Well Then...

Music Of The Moment: Norah Jones; Album: "Come Away With Me"

The last few days have been a little confusing emotionally, and my heart hurts right now. It's complicated...

Erik's goodbye party was last night, and I was truly sad to see the first person who made me realize my own self-worth as a woman leave for three years to Ontario. It didn't help that I was quite drunk at the Bourbon. I started crying watching Allison say goodbye to him, before I had even said mine. He'll be back for visits for business, but still, Vancouver is going to be lonelier for me than it was with him here, chilling at his place in gastown and eating great, cheap pizza and watching South Park and the Daily Show on a Friday night.

I can't, and didn't say that I love him.

I do though.

Not the way I did while I was his girlfriend, but I love him the way you love a friend that you couldn't imagine life without, and it's hard. It's hard even explaining it right now, without getting a little caught up. It's hard reading it again to edit my writing as well.

He is the person that comes with me to take photographs in scummy areas of town, part bodyguard, part something else undefined, someone that strokes my ego, (in a good way) and always someone that tolerated my addiction to snapping pictures of brick walls, graffiti, and my wanderings in the less savoury parts of town that I find intreguing. All with witty comments and conversations filled with laughter and politics.

Such is life, I guess, and even though I'll miss him like hell while he's gone... I'm still incredibly proud of him for turning harsh adversity into triumph. Lemons into lemonade, indeed.

Good on ya, Erik.

Today was my Grandmothers 74th birthday party. Unfortunately, I wasn't even aware that yesterday was actually her birthday, and I feel like a complete fucking ass for not knowing. Flowers fix everything, hopefully, to cover my familial faux pas.

All of my family members were here today, and I spent some quality time with my mom, who I rarely get to see. My mom has gotten even more gentle in personality, but still has the laugh I remember when I was a kid. My dad comes over quite frequently, being that I live at his mothers house, but usually alone, to fix the stuff that goes awry in the house. I cuddled my little cousins, Ashley and Curtis, the former being angelic in countenance and behaviour, and the latter being a monkey. A monkey that looks like a hobbit, (read: Adorable) but man-o-man, that kid gets into everything, and has the attention span of a toothpick regarding adult requests. A photo manipulation turning him into a hobbit toddler is going to be in the works rather soon. I promised his mom a copy of the photo via email for her MSN picture. Seriously, Curtis is cuter than any child I've ever seen.

My family is huge. I'm the oldest of the cousins at a ripe old age of 25 followed closely by Shannon (23) and her brother Andrew (20), and then the wee kids, Christopher (8), Ashley (6) and Curtis (4). I have 4 uncles and one aunt, and each uncle/aunt has two to three children and obviously, a spouse. We're close, candid and have wicked senses of humour, ranging from the biting sarcasm of my Auntie Lise, to the dry humour of my Uncle Carlyle. My Auntie Pat is still a delight to be around, and My Auntie Eva with her shy smile and amazing patience with her children. I've never seen a woman so well suited to motherhood in my life.

I got into heated debate with my Uncle Marc, who loves to razz me on my politics, often calling me a "commie-pinko-liberal". It's fun to retort that he's getting surly in his old age, and that conservatism has blackened his soul from burning the dreams of others. He threatens to slap me with "the belt", to learn me good, quickly shot down by telling him that I can see the mad gleam of sadism in his eyes, which would work with most of the conservatives I've met. (obviously it's tongue in cheek, Mayor, Fenris, others, so get your panties out of a knot, already.)

I got in a half-assed water fight with my dad, though I lost pitifully, since he's about three times stronger than I am physically, and turned the water bottle over my head. I still got him wet though, which is enough satisfaction for me. He's obsessed with astronomy and photography (I wonder how I got that obsession, eh?) and managed to take a seven to ten minute time lapse from the corner of the yard with his amazing camera, that snapped a picture every 30 seconds across a period of three to four hours. The camera turns the images into a quicktime movie. It's pretty awesome to watch, with the canopy being put together in lightening fast speed, and the constant parade of relatives in and out of the house, and gathering under the canopy to socialize and tease each other. I know for a fact there's probably ten seconds alone of all the women discussing politics underneath the canopy early on in the film, and a section with all the men hovering around the barbeque, prodding meat with forks and things and making references to various Mel Brooks films (I gave my dad a collectors edition of Blazing Saddles, much to his delight.) and the Trailer Park Boys.

Interesting familial dynamics, to say the least.

I ate so much amazing food that I hurt, and am seriously contemplating curling up in bed for a few hours, since I'm hungover from last night, tired and very, very full. It's nice to know that even though I feel alone, I've got my family to come back to. That's not a luxury that a lot of people have, and I know I'm lucky to have that in my life.