Archive for July, 2012

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a celebration

July 31, 2012

My life in recent years has been full of dreadful anniversaries. X years since the death of, X years since the last Christmas with, birthdays acknowledged in the absence of. This Sunday, though, I celebrated a good one.

That’s me! Eating the kickoff meal for Jeff and my one-year anniversary celebration. It’s a frittata with avocado on top (obvs), hashbrown potatoes, and a bloody mary. Fun fact 1: I met Jeff at the Black Cat and do not remember what we talked about while at the bar (whoops!). Fun fact 2: I was actually repulsed by the shirt Jeff was wearing when we first interacted, which had holes in both armpits and at the back of the neck.

One of my favorite ways to celebrate anything these days is by staying in a hotel because the experience is all about convenience and leisure. Bed-living, TV-watching, ice bucket-chilled beverage-drinking. These robes, while in line with the theme, did not look so attractive on our bodies (possibly due to their color and/or shapelessness). Still, we wore them after dinner while watching many streaming episodes of things. Room service seems like too ridiculous a luxury because it’s so overpriced, but we ordered a carafe of coffee for the morning, which was heavenly to receive. I answered the door wearing the bathrobe.

This is how happy I was.

This is how happy Jeff was.

For my birthday in March, Jeff bought me a Capital Bikeshare membership and a helmet. I left the helmet at a happy hour a few weeks ago and have been too busy/lazy to go back and get it. (I’m annoying.) The helmet kind of didn’t fit my very large head, so it wasn’t a huge loss. But recently I explained to him how I have mild hydrocephalus, or too much water in my brain. I wasn’t allowed to play dodgeball in elementary school, one of the more fortunate consequences of my life’s circumstances. I’ve been riding around helmet-less (I know, I know), which didn’t worry him until after I gave further details of my head disease. So here are my presents: a replacement helmet along with a new DVD of Shattered Glass, because I lost my original copy, and which Jeff, until now, has been avoiding watching even though he’s never seen it. I can’t really blame him for doubting it, and I’m sure he’ll eventually apologize for resisting.

Here is me sitting on the floor in line to see The Dark Knight Rises in IMAX because who wants to stand?

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change of plans

July 24, 2012

My brother is coming home. On Sunday, he collapsed and blacked out from a severe asthma attack while on a 15-mile run. They took him in an ambulance to the emergency room, where they coaxed his heart back to a regular rate of beating, and now they are sending him back.

He called my mother from an unknown number at the hospital. He was crying and telling her he was so sorry, that he didn’t want anyone to be disappointed in him. He begged them to let him stay. We were all so upset on Sunday; all we had were fears that he will return discouraged and depressed, more lost than not, his zipped-up plan unraveled.

I wanted to take it all away from him, a feeling I’m sure many have, in the past, felt about me. Things I could not immediately tell him but wanted to: It’s not your fault, you are 21 with a world of opportunity before you, you are so good, we are still proud of you for trying. A lot of us would never try.

Yesterday, my mother spoke to him again. “I’ve learned so much about myself,” he told her. He said he knows now that he grew up so privileged and failed to see it. “When I come home, no matter what I do, I will give it 150 percent,” he said.

And then I cried some more, because how can a person be so good? Who he is becoming continues to amaze and encourage me.

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what we can handle

July 19, 2012

Last Saturday, we all gathered at my parents’ house to surprise my brother before his departure for basic military training in San Antonio. He got on the bus on Tuesday,  and I can’t stop thinking about him.

 

I pause in the moment I’m in and think about what he is doing exactly then. How early he had to wake up today. How hot it is there (today, a high of 95. Saturday, 100). The many dusty miles he’ll have to run.

The image in my head of my little brother is of a boy who prefers to eat food that comes frozen, or pizza, or hot dogs. Who, until he was 10 or so, refused quick showers in favor of long soaks in the tub. One who comes up behind me when I am typing at the computer to put his hands on my shoulders, reassuring me. He is so good and so sweet, which is why I have a had time imagining superiors screaming in his face.

But who am I to say what he can and cannot handle based on what I know?  I’ve never seen him do a push-up, and he is certainly able to. I know nothing of this experience and the part of him that will emerge to endure it.

Still, I can’t wait until it’s over.

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domains

July 16, 2012

Eek! So I let my domain expire because I registered it many years ago, which is like one million years in Internet years, and get no notifications about such things like paying to keep it. I got it through Yahoo! and it’s associated with a lil’ email address I like to call rebecca_armendariz@yahoo.com. This is what that inbox looks like:

LOL FOREVER.

So I am trying to win my domain back from the place Yahoo! sends the domains back to when they expire, Melbourne IT, which is in Australia so I am losing. For now, keep up with whoabecca.wordpress.com. Soon, I will make a new domain that is maybe modeled after my actual name and not the AIM screen name I made in 9th grade.

 

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