Blog: Ramblings and Rants

My maternal grandmother passed away Saturday night before 11 PM EST.

The wake is scheduled for Tuesday evening in Quincy, MA, with the funeral the following morning. I don’t know if I can or will travel from Oregon in time to make either the wake or funeral.

At the moment I’m just trying to finish my column for InDesign Magazine as a means of ignoring reality and remaining functional.

I’m in total denial, and am therefore maintaining my composure quite well. I honestly don’t know how I’ll react when I allow myself to accept the fact of her passing.

My grandmother, Sarah Taylor, is dying. Last weekend she was brought into New England Medical Center hospital for extreme low blood pressure, which her regular doctor said Tuesday was a relatively innocuous byproduct of recent medication dosage changes. Ma—I’ve always called her Ma and have been more like her seventh child than her first grandchild—was slated to be discharged on Wednesday. That was before her lungs began filling with fluid, her kidneys began to shut down, and her blood pressure dropped even lower than 60/80. All of this after discovering an inoperable anuerism in her aorta in May of 2007.

She’s so doped up at the moment that she can’t even remember her children or discern how many people are in her room.

On 2 February 2008 Ma turned 90 years old. Her only husband, George Taylor, died thirty years before in December 1977. She never remarried nor even dated, and often cried over her late husband’s grave despite the years.

Although she’s been pronounced dead a few times, given Last Rights more often than I can count, and spent cumulative months in the hospital over the course of her 90 years, this time I don’t think Ma is coming home.

Her passing, so near after my uncle Rick’s death at Thanksgiving 2007, will be a tremendous blow to the Taylor family, one that will almost certainly splinter the already strained family relations.

For me personally, well… Ma’s passing is the event I’ve dreaded all my life, the one that could break my will. I’m stronger, healthier now, but I don’t know how, if, or in what state I will emerge from what seems will almost certainly come to pass in the next few days.

Despite my best efforts, it’s gotten ugly.

I moved out as fast as I possibly could, into a temporary apartment with the minimal furniture and items I need to work and sustain myself and my two cats (I don’t even have a bed; I sleep on the floor). Infact, I moved out more than 2 weeks ahead of the date I expected to leave. Once in my own place I thought, “out of sight, out of mind,” and we could both move on with our lives. I was wrong, of course.

I’ve been taking her complaints and criticism without defending myself because I wanted to keep it from getting ugly, and because I don’t need to rehash everything for closure. I’m a turn-the-other-cheek kind of guy, particularly when there’s really nothing to be gained by arguing back. And, my life is going all right since moving out. Not great, not horrible, but doing all right. I’ve met some ladies, made some friends, gone to work, visited with my kids, and enjoyed me time. Yet no matter how much I try to avoid conflict with Strawberry Blonde, she seems hellbent on bringing it to my door—literally, to my apartment door.

Dammit.

I worry that, no matter how hard I—and hopefully she as well—try to keep the kids out of the middle of it, they’ll wind up hurt.

I just want to move on with my life and let her lay in the bed she made while I lay in mine. Why does it have to be ugly?

My long-time girlfriend, whom I often referred to in recent years as my wife, has asked that we split up (I keep wanting to say ‘divorce’). I’ve agreed that that’s for the best. Timing, they say, is everything. Though splitting up is in both of our better interests, the circumstances and the timing suck. I don’t want to get into details, and I certainly won’t speak ill of Strawberry Blonde. Again, I agreed: it’s time we stopped living together and trying to have a romantic relationship. Still, even with understanding, acceptance, and agreement, it’s emotionally difficult for us both.

The only reason I’m writing this is to let my friends and family know that the next few weeks, as Strawberry Blonde and I continue to co-habitate while I pack and look for an apartment, are going to be rough for me. I may be silent at times, not calling when I should, but I’m all right. I just ask for your patience and understanding.

Today we got a new TV, and it reminded me of something I just can’t get out of my head. It’s something unpleasant, and it keeps rattling around in my head.

(I’ve begun posts on this topic before, but I kept getting too far into details no one would read—not that I expect anyone to read even this shorter, narrower post.)

You read about this sort of thing in Reader’s Digest or in a Chicken Soup book and you wonder: Would my pet react like that? Could my pet save my life? My cat did. She saved the lives of my girlfriend, my daughter, and myself.

