Joy

It's no secret why I started blogging. I've not exactly hid the fact that my almost five year old son dropped dead suddenly, leaving me adrift in the middle of an ocean of grief.

I started blogging at first, as a way to document my grief for my kids, so they would understand when they were adults why their mother is bat shit crazy.

But I quickly realized if I kept documenting my grief I was ignoring the light that was trying to shine through and lift me from the pain. So I swiftly shifted gears and switched my focus from examining my pain to reveling in the delights of life.

Cuz there is nothing more delightful than vaginal waxing gone wrong, nipple rings being ripped out and public nudity. Oh, the joys.

It's all dildos and dead kids, and I'm cool with that, because that is my reality now, whether I want it or not. Welcome to my life.

(Feel free to run away screaming. I do it on a regular basis. Heh.)

I never actually started blogging as a ways of reaching out to others. But I won't lie to you and tell you I wasn't delighted to become part of this large, fluid community and find the support I was unable to find or feel in my real life.

These relationships, some deeper and truer than others, have done what time alone, couldn't. They've helped heal my fractured soul and helped remind of the person I once was, the person I hoped to one day become once more.

Of course I realize I can no longer be the Tanis I was before Oct.21, 2005. She no longer exists. She was buried along side her son.

But I'm no longer the shell of the person I was, huddled in fetal position, staring at the sky and wondering if the pain will ever dissipate long enough for me to feel joy, to feel blessed.

Blogging has become a huge part of the Tanis of today. It has tested my boundaries, my creativity and some times, my intelligence.

The words I've read have amused me, educated me, enlightened me or even annoyed me. But what ever it was, it made me feel. I was no longer a numb carcass, pretending to go through the motions of life.

I have made some of the best friends of my life while hiding behind my computer screen. Friendships that will last the test of time and distance. Friendships that would never have been possible if it weren't for Al Gore giving us the internet and a couple of geeks building a box known as a computer.

However, that said, I also have spent more time in front of my computer screen than pulling weeds in my garden, cleaning my house or running naked through the woods.

It's hard to find a balance. I worry my kids will grow up remembering their mother's image as nothing but the back of my head reflected in the soft glow of a computer screen, instead of my laughing smile aimed at them.

I also worry that my laptop will grow permanently attached to the tops of my thighs and I will have to waddle into the emergency room, pathetic and embarrassed and have to beg them to carve it off. Nothing more prominent to point out your internet geekiness like having a laptop welded to your legs.

Gives a whole new meaning to walking bow-legged.

Heh.

I blog now, for my amusement. To kill time while waiting for my family to expand. To whittle the hours away while I sit at home, watching my children argue over who has to wash the dishes and who gets to dry, waiting for my Boo's return home to take his rightful place as ruler of this kingdom.

I keep blogging to reach out to the parents out there who are afraid of raising a handicapped child, or fearing the unknown of what the future holds for their kids. I blog to let parents know it is okay if the unthinkable happens, if one day they have to stand before a granite marker and weep.

They will survive. I did. It's not always pretty, and it's not easy, but it is possible.

Nothing is impossible.

Well, nothing except for the possibility of me becoming more famous than Dooce. Hell, it's not impossible, it's just highly unlikely.

I blog to remind myself and everyone who stumbles across my blog, there is nothing more important in life than love. To keep loving even when you feel you can't. To always remember to find joy in your day. Whether it's getting a nice email, a million blog hits or finding a five dollar bill crumpled in an old coat pocket. It's all joy.

I want people to know to that sometimes all you can do is put one foot in front of the other and try not to stumble. But joy will find you. In the most unlikely places.

Like a little blog on the internet.

You, all of you, yes, even you Danny Evans, are my joy.

Thank you for that.

Public service announcement done for the day. Go forth and find joy. I know I am.





Thanks y'all. I big bloggy love you.

