Dear Roger; Monkey Envy and Realizations

So things are starting to get back to our version of normal. We took down the tree yesterday and put away the few decorations we had put up and I cooked an average dinner last night.Today I am going to brave a grocery store to get some sugar and milk and stuff that we have been out of for a few days. Its been pretty cold outside and rainy, so no real desire to go anywhere for me, but being chronically anemic makes me alway freaking cold, so its not like its a pleasurable experience to go outside when its cold enough to freeze the ass off a brass monkey.

Monkeys...that has been the theme of this whole year it seems. The concert that brought us here, the music of the strange little band that has been our light in the dark times, and daughters love of the cute little rock star that has been endearing and heartbreaking, and now we have stuffed monkeys everywhere. There is her favorite standby,"Jackson" that goes everywhere with her and that is tucked in with her every night, to the newest addition,"Sarah" . She names them all and can tell you all their names and personality quirks.Shes a funny kid. The musical instruments that she got for her gifts were a huge hit with her, and she has been practicing them almost constantly...CONSTANTLY. I walked into my room once last night and she was playing the harmonica, beating on a bongo with one hand, shaking a maraca with the other and playing the tambourine with her foot, I just left her to it.

Son has been working on playing the guitar quite a bit, and he is experimenting with all the different techniques and styles of picking and playing and sometimes it sounds pretty cool, others it makes me cringe for the poor guitar. He sings quite a bit as well, so music is hugely important around here. Somebody is always listening or singing or playing it somewhere in the apt, even at night. Daughter knows our favorite band is back on tour and she has asked me a dozen times , "Mom can we go?" But they are being pretty smart right now, their young butts are down South where normally its pretty moderate this time of year, but the South just got nailed with a huge storm, so they are on the road in snow and all kinds of mess and daughter knows it. She was pretty solemn last night as she was saying her prayers and as she got to her a"And God bless"...she named off every one of those boys in the band and asked
"that they be kept safe."Shes got a good heart, and even when she s ticked off at her brother, it hurts her heart to be upset with him. I hope we get to see them again before they get too hugely popular, Mtv is sniffing around after them and it looks like this may be their year to really shine, so the time of fun, intimate concerts in the sunshine of parking lots may soon give way for the screaming mayhem of arenas and thats kinda sad in a way, but im happy they are getting recognized for the good thing that they are.

I came to a realization yesterday, since I have started writing, the worst of my migraines have stopped. No smelling blood, no nausea and vomiting, no dizziness, no loss of my color vision, no pain that makes me feel like my eyeballs are crawling out of my head. I still have hideous tinnitus, sometimes bad enough to block out most other sounds, but the worst of the migraines have faded. Being able to release my artistic beast is helpful, I think that is what fuels the worst of the migraines, keeping it subdued or starved down, but allowing my mind to just put down some of my ideas and get them out has been fun for me, and I am thriving on the feedback that my stories have gotten. Its a little scary, throwing things like that out in the world, but compared to the migraines that had ripped my skull apart for the last few years, its nothing.