Lately, I’ve been working late into the night for two reasons: First, I’m doing a lot of server work, which is better done during periods of least activity (Midnight to 4 am Pacific Time). Second, I’m working on an instructional DVD for VTC. With the kids still on summer vacation, the middle of the night is the only time I can get a fully quiet house to record.

I’ve been working on WordPress templates and content management restructuring for David Blatner’s and Anne-Marie Concepcion’s InDesignSecrets.com. I got up Wednesday morning expecting to finish my report on the reprogramming and layout revisions, and to deliver the new site to them. Later in the day, I was going to finish off the Quark VS InDesign.com rebrand and put in some work on my new InDesign book.

The day didn’t go as I had planned.

I was happily working when my random MP3 play began strumming out the sadly melodic notes of Nickelback’s “Photograph.” It got me thinking and oscillating between joy, longing, sadness, fondness, reluctance, acceptance, and nostalgia.

As the song is still in heavy rotation on top 40 radio stations, I see plenty of people singing along in their cars, front yards, or even standing on line at the bank. Most of those people smile, content in the nature of the song as upbeat and warming. It isn’t.

Listen to the lyrics. It’s a deeply emotional song about letting go of one’s past.

It’s hard to say it / time to say it / good-bye / good-bye

The song accounts the emotional ordeal, a moment in time, faced eventually by everyone who has left home. Distance can cool even the most passionate relationship, suck the comfort from any intimacy. Bestest friends who share each other’s deepest secrets, can suddenly realize that they haven’t shared secrets in many years, and that what they once knew, no longer has relevance.

Everyone faces good-byes, but for someone like me, who has left home and gone wandering, there are frequently more good-byes than good-to-see-you-agains. Stay in your home town, and you stay and grow with the same people; good-byes are fewer and less frequent. Move away, however, and keep on moving to different places, and the good-byes pile up.

That’s a tough song for me. More than a decade past my high school days, I’ve said good-bye to some old friends, but with others, I’m not ready to admit closure just yet. Saying good-bye is a hard thing, and people don’t do it easily. A small, naive part of us always longs to return to the moments of the past and the people and places who made up those moments. That spark of innocence freezes those people and places in time, refusing to recognize that they, like we, have moved on and formed new moments. Like everyone else, I have that spark of naivete fooling my heart into remembering Brad, Jennifer, Jenny, Carla, Terri, Johnny, Chris B, Debra, Dawn, Naomi, Chellie, Odette, Elaine, Chuck, Jason, and a dozen others exactly as they were in high school, as if they did not exist but suspended inanimately in my memory, waiting for me to restore them to exactly the same state when I wish to relive our moments together. Of course, it’s not like that.

Carla got married, had children, and divorced. She was my first, you see, and there’s never a way to say good-bye to someone like that, not all the way. I was not her first, so I am not as well cemented in her memory.

Odette disappeared into a bottle. After his father died, so did Johnny.

Elaine leaped into so many men’s beds that I eventually lost sight of her, hopping under the covers on the horizon.

I saw Brad five years ago, just before I moved to Oregon. I tried to say good-bye to him then, but it didn’t seem as final as it should have.

I still keep in touch with Chris B once in a while, but we haven’t seen each other in six years.

I hear Debra, arguably the most level-headed of us, got married and lives in the same town somewhere—that town being Lakeland, Florida, where most of graduated from Lake Gibson High School.

Someone told me Chuck is doing time in Tallahassee for drug trafficking.

Jennifer, the first girl I ever kissed, is brought pointedly to mind by the lyrics of “Photograph.” (Coincidentally, Def Leppard’s “Photograph” also reminds me of her.) Last I heard, Jennifer was doing just fine, married, I think. She’s the kind of person that wouldn’t settle for good-enough, and I wish her the best of everything.

Jason and I, once best friends, had a falling out about his wife, whom I had been seeing when he started up with her. They’re married now. Between the situation back then, as well as all the imagined justifications we’ve heaped upon the reality, we haven’t spoken in ten years.

Despite immolating desire and a few attempts at correspondance, Terri I found out we didn’t really have much in common once we put our clothes on.

Dawn and I were penpals for a while, never meeting in person, but getting pretty close through letters and drawings. She’s a famous painter now, with her own Website.

Naomi, aka Jasmine, and I were also penpals. With both of us moving around, losing touch was easier than it should have been. The same is true of penpals Chellie and Wendy, whom I also miss intensely. Chellie became a mom, but we lost touch when she fell in with some bad people. Wendy, whom I have met in person, got married and went back to school to become a doctor. I hope she followed through; she was a fantastically compassionate nurse.

