fivecats | Entries tagged with the boy

Letterboxes
February 2006 Chapel Hill, NC
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I wish I could say my silence here as been due to long nights of tireless keyboard tapping as the Victorian novel has been taking shape, the story practically writing itself. I truly wish I was falling asleep, slumped over my keyboard with my fingers red and raw, the keys making a very odd impression on my face throughout the night.

That would, however, imply that more than 200 words have been added to the manuscript.

See, last week The Boy returned for Spring Break, bringing the usual difficult weather with him. For the first few days it was confined to him simply creating and leaving messes. By mid-week it was clear we were "not meeting his needs nor expectations" and by Friday his face was less than an inch from my face and he was screaming at me, wanting oh-so-despirately for me to throw the first punch.

Instead, we informed him that he was not to return to our home without an expressed invitation to do so. And that such an invitation was not going to be forthcoming for the summer.

By Saturday the weight of his actions had settled in on him and he had a long talk with Bonn in the living room. I'm glad they were able to discuss things and that he was able to apologize to her for his actions (although he didn't do so to me). I'm also glad he knows he's not coming back here for the summer regardless of how positive their discussion was.

The day job side of things is being busy. Trainers are here for the week on the new system that's going live on May 1st. I'm sitting in on the training sessions because I'm Project Manager (woo hoo) and, thanks to several cups of very strong tea, I'm not snoring my way through the sessions.

The CoolPix is back and I've been taking pictures on my regular walks. Such a nice thing to have working again. In fact, I did a Stock Image-like shot for them that's going to be used as part of the cover image for a book coming out sometime this year. I wish it was something more artistic, but I suppose a book cover photo credit is a book cover photo credit.

...

Current Music: Trespassers William - Ledge

Garden Gates
December 2005 Chapel Hill, NC
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I'm covering several lj friends with this entry: the photo goes out to

new_brunette in honor of some of his de-saturated images. The story* goes out to

zeppo_marx in honor of the kid's wonder of Santa, along with a tip of the hat to

drood who claims to love my longer pieces.

And this one is definitely long.

So, get yourself something wonderful to drink and get comfy. Here's a bit of a bedtime Christmas story for everyone.

Just ( click on through to the other side... )

...

Current Music: WXPN Live. Support the Music

The Boy Working Hard to Look Cool
October 2005 Raleigh, NC
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I'm Thankful for a great many things this Thanksgiving. A loving wife, kids and cats, new job, a good friends and hope for our future.

The other thing that Bonn has pointed out more than once, is that The Boy is now back to being much more of himself than he's been for the better part of a year. The other night he asked if I would take his picture for an online social meeting site for college aged kids. I took about 30 or so and this was the one that Bonn and I liked the best. (I'm still not happy with the way the blur came out in the background. It looks far too forced. I wanted to tweak it some more, but The Boy was anxious to get the photo up and online. Apparently there was a young lady he was trying to, um, "meet")

So far today has been a busy one, with lots of driving and several hours spent setting up for this weekend's show. I drove the hour and a half to the show site, set up and then drove back home. The deal was that Bonn was going to spend the afternoon taking The Boy out to Thanksgiving dinner and then do the last of the clean up on her jewelry. When I got back, we'd load up again and head back up to the show town and spend the night in the hotel we had reservations in.

Well-hyped on too much caffeine, I drove back, listening to a CD mix that I sent off to two lj friends, and made it home in what seemed like far less time than it usually takes. Bonn, however, was still hip-deep in stuff in her studio and decided we should just stay home tonight and she'd drive the way-too-early in the morning trip back up to the show. I think she's forgotten that the show itself is 12 hours, we'll be there for an extra 2 hours to finish setting up and the drive will be another 1 1/2 hours, making it an almost 16 hour day.

I'll be offline until late Saturday night. Ya'll take care, now. Ya hear?

...

Current Music: Way Over Yonder in the Monarchy

Evening Sky
October 2005 Raleigh, NC
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Two stories from the evening ( -- click on through to the other side... )

...

