Regularly Scheduled Programming

I know I have bombarded everyone within earshot and screenshot with A Band of Ghosts and the South by Southwest Music Festival the past week/couple of weeks.  I truly appreciate your patience with me.  Final tally isn't in yet, but at around 11:58pm last night, they were in 2nd place.  It's looking good for them to make it to the next round, even if they didn't get the top spot.  This is amazing considering the other contenders had thousands of Facebook likes and/or friends.  ABOG has 428.  Their first video was posted to YouTube this past week and already has over 900 views.  They are really incredible and THANK YOU for voting and helping get them closer to an opportunity to show their talent to others.

Now, back to my shit.

You know what's great?  This SXSW contest has taken so much focus, it has kept me from wallowing in my sadness and grief that would have normally enveloped me by now.  Instead of working and going to bed immediately upon arriving home, I would Tweet, Facebook, email, and blog to get votes and raise awareness for this band I believe in and Kelly's talent.  Too bad it didn't cover the next two weeks.

Today, I went to get a steroid shot in my ass.  I know that seems off topic, but hold on.  This funky semi-winter weather is messing with my asthma.  My pulmonolgist does not play.  Via email, she managed to get me into her office for a steroid injection without an appointment in the span of about two hours and she wasn't even on campus.  I love her.  Anyway, the receptionist was a class A bitch because I wasn't in her computer.  I work in a pretty good sized medical center.  We're pushing good customer service right now and she was a definite no-no.  She sent me wandering through the back halls to find a nurse on my own because she was "busy with something else and you can see if somebody else knows what you're talking about".  Alrighty then...  She has no idea that I'm not a quiet person or that I know half the 12,000 people employed here.  I saw one of them, and simply mentioned to him she'd been a bitch and he went to get her manager.  This manager happened to have worked at the OB office where I went when I was pregnant with Olivia 12 years ago AND her name is Olivia.  Talk about a small world.

She asked how my daughter is.  Holy shit balls.  Not only did I have to say my Olivia had died, but being in the medical profession, she asked all those questions about the whys and hows.  She was very kind, considerate and not rude at all.  It's just different.  A bank teller would probably just cry and never dream to wonder if it was a heart defect, a chromosome defect on the short arm of 22 or a TBI with catastrophic results.

I answered.  I answered all of them and tried to talk about Olivia.  The problem is the timing.  I've been so wrapped up in other stuff that the emotional flood I thought was just a stream this year was, in fact, only held back by a dam of distraction.  I didn't get to tell her all the wonderful times and things about my Olivia.  I had to get through it as quickly as possible so I didn't break down.

I think I have to get back to my original plan...I need to talk...I need to write...I need to honor Olivia's memory.  I assure you, they won't be all sad.  My girl was fun!  She had a great sense of humor that was much more mature than her years.  She was definitely her mother's child.

Our song is in my head.  I love you Carly Simon for writing it.  I love you Anne Grant for introducing me to it.  We played it over and over and over.  She even wanted me to sing it to her.  Thank you Kristen Faulkner for the beautiful framed version on my wall.  And so it begins...

Photos by Anne Grant photograpy