From the iPod

I've been missing my brother a lot these last few weeks and, for the most part I've been strong. Its who I am.... the girl who holds her shit together so she can be there for everyone else. While I have cried and hurt during that time, its only these last few days that I have really allowed myself to let go, to stop focusing so much on the next task that needs to be done and simply looked at the tatters of my life and started pulling those pieces back together.

Jason loved Dustin Christensen, which is why I made sure we included this song for the music that played at his viewing... even with the tears it brings, it is still a favorite of mine. I want to thank you Jase for all of the beautiful music you brought into my life...



"Old House" by Dustin Christensen ... from the album "Highway Lines"



So take me home tonight

Tell me I'm all right

Tell me this picture frames got you now





You were my hand's glove

How I learned how to love

Tell me I ain't got it all figured out





Farwell my old house

Farewell my old life

Tell me I'm simpler

Alone without you now





So long my sad eyes

Don't say its goodbye

Guide when I can't see

I won't let you down





Here lies all my friends I've known

All my dreams just scatter in the air





Farewell my old house

Farewell my old life

Tell me I'm simpler

I know I am now





Lord let this hurt pass

Cos I don't know how to act

And it feels like I'm already gone from you now

So long now

From the Bookshelf....

It was a pleasure to burn.


It was a special pleasure to see things eaten, to see things blackened and changed.  With the brass nozzle in his fists, with this great python spitting its venomous kerosene upon the world, the blood pounded in his head, and his hands were the hands of some amazing conductor playing all the symphonies of blazing and burning to bring down the tatters and charcoal ruins of history.

What an opening to a wonderful book...one that I try to read at least once a year.

In it we meet Montag, who is a Fireman in the distant future... a future in which books are outlawed and those found hiding and reading them are dealt with harshly.  These Firemen, however, do not put out fires; they are summoned to the scene to find books and then incinerate them with flamethrowers before scattering the remaining ashes.

One day on his way home Montag is approached by his neighbor, Clarisse, an impressionable and silly girl who is on probation to become a teacher, but is sure she isn't going to be accepted as she 'didn't say the right things in her interview'.  She begins to pepper him with questions about his work and just what it is that he does.

"Is it true that a long time ago, firemen used to put out fires and not burn books?" she asks.

Montag laughs and wonders why should firemen ever put out fires.  She asks if he has read any of the books before he burns them, but he can only wonder at why she would ever even consider reading a book.  After all, history has shown that books cause people to be unhappy and antisocial.  It is understood that the only way the people can be happy is to be exactly the same as everyone else.  In theory, anyone who has read Socrates must think themselves better than anyone who hasn't, and fiction is just a way for people to be unhappy with their lives and want for it to be more.  Biographies are even worse as they are nothing but people saying "look at me, look at me, look at me" and philosophers can do nothing but argue that they themselves are right while everyone else are idiots.

Instead of reading, society is now a group of video watchers, with people striving to add more and more video walls to their homes so they can watch without interruption. The population is turning into mindless drones who not only can't think for themselves, but are addicted to painkillers and stimulants.  Suicide attempts are a daily part of life; one that is taken rather lightly as med techs just stop by, swap out your overdosed blood and you awaken the next morning completely refreshed and with no memory of what you had done.

But Clarisse gets him thinking.  At a raid he is horrified to find an old woman who would rather be burnt with her books than to stand aside and let them be taken from her.  What is it in these written pages that could inspire such devotion?  Montag's curiosity gets the better of him and he smuggles home a book he saves from the flames and hides it away.  Curious, he begins to read it late in the night when his wife is asleep. 

Montag still goes to work in order to keep up appearances...and to smuggle home more books.  He begins devouring them at an increasing rate and begins to form opinions for himself, rather than what society says he should think.  Montag is surprised one day to find that the next stop for the Firemen is his own house.  His wife has informed on him.  Montag is forced to pull the books from the walls, heating vents, etc before he is handed the flame thrower.  To everyone's surprise, Montag not only ignites the stacks of books, but the very house itself, burning away his old life.

A book one could easily say as being against censorship (and in a sense it is), I believe this is more against the complacency of humanity to allow such things to happen in the first place, throwing all of our rights away and allowing a hard won democracy to become a dictatorship without complaint or thought as to how those rights came to us in the first place.


Ray Bradbury created an intriguing world, one that has lasted since its original publication in 1953.  The beauty of his writing still pulls you in to this day.  It is no wonder that the world mourned with his death this week at the age of 91.  He attributed his long life to a carnival performer touching him with an electrified sword when he was 12 and announcing that young Mr Bradbury would live forever.  Inspired, Ray began a lifelong habit of writing something every little day.  From those young writings came great stories, including "Something Wicked This Way Comes" and "The Martian Chronicles".

An engaging author with rich prose, Mr Bradbury is someone worth remembering when you are searching for that new book to read.

Say Goodnight, Not Goodbye

These last few weeks have been up and down and everywhere in between.

Those who follow the posts of our family already know that Arlene, my "Other Mother" (as she prefered to be called...she hated being referred to as "Stepmom") finally lost her battle with cancer after a long struggle. I say lost but that's not entirely accurate. Mom decided to stop fighting, choosing instead to die quietly at home surrounded by family rather than in the hospital, fighting an infection she had picked up at her last chemo treatment and just couldn't shake.

I think many of us thought she would somehow manage to pull another rabbit out of her hat as she was given a 1-8 week sentence of death over a year-and-a-half ago and managed to fool the doctors and keep on going. She hung on long enough to see several of her children married and another grandchild born before she gave up the ghost.

As my stepbrother Wes says, she put up one hell of a fight.

Maybe its my upbringing. I know that I will see her again and it helps with the hurt. It doesn't stop me from missing her...but I feel so sorry for people who do not have the comfort of knowing that their loved ones are never really lost.

There is a song that I love that sums it up best. I tried to find it on YouTube but its only available with cheesy scenes from One Tree Hill and Days of Our Lives. That's what I get for quoting a song that's nearly a decade old. Here is a link to it anyway for those who are interested.

"Say Goodnight, Not Goodbye" by Beth Nielsen Chapman

Say goodnight not good-bye
You will never leave my heart behind
Like the path of a star
I'll be anywhere you are

In the spark that lies beneath the coals
In the secret place inside your soul
Keep my light in your eyes
Say goodnight not good-bye

Don't you fear when you dream
Waking up is never what it seems
Like a jewel buried deep
Like a promise meant to keep

You are everything you want to be
So just let your heart reach out to me
I'll be right by your side
Say goodnight not good-bye

You are everything you want to be
So just let your heart reach out to me
Keep my light in your eyes
Say goodnight not good-bye

Say Goodnight....not goodbye