I found out, sitting at a picnic table with a friend over my break yesterday evening… I was immediately and irrevocably floored…

It’s not like I didn’t expect it. When he called the very last time he told me he didn’t think it was going to get better this time, but he had faith in his God and hope… But I knew for him to admit that to me meant he was saying goodbye. I cried then, not in his presence of course – but I cried… because of all the people in this world that didn’t deserve this, it was he who never did a truly shitty thing to anyone, he who was always there to help or be a friend, he who could always make me laugh… HE DIDN’T DESERVE THIS.

Later I was struck by it, had my 45 second cry in the fucking bathroom at my work… crouched down like a child playing in the mud… and we’re talking ugly, sobbing, cry. To my credit, the make-up held. (He used to tease I could be sweating buckets down my face, yet my make-up never ran, lol…)

These sorts of things usually don’t bother me like this… Death is part of life and part of the cycle we will all go through… but this one hit hard…

I mean, he used to call me at night when he was doing the traveling construction bit just because he “got lonely” and wanted to talk to someone… and intermittently, following that stint, he’d call just to bs….

Terry kept tabs on me forever. He’d ask about where I was living, what I was doing, my family… all of everything…

He hauled his cookies out to my mom’s every time he knew I was gonna be in town – And every time, even when I weighed 400+, even when I was crippled up, even this last time in July 2018 when I knew he wasn’t feeling his best, he would bellow: “HOOOOOOLLIE!!!” the instant he saw me – Then scoop me up off the ground in a giant hug.

I’ve known that boy for most of my life… 36 years of it, anyway…
We went to the principals office together in first grade, me for something I didn’t do and he for something he did… I stood by him and we got in trouble together. I convinced him to help me steal a giant “road closed” sign during a blazing hot summer day while we were in high school. (Don’t judge! The entire time he kept telling me as he hefted the behemoth into the bed of my truck that he was NOT helping me steal that sign!) I tricked him into joining FHA in the wayback and he actually enjoyed it!

Crap! He even took me on a date, lumpy old me, back when we were 15, lol, and years later he actually came to my house to tell me the morning after he lost his virginity… and how he always thought it would be me who took it, lol… But I never would make any move (and no, I didn’t even consider that until he mentioned it that day, and it was immediately dismissed with peaks of laughter from us both, lol!)

He’d check in on my mom as the years rolled on and help her around the house with little repairs and projects in my absence. He was always good for a story and a laugh… He was my friend. He never judged, was never mean. I don’t think he knew how to be that way…

He was the only person I knew that long that was still actually there, really there, not because he was family. Not because I gave him anything, or he felt like he owed me anything or because he wanted something…

But just there because he wanted to be…

The funeral is Saturday. I have no $$ for a flight, so I’m gonna have to either pray for cheap last minute flights I’ll purchase the day before I fly out or drive that lonely 18 hours x 2 by myself… I won’t even be able to call him to help pass the time.

I have to go. I just have to… I have to say goodbye to my oldest friend for the very last time.

And she thinks I’m too loud, but her friend finds me too quiet…

And I’m definitely too much on the whole…
but still not quite enough.

There are times when I’ve been handsome, beautiful even, when the mood strikes you… yet entirely too plain, too ugly, too average for most.

Let’s take note — I was too serious, yet far too funny… Too tough, too soft… Too friendly, yet distant… so very distant.

Sometimes I’m just too smart, too experienced, too informed, yet I know nothing, can’t hold my own, and am such a dumbass…

Tomorrow I’ll be just right, but today I’m just not?
Yesterday though… yesterday I was perfect… but still I wasn’t… just ask him.

And everyone has an opinion, like somehow my body, my personality, my actions, my very soul is up for debate, correction, change at the whim of the public, the call of the masses, the directive of the individual… the demand of you…

So fuck it, I think. Who cares what the collective you thinks, what you want, what you need…

Yet I do care! I want the world to voicelessly proclaim in silent adoration how much I’ve suffered, how greatly I’ve performed, how far I’ve exceeded expectation, how worthy I am of spoils beyond number for what I’ve done, what I will do… what I wish I’d done…

But realistically I know we are programmed to see the faults. We are designed to see what’s wrong, what can be better, what isn’t like us… or isn’t like how we’d like to see ourselves, more likely…

So I’ll simply continue to be too me…
And you can continue to be way too you…

And we’ll absolve ourselves to disagreeing about our general perfection and imperfection as we must… as we should.

The holidays they come and go and with them are reminders of all the people who I’ve seen come and go in this world… each holding a part of who I am in their special way.

