So, now that I have been fully and completely bitten by the travel bug, as they say, I’ve been working on my plans for 2009.  Here are the tentative travel/holiday plans for 2009:

• April — visit my friend Kelly in Chilliwack, BC for a week over my birthday
• Julyish — take a week off to either a) have my niece visit or, if she no longer wants to, b) do nothing
• Early September — Eastern Europe tour (Warsaw, Prague, Vienna, etc.) for 2 weeks
• December — Barrie for Christmas, of course.

This put me on vacation close to once a quarter, which I think is a perfect spread over the year.  And it gives me more time to save for the Europe trip, which is gonna cost a fair amount of $$$.

Woo!

My stepfather passed away April 10th 2008, the day after my birthday. We were not close, but it does not make it any less a loss for the family as a whole, and for my mother in particular.

“Perhaps they are not stars, but rather openings where our loved ones shine down to let us know they are happy.”

RIP Kenny.

I didn’t get to see most of my family this past Christmas, as I decided to visit my brother and his family in Manitoba instead.  While that visit was wonderful, I did miss seeing my Mom and Sisters and the rest of the nieces and nephews.  So I decided to go down to Barrie for this whole new Family Day holiday.  Cheesy name, great idea.  A long weekend in February is never a bad thing.

Anyway, I brought my friend Olga with me this time.  I thought she could stand some down time, as well as some general boring family-esque time.   It’s always interesting to bring family and friends together, because while they both know you so well, they know very different parts of you, and you play different roles with each of them.  I was glad to bring Olga with me because she’s my oldest friend.  I was glad for one of my friends to see “where I come from”, and how my family interacts and all that.

Plus it’s good to get an outsider’s perspective.  It’s only in the last 2 or 3 years that I’ve truly come to realize how great my family actually is.  I’ve spent many years being resentful of being the youngest, feeling abandoned, dealing with some of the stuff that happened in childhood, and while none of that stuff has necessarily gone away, I certainly have had my eyes opened.  I’ve seen how other people interact with their families — and frankly, they generally don’t, or at least not on any real or intimate level.

I’m glad we’re not like that.

When my time comes
Forget the wrong that I’ve done
Help me leave behind some
Reasons to be missed

Leave out all the rest

(Linkin Park)

I haven’t really lost anyone super close to me.  My grandfather, yes, but I was 15 years old.  Too young to really appreciate what a great man he was, and what I’d lost.  It’s only now, as an adult, that I realize that.  Especially last year, when I went to Ireland.  I wish I could have shared that experience with him.  It was his homeland, after all, and he was the reason I went there in the first place.

This past Tuesday, the mother of one of my best friends died.  She was very ill, for a very long time, so it wasn’t really a huge surprise, but still.  It’s been strange.  I’ve always been quite sensitive.  So these things tend to tear me up a bit, even though it doesn’t directly affect me.  I guess I just feel for my friends.  It’s strange, because another of my very close friends mother passed away some years back.  It was very, very fast.  This time it was long and drawn out and horrible.  Neither experience seems any easier.

I feel melancholy, and a little lost.  I want to be there for my friend, and I am.  But we all know that the days immediately following a death are insane and busy and crazy.  She doesn’t really need me right now.  I’m sure she will in the future though, and I’ll be there.

And of course these kinds of situations make you examine your own life, in ways that aren’t always comfortable.  It’s so strange and indescribable.  I find myself tearing up at times, and it probably seems strange to people.  It’s a little weird to be so emotionally…sympathetic.

And it came to me then that every plan
Is a tiny prayer to father time
As I stared at my shoes in the ICU
That reeked of piss and 409
And I rationed my breaths as I said to myself
That I’ve already taken too much today
As each descending peak on the LCD
Took you a little farther away from me
Away from me

So who’s gonna watch you die? So whos gonna watch you die?

(Death Cab For Cutie)

Some days the universe is really good to you.

Wow.

I am so not doing this again.

Ah lovely Friday, how I miss you when you’re gone.

I am listening to the random shit that comes up on my ipod (right now “Folsom Prison Blues” by Johnny Cash) and wishing I had one of those wireless remotes so I wouldn’t have to get up and walk three steps to change the song. That, my friends, is the ultimate in laziness.

I am waiting for my friend O. to show up so we can go for beer. Oh, the exciting life I lead.

Never go out drinking on a weeknight with a friend who is on vacation. I am so huuuurrting this morning. But yay me! I made it to work! (It’s really easy to feel good about yourself when you set the standards so low.)

It’s been quiet around here. There’s not a lot going on in my life these days. Work’s been fabulous, no complaints there at all, and everything else is just…there. Time marches on, but there’s not much to record, really.

My apartment smells like cat, which is the absolute worst thing ever, I think. No matter what I do I can’t seem to get it to go away.

- clean kitty litter everyday? Check.
- Leave windows open as much as possible? Check.
- Have pet odour destroying thingies around the place? Check.

It’s incredibly frustrating, because I may be a slob, but I don’t want to be a smelly slob. That’s too much even for me.

In other news I’m pretending to be all active and shit lately. Rode the bike to Mooney’s Bay and back on Saturday which is a LONG fucking ride, let me tell ya. Got sunburnt in the process, too. ::sigh:: Plus tonight I went out for what could generously be considered a jog, so YAY me. The potentially not former best friend called me last night (though where the hell I was I have no idea – napping maybe?) so who knows, maybe things are on their way back to normal on that front.

I need to clean my apartment. Again. I hate that.