Inside Out

It's been a long, drawn-out, emotional week and I feel like I've been turned inside out. Brandon's wake was on Wednesday night and they buried him Thursday morning. The family had made posters with hundreds of pics of him at various stages of his young life. The moment when David and Lewis (his brothers) read from two of his favorite books, I lost it.  So did most of the people who came to the service.  It was a grand affair with hundreds of people paying their last respects.  The community had turned out in droves. There have been many articles and many school and community fundraisers in his honor throughout the year and a half he was battling his cancer.  I won't pretend to understand what it's like to lose a child but the loss of my little cousin has had a ripple effect across this family and his community.
Peace,
L~

All artwork, photos, and text © Copyright 2008-2012 Liliana Almendarez unless indicated otherwise. All Rights Reserved. Any downloading, copying or use of images on this website is strictly prohibited without express written consent by Liliana Almendarez.

Screaming Females – Expire

Expire by Screaming Females

If no one’s listening in
I’d like to pull apart the core of you
and squeeze myself back in
and if we can’t make friends
then I will live my life in servitude
and you can watch me give

I want to have faith in you
be wild and [wander]
I want you to tell me to expire

Stamp your heels for autumn
‘cause you ought to live your memories
and void and erase the page
and as my cells expand in me
[and shakes the secrecies and sneaks me in]
now I can see

I want to have faith in you
be wild and [wander]
I want you to tell me to expire

Every week I wait for you
to bring me home
or break my back
or string me thru the noose
The burning tree and strongest hand
the soil of the earth
depends that I die eternally

I want to have faith in you
be wild and [wander]
I want you to tell me to expire

**please note any lyrics in brackets are my best guess. So I may be completely off despite listening to this song non-stop today.

[2/28/15-I gave a fresh listen to this song this morning and changed the lyrics accordingly. Love to listen to this song back-to-back multiple times.  Sweet!]

********
Today I’m doing what I do best whenever I’m feeling very emotional, I’ve been listening to music in that neurotic, obsessive way that I do. Ged put this link out on FB and I’ve been listening to this song over and over again ever since. So thank you Ged for putting up this link to this song, it totally rocks! I tried figuring out the lyrics as best as I could so I may totally be off with some of it. Anyway, it’s a great song and definitely an East Coast indie band that I will check out live the next time they play in NYC.

Peace,

L~

All artwork, photos, and text © Copyright 2008-2012 Liliana Almendarez unless indicated otherwise. All Rights Reserved. Any downloading, copying or use of images on this website is strictly prohibited without express written consent by Liliana Almendarez.

Empty Glass

Let’s see my weekend went something like this.
Friday morning I woke up with a splitting migraine. It was so bad that the small bit of light that streamed through my window caused actual physical pain. The waves of nausea kept me home bound. I called in sick and went back to bed where I hovered under my duvet praying to God to strike me dead once and for all and just get it over and done with. Yes, it was one of my finer self-pitying moments. Around 3 in the afternoon the worst parts of my symptoms finally subsided and I was able to get down a strong cup of tea and some toast without causing upheaval. After a cool shower, I decided to check my e-mail and spend some time writing. As I was pulling up my documents, it struck me that I hadn’t backed up my laptop in about a month and was just taking out my backup drive when my laptop froze. I didn’t think much of it, I just shut it down and started it back up again. Then tragedy struck, it opened up to a folder with a question mark on it, for those without a Mac, it meant that my hard drive was corrupted. That’s right folks, I lost yet another hard drive. It’s been almost two years to the day that I replaced my last hard drive. I tried starting it up with my OS X disks only to discover that it wouldn’t even load up. Double damn!! I had a good talking to myself...it went something like this-- “self, you are not going to break down. Pull it together, you are not allowed to fall apart over this.” I took a deep breath and sat at my dining room table and worked on a puzzle to get my mind focused elsewhere.

When my sister came home, she rallied me to write up a quick note on facebook to friends and family asking for a donation to help me buy a new computer for my birthday. I know I should do this kind of thing more often but a part of me “ego/pride” always gets in my way. Anyway, I did it and received a few donations.

I took my laptop to the genius bar to get an estimate on how much it would cost to get it fixed. I was expecting worst case scenario. Instead, I got a cute techie grrl giving me a feasible estimate which included cost of parts and labor....then she knocked off labor. Seriously! I was grateful for the break ‘cause this is rent week which means I’m pretty much skint. So the donations allowed me to cover some of the cost for a new hard drive. So thank you to my supporters and for cute techie grrl at the Apple store.

So let’s see I a lost a month’s work of writing. Grrr.

Another hard drive...double grrr.

And then ten minutes ago, my mother called me to tell me that my 9-year old cousin Brandon had passed away. He had been fighting brain cancer for the past year and a half. It stopped me in my tracks, the same way a ton of bricks always do. Then my grumblings about migraines and crashed hard drives felt small by comparison. In some ways, I know one thing has nothing to do with the other but I guess this is how things unfold, in these messy heaps of happenings. My condolences go out to my cousin Alphonso and his family.
Peace,

L~
All artwork, photos, and text © Copyright 2008-2012 Liliana Almendarez unless indicated otherwise. All Rights Reserved. Any downloading, copying or use of images on this website is strictly prohibited without express written consent by Liliana Almendarez.