Current Music: Cat Stevens - Music

Tendrils
October 2005 Raleigh, NC
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Bonn took The Boy out to the hospital associated with a major local university on Tuesday to have him checked over from top to bottom. Various problems have been presenting themselves to the point where even he knew something was wrong and that something had to be done about them.

Not only did Bonn manage to get The Boy in to see a doctor, but she managed to get him in with some doctors who cared about his situation and were concerned enough with him to invite him to stay in their facility. (Every time we've checked on this as a possibility we've been told that their beds were full) Needless to say, they took the doctors up on the offer and The Boy has been there ever since.

(Bonn got a call early the next morning from The Boy's doctor asking why he'd been on a certain medication. "That's what he was prescribed," was the answer. Turns out we should have checked on the meds and what they're used for. Wrong meds, wrong symptoms, wrong everything. No wonder The Boy has been dulled out for months)

Bonn went up to see him on Wednesday, loaded with clothes, books, etc., and The Boy was all but eager for her to leave as soon as she got there. Could be feeling uncomfortable with Mom there, could be he's just being ungrateful. Either way, Bonn told him she wasn't going to be able to see him the following day, which turned out to be a good thing. A little distance from everyone can only help.

When she spoke to him on the phone she said he actually had some of the spark and life back in his voice. That's a good thing.

We're heading up late this afternoon to check in on him. We'll learn more then.

(Oh, and to

zombiefodder and

yes_rhade -- Remember, I'm expecting pictures of everything you all eat at the State Fair today)

...

Current Music: loreena mckennitt - Dickens' Dublin (The Palace)

Maddy-O-Line #2
August 2005 Asheville, NC
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Saturday was Show Day -- a long day spent selling jewelry in the not-nearly-as-hot-as-usual-but-still-hot-enough streets of the nearby town on the Right Side of the Tracks . It was a successful day, even though it left both of us physically and mentally drained.

The one big benefit of the show was that Bonn went ahead and rented a big SUV for us to (a) do the show in and (b) take care of The Boy's remaining belongings with. The SUV came with Sirius Satellite Radio and after playing with it for a minute or so I found Sirius' 22 "First Wave", a station that came as close to the vintage days of WHFS as I've ever heard. All I wanted to do for the entire weekend was sit in the car and listen to First Wave.

Instead, Sunday was Move The Rest of The Boy's Stuff Up From Wilmington Day. Now, this did include a 2 hour drive down, wherein I did get a chance to listen and bounce around to some great tunes (without commercial interruption).

That was the positive side of things.

For the rest of the story, ( Click on through to the other side )

...

Current Music: Leonard Cohen - Alexandra Leaving

Eno Fireflies
July 2005 Durham, NC
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I've had too little time to do much of anything lately that hasn't involved banglemania or other forms of work. I have a few folders worth of images that I need to go through, not to mention a stack of images on my flash card now that need to be downloaded and sorted through.

So instead of doing anything new, I'll go back to the early part of the month and give you all a picture of the Sandy Feet/Feat (could've sworn they had a website) sand sculptors that do a Festival-Themed sculpture every year. This year's mascot was the Firefly (or Lightning Bug). Their sand scupture was of a pair of Fireflies capturing little kids and stuffing them into a big ball jar with perferated holes in the lid of the jar.

No real time for proper blogging, so I'll leave you with this one story about The Boy since his move back over the weekend.

Evidence The Boy Still Has a Lot to Learn

Thanks to my Netflix list we had one of my all-time favorite films on hand: Harvey. It sat, unwatched, for almost a week. Finally, I decided after a quick run of banglemania, that it needed to be watched.

After dinner we put it on. The Boy sat watching for a while.

About 15 minutes into the movie, Elwood P. Dowd is taken to an asylum by his sister and niece who are tired of having Elwood embarrass them by introducing everyone to his 6'4" white rabbit pooka friend, Harvey.

