Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt

Today will be my 4th year of attending Pride. Third in Houston and one crazy summer of Arkansas Pride.

This morning I watched a documentary called "Common Threads: Stories of the Quilt"

It was completely amazing. It was the 1989 winner of the best documentary oscar. The story tells of the rise of the Aids disease in the early 1980's and the struggles of getting the Reagan administration and the country to understand what the disease is. the United States was one of the last developed countries to start educating people on the disease; and that wasn't until 1987 when already over 50k people have died (more than that I can't remember the exact number at the moment). The stories told of those the quilt memorializes are those who contracted the disease through unprotected sex, needles, or blood transfusions.

The movie had me in tears and many scenes hit close to home. One woman, who ended up learning that she had become positive after her husbands passing, talked about the last time she saw her husband. He was in the hospital, not wanting to die in the family home, and the wife wasn't feel well. The nurse took her temperature and it was 105 degrees. The nurse said it would be best if she just stood at the door instead of getting any closer to her husband. She said her husband never turned to look at her, and he just sat there in the fetal position. That was the last time she got to see her husband. She never got to tell him goodbye.

I remember being in the third grade, going to a Houston for the Rodeo, and as a "before the rodeo trip" we went to the hospital to see my uncle Donnie who was in the hospital with "pneumonia". I walked into the hospital and from the door i can see him in the hospital bed hooked up to all these machines. The nurse told me that I could not go into the room, because i was too little and she thought i would unplug the machines (I was 8...not 4). So i didn't get to go into the hospital room. I didn't get to tell my Uncle Donnie (who i adored) good-bye or that I loved him. It wouldn't be till a couple of years later that i would learn that he past away of AIDS.

The mother of a 12 year old boy that had passed away started talking about how horrible it was that there were so many squares representing the horribly high number of people that had passed away from this disease. She said that each of these squares was made by someone that passed away and was loved.

I have so many emotions from this movie. One of those emotions is anger. I am so mad that my uncle doesn't have a quilt square. I'm mad that I was so young and that I only knew one side of my uncle that I couldn't even make a quilt square for him. I'm mad that none of his friends, partners, or lovers made one for him. I'm mad because in the documentary one man talks about meeting a guy in the doctor's office and they guy says that he no longer has friends because the disease took them all. I'm heartbroken at the thought of everyone that knew my Uncle Donnie in Houston could have died from this disease and I have no way of learning about him outside of the man that i remember. The man that would come and visit, play game after game of old maid with me, the man that brought me a porche, white convertible for my barbie.

I want so much to know this man and give him the respect that he deserves and that everyone deserves that has had to deal with this disease, and I just don't know how i'm going to do that....

Im pushing an elephant up the stairs
Im tossing up punchlines that were never there
Over my shoulder a piano falls
Crashing to the ground

Im breaking through
Im bending spoons
Im keeping flowers in full bloom
Im looking for answers from the great beyond

I want the hummingbirds, the dancing bears
Sweetest dreams of you
Look into the stars
Look into the moon


Im looking for answers from the great, answers from the great beyond

Finally, this is happening to me....

t-o-n-i-g-h-t.

m-f-

m-s-t-r-k-r-f-t


after all these years....

What a splendid, much needed evening...

one with friends, one with dancing, one with smiles, laughter, love, and a feeling that i have not seen or felt in such a long time.

I am a very lucky girl with the friends in my life, the people i work with, and the places i go.

still cock stoppin....

I just talked to my old roomie, ms. valerie bishop.

i love her dearly, and she makes me miss college and our crummy little apt...

but we both are representing the cock stop well....

Rock steady and sturdily on, you turnin' me no turnin' back the further we

(Go) go, go, go, go, go and on the count of three
(Go) go, go, go, go, go and on the count of three
(Go) go, go, go, go, go, go
And on the count of three everybody run back to your fantasy, now

Players only love you when their playing...

its been a long but good week.

my job is busy, but it makes me happy. and that is always good.

had my last weekend at the lake for awhile, but it was just what i needed. i had two of my girls, some special guests, and lots of sleep and down time.

I'm ready to take on everything. or so i hope.

for the first time in about a year or more, i started painting. it feels so good. even if i don't know what the end prouduct is going to be, even though i know it won't turn out that great. the feeling of making something again, the feeling of creating something, the feeling of actually being able to describe a thought in my head... is wonderful.

Back to Black

I'm reading books again.
It's nice.
They make me happy.

coughed up my heart in the last stall...

sometimes i say the wrong thing, make the wrong face. i feel like at times I make it difficult to be loved, to be liked, to be considered a friend. I don't mean to do it. things just get lost in translation, lost words, contexts, actions, faces, ect. guess it's that fear of being alone, left behind, forgotten.

it's fine.
i'm fine.
we are fine.

in the end...

