yellowducky's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- More Kansas Updates While I was in the Land of OZ (that’ s Kansas, by the way, not Australia :) we had a huge family dinner. It was great—aunts, uncles, cousins, grandma. My uncles surprised me, though. They get more sensitive as the years go on. Uncle S. actually teared up when he hugged me, and asked for a kiss. Of course, I haven’t seen him in 1½ years, but my uncles are all big, burly, truck-driving, construction-working, testosterone machines. In my younger years, I had to force them to hug me. The hard thing is this: Uncle J., the oldest one, is dying of cancer. It’s hard to see a man who has always been so strong trying to pretend he isn’t in pain. It’s hard because we just went through this with grandpa not too many years ago. Uncle S.’s son Little S. was there. One of the nephews went up and asked him why he had a chunk of metal sticking out of his chin. He laughed. It was good to see him. We used to play fort and swim in the horse tank together. We went to the same elementary school and he looked out for me. We had a great time talking about his band and his music and my life. Later, his mom told me he couldn’t hold down a job because of his drug use. It devastated me. He has so much potential. One night when we were young, we snuck out the slide projector and flashed embarrassing family pictures on the side of the neighbor’s house. Cars were parking on the side of the road to watch the show. Our parents laughed so hard when they looked out the window and saw bare baby butt two stories high. Last night I went to Borders and listened to my friend’s jazz band. It was great. I hadn’t heard him play before, and I was really impressed. Talent is heady stuff. While listening to JazzBoy strum those strings, some of my other male friends taught me the power of a woman’s eyes. I know it’s amazing that I must be taught these things~shouldn’t I know them intuitively? Alas, I am very new to the game even if I am a quick learner. We are having a double baby shower in the shelter today. Two of our women are due shortly, and we are going to try and make it as special an occasion as possible. One of them was in my office crying yesterday. She was telling me about how her husband beat her up when he found out she was pregnant~hoping she would miscarry. I wanted to hunt him down. This job is bad for me sometimes; I have enough trust issues to begin with. Throw in what I hear and see on a daily basis and it’s really hard not to over-analyze everything a guy says to me. I try really hard not to over-react. 9:27 a.m. - February 23, 2002 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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