatment. I was annoyed at her negative attitude then, but she must have known better than us. I’m glad she knew. I’m sorry I kept denying that, because I wanted the radiation to help and I wanted her to be more positive about it, because of the mythical mind-body connection.
Christi’s mom took all the male Dentons to the airport. After everyone left, she, Christi and I sat and talked to my dad for a while. Christi and her mom disappeared off to Sarah K’s house. And when my dad fell asleep in his chair, I snuck off after them. We drank tea and then went back and got some desserts and most of the last of my stuff from my dad. Like oreos and a pomegranite and a pumpkin.
We came back to berkeley and Christi talked me into going for sushi. It was miserable. I kept wanting to cry. I didn’t want to go to a restaurant. Tiffany anf Luoi invited us to a party, but I didn’t want to go and we ended up not calling them at all. Apparently they told me that Christi wanted to go and Christi that I wanted to go. But we talked to each other and foiled their plans. I don’t think my mom would like the idea of me going to a party after her funeral one bit.
Margaret told me that I’m a lot like my mom. Not very long ago, that would have annoyed me, but now I know that my mom was kind and funny and humble and always put other people first and smart and a good friend to people and fun to be around. I was barely old enough to start appreciating my mother. Just ten years ago, I still often saw her as a tyrant trying to ruin my social life. I wish I’d had more time as an adult to know her. Today was the hardest day since she died, maybe since she was sick. While she was sick, I had hope or at least chores. Before the funeral, there was logistics or a sence of relief that she wasn’t suffering. But now there’s nothing more to do and she’s gone forever

So after Tiffany left, later Mitch came over. He was talking a lot about Mozilla. I thought it was a religious discussion, but it turned out he’s got some startup idea that’s going to use esperanto. I say, “yay.” We went out to pizza. We came back and Christi’s Mother and Brother arrived. We sat around and talked, then went to bed. (aren’t blogs exciting?)
This morning I woke up and Tiffany was back here. yay. I thanked her for doing my half of the chores. Then she left and the Dentons and I drove to San Jose to get Christi’s Father from the SJ Airport. We went to my dad’s house to change. It’s full of flowers. I haven’t yet collected cards to write thank you notes. My dad showed up, so we went to Kim’s Vietnamese food with him. The organist called my cell phone and I finally gave her the list of hymns. Then we went to the rosary. We only said a decade of the rosary. Monsegnour Milani read a few readings and did a short, vague homily. Then it was over. Bang, bang, done. My mom would have been disappointed. But the crowd was pretty good. Christi made the book thingee. It’s beautiful. It’s covered with handmade (not by her) paper with rosebuds embedded in it. A lot of people came. The first guy I talked to was upset that we had communicated insufficieantly with him and was mad about it. And then some other guy came by and complained at my dad for being insufficiently sociable. Um yeah. Next time she dies, we’ll handle it better. The criticizm was very mild, but when you’re already fighting back tears, it stings more than normal.
A certain gentleman who is socially awkward came over to say goodbye. I thanked him for coming, so he said, “well thank you for being born.” I replied, “anytime.” Brother Bob guffawed. It was the only comic moment. In case I haven’t been clear on this, my mom dying sucks. My mom always liked the unnamed gentleman. She was always willing to overlook people’s foibles. She would give anybody on earth a second chance. Unless someone hurt someone she cared about. Then she never forgave, ever.
My mother’s mother died nine years ago. While she was ill, before her death, she had a nurse named Beatrice. Beatrice read about my mom in the paper and showed up to her rosary. She said my mom was always her friend. So if you helped someone my mom cared about, she didn’t forget you then either.
after the mortuary asked us to leave so they could close up, we went to La Teejo de Lusi. We stayed forty minutes past closing, but they never asked us to leave. I think we made tea orders after they closed, and they filled them without saying anything. Only Sarah K clued us in to their closing. They’re much nicer than the mortuary. It’s too bad they don’t do wakes there. The mortician at the rosary looked like he has the ability to turn into a bat. But the mortuary chapel has a huge crucifix, so he must not actually be a vampire. Anyway, we were at Lucy’s with the Dentons, the Sarahs, Mitch, Vince and Tammy. Vince and Tammy didn’t go to the rosary because Vince’s mom told them that Vince’s dad needed an emergency angioplasty and was at death’s door, but apparently, she overstated the crisis. I’m glad he’s ok.