The Boy looks over at me.

"Are they taking him to an asylum?" he asked.

"Yes," I replied.

"Good."

Ah, but I was so much older then. I'm younger than that now...

...

Current Music: Celtic Woman - Isle of Insfree

Dan's Backyard: Water Pitcher
May 2005 Chapel Thrill, NC
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It's just after 7am and the phone rings. Time was when fear would rise up in me, convinced that the call was from someone in Maryland saying something had happened to one of my parents or my brother. Now, though, I know who it is. The Why is still a question, but it's rarely good.

"Hello."

"Hi. I've got it all figured out," says The Boy's confident voice over the phone.

"Fine," I say. It's too early in the morning for all of the previous day's anger to be remembered, so I'm just playing along. "What do you have figured out?"

"School," he says. "How does this sound: film studies!"

"Film studies?" I ask.

See, I majored in film studies at the U of MD back when they actually had a film department. My senior year, when I could actually take any and all of the film studies classes I wanted to, ALL of the film studies professors went off on sabatical and I was left with TV classes. This not only twarted my goal of becomming a Snobby Film Critic, but taught me not to trust institutions of higher education.

Besides, there was one major problem with that major that I'd overlooked.

"There's no job at the end of that degree," I say flatly. From experience. This is something The Boy knows.

"What about 'Director'?" he asks.

I shake my head, a motion I know he can't see, but I can't help myself. After all, he's 19, not 9.

"You'd have to move to Hollywood and hope to find work in the studios, but you'd be a contractor. You wouldn't have a steady job and you wouldn't have health benefits."

"Oh," he says, after the slightest of pauses. "Then I have no idea."

Despite my statement of "Don't make the same mistake that I made when I got my degree and had no job at the end of it", I decide to, patiently, re-explain another part of our long and apparently wasted conversation on the drive down Saturday night. Go to the college's Career Councillor and ask them for help. They'll give you a long checklist of likes and dislikes to score from and give you an idea of some careers you might be suited for. Do this now, during the summer, while you have time and they have the time to take with you. Explain your needs and see what you come up with.

This, apparently, does not sound as earth-shattering as being a Director, however.

"Have you been up all night?" I ask.

Far too awake sounding he says, "No. I just got up."

We hang up.

Bonn calls to me, just barely awake. "What did he want?" she asks, not even asking who it was.

I tell her. Her first response questions his sanity. Her second response questions if he's been up all night.

*sigh*

Really, I do have a life of my own. I've seen some good movies on DVD lately thanks to NetFlix, read several good books on CD while driving or making bangles and I've posted lots of pictures up to my flickr account. We've done other things apart from dealing with The Boy's incessant neediness. It just doesn't seem that way.

Probably time to change all that.

...

Current Music: Enya - Flora's Secret

Dan's Backyard: Dragon Scales
June 2005 Chapel Thrill, NC
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On the way home tonight I called Bonn to see if I needed to pick up anything for dinner. I had expected her to be in a good mood from what I'd emailed her about my coversations with The Boy today. Instead, he'd called her later in the afternoon, pulling the same old sh*t that he's pulled before.

Instead of dipping his toes in the water, The Boy dove right in with a cannonball splash -- the kind intended to get everyone around him as wet as possible.

Bonn and Seren are going down sometime next week to straighten him out. I'll stay here, take care of the cats and go to work as usual.

I'm angry, disappointed; I feel lied to and sucker punched.

After exercising in the sweltering NC humidity in a few minutes, I may feel better. It's just that a follow-up entry is easier than responding in a very annoyed (at The Boy) tone to those of you who have already commented on the previous entry.

_________________________

On a completely separate note: Happy Birthday,

danedray!

...

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fivecats journal

Photographs and Ramblings of a Drunken Irish Thug

Entries tagged with the boy

Breaking the Silence

The Death of the Jolly Old Man

Thanksgiving and The Road

For Olivia

Update on The Boy

Calming Breaths

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