Not Broken, Just Bent.

“Every year, everything I have ever learned,

in my lifetime

leads back to this: the fires and the black river of loss

whose other side

is salvation,

whose meaning the rest of us will never know.

To live in this world, you must be able

to do three things:

to love what is mortal;

to hold it

against your breast knowing

your own life depends on it and,

when the time comes

to let it go,

to let it go.”

– Mary Oliver, “In Blackwater Woods”

Reposted from Tashabear.


"Most of you know that my beloved husband, Wolfie, passed away on December 15th. (If you didn't, don't worry about it; I friends-locked the posts about his illness. He had H1N1 and died of complications after a seven week struggle.) He was much loved by his friends and family, and will be missed by more people that I think even he would have guessed.

So many of you have said how his art inspired you, and how you were touched by his humor and kindness and generosity. Here's what I want you to do:

If you see someone having a bad day, ask them what's troubling them. Give them a chance to vent. Sometimes that's all they want.

Pay random compliments.

Share. Share your time, share a joke, share a hug, share a drink.

Appreciate the beauty of the world. Everyone has a story, and they want to tell it.

Help people. Even getting something off the top shelf in the grocery store can make someone's day. Think of what helping with the clean-up after a party can do.

Play.

Be kind. Be loving. Be awesome to one another.

Don't forget him. Tell stories about him. Tell the people you love how you feel. I never missed a chance to tell him that I loved him -- don't ever miss a chance in your own lives.

Thanks, y'all. Go forth and do good things."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080701/sc_afp/usattacksskoreaanimalcloneoffbeat

This makes me kind of sad.
I mean, I love my dog. I've loved all my furry companions., (get yer mind outta the gutter.) But a cloned version of them won't be *them* - it would be a hollow version of them.
As a dog owner, when I accepted his paperwork, I accepted the fact that I will outlive my companion. That I will love him, and some day, make the kindest decision of all, and let him go to to the celestial pack. Eventually, other furry personalities will come into my life - not replacements, just... different.


I'm sure that man loves his dog. Just as I'm sure all the dog handlers in Iraq, and before that, Vietnam, and before that, WWII - hell, let's go all the way back to the Romans and their dog handlers. I'm sure they all, to some degree, loved and respected their charges.

There are SO MANY perfectly trainable dogs, purebred dogs, out there looking for a home, looking for work. All you have to do is go to www.gsrne.org and look for yourself. Why go to the extraordinary lengths to clone one, when there's so many who already need our help?


*sigh*
- k.

First there was Star Wars. The old d6 based version.
For me, it was a gateway drug.
Kaamil Kragore, a Shistavan Merc, with a perchance for blowing the living shit out of things, and a touch 'o the force on her side.
The name stuck, and it's been about 10 years since I started using the handle Kragore.

From there, it was on to flirt with Seven Seas, and Rifts, and EarthDawn, and a Heros campaign.
Pacifist battlecat ligers, compulsive button-pushing necromancing T'srang, and genetically altered, flying, blue-glowing telekenetic river otters.
There was some LARPing in there too, but then... then...

...there was D&D. And my two longest running RPG personalities.

Terail - Centaur with a fabulous charge and a mean 1-2 lance/hammer combo. She *was* the Cavalry. That motley crew had the best time - Gummy worms and salsa for the win. :)

and Sayge, dear little Sayge... innocent at first, Old by the end - Half Halfling/Half Silver Dragon Druid who's greatest pleasure in life were her pets - in SwiftPaws especially, her "pet" dire wolf, who would one day become a god...


These were epic stories, told over months, sometimes years, around a table, in the company of friends.
They were spells being picked for use through the "day", and the eraser and the pencils and the carefully folded character sheets that were eventually left with the GM, because inevidibly, someone would forget theirs.
It was the dice bags and boxes and the totems and the little good luck rituals, and the silent plea... "please don't click, please don't click!"

These tales were told because long before I was born, a guy thought it would be fun to make up a game. And because of him, and a few other people, nerds and geeks of all different stripes were given the power of creativity. Today were have entire bookstore shelves devoted to RPGs. It spawned LARPing, and gave a structure to many of the MMORPGs of today.

I had to explain to my younger brother just who Gary Gygax was today, and I felt Old, like Sayge, my wonderful little Half Dragon who always wished for Wings that Worked. I explained to him that there would likely be no geekiness like that he knows today, were it not for Mr. Gygax.
Lo, today is a sad day for all geekdom, for the Great Grand Game Master has folded his screen, and left the table.

I had a chance many moons ago, and I took it, but here it is again.
Thank you sir, for everything.

Another misfit geek,
- K.

Mom is finally at peace with things, I think. She dropped me a short note about how she and my Grandmother had been able to talk last night while she was fairly lucid, and it didn't devolve into a snarling scream-fest. That mom said things she needed to say, and they've made peace.
That actually signals something to me - it tells me that she's stopped fighting, probably in every sense.

The part of me that is very american and can't stand the idea of looseing, (ie, dieing in this case,) is selfish enough to ask why she doesn't keep fighting, but the much, much bigger part of me just wants her to have a gentle goodbye, a a quiet passage.

Really, in the end, that's all I can wish for any of us. Life takes it's ups and downs, hits it share of snags and pits, but in the end we are all made equal.


It's been a long week since monday. The dr's think she probably won't last through the weekend, but we've been told that before.
I think maybe this time it's different.

- K.

“We who choose to surround ourselves with lives more temporary than our own live within a fragile circle, easily and often breached. Unable to accept its awful gaps, we still would live no other way. We cherish memory as the only certain immortality, never fully understanding the necessary plan. The life of a horse, often half our own, seems endless until one day. That day has come and gone for me, and I am once again within a somewhat smaller circle."

- Irving Townsend, "The Once Known Prince"

We all kind of expected it. In fact, we joked about it.
But it doesn't negate that one of the world's most vocal and vibrant conservationists has passed away.
A wife has lost a husband. A father has lost a son. Two children have lost their father.

And the natural world has lost one of it's mightiest champions.

Many people are going to miss you, Steve-o.
We can only hope that we've heard your message in the time you were with us.

- K.