So long, June

WOW what a crazy, chaotic month this has been - both in fun ways and in painful, confusing ways.

It started out fun, with a lot of watching the Daily Show, and Star Trek, and making plans with Val and Sabrina for this crazy trip in August/September. I've tentatively planned on going to the Northeast Unschooling Conference, and spending some time at Val's house since she lives in Boston. Then she's coming back down here with me, and she and Sabrina and I are going to Atlanta for a Depeche Mode concert and then Dragoncon, a huge convention for sci-fi, fantasy, gaming, anime, math, science - basically anything nerdy. One of the most exciting things about that, for me, is that Leonard Nimoy will be there. Not sure if he's speaking or signing autographs or both, but I'm excited either way as he's someone I admire a lot. Plus, I love Atlanta, I haven't seen Val in almost a year, and I've never been to an unschooling conference. The whole trip is going to be fantastic, though I haven't gotten quite all the money I need for it yet.

Then I came down with a bad cold or the flu for like a whole week, and missed an RCU meetup I'd really been looking forward to. Boo-urns.

The worst part of that, though, was my mom caught my cold-or-flu, and with her emphysema it turned quickly into pneumonia. There was an ER visit and then she had to be admitted for a couple days. She got well really fast but the whole thing was extremely stressful. She's had emphysema for awhile but this is the first time she's had to go to the hospital for it. Luckily everyone was really sweet and supportive during this time and I was reminded just how many people I have who love me and my mom. I was really grateful for that.

Then I had to endure the thing that makes June so awkward for me every year - Father's Day. My father was always in and out of my life, sending mixed signals about whether he cared about me or not. Now he is either alive and doesn't care enough to call me, or dead (last I heard from him, he had cancer) and didn't care enough to pass my info along to someone who would contact me in the event of his passing. Either way, not good stuff. I should probably use Father's Day instead to focus on remembering my wonderful grandfather who was the real father figure in my life, but it's so hard when all around me I see people appreciating their warm, loving fathers. That's a connection I've always ached for.

To pile some more stress on, early last week we had a very small house fire when my mom fell asleep with a cigarette in her hand. Fortunately I was awake (it was like 5:30am) and smelled the smoke right away and my mom was able to put out the fire with her glass of tea. Good thing I have a crazy messed up sleep schedule *grin*. Still the whole thing was really distressing and I shudder to think what would have happened if I hadn't been awake.

And then just a couple of days after that, Michael Jackson died, which upset me way more than I ever would have expected. A celebrity dying seems like small beans in a month where my mom was hospitalized and the house could have burned down, but his music has always been important to me and has kept my spirits up during some hard times in my life. So I was very saddened by that loss.

Then, just last night I found out a good friend, who I've known for ten years and see as like a sister, is moving to Colorado. I knew this friend when her mom died. I was in her wedding. This is a strong connection. It seems my friends are all getting the hell away from Jacksonville as we all become adults. I can see their point, but it's still very difficult for me.

And today? Today is June 30th, which is both my father's birthday and the anniversary of my grandmother's death. I didn't even think about that until I started on this post. What a bummer of a day! Luckily, I have plans to distract me. Sabrina and I are going out shopping at 5 Points and the mall and I intend to use this day to have some fun and celebrate June being OVER.

June wasn't totally bad though. Amazingly, in between all the chaos I managed to do some pretty cool stuff. I've been listening to lots of new music, playing the guitar a lot, and practicing singing a lot. I also discovered I really enjoy sewing by hand and I've sewn one head kerchief and started on another. And the last few days I've been redecorating my room a little. The rest of the time I've been either watching cool stuff or writing. I've always written a lot, but this month - maybe partly because of all the stress - words have just been pouring out of me. (You can tell by how drawn-out this post is!) I've written lots of blog posts, an essay, part of a speech, and even some song lyrics. And I've come up with some ideas for comics I'd like to make, though I need to practice drawing first. Not everything was finished and not everything will be, but the fun and the emotional release of it is what counts.

Oh, one other cool thing that happened recently was that Wil Wheaton, an actor-turned-blogger I really like, replied to something I said on Twitter. Not a huge big deal in the grand scheme of things but it was really cool and fun to share a little joke with him. I wrote on another blog that "I’ve exchanged Simpsons quotes with a Star Trek actor over a website on which my username is derived from a D&D-related internet meme. I have truly arrived in the Land of Geek."

So June wasn't a completely bad month, necessarily, but it inspired way too much negative emotion for my liking. I'm gonna go have fun today and send June off in style, and hopefully next month will go a lot smoother. Bring on July!