Despite all the arguments and disagreements, love and family will always prevail in the end....



she will always be remembered as a one of a kind grandmother...

I saw sparks...

a favorite.

I'll always look out for you...

I had every intention of coming home today, and writing a blog about how i heard this song on the radio this morning. I heard it and i just had this hell yeah feeling. This feeling where i wanted to be in a dark room (possibly a roller rink for fun, because that is what the real music video's lights make me think of). I just had this feeling of singing/lipsincing this and just busting it out. Because I just didn't care. I didn't care what they thought, be it stupid, ugly, crazy, whatever. I just had this feeling like let's do this shit, let's tear it up. But I'm not.

Because then the day went on. and it sucked. i lost my apartment i was going to make an offer on. another instance on why i hate parade shitters.

my life is not completely in shambles, and i don't really have too much to complain about. but i feel like it's all crashing down around me. this domino effect that has been taking place the last couple of weeks.

I've been in love this last month with an old song by bright eyes called, "land locked blues." the line goes:

"if you love something, give it away..."


i wish i was given away...

It could be so much better than this...

I miss the get up kids. I just came across this song the other day at work.

I feel that my luck could change...

Everything in its Right Place


This is someone's video from the Radiohead show I was at last night. This was one of my favorite songs that they did.

Here is their set-list from last night's show:
1. 15 Step
2. Bodysnatchers
3. Lucky
4. Morning Bell
5. Nude
6. Pyramid Song
7. Weird Fishes/Arpeggi
8. The Gloaming
9. National Anthem
10. Faust Arp
11. Videotape
12. Optimistic
13. Where I End and You Begin
14. Reckoner
15. Everything In Its Right Place
16. All I Need
17. There There

Encore:
Jigsaw Falling Into Place
House of Cards
Climbing Up The Walls
Planet Telex
Street Spirit (fade out)

Encore 2:
You And Whose Army?
Idioteque


It was an amazing show. I'm so glad that I got to share it with my friends. I got a little teary eyed during lucky, a huge personal favorite. Magical, mind-blowing, and visually spectacular....and beautiful. I guess that is the best way to describe it.

you're screaming out the window at the stars, "please don't drive me home..."

if there is only one thing that i know i will have for the rest of my life, be it long or short, i know for certain what it is.

it is love.


That may sound ridiculous to you or someone else, but to me, it is the truth. I could never not love. No matter how stressful, crappy, or tiring life could be, there is something i love. I love my friends. Every part of them. I know most of them know that I'll be there for them in the end, there when they need someone, there as much as I could be.

I love trees. I love stars. I love their beauty with every ounce of my body. I would hug all the trees and stars in the world, in the universe, if i could. Just to tell them how grateful I am to them and everything they have given me. Sure they have given me shelter and light, but what they may not all realize is how much they have brought me closer to my friends, the people i care most about in my life. They brought us together through songs about them, to sitting underneath them to share stories, secrets, or laughter. To guiding us in the night time when we had no other light when walking down the streets when our parents were still sleeping, to those nights on cliffs, roofs, runways, driveways, open roads, city roads, anywhere where we got to admire their splendor.

I've had tears built up all afternoon in my eyes. I thought that they would come out about something else, but now they have left my eyes because I'm so happy thinking how lucky I have been in life. Lucky in my friends. Though I don't live in the same city as some of them right now, and some I may never live in the same city with every again, I am so lucky to have had those times. To spend time and moments and experiences that people that I loved and that at least for that moment, loved me too.

I will always love those memories.i will always love these memories. i will always love trees. i will always love stars. and i will always love my friends.

no news yet about the job.
new place to live in the works. i'm excited.
I don't like this video much, so just close your eyes and listen to it...

A very good family friend passed away this afternoon. I have known her my whole life. She taught my brother in Beaumont, and she was a close neighbor in sour lake. She was a swim team mom, a soccer mom, a band mom, she and i would talk and have drinks together at new year's eve bonfires and 4th of july bonfires. I can honestly say she was one of the most incredible women I've ever known. She had a faith that never seemed to dwindle, a family that loved her so much and thought so highly of her, and she had a heart and kindness that I haven't seen in many. After all these years, after I've changed so much the last 5 years since I've left sour lake, she always recognized me and always gave me a big hug and truly seemed to be excited to see me. She had this ability to make anyone feel loved the instant they saw her.

I cannot imagine Mr. Duff, Amy, Ali, and Christopher having to start living in this world without their wife and mother. She was a truly remarkable woman. She was a woman that I strive to even be half as comparable to, and a person we should all strive to be like. She will be someone very missed, but I can already tell you I've been seeing her through the life and actions of her children for years upon years now.

all my love goes to ms. theresa and to the family and extended family of the duffels....