Live Forever or Die Trying

Maneuvering through the busy street, I get to the “highway”; it is closed and thus all traffic is on the feeder going 2 miles an hour. I have to go 20 miles from work to home, but I am not bothered because I have Garrison Keillor’s A Prairie Home Companion with me for the ride.

I laugh at a remake of “Home on the Range” as “Home on the Plains” with lyrics like “cold as a witch’s chest” and I am smiling enjoying the company of the show.

After he reads the dedications for tonights show he makes one of his own. He points to the balcony and says that a friend of his that we was looking forward to seeing was supposed to be in that seat but could not make it because he died last Monday. I know Garrison Keillor is no spring chicken. I was also lead to believe the recently departed friend was older since Keillor mentioned “he lead a full life”, until he finished the statement with “for his 45 years”.

My mom was 43 when she died I thought to myself.

Garrison Keillor said his friend died after a struggle with cancer.

My mom died from a sort of cancer too; a social cancer called life long poverty. I continued.

A song was queued on the show, the non-religious version of I’ll fly away.

It hit me and my mind went clear; a trance.

Something reached inside me.

The song was close to the first chorus. The red light ahead began to waver in my vision.

The sensation found the sour grapes of my mom’s death. It sought out one wrinkly, withered form and filled it until the skin was taught.

The chorus hit, hard.

The grape burst; four tears simultaneously fell to my lap.

I began to sing along. I sang loud.

The sour grapes were filled and exploded into my soul. I was engulfed into myself and was filled with release. Each chorus was a wave of emotion and I cried harder and sang louder with each one.

My body was in my car in a line of traffic barley moving, but I, I was somewhere else entirely. I was in a place that was neatly folded and packed away during 2004 into a vine of sour grapes. With each one that burst I looked at the contents as they flew away and turned into wine that warmed my soul.

This was the first year I harvested from that vine, but there are still many sprouting for next year.

I exhaled slowly and deeply. The light turned green some 20 cars up. The song came to a close as did my tear ducts and I inched forward towards home.

Today, I had cried.

For my Mom, for her death three years ago on November 28th at 10:55pm.

It has officially been announced: Terminal Reality’s secret project is a next-gen Ghostbusters game!

Here’s the December Game Informer cover that got announced yesterday. As soon as this hit gaming news sites, they pretty much went crazy.

And here’s another screenshot that got released a little bit later that got people even more excited:

Anyhow, I can’t really talk too much more about it at this point, since the article hasn’t officially been released yet, but here are some links to the news stories that hit yesterday.

So on the way to work I stop by the bank to put in $500 cash. I waited in line in the drive-thru listening to NPR and a good story came on so I got into it. It is my turn and I send in the carrier to ask for a deposit slip and then fill it out as $400 and send it back with the cash. I drive away and later call Dean and let him know I deposited the $500. Today I check online to see if it had gone thru and it had. $400. What! It was $500 that I deposited. I thought about it and remembered that I wrote $400 on the deposit slip. I check my purse to see if any had fallen out of the envelope, nope.

I called that branch and let them know of the issue and he said he would check it out and get back to me. An hour ago he called and said that indeed, that guys drawer was over by $100 and he would put it right into my account!

The teller could have easily pocked the bill and it would have been my word v his, and he would have won. Instead, he took the high road and was honest!