We came home and did trash night things. I lit candle number three. The BVM and John the Baptist already burned out, but they were pretty low when they came here. Aside from the BVM (it seemed right to start with her), all of the remaining candles are ordered by amount of wax left, so all things being equal, they should burn longer and longer with each candle. And I fixed the heater. The fan had been failing to come on when the heater got hot, so instead of being like a regular, mordern heater, it was more like a radiator and utterly innefective at dispersing heat over our upstairs, which has very high ceilings. anyway, I opened the heater cover and switched a button marked “fan” to to “on.” I’m leading people to beleive that it was actually a technical repair, so keep this quiet.
It’s so weird having family gatherings without my mom. It’s not right at all

I’m updating my blog and my mom is dead.
Well, it’s been four days and she seems pretty serious about this being dead thing. It seems like it might be permanent, not just some sort of phase she’s going through. This morning I woke up after having a nightmare that she died and then I realized that she really was dead. And then I had this odd thought that she was going to stay dead and that is was a permanent thing. I don’t know why I would think otherwise. Jesus called forth Lazarus from the tomb, but Jesus was Lazaras’ good friend and Jesus was walking around and stuff. And even though my mom seemed to have a lot of friends, no Jesus ever walked in to visit, as far as I know. I took ancient history when I was a freshman in college and the teacher said that there were street magicians raising the dead on every street corner in Jerusalem. The stuff that came out about Jesus raising the dead was written way after he died and far away from where he lived and was suppossed to illustrate how miraculous he was. But there’s no way he would have actually raised the dead, because it would have destroyed his credibility and made him nothing more than another street performer. And, as far as I know, no saints have any miracles of re-animating corpses, so no Christian supernatural forces are going to change this. Mom isn’t going to pop out and say, “oh this was all just a test. You passed so I decided to come back.” what a stupid thought.
When I first got the tatoo on my leg, I wasn’t sure I liked it and I was talking to people and I kept saying, “if I keep it . . .” as if it was some easily erasible thing, like a piercing or something. Anyway, I decided I liked it and realized it was permanent. I wasn’t just bing pragmatic. But I’ve never had a strong inner sence of the innate irreversability of some things. read: spacy
I’ve spent tho whole day being spacy, not being able to remember my way around berkely or the names of major streets like Shattuck. I went out in the morning with Christi to buy paper. The mortuary sells these auful guest books. They’re binders and they’re pre-printed and have images of things like Thomas Kinkaide on them. My mom liked Thomas Kinkaide, but since she’s dead, I can turn her into any person I want in my mind. My reference point slips away. I can say that liking his artwork was only a result of her brain tumor. Right now, I know that’s not true, but in time, I’ll make myself believe it. Anyway, the guest books are ugly and expensive for what you get. So Christi and I bought nice paper, some of which is made with rosebuds in it. I know she would like that, for real, not just in my invented version of her. And we got some more rice paper and some vellum and some paperboard and glue and good pens and razor blades and it’s costing more than the mortuary’s McDeath guest book, but at least it’s actually nice. Christi made the book used at her own grandmother’s funeral.
I went to esperanto class tonight. I was actually paying attention. I was trying to pay attention earlier, but couldn’t. I tried to explain -ig and -igx to the class, since Ed was refusing to teach a lesson for some reason I missed. But I dunno how useful my explination was. I got home and the first candle lit here was burned out. It took several times as long as it was suppossed to. These are the candles that were burning while my mom was dying. No wonder she held on for so long. Even the candles burn extra-long. It’s like some sort of miracle. A “dark miracle” like the ones at the beginning of Incubus. Maybe a temporary miracle, like the one the brain surgeon provided. Was it worth it? My mom would have been dead by mid-july and saved months of suffering. Were we stupid to think it was a good idea to remove a quarter of her brain and then try to cure her, with such a gigantic tumor, or was the surgeon unethical or uncaring to suggest it? Did it perhaps stand some sort of chance of improving her life for more than the good three weeks afterwards? Did the delay starting radiation treatment make any sort of difference at all? The surgeon said six months and she didn’t even make it that long. Maybe that’s the diference. Just another woman wih brain cancer, this is all very routine. Oooh, that’s a big tumor. We shouldn’t make her too big a priority. We can’t do much. Better not say that to the family. We’ll do what we can, in our way, when we have time.
What did I used to do with my days? I think I was working on some projects. I know I did web stuff for Sarah’s reptile zoo. I don’t feel much like working and I don’t know what I was doing anyway. Too bad I didn’t keep a blog back then. I could go look up boring posts of debuggin javascript or something. I want to go away. Christi has already missed oodles of work. My mom was a very major donor to Christi’s non-profit. But there’s nothing for them in the will. Christi can’t just have all the time off she wants, she has work to do. There’s a big film festival coming up that she needs to work on. Everything needs to get back to work, back to being normal. Life must go on. But not for my mom.

