some time tonight, my "uncle" don is going to pass away. i love this man as if he was truly part of my family. hell, he's a better uncle than all of mine combined on my dad's side.

my parents met don and sue when they moved into the house in clearspring. they were about the same age and had two children just a little older than my sister. they made friends quickly, and i remember spending lots of nights over there while they played uno. inevitably dad and don always won because they always cheated by hiding cards under the table. sue would swear to find a draw four or a wild all the time when she cleaned the table afterwards. she even replaced the kitchen table once with a glass topped one. suddenly, mom and sue started winning. :)

ese and non, as i called them when i first began to speak, were like second parents to me. amy and i would get off the bus at their house if mom couldn't be home. i know she took care of me when i was sick and mom had to work. their daughter bethann drove us to school when amy got kicked off the bus for a week after punching some kid who wouldn't leave her alone. i learned to love cottage cheese at their house. to this day they still put out a container at each meal cause that's just what they do. their dog brandy hated me because i learned to crawl on his floor. i cried when he died even though that dog still hated me long afterwards. ok, so i poked his eyes once or twice but i was a teenager before he died and he never forgave me. i mastered their hammock finally after being scared of it for forever.

don always had an easy smile for me. he would make me sit next to him or on his lap. he never ever called me by my name. i was always and forever eashie nelle. that's where i got the name from anyway. i had a pronounciation problem when i was little and because we spent so much time there things stuck. mom's family still calls me that all the time. i think i remember even reading books to don after i learned how to read. they had a sitting room that don and dad always used and in a corner of it there was a bookcase. it had a few children's books, and i always read those over and over because they were so different from my own.

the first time i cut my hair, was right before second grade. i had always had long, dark hair, but i was getting old enough to take care of myself except for my hair. mom decided to cut it all off. i hated that it was gone because i swear she cut it up to my ears. i can't remember if don was mad that mom cut my hair or just did this to make me feel better, but he made her cut the majority of it off with one cut. she packaged up all the hair and i remember handing the plastic wrapped bundle to him. he kissed my forehead and told me he was going to braid it like horsehair and wrap it around the base of one of his hats. he still has that braid on that hat. it hung on his wall forever. i'm 28 years old, and that is one of my favorite memories of my entire life.

time marched on. the world spun around. and people changed. mom and sue had a big falling out. dad and don remained friends, and i saw them in frequently as i became and adult and moved away. then in 2005, just like everything else that year, everything changed. i got sick and dad left and sue ran to mom immediately. it was like nothing had ever changed. amy and i depended on her so fiercely to help us take care of mom and she could say the exact same things we were saying but because it came from sue it just clicked with mom. they've been close for the last two years as mom lost her husband to some alien inhabiting his body and making him not be dad anymore and sue lost her husband to copd/emphezema/benign lung polyps/etc.

uncle don's been dying a little bit each day since i was in high school. i think that's when he started getting sick. every year it got a little worse until he was on oxygen and dozens of pills each day. he never got better. he's been on these pain pills that make him loopy but if he doesn't have them he can't do the little breathing that he can on his own. bethann's 3 boys spent as much time with him as they could. they were just down a few weeks ago for the fair. he taught them how to whittle walking sticks. it was the last thing he gave them. the youngest may not remember, but the two older ones will. brad's kids even came for a visit this summer. the family never gets to see them, i'm glad they could spend some time with him. he's had a few close episodes, but he's always snapped out of it. this afternoon, he was down to 6 breaths a minute. it isn't going to be long now. just a matter of hours.

part of me is dying a little bit inside. part of me is happy that he will be in peace without pain. isn't that why we always get upset at funerals anyway? we aren't grieving because of what they have lost but because of what we have lost. we cry and mourn for the time that we won't get to spend with them instead of remembering the years that we did have or the fact that they were suffering so damned much their bodies gave out. we all tend to over look that.