For instance, yeah… I remember Finn’s face… but it’s his hands, the freckles on his skin, the wild hair that strikes me… The things I can imagine him saying… him bleaching my first highlights into my long hair… him teaching me the tools of my trade, even way back then…

Measuring 2.75″ x 4.25″, it may be diminutive in size, but not in our hearts

Created for a design class, this edition features grown-up me sporting a few of the hairstyle I had as a kid. From Trendy and On-point to Failing and Gasp-worthy, all are represented here. Take a peek into my world as I am transformed by pen and ink into a teenage girl again… Or my hair is at the very least.

Printable Available Here, as a PDF. Just print on both sides of your page, then Fold & Cut like this… and it’s yours! OR you can PayPal InfamousMsH@gmail.com $2 for printing and shipping and I can send you your very own copy all made up as it should be! (Make sure to include your mailing address in the PayPal comments section   Personal remarks in the margins & signed copies are included upon request if extra is added in — I just love tips! )

>> UPDATE <<

NOW YOU CAN HAVE FUNNY HAIR, TOO!

Download THIS. Fold and cut like the one above. Slice out the “Your Face Here” bits, and replace with pics of yourself and – BAMM! You’re a SUPERSTAR!!

Thanks and have a fantastic day,
~Hollie

January was fairly sedate. A few birthday parties, some festivities, and a lot of downtime was what it had to boast.

Heavy Snow? Come at me brah!

Registering my troop for Northland Encampment this May.

Coffee Party!

My Monday Walk @ Macken

During the Impromptu Roadtrip From Hell!

Baby Brother

Just like the snow, December came with little warning and disappeared just as quickly. In fact, this entire year has seemed to fly by. It seems only a few days ago that we were spending New Year’s Eve fixing a broken couch and watching bad films as we waited to welcome 2013… And here we are, once again, on New Year’s Eve, waiting to usher in yet another new year… And so goes the cycle.

Here are a few of my favorite December 2013 pics.

Miranda experimenting with different methods of delivering snacks. (Yes, that’s a roller skate!)

In mid-December, we travelled to my paternal grandmother’s house to take part in the traditional tree trimming.

Christmas morning, I went to wake Jas and found him alone in bed with a green M&M… Maybe there’s something to those commercials that portray her as the leggy cartoon character!

Mae after opening her present from Jas & I. I couldn’t have nailed this one any better if I’d tried!

This is the time on Christmas when we rest! ;D

Jas & the girls putting together their Visible T-Rex. I said it looked like he’d just helped a mama dino birth a skeletal baby!

Goodbye good memories. This restaurant has been a staple of the girls’ childhood as their grandmother used to take them there quite often. On this evening, we found that it had closed its doors for good. Miranda and Mae both thought of it as a favorite because of all the great times they had with their grandmother.

Have a happy new year!
~H

Photo Credits: All Photos within this post were taken, modified, and/or belong to Alex Steiner.

Hey, Alex,

How’s the afterlife? Seeing that you’re new there, you probably don’t have it all down just yet. But I bet you’ve got a good bead on things just the same. Of course, those of us you’ve left behind are stuck here first wondering why. Then accepting the inevitability of what has transpired and, finally, knowing that this is not some joke. That you are gone. That they’d seen pieces of this floating downstream for months. That they wish they’d said something, done something, been something in that final moment where persuasion might have actually been met with understanding. Where certainty still could crumble into something other than where we are now… But we didn’t. You did. That’s that.

I hope the trip was uneventful. (or at least uneventful in a negative way… I’m all for positive right now.)

I see all these people posting all this really great stuff about you on your wall and I tend to concur. There is nothing that prepared me for the news… and yet there is so much that did prepare me for it. I see messages we sent. Snail Mail I’ve yet to return favor. Your warnings written in understated clicks and paintings of light… Well, I have now opened my box of shimmery beautiful regret and I am floored by it. Your absence is deafening… Seriously, it roars in foreign tongues and stupors long since past and yet to be had. In fact, it’s been roaring at me for a week, yet I did nothing. I mentioned it in my journals. Spoke of it to Jas. Even made note of it in my over-cluttered mind. But I didn’t reach out. I kick myself for not saying anything. Something. But that was inevitable, too… I mean, your absence has been screaming at me since before you were self-silenced. Something had to give. I guess everything had to give, right?

I know that I was almost seduced by the roses and posies pasted on your wall. I almost delved deep into my admiration and bled all over it. (Yes, I used the term admiration. Look it up. It defines things pretty well.) But I didn’t. It all just seemed too public for someone who was herself, so public… yet not. Someone who padded herself with fuzzy, kitten-smelling barbed-wire, razor-sharp snails, OkCupid transcripts, and art photos while only publicly hinting at the state of all things Alex. We all know nothing I could put up there would be as good a tribute as what you’d posted yourself and I just don’t want to fuck that up. Besides, maybe it would mean something to know that I am writing about you on something that belongs to me. That I was spreading the gospel of Alex Steiner outside of the construct you had created.

