Happy Mondays: Happy Valentine's Day
Feb. 14th, 2011 02:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lizzie_and_ariHi,
This was originally going to be called something like 'equilibrium'. But that was broken somewhat yesterday.
I'll keep this chronological, though. Skip to 4 if you like. Alternatively, skip 4 entirely. It's a bit bleak and personal and the whole thing is much cheerier without it.
1. Ran the proofreading course at Leith Academy. It was fairly intimidating; 13 people, some of whom were retired, being taught by me for 5 hours. My feet were sore by the end. All in all, I think I quite enjoyed it, and did ok. I think if I do it a few more times I could get much better and come to regard last week's performance as not brilliant, but for now I'm quite proud of myself, as I've never been in charge of a group of people like that for a sustained period. I had to be all authoritative and stuff.
2. Made the difficult and somewhat sad decision to quit as producer at Actors' Kitchen. I actually have full time paid work for the next wee while: obviously something I can't turn down. Trying to sustain that has been really hard and I just decided that I don't realistically have the time that the project needs devoted to it. Bad as I feel for stepping down, I would feel worse staying, going mad and doing a bad job in the process. I'll still be around supporting them though - watch out for pleas to buy tickets closer to the time!
3. The good news is that with that decision, and the proofreading course being over now, I have five days solid paid work, and then manageable bits of unpaid stuff. After getting some last bits of Skinny content in this week, I'll have time for things like tidying the house, doing the ironing and seeing my friends. How nice.
4. Had a delicious dinner with Hazel before heading out to Lovesick last night. Busily painting nails and getting ready to be out past ten on a schoolnight for the first time in ages, when my brother rang to tell me that my Grandma died.
She should have died hereafter. She was coming up 93, and for years had been lying in a bed, unable to see or hear, or eat or move. Not high on quality of life. So I'm not sad that she died as such. She was the last of my grandparents, which gives me an odd feeling of lacking an anchor, and an urge to have children of my own so that there are enough generations.
I feel I should have done more for her whilst she was alive, but did feel that whilst she was alive, and I didn't know then or now what I could have done. I called fairly regularly to ask after her, as did my brother, and asked that they pass on my love. 'I'll tell her' they'd say, 'But...'. Yeah.
The saddest thing (and what makes it sadder is the fact that it's the saddest thing) is that that's actually how we found out - Richard rang yesterday to see how she was, and they told him she died the day before. They should have told us - they've been given our numbers and the situation - that she was my father's mother, but that we weren't in contact with him.
Of course, he knew how to get in touch with us. I'd hoped that giving our numbers to the care home was a safety net: I'd hoped that he would call us anyway for something that important. I'd hoped that somewhere, deep down, he was a better man than we thought.
Apparently not.
Richard now has the fun task of finding out when the funeral is, and we'll go, and it'll be small, and it'll be horrible for many reasons, not least that it should be horrible because we're saying goodbye to our grandmother, but more horrible will be the worry and stress about seeing my father for the first time in ten years, and quite possibly the last time ever. I don't know what other relatives will be there; all that branch are so old now and we're not really in touch. So my being there with Ari is a potential issue too - am I going to have to basically come out to a whole bunch of folk? Less bearable, of course, would be the idea of being there without Ari. I'm gonna really need her. Hopefully I'll get the chance to focus on saying goodbye. She was a crazy, prejudiced old bat but she was a good person, and she was my Grandma, and I loved her.
5. For all that my head was not in the best of places, and much as I have a fear of the very phrase 'spoken word', Lovesick did go really well, with only a couple of performers who made me want to shoot myself in the head. Ari really was very good. I know I'm hella biased, but I genuinely think she was one of the best. She also really enjoyed it and wants to do it again, so yay for her.
So, yeah, that's this week. Mixed bag. The coming week.. who knows? Some Skinny content to do, a job application to write, and probably a funeral to attend. But then apparently funeral homes have long waiting lists these days, so who knows? Bleugh.
