sadness can feel like chapstick-tubes going through your veins. sideways. tears hurt with a sting on dry lips. pools of dried salt cause pimples on your neck, when you cry in your sleep or when driving along with burning eyes that just let it all go unexpectedly. Usually on highways.

sadness can feel like a glass of seltzer water, bubbles clinging to the sides, some deep at the bottom that are prone to rising up, popping, sometimes causing a bunch of other bubbles to pop all at once. You throw in some icecubes, hoping to water things down as they melt.

sadness can feel like a shiver of cold that freezes you to the bones, or hot like walking into a small kitchen with no airconditioning after a dishwasher has gone through a drying cycle in the burning heat of August.

sadness isn't a constant. we're just not built that way, none of us. everybody seeks ways outta being sad. we stop reading newspapers, we shut off tvs. or we read the newspaper and watch tv... depends what you let your mind take in and what you skip past by flipping to the next page or channel.

we look out windows or take dogs for walks. we sit and listen to music that makes us happy. or music that makes us sad, to just let a few bubbles rise and disappear in a pop. we play a game. we listen to somebody talk who has a way of cheering us up. we read. I read Douglas Adam's Resataurant at the End of the Universe in one day, which is unusual for me to read any book, no matter how short, in a twenty-four hour period. But I did, because I needed a smile and once I got it in just one paragraph, I didn't want it to stop. So I just kept reading. What a great book to read when you're looking for a reason to laugh about life and how goofy it can get.

Thanks, Mark/Marvin/bl, again.

we sit in the sunshine and watch trains go by on a track that goes on to places with a mile of train cars and cargo, probably peanuts and oranges. we listen and watch children play and hair on bouncing heads over mole holes, golf carts can go pretty fast. we eat icecream.

we smoke cigarettes and look forward to a time in life when we can quit smoking.

I think of the home-made movies I have in this house and wonder when I'll be able to watch them without going back to chapstick-tubed veins full of sadness. I've so much footage of my dad, and I want to hear his voice again, like in the clip Tim made, if only through speakers on a television set. But I've gotta wait a tiny bit more, because although I'm getting stronger, I need a little bit more time. The fog lifted in Florida. I'm breathing in without my heart aching, and my mind has accepted things, but the bubbles still float to the top now and then in the seltzer water glass stage.

March is right around the corner. February hasn't much been a good month in my life. A lot of crappy things have happened in February throughout my life. It's not February's fault or anything, and some great things have happened in Februaries, too. I like when it snows in February and the day after we got home it snowed heavily. It was a very good snowfall, gigantic snowflakes. A great snow-show.

Sadness can change from snow to sleet to rain. Or from rain to sleet to snow.

Thank gosh for the change of seasons in New England. I'm looking forward to the spring.

He never made it to Boston.

http://www.semara.org/k1ibr.html

A couple of things I've learned over the past dozen days. Time doesn't begin healing for a while... in fact, the time going by is making things worse. It feels like a greater distance is being created by the number of days my father has been gone. It's making me miss him more, and if time had a pause button, I'd push it. Because I'm pretty damn weak at this point. I'd pause it in order to build up some kinda strength. The days just add up to more time I haven't talked with my pops. Everything feels off kilter. Everything feels like out of sync. I'm a freakin' mess, in a fog, but somehow it's only making me work harder, think slower, and although inside I feel slow-motion, I'm busy-busy-busy in spite of being more tired than I've ever been in my life. I want to sleep for a month.

I've learned that, as usual, when something sad happens, something brutally sad and unfair, I, as usual, tend to run away in one way or another. Physically and/or mentally. We're going to Florida for a few days. Initially, we were going to use our tax refund money for plane tickets to florida for Christmas 2007, but as it became more and more obvious my dad was going to die, all I could think of was the big tree in Ken's dad's front yard in Florida. All I could think of was the sound of the boys laughing in the fields behind Ken's dad's house. All I could think of was quiet foggy mornings in Florida. And that matches my mood... quiet and foggy. All I want to do is run, run, run away. Even knowing the ol' 'wherever you go, there you are' aspect. I know thoughts of my dad will be with me in Florida. I know I can't run away from any of this. But I do know that there's a calmness there that will help me to come to grips with all of this. Thankfully, Kenny and the kids agreed that running away to Florida was a fantastic idea, and nobody poked fun at me for being such a pussy.