part of me is also confused. we aren't supposed to tell dad. don was so damned upset at him after the last and final time that dad left mom that he kicked him out of the house and dad never saw him again as far as i know. don was so hurt and upset for us that he made up little stories. with a straight face he told me that he and mom had had an affair and i was really his kid but he let dad think that way. lol, amy asked what about her. i was born a year after mom and dad moved to clearspring. without missing a beat he said that he had been the milkman over in leesville. that explained everything, and we should just call him dad. we did. don was also upset that the talk dad had had with him was all a lie. he couldn't get over the fact that his friend could look him straight in the eye and tell him all these things and break his promises the very next day. he had played with bethann's boys and made comments about looking forward to the day he and mom could play with their grandkids together. don just never got over his betrayal of us and of himself. i know dad is going to be pissed that no one told him don was dying or that no one invited him to the funeral. we've all be told that both don and sue do not want him there. amy's worried how to do it. she doesn't want to make a scene. i told her that i would take care of it. i guess it's a sign of how far that i've come. i want to tell my dad, but it's not what don wanted. i'll take him aside and explain everything and politely ask him to leave. he can say his piece and make his peace later.

i'm not looking forward to the next few days. my sinuses are all acting up, and i'm sure they are looking forward to all the crying that i'll be doing. hell, it's a small price to pay. i just hope i can bring back with me the hat with my braids. he said i couldn't have them back until he passed, and i want them in my house more than i want anything else. i hope when i have children, they have an uncle don who loved them as tenth as much as mine loved me. they will be lucky children indeed to have just that.

i bought a house today. go me!!!!

Yeah...this time tomorrow I will be in BRISTOL!!!!!!!!!!!

i say jeff burton to win.

now as for anything else, eh, i don't feel like it. :D I'm being lazy. besides, not much is going on anyway.

woohoo casey on his first win!!!!!!!


the caseymears got his first win in nascar, and he celebrated by drinking milk out of his trophy. brendan finished 3rd in the truck race, so i'm having a good weekend for my drivers. woohoo!!! maybe david will actually finish on the lead lap tomorrow. ouch. ok, that was mean, but it's a cookie cutter track, and ganssi sucks there.

who to win? jeff burton has been fast all weekend as evidenced by winning the pole, but i think i'm going to have to go with harvick. he has 2 wins at that track, and he's been good on long runs. so, harvick to win.

oh, i did fix that little reading problem. i've just started book 4. i'm feeling better now. :)

Before the past year of hell, I made it an almost monthly occurence to stay up all night reading. At least once a month, I would greet the dawn with book in hand trying to read the last 100 pages before the sun came up. For some reason, I would always start a new book around midnight, and I would try to finish it before exhaustion overtook me. There were some weekends or rather most weekends where I would read until 2 or 3 am every Friday and Saturday night. For some reason, I have lost the ability or maybe not the ability but the desire to do it over the past year.

Last night was the first time I've done that since the last Harry Potter novel came out. I forgot how cathartic it is to just get swept up in a book. I haven't been that lost in a story in years. I don't think I've cried that much in a book since I read "Where the Red Fern Grows" or maybe "A Walk to Remember." I don't know why, but I haven't been reading as much as I like to read. I think I've read maybe a quarter of the amount of books that I usually read in the past year. Granted, that amount is still more than some read in 5 years, but to me, it is a paltry sum. I don't know if I've just lost my ability to concentrate, but I know I haven't lost my love of reading. I just don't understand it. I have a pile of books waiting for me, some of which have been in the pile for almost 2 years. Maybe I just haven't put the effort into it. I've never had a hard time reading until now. Before, I could sit with a book for hours and let the world pass me by. Now, I can't sit in my empty apartment without the tv blaring to fill the void of silence. I know I spend too much time alone. That happens to be one of my worst faults. I enjoy spending time by myself. Call me crazy. Call me selfish, but I actually enjoy being a hermit. Ok, I used to really enjoy it when I was able to fill my time with reading. Now, even that seems to have left me.

Maybe it all started when I started to write instead of read. I thought that I had read enough books that I could try my hand at writing one. I started several stories, one of which was actually pretty good. Then, I got caught up in my life and my thesis, and the thing that had replaced reading was suddenly replaced with nothing. Yes, that's right. Nothing. I no longer sit in front of the tv with a book or something in my hands to keep me occupied. I just sit. Have I lost my ability to concentrate, to multitask, or to well do anything? Did I stop reading because I knew my writing wasn't up to snuff? Did I stop writing because I didn't want to put the effort into it when I thought I could fail? Did I stop wanting to think because thinking caused too much upheaval and took too much effort?