Um, so I left off my life chronicles sometime friday after my dad decreed that the candles must go. He was super irritating that day, but duh, his wife just died. My brother finally showed up for the first time in two weeks or so and was nice to my dad, but decreed that he wanted mom’s computer. Mom’s computer is a macintosh, but it has a cinemascope display, quite decent speakers attached and a superdrive. When my mom first got it, my brother called up Christi and ranted for a couple of hours about how stupid macintoshes were and what a terrible computer it was, while trying to get Christi to provide some tech support. My dad already told me I could have it. I told him he should keep it for a while. Will it just walk off, like so many things have that my brother wants, or has he outgrown that? We’ll see.
On saturday, we went over to the morticians to figure stuff out. Christi and I picked out clothes to bury my mom in. It’s a closed casket, but it wouldn’t be right to send her off in nothing but a Womens Philharmonic T-shirt. But mom lost so much weight, her clothes were all way too big. So we picked out her one wrap around skirt, so on the last day when Jesus calls us all out of our tombs, at least her skirt will fit right. And we picked out a pleated white shirt and a turquisoe jacket. When Mikey, our pet dachshund was still alive, I gave some pictures of him to Christi’s mom and had her make a vest with his image on it. It’s a nice vest with weiner dogs running around in circles on it, and it has some checkers and a lot of turquiose, since my mom looks good in it. After Mikey died, my mom quit wearing it for a long time beause “it [was] just too sad, you know.” She had just started wearing it again, so we picked it out too. I don’t know what else I could possibly do with a vest with pictures of a dead dog on it that had been specially made for my dead mom. So Christi, Dad and I showed up to the Lima Family Mortuary with those, and some nylons and the hat I got my mom and her teddy bear and a scapular and my mom’s volunteer ID Badges for History San Jose. My dad wants those on her. Why not? It’s a closed casket.
The mortician took the clothes, but told us to come back later with the bear, scapular and badges. We should have insisted on the scapular, sicne they’re suppossed to be worn under the clothes, but we didn’t. Then he took us into the casket room. There were some wood ones, which is good, cuz we wanted wood. And there was an ok hardwood one that said it was made from renewable materials, so I was thinking we could just get that and save ourselves the trouble of looking for an ecologically correct casket, since there was one right there. But then, wandering around the room, I noticed that the solid mahogany one also claimed to be a renewable natural resource and thus green. So after I became upset, the mortician showed us a catalog of orthodox caskets and we liked one of those, but decided to keep looking a few other places. We went to the casket outlet in San Jose, but they only had things even less green, so we went back to my parents house. Brother Robert invited my dad, my brother, my uncle, Christi and I over to his place for dinner. Shockingly, everyone agreed to come and my brother actually showed up. I guess it’s easier for him when dying people aren’t lying around.
Brother Bob called up a little more than an hour before we were all suppossed to go over. He just had cataract surgery and has been having trouble with his eyes. He was running late and distraught over my mom’s death and couldn’t read any of his cookbooks. So Christi went over and helped him make dinner. Which was great. He’s a great cook. And then he sent us home with the leftovers. We decided he should be a pall-bearer, but we forgot to tell him.
After that, I decided Christi and I should just stop by Mitch’s birthday party, especially since Tiffany and Luoi were going and didn’t know that many people. We showed up way late and T&L were already gone and everyone there was pretty drunk. Mitch’s mom was there. I saw a lot of her in highschool, but not much since then, except at parties. Mitch’s family are partiers. They would fight for their right to party. So she seemed to be drunk. She ran up to me and gave me a big hug and told me how great I was to my mom. Every time anybody says that, I cry. It’s not that I don’t want to hear it or anything, it justs makes me cry. The sermon on the mount makes me cry too and sometimes The Paino Concerto by Micheal Nyman makes me cry, it’s just one of those things. Not great for parties, but I shouldn’t be going to parties anyway, if I might busrt into tears. And then she said, “I’m your mom now.” So I ran away to the bathroom. And when I exitted, Mitch asked me if I would like a drink. yes. something. anything strong.