Other people I miss, not named here, were drawn away from me by time, our careers, families, or travel.

As the song goes, it’s time to say it. I recognize that. And, to some of the above, I have already said good-bye, at least within the confines of my heart, if not within their earshot. Others, though, still tug at my soul. I’m not quite ready to say good-bye to them yet, to squelch that little spark of naivete that keeps them alive and frozen in my memories. Foolish and naive as it is, there’s a part of my being that believes I’ll find these people again, that they’ll greet me with hugs, kisses, and a mischievous plan to get us all into trouble—just like the old days.

If you happen to be reading this, wondering if the 7-year old picture in the top-left corner is a particular person you once knew, let me make it easy. When I was in high school, and for a time afterward, I went by my middle name, Scott. Throughout school I also alternated my last name between my father’s, Burke, and step-father’s, Cardarelli (and occassionally hyphenated them both as Burke-Cardarelli). So, if you know a Scott Burke (or P. Scott Burke) or Scott Cardarelli who looks kind of like the picture up there, then you’re probably thinking of me.

Drop me a line, let me know what you’re up to and how you’ve been. I’ll welcome the contact, even if we’ve both already said good-bye to who we knew in the past.

Boy do I love Chicago! The smells, sights, sounds, and people… Had I not a family and deepening roots in Portland (Oregon), I would move to Chicago in an instant.

After a week doing InDesign CS2 consulting just outside the city, I took today to go downtown. It wasn’t my first trip to Chicago, but I love it more with each visit.

I visited the Field’s Museum of Natural History, finally seeing the Tsavo lions—a long-time desire of mine. After that I strolled Lake Michigan, ate lunch by Buckingham Fountain, and people-watched in Centennial Park. Then I walked around the city a bit, filling my lungs with her familiar and distinctive scent. Finally, I ended my evening with people watching on the L—the Chicago subway system—as I rode the blue line to its end at O’Hare.

On the L I did something I haven’t in years, not since I lived in Boston and commuted on the T, Boston’s subway.

So here I was in my home office, happily writing away on Illustrator @Work (the DVD label and package project chapter, if you must know). The pungent odor of a fire begins to waft through my window. I thought it was a barbeque grille, which is odd because it was the middle of the afternoon, and none of my immediate neighbors works from his home. Still, it smelled good; the scent got stronger over the course of an hour.

While trying to mediate an argument between Photoshop and Illustrator, alarm klaxons suddenly began to sound inside my head. I’m too wise to ignore them, so I leapt up and flung open the door to my office.

Smoke. Everywhere.

Another chapter in my book out the door to the Tech Editor. And, man, it was a monster chapter, with three times the number of screenshots and illustrations of the other chapters I’ve done thus far.

It’s been a nutso week—heavy workload, and my 9-year-old daughter started The Change. Her premenstrual mood swings are so intense that life has been hell for all of us the last few days; her mother, younger sister, and I are all picking up on her feelings, and swinging up and down right along with her.

“Let’s go play, Dad. No! I told you—I want to be alone! Ooh, let’s color together.” {whimper}

With absolute conviction Strawberry Blonde characterized Thursday as the worst day we had ever shared as a a family.

At the same time, a friend of ours was in need.

The below comes from my significant other, psuedononymously, Strawberry Blonde.

I was reading the latest news on the Pope’s condition, which is not good. The headline read “Pope Near Death”. One of his closest advisors was quoted as saying the Pope is “profoundly serene and lucid.” Parishioners worldwide have been urged to pray for the pontiff, while images of weeping Catholics are displayed, one woman prays the Pope not to be taken from us.

I agree this is a time of sadness, but I also see the end of Pope John Paul II life on earth a bit differently than the people being shown on the news.

I first need to state that I am of no structured religion, and I have struggled with this, but I also have a deep belief in a higher power and God.

As the Pope lingers near death in this “profoundly serene and lucid” state, he is also near his most glorious day. He is about to meet his almighty Father. Pope John Paul II is going to meet his Heavenly Maker, his reason for living, breathing, teaching, dying. I am truly excited for our Pope. I only wish he could reveal to us what his passage to the Heavens is like. What the wonderful embrace of God, as we leave life as we’ve known it, must feel like. I do not pray that the pontiff be kept here any longer to serve us. I pray that he remain profoundly serene and lucid through his journey. I pray that his journey be peaceful.

