trying to find some sort of comfort or peace or relief in this unbearable place
turn back the clock turn back the clock turn back the clock
saying it won't make it happen
saying it over and over makes it worse
makes me feel like a child, foolish and out of control
hoping to regain this missing piece of me
feeling your presence in your absence confuses me
makes me cry makes me sob in the car in the store
you never yelled you never criticized you never blamed
even when you should have
and the past is in the past but this is still so here
and my fingers type mindlessly and my pen writes without pause
but nothing comes out that makes this better that makes this anything but reality.

post number one thousand, five hundred and forty...

... i'm sitting in my sister's basement and witnessing my brother in law and my husband battling it out in halo 3. it's mostly quiet for the occasional "you're still alive? impossible!" and things of that nature.

today is my friday, so i'm looking forward to sleeping in tomorrow and being lazy. oh yeah, AND doing dishes and laundry. b/c that's awesome.

the top of my foot itches. it confuses me b/c if i really itch it, it both tickles AND hurts. if i do nothing, it might actually drive me to madness. what's a girl to do?

i just purchased shoes recently for a nifty buy one, get one deal and have since made the mistake of wearing the lovely maryjanes without socks. this is going to cause the shoes to ... well, to put it bluntly, smell like dog. and i suspect that the itch of the top of the foot is caused from the maryjaney strap across it, but if i remove the shoes, the whole world (husband, brother in law) will have to deal with the sockless shoe choice i have made. i cannot bear to do that. i fear only a scrubbing in the style of Silkwood will heal my feet.

what's that? i'm talking only of the ridiculous? the lame? the pointless? i feel like i need a little bit of that right now. or maybe i should just talk about what is on my mind.

two and a half weeks ago, i didn't really believe in an afterlife. if people die, that's it. maybe it's a belief out of necessity now, but it has changed since bram's death. i can no longer accept that people are just ... GONE. it's going against everything i believed before this, but there have been just these little things that i won't go into now... but just a feeling here and there that he's not just gone. little reminders, little... signs, if you will.

in the last few weeks my older sister has had two of her classmates pass away and after she found out about each one, a song came onto the radio that was completely indicative of the time she spent with them. coincidence? maybe. maybe these things do just happen. maybe during a moment of sobbing in my car it just so happened that the two very songs i associate with bram more than any others songs in this entire world play one after the other.

maybe it seems naive. maybe i'm looking too hard for something. maybe it seems like a childish way to handle it. but whether these things mean something more or are just mere coincidence, i don't think it matters. if it offers me even a sliver of comfort, i'll take it.

but don't you think that if there was ANYONE in this world that would be able to go from life into some sort of energy that is near to us, wouldn't that person be bram???

dear god...

... if you are there, please make the fellow sitting behind me who wears far too much cologne step into a torrential rainstorm to cleanse off what i can only assume to be Sex Panther.

thank you.

... it is lonely here...

... but not alone.

for those of you who don't know...

bram's wife has been updating his two blogs. you can find one here and the other here.
here's a few pics i dug up..


bram wearing an "i'm quitting today" sticker, ready to light up.

me and bram at a party at patrick's house.

bram and that hat.

a sample of our party...

is that meg and chris? nope, it's Holly Golightly and Mr. Varjak!

Mr. Varjak and my husband, the father of my unborn child, the terrorist.

sharon, laura, sean and the notorious MB.

i made cupcakes that look like rodents. it's my way.

me (an impregnanted Sally) and benito.

terrorist dustin (from Mattell!), impregnanted Sally (see the bump?) and Holly Golightly.

the happy expectant couple, Brandeen and Terry.

that wig just got itchy after a while.

props to jegecita...

for this wonderful quote that somehow applies perfectly to bram:

"maybe he was the way he was - you know, twice as good as most people, so important to so many - because he was only gonna be here for half his lifespan. The cosmos sort of squished, or "concentrated" his essential Bram-ness into just 33 short years. I was thinking of frozen orange juice concentrate while typing this analogy....Bram as sort of an undiluted orange juice concentrate, when so many other people are just watered-down......"

it's so true.

*UPDATED*
bram would tell me how his dad would add four cans of water to concentrated juice instead of the directed three cups, 'cause it "makes more juice." this is why jege's analogy is so fantastic.

untitled

this is the first day in 10 days where i've not cried. that's not to say i won't get weepy later. i've been reading poetry today and of course i have come across poems that i think are fitting to what has been going on.

A Reminiscence
by Anne Brontë

YES, thou art gone! and never more
Thy sunny smile shall gladden me;
But I may pass the old church door,
And pace the floor that covers thee.

May stand upon the cold, damp stone,
And think that, frozen, lies below
The lightest heart that I have known,
The kindest I shall ever know.

