How do you feel today?

[danlo]

As a former teacher this is make or break time, grades are due, tons of training, paperwork galore, IEPs, incredible amts of reading-enough to make you go blind... (not to mention allergies and trying to dodge sick kids everywhere)

[Menolly]

ali, has magick ever been tested for gluten or wheat allergies? Does she eat more pizza-type meals in the fall when she first returns to school? My sister has been a migraine sufferer since she hit adolescence, and while she does not have celiac disease, they have found that gluten is a migraine trigger for her after years of tests.

[aliantha]

ali, has magick ever been tested for gluten or wheat allergies? Does she eat more pizza-type meals in the fall when she first returns to school? My sister has been a migraine sufferer since she hit adolescence, and while she does not have celiac disease, they have found that gluten is a migraine trigger for her after years of tests.

No, and I don't know. I have *no* idea what her diet is like this year -- she's living in an apartment with a full kitchen, but she's still been eating in the cafeteria.

Oddly enough, the Pill has been the one thing that has helped her headaches the most. So for her, hormones are clearly a big chunk of the problem. The formulation she was on was starting to not work as well, so her new doc put her on a different formulation. (Don't ask me what she's taking exactly. It was already almost TMI for me to know that she was on the Pill. )

[Seareach]

(Don't ask me what she's taking exactly. It was already almost TMI for me to know that she was on the Pill. )

I wonder what her reaction will be when she finds out you've told all us she's on the pill!!!

[aliantha]

(Don't ask me what she's taking exactly. It was already almost TMI for me to know that she was on the Pill. )

I wonder what her reaction will be when she finds out you've told all us she's on the pill!!!

The thought did occur to me.... Nah, she's cool with it. And she's very upfront about the fact that she's taking it *only* for the headaches. (That's her story in front of Mom, anyhow... )

[lucimay]

bear with me for a few minutes. i need to get this out.

several years ago i signed up for a short story class at city college.
it wasn't a very good short story class. the teacher was not very interested in...well...teaching. he was more interested in...shit i don't have a clue what he was interested it. he just wasn't a very good teacher.
the class was filled with a bunch of city college lunkheads that were also not a very interesting bunch. there were a few (say maybe 6 or 8 out of 35) people in the class who were serious about writing and were there to learn some tools. one of those was a fella named aaron. he was quirky. very tall, very long hair, long face. you could see he was in the process of outgrowing his goth phase. he wore all black. clunky shoes. he was sort of glam goth but, as i said, it was the last vestigages of a phase for him.
he was quiet but funny. he'd come outside at break and smoke with me.
we got to talkin and found we both thought the class was crap and the teacher was crap. we got on. he was a good guy.
he had irish heritage and was very proud of that. had spent time in ireland with some of his father's people. i forget what county.
and come to find out he was a VERY good writer.
he didn't need that class. he was much more of what i call "a writer with a big W" than most of us in that class, teacher included. his stories were like dark flames that would flare up and burn you and then boom! done. flashes of brilliance. i told him he didn't need that class and should go find an agent but he was bent on getting some sort of degree.
he wanted to go to stanford or someplace.
i could see in the things he talked about and the way he talked about them that he was not very happy. oh he joked a lot. he had a great sense of humor, but there was always a darkness there. i put it down to the whole
goth thing and just figured he grow out of the darkness like he was growing out of the look and the clothing.
he was...dissatisfied. the dissatisfaction would range from his love life to San Francisco art scene and everything in between.

he told me once that he'd been with google at start up. had been one of the guys that did the keyword search things or something.
and something had occurred at google, they got bought or something and
he decided to get out and cashed out his stocks or whatever. i don't remember the particulars but, he'd gotten some money from it.
he owned his apartment and thats not a small thing in san francisco.
but he was not "rich" by any stretch i don't think.

eventually he started giving me rides home from class even tho he lived up on a hill in Diamond Heights. the Tenderloin where i live is in the opposite direction but he didn't care he said. he'd just as soon drive me as leave me standing at a bus stop all night. he was like that. generous.

at the end of the semester he offered his place for the class to have a drunk writer soiree. it was a beautiful place and filled with really cool stuff, he collected action figures and took aMAzing photos and played music, there was all kinds of instruments and musical equipment in the back room.

but after the class was over aaron and i sort of drifted apart. i think he
went somewhere else to school or something. not sure, maybe Berkeley.
some how, a couple years later, i bumped into him on the street. i was at a comedy dive in the loin where one of my friends was doing some standup comedy and aaron and this lovely girl happened by! and i hear this big "LUCINDA!" and turn around and there he is!
turns out he met and married this lovely woman and they looked so happy!
she was gorgeous and funny and they sort of glowed.
i felt good about it. i thought to myself that i'd been right, that he'd
grown out of the darkness after all.

we didn't see each other for a while after that but kept in sporatic touch thru email and such and then he got in touch with me that he'd been accepted at Columbia and so he and J were moving to New York. He was more than ready to get the hell out of the flacid art and hipster scene of SF and get into the real nitty gritty of NYC. he and J wanted to get together before they went. i went up to their place (another beautiful apartment way up high on a hill with a great view) and we walked around north beach and had some drinks and jabbered and took night photos and just had a grand time.
i was sad they were leaving the city because it had been a while since i'd had any kind of social life and they were just the kind of people i liked being around. the kind of people that made you want to write stories and take pictures and do art and live life.