Sorry the Saturday Slant was late today—14:45 PT. We attended a memorial service this morning.

The service was in honor of a woman who passed last Friday, 18 February. Her seven year-old daughter attends school with my seven and nine year-old step-daughters (to be).

Though Strawberry Blonde had helped the woman, Debbie, and her daughter, Noelle, a few times, and we had all met the entire family, we did not know them. The family was… different. I’ve tried half a dozen times to explain that statement, but no matter kindly how I try, it feels to me like speaking ill of the dead. So, I will not explain it.

Of the handful of times I saw Debbie, one fleeting, barely noticable moment stands out in my mind; it is a moment that, from the recollections of her family and friends at the memorial service, is obviously the best—and typical—of the late mother.

Screaming brats, Expedia’s horrible “recommended” hotels, squalorish motels, and my girlfriend who came to the rescue.

I have to say, I am overwhelmingly grateful for Strawberry Blonde. Last night I would have slept in a roach-infested, urine-stinking, falling apart motel room if not for her. More likely, I would have lied awake all night watching the walls move in a roach-infested, urine-stinking, falling apart motel room.

To help make a client’s budget I chose an Expedia.com package of flight, hotel, and car. This is contrary to how I normally book travel: Book a flight through Expedia, Orbitz, or Travelocity, then separately book a Holiday Inn, Holiday Inn Express, or other Holiday Inn-brand hotel, and then rent a car through an agency that recognizes my National Association of Photoshop Professionals discount.

This time, as part of the package, the car rental rate was comparable to what I normally get ala carte. But the budget required the extra savings of booking the hotel as part of the package. What a mistake…

From my sixth floor hotel room window I see the lights of rural Raleigh, North Carolina stretched out before me. It’s quite alluring, full of sights unbeheld, food untasted, and wonders undiscovered. Yet it is not the lights and sights that draw my eyes from my work. Instead it is the small windows of the Arthur Murray dance studio whose parking lot adjoins my hotel’s.

Instructors and students twirl across the frames of the windows like the frames in penny arcade’s movie machine. Jewel’s brilliant [album] thrums a soundtrack for yon dancers. In their movements, fluid, almost languid, is beauty; in the act of their dance is inherent joy.

Across the gallery of window-frame snapshots smiling, laughing men and women step and slide, shuffle and glide, tango and rumba. My feet long to trace their nimble steps; my fingers reach out reflexively for the hand of my lady, whom I might twirl in a flourishing tango.

Dance! I wish to dance! Give me wings upon my ankles and tails sprouting from my waste. Let me dance!

You should take a look at Saige Roberts’ One Purple Day…Fairies, Skyscapes, Art and Gifts.

In addition to a genuinely cool design and wonderful, original children’s fairy tale stories, is an interesting similarity to my own life. I am not the only one whom Fate has kicked in the head for his own good.

It’s funny how life has to hit you over the head a few times before you get the message to make a change. My message came by accident, three of them actually. I had three car wrecks in three weeks. They were minor accidents and no one was hurt but I knew someone was trying to tell me something. At the time I didn’t really understand what was happening but now I know that was when my entire life started moving in a completely different direction.

“After the accidents, I left school for a year. During that time I thought about what I really wanted out of life.

Saige’s experience is remarkably similar to my own. For me it wasn’t a string of car accidents, but instead an affliction that, by all medical and psychic accounts, should have been fatal.

Downtown Calgary (in the province of Alberta, Canada) is blanketed in soft, ivory strips of snow. From dawn until this hour, late in the evening, tiny glittering fragments of frozen sky, have without break, drifted down from the blue-grey ceiling.

With each blink the streets, sidewalks, roofs, and skeletal trees in this magnificant Northwestern city twinkle and shimmer as if half imagined. Calgary, North America’s third largest city—in area, though she is home to fewer than 1 million souls—is booming. Between her bustling streets new buildings of colored glass and mirror reflect the sparkle of falling snow.

In a genuis of civil and social engineering, most of the downtown buildings comprise an elaborate network of tunnels—nearly two miles of heated, enclosed walkways and a bustling, sprawling shopping mall spreading out in long one- to four-story segments within and through a dozen office buildings and crossing as many streets. This series of tunnels, called “+15″ for its second-story height above street level, allows Calgarians (and the occassional visitor like myself) to cross from one side of the city clear to the other side without ever traversing the elements.

