Rollercoaster days remain my favourite animal.
This morning my illustrious roommate charged into my bedroom and in his booming You're-Going-To-Love-This voice, proclaimed
"We're gonna make fireworks, baby!"
And just as I was wringing the sleep from my eyes and wondering what his strange proposition could possibly mean (did he have a naked lesbian hidden behind his back like the golden days of Socius Crimini) out he pulls a cotton drawstring pouch emblazoned in Big Bold Red German Letters; "ACHTUNG" it screamed...
And pulled out a firecracker and launched it at me.
In bed.
My first reaction, was "Hey! You might ruin the furniture!" until I caught his grin between my teeth and realized...
They're just things...
And we proceeded to test out his fifteen-year-old-just-found-em-in-his-parents'-attic firecrackers out the window, in the snow, I took a couple to work and WOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOOOOO...
...what a morning.
And still it plagued me somehow that I was so caught up in keeping my STUFF safe, that I had thought of material things first.
And then all that flew from my mind when Tia came to me with a special request.
"I need you to write a poem for me, for someone who's dying"
And in my shock, she told me about Helen --
-- The woman who supported her through the hardest parts of her life, through an emotionally abusive father, through not being accepted by her family for so many things, who was always there with strength and advice and help and most importantly - laughter...
... is in the third stage of throat cancer, that has moved all the way to her liver.
She's in the hospital, refusing visitors, but said it was alright for Tia to visit her tonight.
So I wrote her a poem, I'd share it, but it's Tia's poem. I put my heart into it, though, I thought of heroism and what a woman like Helen truly means to the world, I told Tia how again, someone like that can never really die...
...no matter how much you miss them. And especially because you do...
And we cried, and David looked at me strangely when he wandered by and found us in the dark of my office and Tia explained and showed him what I'd written for her.
And all I could do was choke on the sobs at such greatness, and the Good with a well-deserved Capital G that radiated from Tia's stories of this woman.
All I could do was let her cry, and save my tears for the drive to the pool hall this evening.
Such magnificence... Enough to change lives. She holds the wisdom I yearn for, in her broken hands.
And then I wandered into the pool hall where the ski team was meeting, and Mr. Ultra Cool Pete Monet handed me beer upon beer and taught me to play and by the end of the game I'd sunk 5 balls on my own, so hey, I even remembered to stick to the solids...
And the bartender struck up a conversation about my hair, then the bouncer did, then we made up a rule that all the hot girls on the team have to hug the girl with pink hair, and apparently the big boss lady from Q92 likes "that girl there with the pink hair" so I guess I've caught upon something that defines my greatness.
I have pink hair.
I made Julia laugh and spew beer out her nose.
I made the cute west-island boy miss his shot cuz he was watching me juggle balls from another table.
I did stuff.
Woo woo.
But there's a woman in a hospital not far from me, dying with a halo of True Greatness about her.
And this morning, I lit fireworks in my bedroom.
Today, I lived, and half of it was vicariously through a woman who is touching lives of people that she has never known.