A few weeks ago, you messaged me. You’d not really randomly message me in a very long time and I thought it was odd, but pleasant. I felt shone upon that you’d chosen me to help pass your time. You were, at the time, still recovering from that awful job that you hated. We talked about how horrible it was and how you tried to make it seem funny or fun, but that it wasn’t. You discussed how you come on so fierce and so strong, when inside you’re crumbling into a “little heap.” You were talking about how you’d stopped your medication and how that probably wasn’t the best idea, but that you were doing it anyway. You apologized for being a “lonely, borderline alcoholic” and drunkenly messaging me. I hate that the brief moment was pretty much our last real exchange. I hate that there has to be a last real exchange.

I still keep thinking this must be a joke. But the more I think, the more I know it isn’t. I mean, I had seen you pretty dark before, but there was an ostentatious quality about it. A commerciality  if you will. Something bigger than the words, like you were playing to an arena, and your flair for the dramatic always let me know you were going to be ok… But that last time there wasn’t any of that. It was just you and as much as you apologized, I always liked you for you. No apologies needed. Whatsoever.

Photo Credits: All Photos within this post were taken, modified, and/or belong to Alex Steiner.

As the weeks went by, your updates were at times slightly more aggressive, yet also withdrawn. You seemed more insecure, publicly as well as privately. As the end came closer, your postings became more erratically timed until they were pretty much gone. I felt oddly suspicious. I told myself you were preparing to kill off this account. That I just hadn’t received an invite to the next one, if there was even going to be a next one. But I never thought…

No! That’s not true! I did think for a split second: “Has Alex hurt herself? Has she done what she hinted at?” I brushed it off, but I did think it. When you said to me “I’m going to be off of here for a while,” in the most sedate way you could, I thought “Why?” Now I suppose I know why. When Jay, the catalyst for our friendship, posted on your wall, I knew that those thoughts and feelings I’d had were now justified. As the hours went by, it became painfully clear: Alex had done exactly what I was afraid she had done… And I wasn’t so surprised. Hurt? Yes. Saddened? Definitely… But surprised? No…

I just wish your sails had filled with a different wind, taken a different path, and that I could write you this letter and know that you’d actually be there to read it.

So I guess I’ll just say: I miss you already, Alex. I miss you because you were a link to a part of me that had long since past, but that I cared deeply about, and because you were just so very singular in a world full of so much of exactly the same. I hope you find what you’re looking for out there. (I mean it.) You deserve only the best things. (I mean that, too.)

Safe travels, sweet friend,
~H

Photo Credits: All Photos within this post were taken, modified, and/or belong to Alex Steiner.

November felt rushed. Too many things to do. Too much responsibility. Too few breaks… And my photos reflect that. They are uninspired, tired, and rather utilitarian. Not at all what I strive for or what I enjoy.

As an aside, I really think that I’ve bitten off a little more than I can chew on all personal fronts and I am hoping I can reorganize or delegate some of my responsibilities in the upcoming months so that I don’t feel so overwhelmed. However, since that is not what’s happening now, here are my November photos.

Fat Lip Hollie

Wetlands Workshop with the Brownies @ The KC Zoo

Miranda: Big Head, Tiny Legs

Cooking with Mae: Cheesecake Crust

Photo Bomb Mae – Ever the ham, Mae just couldn’t help herself!

October ushered in cooler weather, family travel, and a generally good time! We started the month by participating in the Gladfest Parade with the Girl Scouts, then we went on a trip to St. Louis mid-month to celebrate my cousin’s wedding. By the end, I found myself buried in burlap as I attempted to finish Miranda’s costume in time for the Trick-or-Treat festivities.

Take a peek!

Miranda as Sam from the movie Trick-or-Treat. It took me quite some time to get it this far and there’s so much more to do before she takes it to Comicon 2014!

Miranda holding the head of her alter ego

Starbucks on a very cool, very early Sunday morning!

Cupcakes in celebration of Juliette Lowe’s Birthday after our troop volunteered at a local food bank.

The annual Haunted Hollie pic.

Mae dreaming of her own wedding, many years away!

Part of my troop after they walked in the Gladfest Parade early in the month.

Thanks for looking and have a great November,

~H

September was a month of planning. Our Girl Scout troop started its new member year, the children were settling into their new school year, Halloween costumes were discussed, and fun was had!

Favs:

The cries of undead children could be heard throughout the Cracker Barrel that day… Or maybe that was just Miranda Anne’s cries of hunger!

Skeleton in my closet, or just on my back?

A day out with the girls in historic Weston. Much wine was consumed… Much fun was had.

Air Hockey Queen

And that, my friends, is all! Thanks for peering into my little world and, until next we speak, I wish you a perpetually fulfilling existence!
~H