Geraniums

I don't know how I found her, but I've been listening to Patty Griffin for about an hour. Maybe a half hour. Which is odd, because country music is hardly my style. Ah well, there's a first for everything. I once thought about deciding to like country, just because the rest of my family doesn't... I like being a minority, probably more than I should, and it hits me sometimes that it might make me a wanna-be. Rather, a wanna-be-not-wanna-be, if that makes sense. It drives me crazy, because I mock people like me all the time. In any case, I came to my senses about five minutes after I'd thought about country music, and decided that sometimes, there's nothing wrong with being a conformist.

The fellow next to me in math lab today was on youtube and facebook the whole time. It was distracting, not to mention tempting. Not that anything worthwhile ever happens on facebook... somehow it has a strange power over people though, me included. I don't know why. And youtube, youtube is just incredibly overwhelming. I never go there unless I'm going with a specific purpose. Otherwise I'd find myself on some incredibly obscure video of some band that I don't even like, or maybe a clip from an old tv show that no one can remember the name of. There are some worthwhile things, of course. Like the clip from "Modern Times", the last part where Charlie Chaplin sits with the girl and tells her, "Buck up! Never say die! We'll get along!" They then walk off into the sunset, arm in arm, smiling. I watch that clip when I'm depressed and I get a little hope in humanity again.

And then, there's the clip from a movie that I forget the name of... originally I think it had Rex Harrison in it, but this version is with Peter O'Toole, and it's a montage of garden strolls and bicycle rides with him singing in the background. It begins as he walks down stairs, sees a bouquet on the table, and says, "What a lot of flowers!" in a way that only Peter O'Toole can. It makes me happy every time.

I sometimes think that I know too much about movies, mostly old movies. This can limit conversation (actually, people with whom I can converse) considerably. Things like this make me think that I'm a snob. Somehow I don't really mind enough about that to fix it. I guess there's never been a way for a person to have something in common with EVERYONE, anyway. That would be silly, and terribly cluttered.

I just remembered something. A few months back, before everything happened with my grandfather, I was sitting with him in his living room and he told me that he wanted geraniums for Christmas. He said the front porch was bare because their other plants (I forget what he called them) were dying. I promised him that we'd remember that. I just now realized that I didn't. Guess it doesn't really matter now anyways. That was a good day, though. It was probably the last time I had an actual conversation with him - aside from when I came to see him in the hospital, and he told me that he liked my haircut. That day, the geranium day, Kate talked to Ami mostly and I sat next to Papa, writing what was being said on the laptop so he could be part of it too. We got bored with what they were talking about though, so I told him all about school, and Kate's school, and Alfie, and what a wimp he is. Papa said they had seen a squirrel in their backyard. I told him that if Alfie saw a squirrel, he'd probably wet himself. It's probably true, too... I've never seen such a dumb dog. He's cute though, so we forgive him. Anyway, Papa had laughed at that a lot.

I don't know how long it's normal to 'grieve' after someone dies. The only person I've lost before was my other grandfather, my mom's dad, but I was six and had only seen him once or twice anyways. This is different. I'm so afraid that it'll happen again, now that I know what it really feels like. I don't know when things will get back to normal. For a planner like me, that makes it all the worse. I don't like to talk about this sort of thing; I guess that's why I write it. It's nice to say it to a computer screen, something that won't keep asking if you're okay. I guess all this is just part of the intricate strand that weaves us into whoever we'll be. But though I'm a planner, I don't like to think that far ahead. Explain that one.

Patty Griffin sings "Moon River" pretty darn well. I've never really known what that song was about. Some songs create more of a feeling than an idea, and I like it that way. If you over-think something, sometimes, it gets ruined. Sometimes it's better to just float away.