10/31

Rick is a bastard
Leaving me here with Bob, ugh
Happy Birthday jerk

November 1st, 2014

Now Playing: The Clash - Should I Stay or Should I Go

Well, I got Drunk Quinn's note and raided half of Bob's candy much to his chagrin. Silly eldritch demiwhatever, you have no power to stand between Quinn Renee of House Heartt and CHOCOLATE. Yeah motha*****, don't you know who I am? I mean seriously. **** my head hurts. My head is filled with the stabbing of three hundred Spartans (before the whole issue with the Ephialtes ****ing them over, you know) and I know I need to go grab a bottle of water or something, because you don't drink the water here in Rhy'Din. Why? I figure it's like Mexico. Anyways. I need to grab water but I just wanna pop the cork on another bottle of merlot, get in the tub and stew in bubbles until I'm more pruned than Joan Rivers (rest her soul) should have been.

**** me.

I don't know where Rick is. Hell, I don't know where he is most of the time. And this worries me badly. It would have worried me in Boston or Chicago or Rio or Barcelona, but only a little bit. Here, here is a horse of a different color. Rhy'din is the Nevernever on crack. Where humans and faeries and demons and monsters and gods coexist (mostly) peacefully side by side. And Rick is out there in that. Alone. Or at least I think he's alone.

That's ****ing terrifying dude. Notebook, you're a dude now. Yay tree that became you. He's alone. He's always alone even when he's home. I don't know how to get through to him. First it was his friend Lila's death. What was up between them, I have no idea. I figure it's much like many who come into Rick's life, someone so inexplicably broken that he can't help but feel some soulful kinship with them and want to help. Who is he to help when he can barely help himself? Who am I to criticize him for that when I can't help him either.

Le sigh, notebook, le sigh. First that girl offed herself. It sucked. It was terrible and gruesome and painful and it hurt Rick something fierce. He radiated guilt for weeks, months maybe. And then the diner happened. I still haven't got the full story out of him but whatever it was, was so awful that I worry it might have broke him for good. Whatever it was shut his magic away and jeeze, I wondered if he had been hit by a death curse or something. We already dealt with that once upon a however long ago it was with the stupid yoma and shit , but God. Not again. With the little bit that I know, I've been trying to research and find something, anything really, that can help him.

No luck. I can't help him. I can't save him. It hurts even being near him. So he's alone and where am I? Sitting in an empty bedroom while I wonder where he's at and if he's okay. He won't answer his phone. Not like he really did before, he hated that thing. So for now I wait and hope and pray he comes back. Maybe if he's not home by tonight I'll go home and go to mass in the morning with Dad. There's been a lot in my life these past few years to make me question my faith but maybe, just maybe, if I give it the old college try, I can make this whole prayer thing work.


~Q

November 3rd, 2014

Now Playing: Ed Sheeran - I See Fire (Kygo Remix)

Judas Thaddaeus. One of the original twelve. Not that Judas, not the betrayer. No, he would do me little good here. Jude of James, Judas the Zealot, he of many names. But ultimately the only one that matters is the Patron Saint of Lost Causes. I brought him and another home with me, perhaps they can be what I need.

I came home from Boston with more questions than answers, having hoped that mass might clear my head. Father Doherty spoke on battling the unbelief of despondency. It got me right in the feels. I've... hmm... struggled, I suppose, with my faith as of late. Living in a world of unreal things provides such a clash with what I was taught that it's impossible not to question everything. But this one made sense. Not from the point of view of a relationship with God, but instead with others in life. I wish Rick could have heard it.

When my heart was grieved
and my spirit embittered,
I was senseless and ignorant;
I was a brute beast before you.
Yet I am always with you;
you hold me by my right hand.
You guide me with your counsel,
and afterward you will take me into glory.
Whom have I in heaven but you?
And earth has nothing I desire besides you.

There was more, but I couldn't write quickly enough to get it all down. I've reread it so many times that I think I've got it committed to memory. I don't want to forget these words. Maybe I can share them with Rick. Not now. Maybe down the line.

Bob stole his candy back while I was gone. He's lucky my mood is such shit or else I'd nail the basement door shut and see how it likes it when I turn off the modem.

