Holidays are tough:

I remember my mother telling me how she quit smoking. Basically she drew up a schedule and allowed herself cigarettes at certain times and no more. Then she could bargain with her body that she could have a cigarette in an hour, but not right then.

I'm sort of doing that with crying now. I can cry at certain times of the day. When I get home I can cry for 15 minutes and again for a few minutes before bed.

The rest of the time, I have to push away how terrified I am about going home for the first time since we buried my sister and having this visit be over Christmas. I can't think about two stockings instead of three on the mantel, I can't imagine what it will be like passing around the presents under the tree without her sitting there. Sometimes I think about my Christmas shopping and wonder for a minute what I will get Jenny. And then I remember that there are only four in my family now.

Validation:

Whenever I am annoyed by my job, I throw on an episode of the Office and remind myself exactly how much worse it could be. That validates my decision not to quit. That and the shitloads of money involved in moving myself back.

Alarum:

As I walked into the supermarket tonight, the alarms starting going off. After a couple of minutes where people continued shopping (the alarms had been going off earlier as well), everyone started going out. I wanted to just go home, but I had no food and I was pretty starving. So I hung out outside for about 10 minutes.

The sirens continued to go off, but eventually everyone started going back in, so I followed. Inside the noise was headache-inducing, definitely. I saw one woman walking along opening a pack of ibuprofen. I guess that's one way to sell some medications...

Dinner and diving:

Not at the same time. That might be uncomfortable. I just got back from a potluck dinner to say goodbye to C-- who is heading back to the US and leaving the Navy. Good on her, and it seems like absolutely the right decision for her, though I will miss her very much. I made my trademark strawberry pie. While I didn't get to try any, I think the guy sitting there eating the strawberries off the crust out of the pan for the last slice probably means it was good. I also made a banana cream pie, which turned out about as expected. People thought it was pumpkin and then it was kind of a letdown though, and it was definitely not as big a winner as the strawberry pie. I enjoyed it, but bananas just are a bit too bland, I think.

I left early because I am going diving tomorrow. I have to be about 3 hours from Canberra by 0730. I'm planning on getting up about half past three and having it so I just have to brush my teeth and put contacts in, throw on clothes, and grab my bag (all the heavy stuff is in the car already). Hopefully the drive won't be too bad. These are my last dives before the reef (I leave three weeks from tomorrow!!)

So it looks like R-- and B-- might both be coming out for the same conference and are looking to do some traveling while they are here. I sort of offered to go with both of them. It was accidental. They aren't really friends, though they have met each other. This is going to be interesting.

Also, I just heard that they are going to start issuing fines for swearing on the street in Canberra. I think I might be in trouble. I have toned down the drunken angry sailor swearing in the last few years, but it still isn't good.

So:

It's starting to turn towards spring now here. It's not so cold in the mornings, and tonight I caught the last bus home and it wasn't totally dark while I was waiting. The dark gets to me in the winter much more than the cold. I don't think it used to be that way.

I remember those days in Chicago when it would be dark by about 4pm, but I also remember the big chunks of ice on the Lake shore, walking down after study break about 10:00 and seeing the way the light bounced off the ice. Winter never seemed that bad then, and I loved the night.

It's much darker here. The sky is black at night, and walking just a little way away can bring you a night sky filled with stars. But I kind of miss the orange sky in Chicago. Dark there was relative, not absolute.

It's been a rough couple of years. Sometimes I just want to forget everything, to start running and not stop until the past is hazy and gone and I don't have to talk to anyone who remembers the way I was. But I remember how happy I was, sitting on Dylan's car in the thick Atlanta night when the power went out, saying goodbye to the city that was home. The walk down 55th street leaning hard against the freezing wind to make it to the Point to feel the wind whipping around you, at least until the cops came and made you move along. The Christmas lights across Oxford Street in London, running on the beach at St. Simons as the sun went down, sitting on a balcony drinking sangria as the crickets chirped in June in Chicago, when I should have been studying, Fell's Point Halloween night, dressed as 1.5 blind mice, a summer night after the rain in Ireland. I wouldn't give up those memories.

Here's hoping I start feeling better with the longer days.

There was an accident on Friday, at the roundabout near where I work. I went through it before the accident, so I only heard it described from a couple of coworkers. A 4 Wheel Drive flipped over and landed on its roof. Everyone was OK, the driver was standing out having a chat to some other guys shortly after the crash.

I can't hear something like that and not think about how unfair it is, that those accidents happen all the time and everyone is fine. And my sister was in one and died. Why does it have to be that way? Why can't Jenny still be here?