Yet, though I cannot see thee more,
'Tis still a comfort to have seen;
And though thy transient life is o'er,
'Tis sweet to think that thou hast been;

To think a soul so near divine,
Within a form so angel fair,
United to a heart like thine,
Has gladdened once our humble sphere.

The Answering Machine
by Linda Pastan

I call and hear your voice
on the answering machine
weeks after your death,
a fledgling ghost still longing
for human messages.

Shall I leave one, telling
how the fabric of our lives
has been ripped before
but that this sudden tear will not
be mended soon or easily?

In your emptying house, others
roll up rugs, pack books,
drink coffee at your antique table,
and listen to messages left
on a machine haunted

by the timbre of your voice,
more palpable than photographs
or fingerprints. On this first day
of this first fall without you,
ashamed and resisting

but compelled, I dial again
the number I know by heart,
thankful in a diminished world

---------------
i keep making attempts at writing something to get all this from my head onto paper, but i'm not quite there yet. and when i do get there, i'll write it with a fountain pen, b/c bram felt he could only write with a fountain pen.
for the accidental mercy of machines,
then listen and hang up.

beautiful words...

spoken about a beautiful man by my friend, jason.

an oldie but goodie....

that old favorite game of typing Kari Needs, Kari Wants, Kari thinks... and stuff like that into google and seeing what happens.

KARI needs...
- an effective system
- needs care and attention
- to make a few gonzo pornos to upgrade her resume

KARI wants...
- her tender earlobes pierced
- Ellie to remember that being a good friend is better than having a best friend
- to lump all women who have regretted the abortion decision into a category
- to take her love for art a step further
- to solve her aunt’s murder

KARI thinks...
- this girl has potential
- they'll be romantic
- that special requests must come with a letter from an administrator
- the world of him
- that the old Christmas tree has had enough and suggested to sell it in the next garage sale
- they should try to slice through a smaller machine gun barrel and they choose a Tommy Gun

back from minot

a very long, very emotional weekend. still in a bit of disbelief, but it's more of a "i wish it weren't this way" sort of disbelief, because i'm very aware of how real it is to have lost a best friend. many people said many words of comfort, but in all honestly, the only thing that would really comfort me is to hear that he's not gone.

got back last night after a 7 1/2 hour drive and pretty much hit the road running in regards to work. just finished up my workday a bit ago and now i sit, looking around at the cleaning i need to do, but i just don't feel it yet. tomorrow is cleaning day. no, really, it is. NO REALLY. i mean it this time.

we're having some folks over for a halloween party this saturday and i will now spend the rest of my day looking for creepy recipes online. that's my way. the finger cookies from last year were a big hit.



so we'll see what i can find this year.

i'm easily distracted by the outdoors in fall. i'm currently sitting on the couch where i can look out our picture window and it's really windy out -- there are leaves blowing around like mad in the street. it's actually pretty hypnotic. and very soothing. and now i'm sleepy.

kids are pretty smart.

i went in to wake up abbey this morning and when i went in, she was looking out the window and said "it's raining out. when my dad told me about bram, it was raining. and it's still raining. it's like the world is crying for bram."

smart kid.

my agenda today.

i need to do housework. NEED. no, i don't think you understand...i NEED to get stuff cleaned up. i'm not sobbing uncontrollably right now, therefore i need to tidy up while i'm still able. and yet i'm not tidying up. i'm blogging. i truly am the great procrastinator.

this is our third overcast day in a row. i normally really like weather like this, but this just feels.... yeah.

sometimes people imagine what they would do if someone close to them dies -- not something we LIKE to do, but that pops into our heads, as if to plan how to cope with that. i can honestly say that i never had that thought about bram, b/c i simply assumed that he'd outlive us all -- when someone had energy like he had, it's inconceivable that this happens.

maybe that's why it's been so hard to do anything other than sit on this couch, facing this computer monitor and occasionally look out our big picture window that has shown the exact same grey overcast sky since monday morning.

seeking out some normalcy...

did i spell the word "normalcy" correctly? (dictionary.com says "yes.") i'm doing laundry. loading up my ipod with different music. enjoying how my dog manages to move a pillow around so that it's under her head, just like people do. there's a couple of cats scrappin' in the hallway. i'm taking in the normal things in my house, trying to just get on some sort of even keel.

trying not to fixate on things like how i can't find that picture of bram when he was sleeping on little mermaid sheets at my parent's house, or how unfair it is that there are parents who have to bury their child -- something no parent should ever have to do. or how sad it is that michele and bram didn't get to grow old together, that bram never got to play with grandchildren.

i think it just comes down to the fact that there's so much that is upsetting about this, it's going to take a long time to come to terms with it. and even after that point, i think many of us will still feel as though a part of us is missing.

in usual bram style...

this was the last message i got from him, and it was in regards to my pregnancy:

i've been...