but move they did. we kept in touch on, of all things, facebook.

you understand, i wasn't close close friends with aaron. and i barely knew J at all since we'd just met two or three times since they'd married.


i got a message from J today on facebook requesting my regular email address. she had news about aaron.

tonight i got an email from her telling me that aaron killed himself on monday.
i don't know details. i thought it too crass to ask for them.
i've no idea what he was thinking or why he would do it.
J said in her email to me that she'd thought better things were just around the corner for them.

i'm sad. sad that i didn't take more opportunity to get to know him better, be closer to him, share more stuff. i'm sad that he felt like getting off the bus. i'm sad and a bit angry that he's left J with this. there is a big leaden lump in my stomach because all i've told you of him is all i know. and i know there was more, so much more. and now it's all gone. just, gone.

thanks for listening.
say a prayer for aaron.

[Cameraman Jenn]

I'm feeling ancient. Got the bulk of my project done today, the receiving area is a whole new ballgame. All I got from my boss was a Jenn, are you going to be done with this today because they need you on the floor. HELLO, ten years of crap to dig out everyone else says I am a miracle worker and that's all I get??? Come to find out that what she expressed to another employee was wonder, amazement and joy. Why can't I get a little of that? GRRRR... Anyway, my whole body is sore, I can barely stand up. I can barely grip with my hands and I no longer have use of my opposable thumbs. I'm so physically exhausted I can barely move and yet my brain is up and running and I have tomorrow to clean out the remainder of my apartment. Ugh. Just Ugh. It's also amazing how many people I had to kick out of my dumpster. The scavengers are hardcore in Oakland. One guy I kicked out several times today and the final time I screamed at him, "I HAVE TOLD YOU FIVE TIMES TODAY AND FIVE TIMES YESTERDAY THAT YOU CAN TAKE WHATEVER YOU WANT AFTER THE STORE CLOSES, WE ARE THROWING GLASS AND METAL OVER THE SIDE WITHOUT LOOKING AND I REALLY DON'T WAN'T TO HURT YOU BUT AT THIS POINT YOU DON'T GET IT SO IF I FIND YOU IN MY DUMPSTER AGAIN I AM GOING TO HIT YOU IN THE HEAD WITH SHELVING UNTIL YOU ARE DEAD AND BURY YOUR BODY UNDER THE TRASH, GOT IT? GOT IT? GOOD! He kept saying "Sorry Maam" and when I left tonight he was back in it again so I raced the van up to the dumpster and told him I was calling the cops and held up my cell phone and pretended to call the cops and he ran. He didn't even bother to grab the fully loaded shopping cart he stole from us as well. Lovely. [/b]

[Cameraman Jenn]

Sorry Lucimay, I must have posted when you were. I'm so sorry for your loss and tomorrow I'll be by the apartment for my final purge so I'll call and see if I can give you a real life hug.

[Auleliel]

lucimay
Prayers have been said.

[aliantha]

Sorry to hear about Aaron, luci.

And Jenn -- sounds like your manager needs a management class.

[Sorus]

Luci

[danlo]

Couldn't find an appropriate emoticon luci--sorry, don't know what to say.

I'm off to spell the frazzled people working at the Bookfair at Elora Grace's elementary school...(and packing and getting very psyched to fly to Chicago in two days!!!!!!!!)

[lucimay]

well...there is a reason i come here to spill my guts...or my beans..or whatever.

thanks for the hugs guys. i had to come home from work cause i just couldn't sit there and pretend life goes on as normal when my old friend
just got off the bus of his own volition.

but here at the pad, in my own grubby environs, and here, on the watch, i feel a tad closer to my usual state of hypervigilance.
and so i thank ya'll for that too.

i know there are a lot of photographers here so i thought i'd share one last aaron thing. click aaron's photo site before it disappears off the innerwebs.
bit by bit J is takin him offline. either she is or he did it himself before he got off the bus. at any rate, i'd share this last online bit of him,

www.endustry.com/index.php?showimage=8

and the last portrait that i know of,


nyc, lower east side, st patricks, 2010

[Seareach]

Love this from his webpage:

I used to write short stories until they started to become so short that photography became the only way to tell them.

...and, wow! Some of those photos are intense (and some stunning).

[dANdeLION]

Damn.

[lucimay]

Love this from his webpage:

I used to write short stories until they started to become so short that photography became the only way to tell them.

...and, wow! Some of those photos are intense (and some stunning).

i'm so glad you followed that link and read that. i had thought to direct
people there but i figured those interested would find that.

and yeah...his photographs often stun me. oddly, considering the above
quote, they make me want to tell stories.

[Menolly]

{{{Luci}}}

[Creator]

So sorry Lucimay

[Damelon]

There are some really great photos there. It's sad when someone does that, rejecting life. Sorry Lucimay for your friend.

[variol son]

Hugs Luci.