The Sweet Tweets of Life

Growing up in the city, my parents allowed us to have a whole menagerie of pets to love. We had dogs (a lovely pair of basset hounds named Yardley and Bentley), cats (how I miss my Olly cat), fish (my goldfish lived for four years until my lovely dumbass brother fed him cornflakes), gerbils and a guinea pig named Beaver, a passel of rabbits and of course, birds. We had all of these animals at one time.

(I never realized how patient my mom really was until I just typed out the previous sentence. I would have lost my mind.)

Recently, I was sitting in my living room, listening to the soft snuffles of Nixon, the World's Greatest Dog, Ever. softly snoring and I was struck with how quiet my house, and my life was. It never used to be this quiet. It was filled with the noise my youngest son would make when Fric and Frac were off at school.

The silence was deafening and it began to hurt my heart. I need noise to thrive. Must be my city roots where the whine of the sirens were like birds in the night.

So I got to thinking. What could I do to fill the noise? Sure, we're trying to adopt a child, and hopefully he or she will be a noisy little bugger, but what if they aren't? What then? What could I do to ensure my sanity? (What could I do to annoy my husband the most....?)

With the twittering of the birds in the background, it struck me. I'll get a bird. I love birds. My grandparents gave me my first bird when I was ten. Not only will it fill my silent space, but it will teach my children another aspect of responsibility.

After researching every variety of bird available to man, I set off to find me a bird.

I came home with the sweetest pair of lovebirds a person ever did see. Keeping with the political theme I have going, I named one Abe (after Lincoln) and the other Lester (after Lester B. Pearson. He was a Prime Minister of Canada who won the Nobel Peace prize.)

Abe and Lester love me. They screech twitter whenever I walk towards their cage. And when I feed them, they flap around as if I'm a giant snake coming to swallow them perform acrobatics to impress me. Really, what more could I ask for?

And when they start chirping and screeching at 6 in the morning, I know it's because they miss me so. I don't care what my husband thinks, I know it's not because they are freaking bird brains who don't have the good sense to keep their beaks shut until a decent hour of the day.

My husband is suitably annoyed. And so is my dog, which I didn't take into consideration. Apparently, he is mighty threatened by the presence of two little birdies in his home.

But I got my wish. My house is now filled with noise. The chatting screams of Abe and Lester echo through the halls. Generally followed with my dog barking his face off at them, my children whining about how noisy they are, and my husband standing in front of their cage bitching at them about how he has a B.B.gun and a pellet with their name on it.

It doesn't get any noisier than this. (Yet another lesson to learn to be careful what you wish for...)

To celebrate my life filled with racket and din, I present to you this pun. It's a cartoon that I swiped borrowed just for you. Enjoy!

Pass the Puns, Please

It's raining here. A depressing cold, quiet drizzle made to seem worse by the shivering of the trees surrounding my house. This means I'm stuck inside with two kids who are bound to get cabin fever before noon and a dog who is too much of a princess to get his paws wet to go outside to take a leak.

Which means I will be standing outside with him, getting my own damn skin wet while I whine, er, try to convince and encourage him to take a dump on my lawn. (And no, I can't send the kids because my darling mutt only listens to me. Dumb dog.)

In light of this, I need the best damn cheese I can find to get through what is bound to be a long, wet, cold day.

However, I was only able to come up with some bargain-basement cheese, the type you have to scrape the mold off before you can eat it. Yum, moldy cheese. A magical cure for everything.

I really am a generous soul. Enjoy le bleu fromage!


John decided life would be much easier if he had a clone. So he had one made and sent him to work in his place while he stayed home and relaxed.

Soon this backfired when the clone came home and said he'd been fired for making sexual comments to the women in the office.

John decided, he had to get rid of his clone before things got any worse. John took his clone to the top of a tall building and pushed him off.

Unfortunately, someone saw John and he was arrested and convicted for making an obscene clone fall.

(Should I apologize or just bury my head and pretend I don't know the pun was awful?)