... tied to my email account all day. while doing other things i'm constantly checking to see if there is any news, when really i need to realize there isn't going to be anything i don't already know.

it's as though i keep checking it in the hopes that it will say "JUST KIDDING" or "IT WAS A MISTAKE" or "THIS WHOLE DAY WAS JUST ONE LONG, HORRIBLE FUCKING NIGHTMARE."

and i know this is not the truth, but i still hit the "refresh" button on my browser, because just maybe, JUST MAYBE my wishful thinking will pay off and i'll know that one of the best people to ever walk this planet will still be here.

and i know i'm not the only one grieving -- the fact that there are so many of us who are missing him so much really says something about him as a person. that doesn't make it any easier to breathe when i think about never seeing him again, but it does make me realize how very lucky i was to call him my friend.

this picture makes me smile.

i don't know who took it, i just know it was on his myspace page. let me tell you about my friend, bram. and it's going to be harder than fuck to use past tense regarding him. it's impossible.

after a night of drinking (or during a night of drinking) he'd fry spam. and then actually eat it.

when taking a shot of tequila he'd swish it around in his mouth like mouthwash.

he and our friend Joe would flick each other's penile tip just for fun. (then bram would jump up like a little girl and giggle.)

he and i knew every line in "when harry met sally."

he was an amazing writer, and luckily some of that writing is online at his first blog site, here.

during a the song "puttin' on the ritz" he'd tap along with the tap dance part.

he had a light brown sweater from the gap that, for years (even just a month ago) i'd say was actually mine and that he needed to return it to me.

he'd drink kool-aid from a large glass jar. a REALLY large glass jar.

he hated tuna fish, but once in black box play, had to mix it up with mayo in a ziploc bag.

on our trips to fargo we'd take a corn-cob pipe that he kept in his car, mount a little troll doll on it (yes, he kept this doll in his car as well) and hold it out the window and hum the Wicked Witch theme song.

when he worked at Nite Train Pizza, he once put the phrase "Fire Bad, Pizza Good" on the sign outside.

he had two fish in a very murky 10-gallon aquarium, they were named Fist and Fuck (from a NIN song).

he put up with so much of my shit and stood by me when i was bat-shit crazy.

we'd watch "PCU" all the time. and it was always funny. even when we weren't drunk out of our minds.

he always made fun of the way i thwacked my cigarette on an ashtray... "thwack thwack thwack!"

he'd cook a whole mess o' bacon, then poor the grease into a glass jar where he'd put his used insulin needles and called it "art."

he always had a knack for winning big on pull tabs at a minot strip club.

he growled at my stomach when i was pregnant with abbey and i swear, the first time he talked to her, she made a growling noise.

when he'd pee, it sounded like a fire hose.

----------

i could probably go on and for days. i just don't know any other way to get through this without writing about it. but honestly, i keep feeling like i'm going to wake up any minute and this won't be reality.

i can't stop crying.

one of my best friends has passed away and it's breaking my heart. and it doesn't seem possible -- i heard it, it was said to me twice. and it was as though i couldn't say anything to anyone b/c it couldn't possibly be real. it just can't be.

papa larson and his four girls....

the sound of a fetus.

not my fetus, but you get the idea...

Gabcast! k. larson #1

the smell of october.

is it the smell of decomposing leaves that makes me so happy? i can't quite figure it out, but i love, LOVE the smell.

i'll be outside trying to avoid watching my dog "take a turd" (as abbey says) and i'll close my eyes and inhale (away from aforementioned dog turd) and i smell my playground at campus school.

it's a strange sensation that makes me certain that, when i open my eyes, i'll be on the west playground (or as we called it, "the big kids' side") and there will be the giant A Frame that kids would climb up. or the swing set where i stupidly put my tongue on the rings one winter. or the large hill with round wooden pillars coming off of it that was home to many King of the Hill games. and maybe it's my pregnancy hormones or my nostalgia getting out of control, but i can barely keep myself from crying as i think of it.

leingirlz3, i'll bet you know exactly what i'm talking about.

this post has been a long time coming...

so what have i been up to? why have i been too occupied, too busy to post? i've been busy being nauseous. being tired. peeing every thirty minutes. watching my body slowly morph into something else...something host-like.....

this girl is having a baby, yo!

we found out about two and a half months ago that we're having a baby. given my history with miscarriage, i've opted to wait to discuss the ins and outs of it. and when i can't discuss one thing on the blog, i find that i have a hard time discussing anything. that's the way it works, kiddos.