I learned that my children are incredibly strong and capable of handling things a lot better and maturely than I ever could have fathomed. I learned that my dad's family is the most amazing, eccentric, intelligent, funny group of people that far surpassed everything I already knew about them when it comes to coping with life's tragedies. I'm positive the only reason I am currently not in a straight-jacket is because of the incredible family I'm surrounded by... as well as my dad's phenomenal foresight and logic to put into place so much dark humor post-death situations, to help me cope. Although I'm amused, highly, by my dad's antics, which I'm pretty sure he put into place only weeks prior to his death, I'm more in a sense of awe of his intelligence now than even before his death. Not that prior to his death I didn't respect his wisdom and logic... but it's grown, which I never would have figured to be possible. I've enjoyed the challenges and the adventures he's had me embark upon. It's been and continues to be an honor to be Bill Miller's daughter.

This Sunday I go to see my dad's ashes. It will either thicken the fog or lift it; I just don't know. Either way works, I can function in either scenerio, so it's a reverse catch-22.


There's so many moments from the six weeks of my father's final journey that I want to write about. Someday I will.

Just a cool, trippy video that my kids showed me tonight. Funky and interesting.

If ever a video encapsulated entirely how I feel, at this moment in life, this one would be it. The empty pianos surrounding him, fortelling him his fate, singing his song anyways, trying his best to just go on... being overwhelmed by wave after wave, until he's knocked off the stool.

There's just such force in waves crashing in, one right after the other. And if the pushing doesn't work, the ocean will do its best to make the piano unplayable... make your song drown, and you with it.

The part where his hand is reaching out of the ocean water to just touch those piano keys, trying so hard to keep the melody going. That's the part of the video I'm at in life. Just trying so hard to rise above almost too many things going so wrong, all at once.

My dad just gets weaker and weaker. He must feel the same way I do right now. Actually, probably even more so than I do. Life's full of such adversity and challenges sometimes. He's got so many songs left to play on his piano. I can't even imagine life without his music... he's stubborn, though, so I'm keeping a strong sense of hope, and he is, too. But there's this underlying current, and there has been since his battle started, that things may not end well. That's been the strangest part. Most times, if not *every* time, when things have gone awry for anybody in this family, the underlying current has been one of almost obnoxious optimism, good humor and a determination to pull through. Not that this current situation is void of any of that... optimism, humor and determination are there, but there almost seems to be an unusual amount of blunt acceptence that things might end with an empty piano stool. Mainly from my dad himself, which has blown me away. I've never known him to give up on anything. He is the epitomy of endurance. But he's also extraordinarily logical.

And that's just one of the pounding waves currently crashing. I'm pretty much at a soft whisper of a hum right now. The music inside never fully dies. I look around me and see so many positive things and aspects with areas in life that not long ago were a bit eroded, and I'm trying to find strength and comfort in things that are going right.

Part of me, while watching that video, just wants to walk right over to that piano, lift it up over my head, and put it far, far up the beach. And I actually think I'd have the strength to do that. Even in the sand. Away from the ocean and all those waves. I want to grab that lead singer and lift him up over my shoulders and bring him to saftey, too. Then I want to just sit in the sand dunes and hear every other song he has to sing.

I don't think Boston would be any better than California for the chick in this song... when you're at that spot in life, and who hasn't been there, it's better to pick a place like Nebraska. Or Guam.

But I agree with the lyrics that some snow would be nice. And I'm tired of the sunsets, too, and could use some sunrises myself. Which I guess is why I got up at 4:30 a.m. this morning. It was a very comforting sunrise.

My pops better pull through.

Scrabble players ... a must-see short film at this link:

http://www.zefrank.com/theshow/archives/2006/11/112706.html


I've emailed quite a few of you the link, but I'm blogging it as well! Thanks to Rebecca for the link (she always sends me the funniest links to short films!) I had to remind myself to breathe-in towards the end, I was laughing out loud so hard at this short Scrabble film, hahaha! :)

wow... the Wii rocks! It's so active, it's going to change the entire way the world views videogames as being a stagnant experience (re: sitting and playing in comparison to Wii play, which is very physical!)

Kenny came in 2nd place at the Scrabble tournament we went to on the last weekend of October. I personally had a horrible batch of games... and don't even want to know what place I took, which was somewhere near the bottom of the list of players (I forget the exact number of players in our division, but it was quite a few.)

None the less, I had a fun time at the tournament, because it's always near Halloween, so I dress up each day in costume. Kenny shot some footage of me trying to fly with my fairy wings on... I almost wipe out, too! Kenny has footage of me running from the top of the hill, with a bunch of kids watching me, which is pretty funny. He said he wanted to put the two pieces together to the Benny Hill theme song, but here's a sneak preview:




I want to write some more blogs, but everybody here is yelling for me to come downstairs to check out the new Wii. So... I'm off the computer for a bit, as after I watch them play for a while, I have to go food shopping and get ready for some company we have coming over for a game of Scrabble later this afternoon.

Will try to put up the other pictures and videos and blogs later on tonight, or later this week.