lazy bum says good night

that's me tonight. i have stacks of books on the floor next to me. and i have not touched them. i have been watching tv and eating indian take out in my pjs for the past 4 hours. dumb. dumb. dumb. i have so much that i should get done this weekend, especially if i want to enjoy my thanksgiving break and not bring a dozen books with me. so, as usual on friday's (sorry if you're getting sick of it), i'm writing about how i'm planning to do lots of work this weekend. if possible, i'd like to at least write a couple paragraphs.... what i have to turn in in a little less than three weeks is fifteen pages of secondary research. i can throw in some primary stuff if i'd like to, but i think i'll probably just stick with secondary, as there are so many facets of the project i need to work through there, first.

yesterday was n's birthday. i called him twice - once before school and once after dinner. i'm so proud of him... he's such an amazing kid. really. i told js about him, about the accident while she was driving me home after dinner with a visiting prof last night. it felt right - i was more excited about his birthday than is maybe normal for an older sister - and she's the first person here who i've felt comfortable enough with to open up about that. she didn't over react, she just let me tell the story, and understood why his birthday is such a big deal. because it is. he's nineteen. and he's going to be twenty nine. and thirty nine. and it might not have happened. so happy birthday wonder brother.

more on the bro

alright. ideas thus far:

he apparently loved it, but when buying movies for someone in my family, i generally go with things i want to own....


so maybe the complete Indiana Jones? i'd totally go for it, except i somehow think we already have at least 2 of the movies ... waiting to hear back from mom


really really cute wallet. the guy could use a wallet.... is this a guy wallet though?


there are always video games about the simpsons. again, have to ask mom if he already has this one and make sure i have the right play station system. also, i feel like he already has enough video games.



i really like this. again, like the octopus wallet, i think i might like this more than he would, but i do think he'd wear it if i was the one who gave it to him. but it's a little more than i can spend right now i think.

or i could get him a gift certificate to a restaurant at home.... like


or a cake from Ramone's Bakery and get my mom to pick it up...
thoughts?

bro's bday

my brother is turning 19 next thursday. i need a present. any ideas? he doesn't really listen to music, i don't know what video games he doesn't have, my mom suggested cash, but i'm his sister!

any ideas? likes include candy, simpsons, action movies....

anyone seen any cool tshirts recently? nifty gadgets that a 19 yr old guy might need? funny candy?

not muches:
staying in my pjs til 5:30
taking the one exam i'll have to take this year
learning that "tinglado" means shed. unbeknownst to my spanish/english dictionary

somewhere over the rainbow....

Blackbird's post today made me think about N. My wonderful, brave brother. With whom I talk so much less than I should, whether on the phone or when I'm at home. Who someday will be my responsibility. Someday, I will have to make choices about his life, with his input of course, but ultimately, legally, it will be up to me to decide what is best for him. Despite an CA ID card, despite getting to vote this year for the first time, he will never be, legally, an independent adult. Because he'll always need the medical support we can't afford, and because it would be so easy for someone to take advantage of his trust to take away the small amount of money he might ever have, he cannot be. And this terrifies me.

I have to be fiscally stable. I have to be somewhere in easy traveling distance. I won't be able to just get up and go, move to somewhere exotic and far away. My parents sometimes talk about finding a Central American country with good health care, nice people, and a less expensive life style and moving there. It's a dream - it doesn't exist. No one speaks enough Spanish to make it work, and no matter if there is a state health system, he'd have to become a citizen first.

The hardest part is that no one knows what he wants. He can't straighten out what he thinks is best from what Chuck tells him is a good idea, and as much as Chuck has done for him, taking out a mortgage on a prefab house and moving out on his own is not feasible for N. N wants his own life, he wants the life the people who were his friends before the accident have. He wants a girlfriend and a car and a job and college. Staying in high school an extra year gives somewhat of an illusion of that, in its essentials, even if it's lacking most of what high school means to the rest of us.

But what happens after this last year of high school? This second last year of high school? Apparently there is some sort of program he can join a couple days a week in Eureka that teaches life skills and works on math, reading, art, etc. with brain injured folks from the county. But what about the rest of the time? I can't think of any sort of job he could hold down with mental and physical handicaps, and neither can my mom. He can't just stay home all day, but we don't live near a bus route and he can't drive, so he has no freedom of movement. We talk about junior college somewhere south of home, but apparently, with the budget crises of the past years, the programs they had have been cut. I suppose we just have to keep hoping that something perfect will present itself. My mom is constantly researching and talking with the therapists, but it may take a while. I just don't know.

So it sits in the back of my head and I ignore it in the flurry of reading and writing and cooking and tv that has become my life. Academia is something I love, but it's also an easy out, an escape from what lies ahead. As my parents get older, mom turned 60, it grows more urgent, but I just have to think that they'll be around many years more. Enough for me to find that necessary stability. And enough that maybe he'll keep improving and be able to live at least somewhat independently. Because that would be what would make us all happiest. Him especially.