Of course, on this evening, I avoided +15.

To avoid the beauty of the winding falls of snow, to miss its melodious hush, would have been a crime against one’s self on par with visiting the Louvre and avoiding the Mona Lisa. Instead I revelled in it, strolling a few miles, my feet shuffling virgin powder before them. A smile floated ever on my lips, even as I squinted my eyes against the driving flakes. And the smell—oh, the scent of snow!—was wonderous, like breathing deep of the sweet nectar of childhood innocense.

From the snow I only retreated once, and that briefly. It was to add Calgary’s light rail C-Train to my subway ride collection, becoming the first I have ridden beyond the borders of the United States. Though the ride from downtown to the northwest end of the line—the snow-frayed residential edge of the mammoth city—insulated me from the real beauty of the weather, it allowed me to see many more whited-out hills, buildings, roads, and people than would have merely strolling.

As I sit in my hotel room, the late-night grey sky continues to triturate, raining its glittering shards about the landscape of skyscrapers, streets, parks, and river. Oh, it’s beautiful!

Never before has a city wished upon me so kind a farewell as Calgary’s white-hush good-bye kiss. I shall miss her.

Grieving is the series of unexpected little reminders that hit you between moments of feeling fine. —Pariah Burke, 2004

Strawberry Blonde and I were sitting on our bed enjoying a late breakfast of freshly made Belgian waffles. While channel surfing for something mindless to provide a soundtrack to our happy munching the image of Captain America fighting Nazis splashed across the screen.

“Ooh! Let’s watch this,” I exclaimed. As a kid and young adult, I had been very much into comic books—at times sporting an $80 a week habit. While no longer a reader, I still enjoy learning about the cultural impact of comic books and their characters.

The Travel Channel was presenting some in-progress show that included Captain America, detailing the Marvel Comics’ character’s significance to pre-WWII America. We learned something new: In the pages of comics, Captain America began fighting Nazis before the real G.I.s had, before even Pearl Harbor. That angered the then-large and growing Nazi political party in America, the New York (main) branch of which protested outside the offices of Captain America’s publisher. There were bomb and death threats, though the creators naively ignored them.

My last day in Chicago; a day to myself.

After sleeping in until 7 o’clock (Central Time), I wept through Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood. Then, over my second cup of coffee, I finished up a postcard to Strawberry Blonde’s parents I had begun three days ago.

I’m killing time, waiting for the clock to strike the hour of decency back home. I miss my Strawberry Blonde—we’ve been apart for nearly two weeks now—and my heart can hear naught but the interminably slow ticking of the clock.

When I am home, every single morning begins the same way: Either Strawberry Blonde or I (usually she) rises first and makes coffee. While the kids sleep, we steal carefully out to our backyard patio, and wake up together. We fill each other in on the dreams of the night before, our final bedtime thoughts, and waking musings. We say “I love you” (in several languages) a few dozen times.

The last time our days began that way was a week ago last Wednesday, when I flew out for the first of my latest round of training gigs. Since then I’ve given three classes in two cities. Next week I’ll give two more.

Early tomorrow I will return home for forty-eight hours, to fly out again for five and one half days. After that I’m taking a week off; I want to be home with Strawberry Blonde, Mojo, and Sassy. I also want to spend time with my first child, my cat, Chloe.

In Chicago the time is 9:16. That means Strawberry Blonde yet slumbers in our bed, our girls tucked in tight beside her, in Portland, Oregon’s 7:16 morning. In forty-four minutes she should be awake—or at least sufficiently rested to not miss the sleep should my call wake her. In three-quarters of an hour I may call.

Spread out before me the great city of Chicago beckons for exploration. Today is my day to myself, to collect a new subway on my way toward roaming ’round America’s Third Largest City.

Walking along Lake Michigan—the first Great Lake I am to see in person—excites me. As does the art museum near its southern shore. A hundred undiscovered restaurants, shops, and sites taunt me, daring me to seek them out. The Chicago River invites me to cross her.

This day is ripe with the fruit of a wanderer’s dreams—and I am more than thrilled by the sights and sites I might see—but for now, all I can see is the glowing crimson digits of the bed-side clock winding with maddening lag up toward the hour when my love shall awake.

I’m pissed off. It’s been building for a while. A few things here and there have been snowballing. Now I’m pissed.