SO. wednesday, went to see the midwife and after a full range of questions she took out the long-awaited doppler.



she lubed it up with the goop.



and we heard the heartbeat of the fetus. 170 beats per minute, exactly where it is supposed to be.

the word "relief" just doesn't even cover it. so relieved. SO relieved.

after four weeks of 24 hour a day nausea, it's nice to have a break from that and to also be reassured that there is a live creature with a racing heartbeat growing inside of me. (it's more reassuring that it's a fetus instead of some sort of parasitic alien, too.)

funny dream:
dreamed i was having an ultrasound -- they not only saw twins, but one of them was a MONKEY.

and yes, we will find out the gender before birth. why? it's not like it'll be a HUGE surprise...we know it'll either be a boy or a girl, so why wait?

please submit any name ideas (as long as they are not on the top 100 list of popular baby names. we aren't interested in those).

i'm re-watching...

"little miss sunshine." can i just say how amazing steve carrell is in this movie? damn.

i promise, i PROMISE that i'll blog more. and soon. just need to wait a little bit longer. all will be explained soon.

this from cnn. it's just shameful.

Bush vetoes expansion of kids' health insurance program
President Bush on Wednesday vetoed legislation expanding a children's health insurance program by $35 billion over five years.

President Bush says he vetoed the SCHIP bill because it was a step toward "federalizing" medicine.

Bush exercised the veto at 10 a.m. ET before leaving the White House for a trip to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, to discuss the federal budget and taxes.

Speaking in Pennsylvania, Bush said he vetoed the bill because it was a step toward "federalizing" medicine and inappropriately expanded the program beyond its focus on helping poor children.

"I believe in private medicine, not the federal government running the health care system. I do want Republicans and Democrats to come together to support a bill that focuses on the poorer children," the president said, adding the government's policy should be to help people find private insurance.Video Watch Bush explain his veto

Democrats quickly took to the floors of the Senate and House of Representatives to condemn the veto of the bill that received bipartisan support.

"I think that this is probably the most inexplicable veto in the history of the country. It is incomprehensible. It is intolerable. It's unacceptable," said Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Massachusetts, who pleaded with Republicans to help overturn the veto.

Congress sent the legislation on the State Children's Health Insurance Program, or SCHIP, to the White House on Tuesday after the Senate voted 67-29 last week to expand the program.

It appears Congress lacks the votes to overturn Bush's veto. Though 67 votes in the 100-person Senate would suffice to override a veto, the 265-159 House vote on September 25 is short of the two-thirds majority needed. View Bush's and previous presidents' veto records

However, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she would try to get the 15 additional Republican votes she said she needed to overturn Bush's veto, noting that "2-to-1 Republican voters support SCHIP and oppose the president's veto."

"It's very sad that the president has chosen to veto a bill that would provide health care to 10 million American children for the next five years. It is a value that is shared by the American people across the board," Pelosi said.

House Democrats also were quick to compare the bill's $7 billion annual cost to the money spent each month on the Iraq war.

"The president and Republicans in Congress say that we can't afford this bill, but where were the fiscal conservatives when the president demanded hundreds of billions of dollars for the war in Iraq?" asked Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Illinois.

Some House Republicans, however, said Bush was right to veto the bill.

"The public can see that we're playing more political 'gotcha' than we are at really solving problems," said Rep. Todd Akin, R-Missouri, who said the legislation contained "all of these little hidden gizmos, among other things that we're going to provide health care to the children of illegal immigrants."

Akin also said the bill would have led to "a massive expansion of, basically, 'Hillary' socialized medicine," a reference to Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York and her unsuccessful health care efforts as first lady in the 1990s.

Democrats denied the bill would provide coverage to illegal immigrants.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Maryland, said Tuesday that he won't schedule an override vote on SCHIP until next week or later. There is no time limit in the House on when to bring the bill up again.

Under the legislation, the program would double -- from 4 million to 8 million -- the number of children covered.

In the Senate, 18 Republicans joined all of the Democrats in voting to expand the program from its annual budget of $5 billion to $12 billion for the next five years.

Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah was among those Republicans who split from the president. "It's very difficult for me to be against a man I care so much for," he told his colleagues on the Senate floor before the vote. "It's unfortunate that the president has chosen to be on what, to me, is clearly the wrong side of this issue."

A Washington Post-ABC News poll conducted September 27-30 found 72 percent of those surveyed support an increase in spending on the program, with 25 percent opposed. The poll's margin of error was 3 percentage points.

Bush and many Republicans contend the program's original intent would be changed under the bill.

The program gives coverage to parents who make too much to qualify for Medicaid but not enough to buy private insurance for their children. Critics have said their concern is that parents might be prompted to drop private coverage for their children to get cheaper coverage under the bill.

The veto is the fourth of Bush's presidency. After not using his veto power at all during his first four years, the president has vetoed three other bills in his second term: two on stem-cell research legislation and one on a war funding bill with a Democratic timetable for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq.

daytime talk shows...

... are convincing me that forced sterilization is not a bad idea.