Or is this just a phase and I am reaping my rewards for too much thinking and too much pain and suffering from the past year? I mean...In the past year, I have almost lost my life, and I did lose my family as I know it. My Dad is a stranger to me, one I don't particularly like and can't fathom loving even though I know I have to. My Mom has been through Hell and back and through the deepest depression I have ever seen anyone suffer. My sister has been constantly suffering panic attacks caused by too much stress and worry. My brother-in-law can't hold down a decent job which of course makes my sister wig out even more. I have stared at the precipice of death and decided that I didn't much like it. I vowed to change my life. I vowed to do the things I wanted to do instead of things I had to do. I vowed to take on life because I thought I had been spared because my time on Earth hadn't accomplished what I had been sent to do.

Then six months pass by.

Then a year passes by. And all those doubts and fears come back in triplicate. I'm a hypochondriac. Any random pain is catologued. I have the worst case of acid reflux known to man. This pain in my side won't go away, and no one knows what it is. Migraines are frequent. Sleep is scarce. Life is but a shadow passing by. I'm wrapped up in my worries for others and wrapped up in staying out of their lives so that I don't butt in. All those vows you make in the face of death or rather in the reflection afterwards...None of them have been met.

Am I a better person for the whole experience?

No.

I'm just more scared.

ps: when nothing stays the same, one thing is constant, racing. maybe i see it like life. maybe that is my attraction to it. the pavement is the road of life. every week is a new problem, a new track. you are the car and everything else in the world, each worry and experience and detail and person and place and thing are the other 42 competitors. sometimes you blow a tire or explode an engine, you've made something go wrong. sometimes someone takes you out without it being any fault of your own at all. sometimes to perservere and rally back from a lap down to win the race is the goal in life and lesson learned and taken to heart. sometimes the point of the race is just logging laps and collecting points and learning the groove of life for later on. sometimes it is seeing your heros fall and new heros prevail or knowing the bad guy always gets it in the end. but one thing is always constant, there is always the track and the car, and where and how you drive on that track will predict the outcome of the race of life. choose the high grove or the low groove. just a choose a groove. riding around on the apron of life isn't much fun when you can see the high banks waiting for you, beckoning you. maybe that's something that i still need to learn.

jimmie to win tonight.

i hate being sick. i hate sinuses. i hate goopy eyes. i hate coughing. i hate a stuffy nose. i just hate being sick...then again, the sudafed is starting to kick in, and i love me some sudafed.

as for sonoma...going out on a limb here and saying tony stewart. yeah, not so much of a limb. lol!

I missed last week because I was at home, but my pick was vickers, and he ended up 4th. Not too shabby a pick. My pick this week is Biffle because, well, it is a 1.5 mile track and Biffle is a sure-fire bet on cookie cutters.

What about my DavidStremme on Friday night? The boy had the field lapped by lap 57!!!! Way to go, boyo!!!! And DAVID GILLILAND won the freak'n Busch race? With as crazy as that Busch race was, I was surprised that it wasn't a full moon weekend. Most of the Buschwackers ended up having a problem, and Gilliland was just flying. I think that win is totally going to shake up the Busch Series. Now let's see who else can pull off a win this year. Oh, and technically, a Busch series only regular still has not won a race. The 84 team is only running a partial schedule.

As for everything else, it's ok, but just ok not great. I'm still not feeling well. Lord knows what's wrong, literally. Its just one of those things where you feel bad and don't know why. We're running tests next week, so hopefully things will be figured out soon. I'm just tired of feeling off. Actually, I'm tired of feeling tired all the time and with an upset digestive system. I'm just not a happy camper in that regard. But at least in all the other regards, things aren't that bad.

i went shopping tonight. i spent way too much money. granted, it wasn't all that much in the grand scheme of things...but still. i got 2 pairs of jeans, 2 pairs of these cool crop pants that you roll up and button to secure the leg, sneakers, and a cd. okay, i didn't need the cd. well, maybe i did. i got miranda lambert. that's a little country girl power for ya! i feel some need for that, so it all works out. the cool thing, i did this massive shopping spree in about 2 hours. i even hit 2 hobby stores and kmart. oh, yeah. i love speed shopping.

next weekend, i won't be around at all. mom's trip to oklahoma got cancelled, and so my sister decided to come down from wisconsin. she's going to stay here on thursday then we'll drive home friday. we've got a family reunion thing on saturday, and we're going to visit a lot of friends. i'm looking forward to it. neither amy or i have been able to go home and just chill without much to do in forever. so, that's what we're going to do. and the benefits...i'm taking friday and monday off. monday, technically, i could go to work in the afternoon, but i think i'll just pass! i have so much vacation time that i'm going to lose at least a week and a half by the end of the year if i don't use that much. i'll probably give some away to someone who needs a week for maternity leave or cancer treatments. that's the good thing about work. we get to give away extra vacation time to those with medical needs who have run out of vacation and sick time.