After Vince and Tammy left, the females remaining were Mitch’s mom (who came into the garage where we were drinking (why the garage?) every half hour and announced she was going to go to sleep), Christi, me, Sarah K, Sarah D and Jen Stout. Sarah K is out as bi. Sarah D is not out as bi, but has smooched chicks on occasion, especially when there’s beer in her. I got the idea that we should ask Jen Stout to strip. The Sarahs were all over that idea. Money was pledged. Mitch and an airforce guy started digging out one dollar bills. Jen Stout finally agreed, but didn’t like the music that was on. “I can’t strip to the Beastie Boys” she said. Mitch replied, “This is my best birthday ever.”
Uh yeah, so we talked her into something while she was drunk. When I die, I’m going to go to the peraly gates. And standing there will not be St. Peter, but rather Betty Friedan and she will send me to hell.
I woke up the next morning hung-over. Actually, the next afternoon. And went down to my parents house and finished writing the obituary notice, which we then took to the mortuary and they’ll submit it to the papers. How much extra are we paying for this? I dunno, we didn’t ask. Look for the notice in your next newspaper. My dad went out while I has still sleeping it off and bought a cemetery plot. The cemetery requires that all the markers be made out of wither granite or bronze. They need to be a certain exact size and shape. They need to lie flat. They must contain an christian symbol and be approved by the cemetery. The cemetery can change it’s mind in the future. They have catalogs of pre-cut stones that just needs a name and years. Sometime, when all pop-culture was telling us to look the other way, they McDonalds-ized death. The mortuary is a national chain. The grave markers come pre-cut. God forbid somebody try to say something too personal with a head stone.
My dad did some net surfing and discovered the kind of six sided profile box we were looking for to bury mom in is called a coffin. Square boxes are caskets. Vampire movie boxes are coffins. We couldn’t find any, so we ordered the orthodox casket. We scheduled the funeral. Then, I went back to my parents house and we relaized we needed to call people. It turns out that one of my mom’s friends was trying to be helpful and called a lot of people and told them the wrong day. We made a list of who needed to be called and Sarah K came over and called most of them. She then left to go to a party and I picked up all the candles and put them in my car. I got them home with the idea that I would put them on top of my bookshelf and burn them all one at a time until they all burned out and then take all the empties to the East Bay Depot for Creative Re-Use. But there were too many to fit on top of my bookcase. I’m going to be burning candles forever.
Today I went to St. Joseph of Cupertino parish to meet with the Monsenior to plan the funeral. Then I dropped Christi by work. Tiffany and I went out to the Albany Bulb, also known as the Albany Dump and the Albany Landfill. It’s rumored to be filled with art instillations. We came upon a castle. Two stories! And a hut. And several small sculptures. And an outdoor gallery by a group called Sniff. All of their stuff is good. Some of it is exceptionally excellent. The bulb is al the end of Buchanan Street in ALbany, kind of near the Berkeley border. There’s a trail or something there. Park and walk out on the penninsula that goes into the bay. It’s cool. We took xena and she spent the whole time running around in circles in estatic glee. Oh to be a dog.
I see a full moon and I think, “It’s a full moon and my mom is dead.” and I go for food and think, “I’m eating a pizza and my mom is dead.” and so I was thinking, “I’m looking at art and my mom is dead.” The art was excellent, but I’m not much for reviews right now.
We went home and I called the organist from Resurrection Church in Sunnyvale. When I was in Seventh and Eightth grade, I played trumpet every week at Satuday evening mass. I remebered hearing the organist talk about one of her teachers who was Baptist and how the catholic parishoners started complaining that she played like a protestant, so she had to get a new teacher. When my grandma died, less than a year ago, my mom picked all protestant hyms for the funeral. None of us knew what kind of music my grandma liked. The organist then played like a catholic and butchered the songs. So I’m very happy my old organist has said that she’ll play at the funeral.
Nothing much else happened since the last installement, except that porn came in the mail. It’s exciting living in a lesbian household. Tiffany is here and so Luoi is also here a lot. So the porn is universally popular. Oh and Luoi got a blog.

Hutchins, Eileen Frances (Forge) � In Cupertino, California on October 18, 2002, at age 65 after a short bout with brain cancer. She was predeceased by her parents, Muriel and Otis Forge. She is survived by her brother Chuck Forge, her husband Edward Hutchins, her son Paul Hutchins, her daughter Celeste Hutchins, her daughter-in-law Christine Denton and her cousin Sr. Mary Leahy. Eileen was raised on an orchard in Cupertino and attended Sacred Heart High School and Notre Dame High School. She graduated from San Jose State University and worked for several years as a medical technologist at local hospitals, including O�Connor and Kaiser. In 1975, she became a full time homemaker. She was active in her community and took classes at De Anza College in mathematics and piano performance. She also belonged to The Ladies of Carmel and donated to several non-profit groups, including funding an athletic scholarship at Santa Clara University. She served on the board of the Capital Campaign fund-raising committee for Our Lady of Fatima Villa in Los Gatos. In addition, she volunteered as a docent for the San Jose Historical Museum and was recording secretary for two years and later president of the Volunteer Council there.