I hope you all have lives filled with love of all kinds, today and every day
xxxx
This was originally going to be called something like 'equilibrium'. But that was broken somewhat yesterday.
I'll keep this chronological, though. Skip to 4 if you like. Alternatively, skip 4 entirely. It's a bit bleak and personal and the whole thing is much cheerier without it.
1. Ran the proofreading course at Leith Academy. It was fairly intimidating; 13 people, some of whom were retired, being taught by me for 5 hours. My feet were sore by the end. All in all, I think I quite enjoyed it, and did ok. I think if I do it a few more times I could get much better and come to regard last week's performance as not brilliant, but for now I'm quite proud of myself, as I've never been in charge of a group of people like that for a sustained period. I had to be all authoritative and stuff.
2. Made the difficult and somewhat sad decision to quit as producer at Actors' Kitchen. I actually have full time paid work for the next wee while: obviously something I can't turn down. Trying to sustain that has been really hard and I just decided that I don't realistically have the time that the project needs devoted to it. Bad as I feel for stepping down, I would feel worse staying, going mad and doing a bad job in the process. I'll still be around supporting them though - watch out for pleas to buy tickets closer to the time!
3. The good news is that with that decision, and the proofreading course being over now, I have five days solid paid work, and then manageable bits of unpaid stuff. After getting some last bits of Skinny content in this week, I'll have time for things like tidying the house, doing the ironing and seeing my friends. How nice.
4. Had a delicious dinner with Hazel before heading out to Lovesick last night. Busily painting nails and getting ready to be out past ten on a schoolnight for the first time in ages, when my brother rang to tell me that my Grandma died.
She should have died hereafter. She was coming up 93, and for years had been lying in a bed, unable to see or hear, or eat or move. Not high on quality of life. So I'm not sad that she died as such. She was the last of my grandparents, which gives me an odd feeling of lacking an anchor, and an urge to have children of my own so that there are enough generations.
I feel I should have done more for her whilst she was alive, but did feel that whilst she was alive, and I didn't know then or now what I could have done. I called fairly regularly to ask after her, as did my brother, and asked that they pass on my love. 'I'll tell her' they'd say, 'But...'. Yeah.
The saddest thing (and what makes it sadder is the fact that it's the saddest thing) is that that's actually how we found out - Richard rang yesterday to see how she was, and they told him she died the day before. They should have told us - they've been given our numbers and the situation - that she was my father's mother, but that we weren't in contact with him.
Of course, he knew how to get in touch with us. I'd hoped that giving our numbers to the care home was a safety net: I'd hoped that he would call us anyway for something that important. I'd hoped that somewhere, deep down, he was a better man than we thought.
Apparently not.
Richard now has the fun task of finding out when the funeral is, and we'll go, and it'll be small, and it'll be horrible for many reasons, not least that it should be horrible because we're saying goodbye to our grandmother, but more horrible will be the worry and stress about seeing my father for the first time in ten years, and quite possibly the last time ever. I don't know what other relatives will be there; all that branch are so old now and we're not really in touch. So my being there with Ari is a potential issue too - am I going to have to basically come out to a whole bunch of folk? Less bearable, of course, would be the idea of being there without Ari. I'm gonna really need her. Hopefully I'll get the chance to focus on saying goodbye. She was a crazy, prejudiced old bat but she was a good person, and she was my Grandma, and I loved her.
5. For all that my head was not in the best of places, and much as I have a fear of the very phrase 'spoken word', Lovesick did go really well, with only a couple of performers who made me want to shoot myself in the head. Ari really was very good. I know I'm hella biased, but I genuinely think she was one of the best. She also really enjoyed it and wants to do it again, so yay for her.
So, yeah, that's this week. Mixed bag. The coming week.. who knows? Some Skinny content to do, a job application to write, and probably a funeral to attend. But then apparently funeral homes have long waiting lists these days, so who knows? Bleugh.
I hope you all have lives filled with love of all kinds, today and every day
xxxx