as for anything else, not much is going on. work is just about it. mom and dad go to mediation at the end of june and court in mid-july. yeah, dad's already asked for a court date which means he and his lawyer know that mom won't agree to whatever dad is asking for. then again, we know for a fact that dad's lawyer thinks he's stupid and is fed up with his bullshit tactics. long story short, dad's lawyer kinda expressed frustration with him to mom's lawyer in a phone conversation. nothing clear-cut but there were some sighs and exasperated comments made. i'm just going to be glad when the whole thing is over. i know mom will too. who gives a rat's ass about dad? oh yeah, prolly the whore. i mean his 17-year younger and still married girlfriend. my sister is a much better person that i am. she actually got him a father's day card and gift. what did i get him? yeah...i told amy to sign my name on it just so i continue to get cash in the mail from him for christmas and birthdays. i'm just not a good person when it comes to him.

ok. i almost would have been right about charlotte if it hadn't been for riggs stalling the car and getting a penalty for taking equipment out of the box. now, as for dover. i'm going with carl edwards. i know he's starting 25th, but he finished 2nd in both the busch and truck races. yes, it is a safe pick, but i think carl can win it.

Yeah, I heart the stupids. This email made me laugh today.

------
Hi!!!

How are you? My name is Natalia. I am 26 years old. I live in
Russia, city Yelabuga. I am cheerful woman, and like to do many things
as sport, camping, go to the cinema, theatre etc. In a word I like to do
all what like all people. I work in marketing structure on sale of cosmetics.
My dream this travel abroad. I know the english language well enough.
I began to study english language approximately one year ago.
I wish tell to you history which have pushed me write to
you. 8 months ago I have got acquainted with the man from other country by
name Dominique. During this time we had good relations. We have understood
that our relations become serious and we have decided to meet in his country.
I wrote the application for reception the visa.
I waited reception of the visa approximately half of year. All time I kept in
touch with Dominique through the internet and often called to each other. I
and Dominique waited reception of the visa to our meeting. I have received
the invitation from the ambassador for reception of the visa.
My director has given me long-term holiday from work and I have gone to
Moscow to receive the visa. I informed good news to Dominique, but he has
answered, that does not want our meeting.
He played with me. He has informed that has the wife with
two children and at all has no plans to meet me. I was not ready to such
turn of events. I could not think what even after 8 months of
acquaintance he can so unscrupulously act with me. Now I am in Moscow
trip to Moscow and reception of visa. I do not want that all was gone
for nothing and will be glad if my visa will be useful to our meeting.
I could arrive already through 4-5 days, but a problem in that that
now I have no man which would like my arrival. Probable it will silly
sound but if you will be interested in a meeting with the good woman I
shall like to meet you sometime soon! As Dominique was dishonest with me I
have decided to find the man which is interested to meet the woman from
Russia. I do not know your ideas about my letter, but it would be fine
if we could meet and have some weeks or months together. On my trip I want to
receive rest from my work and a life in Russia. Also the basic purpose
for the future it is search good men for serious attitudes which go to a
marriage. I have no children, but I want to have children in the future.
I am the mature woman and ready to creation of family with good man. I
do not know what you really search in the future but if we could meet I
shall be happy to discuss with you more about our meeting. What are you
going to do this time? It would be fine if we could meet, do
friendship or more than simply friendship. I shall be happy if you also
have a free time and we could meet soon. I do not know your interests,
but anyhow write to me back and I shall tell to you more about myself.
Write to me all that you want. Maybe we have similar plans and it will
be interesting to us together.

You can write all that you want. Ask any questions which interest you.
Write to me back and I shall tell more about myself and send more my
photos.

Have a good day,

Natalia
natok81@bk.ru
----
Feel free to email her back. I wonder if I have any guy friends who want to date a russian chick. Or maybe I'll sign "her" up for spam. Or maybe she has $17 million dollars lying around that needs to be deposited into my account, but it'll take a couple of grand to do the wire transfer...Oy! I hate stupid emails like this.