There will be a rosary on Thursday, October 24 at 7:30 PM at the Lima Family Mortuary, located at 1315 Hollenbeck Ave, in Sunnyvale, California. The funeral services will be on Friday, October 25 at 10:30 AM at St. Joseph of Cupertino Church 10110 North DeAnza Boulevard in Cupertino, California. There will be a ceremony immediately afterwards at Gate of Heaven Cemetery and a gathering after that at Eileen’s home.

Hutchins, Eileen F (Forge) � In Cupertino, California on October 18, 2002, at age 65 after a short bout with brain cancer. She is survived by her brother Chuck Forge, her husband Edward Hutchins, her son Paul Hutchins, her daughter Celeste Hutchins, her daughter-in-law Christine Denton and her cousin Sr. Mary Leahy. Eileen was raised in Cupertino and attended [schools]. She graduated from San Jose State University [in year] and worked for several years as a medical technologist at [hospitals]. In 1974, she married Edward Hutchins and moved to Mountain View. In 1975, she became a full time homemaker. In 1976, she moved to San Jose. Her daughter was born in 1976 and her son in 1978. She was an avid gardener of roses and belonged to the Rose Society. In [1982], she moved back to Cupertino. She was active in her community, volunteering for yard-duty at St. Simon�s School in Los Altos and she took classes at De Anza College in mathematics and piano performance. She also belonged to [charities] and donated to several non-profit groups, including establishing am athletic scholarship at Santa Clara University. [others?] She served on the board of the [something] fund-raising committee for the Fatima Convalescent Hospital in Los Gatos. In addition, she volunteered as a docent for the San Jose Historical Museum and was secretary and later president of the Volunteer Council there. [ladies of carmel]

The funeral services will be on [date and time] at St. Joseph of Cupertino Church 10110 North DeAnza Boulevard in Cupertino, California.

So I went with tiffany, Luoi and Christi to the Opera last night. Traffic was bad, we barely made it. The opera was looong. the music was repetitive and ponderous. It was like watching an elephant walk in a circle for six hours. It was so pious and slow, it felt like sitting in church for one of Father Faranna’s sermons (God rest his soul). He was the pastor at one of my elementary schools and he would never write out his sermons ahead of time, so he would start with an idea and then meander slowly back to his usual riff about a “love affair with jesus christ.” He talked baout it every week for years, hardly varrying his words, for super long. sometimes the mass lasted two hours. anyway, the opera was like that. Luoi fell asleep multiple times. The music was good, it just needed some (a lot) of editting. there was also an excellent performance by a one-wonged angel, who sung excellent and danced around so it actually looked like she was levitating when she walked. anyway, I was going to give it pretty good marks, despite a very problematic scene with a leper, when Christi told me the opera was written in 1983. There’s no exceuse for something like that to have been written in 1983. So I left the opera, whishing I’d stayed by mom’s bedsde instead, but knowing that if I’d skipped it, I would have only heard about the great reviews it got and been sorry I missed it.
And I went home, because it didn’t get out until 11:30, and planned to return to my parents house in the morning. And the phone rang and it was my dad saying my mom was dead. Did I want to come right then? when should the body be moved? I told him not to blow out the candles and that I would come down in the morning and I didn’t know about anything else. Yesterday, I had been thinking I sould go and pick out some clothes or something to dress my mom in when she died, but I had that opera to get off to. You have to leave rediculously early to get to the City at 6:30 from here.
So I’m at my parents house. My dad called to say he missed mom’s car (which i borrowed to get to the opera) and could i please return it. He’s trudging around like a zombie and throwing things away. He blew out all the candles. Margie is gone and with her has departed all of the ensure, all of the diapers, babywipes, matresspads, latex gloves and every other piece of medical equipment we owned except for the wheel chair and the walker. Maybe the wheelchair, i dunno. It’s down the hall, next to the stair master. He called some people. Other numbers were lost in his insane cleanup. My dog has no dogfood. I don’t know what to do with all these candles. I wanted to just let them burn out, but my dad wants them gone and i don’t know what to do with them. I guess we’ll burn them at my home. It’s strange to relight them after she’s dead…. Nothing is going according to his plans. All of the wills and stuff were made with the assumption that she would outlive him.