Back to the saints. St. Jude, patron saint of lost causes. St. Anthony of Padua, patron saint of seekers of lost articles. I see these two pendants side by side and it's an odd sort of contrast. I bought the St. Anthony one off of little old Mexican lady selling religious items from a stall in East Boston. The St. Jude one, well that one is special. Dad says it was Mom's Mom's. Nana passed before Mom did even so it's not like I knew either. He still passed it on to me, just like she wanted. And now I'm going to make sure it goes to better use.

Winter is coming. No, I don't mean Game of Thrones shit. But winter's coming and I've got Rick's jacket here, cut open and I'm praying to every god in existence that he won't come home. Ironic, right? I've been hoping he'll just come home already for like a week. Anyways, this is like my Hail Mary pass to the big guy upstairs. We'll see if He catches it. Anyways, I can't tell Bob or Mary I'm doing this because they need plausible deniability, so journal dude, this falls on you. Plus it'll remind me if I forget and freak out about where I put them. Seam of the left front panel, right next to the buttons so it doesn't feel too out of place, one by one button, the other by another.

Maybe Rick'll find what he's looking for. Maybe he'll find himself.

He can come home now.

November 28th, 2014

Now Playing: She & Him - I'll Be Home For Christmas

I'm back in Rhy'din though I'm loath to call it home. The fridge is loaded with Thanksgiving leftovers, the Christmas tree is up and aglow, the merlot is full bodied and good. And I'm alone. Even when he's here (a seldom thing, that), I'm alone. They say that home is where the heart is and while my heart is always with him, I know not where he is at this hour or any. I thought we were onto something... progress maybe the night of his fight. Short lived. Once the warmth of the liquor faded and the day's first light rose, his hurt returned and so he slipped away like some specter of the night. He's out of my reach, drawn so far into the darkness of his mind that I don't think even the brightest of flames could bless him with its light.

It hurts to be around him. So much so that willingly going to a place of violence and fighting was a welcome reprieve in comparison. I watched him fight, I cheered him on, I hoped and prayed that maybe this would be some sort of positive outlet. Rick is no brawler, no, not in the least but rather a patchwork technique of evasion and lightning quick blows that have been picked up over the years. The nailbiter of a fight went into overtime and much like the usual for him, he pulled it off by the skin of his teeth. Some risky maneuver that could have cost him the fight. In his drunkenness, I'm not sure if he realized it. Or if he even cared. We went home together that night for a night of takeout and vino and other unmentionables. For a few hours it was like the old times. Old times that feel like a distant memory at this point. It's only been seven months since it all went to hell... less if you jump off from the point at which he was shot. Everything before that may as well have been a life away.

One day after Thanksgiving, less than twenty-four hours after Dad and Sox and I sat around the dinner table and talked about the stupid superficial things that we're thankful for, I am reminded of everything I wish I could change.

I am thankful for my health.
I wish I could give it to Rick. To make him better. To heal what ails him whether it be physical or psychological or spiritual. I'm not sure what it is, but he's sick. Whether it's in his head or truly physical, he won't say.

I am thankful for my family.
Even if it feels like my chosen family is falling apart. Even Bob isn't around as much as before, having found some sort of social group with his fighting team. It's weird. But maybe it's better.

I told my dad I was thankful for the new start offered by our move to Rhy'din. I hate lying to him. I've done it many times over the years, usually about trivial, stupid shit or about things that would endanger him if he knew. Never about my happiness though. I hope he never finds out. It was my fault we moved here. It was supposed to be something fresh. Good for business. But truth be told, business flourishes anywhere Rick goes, he finds a way to make it work. In his absence, I've become painfully aware of how ineffectual I am in the grand scheme of things. No amount of hyper-organization makes up for the gut instinct that man has.

I miss my partner. Worse, I miss my best friend.

Time for a vodka run.

December 30th, 2014

Now Playing: Mumford & Sons - Winter Winds

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
and never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
and auld lang syne?
For auld lang syne, my jo,
for auld lang syne,
we?ll tak' a cup o? kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.
And surely ye?ll be your pint-stoup!
and surely I?ll be mine!
And we?ll tak' a cup o? kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.
We twa hae run about the braes,
and pou?d the gowans fine;
But we?ve wander?d mony a weary fit,
sin' auld lang syne.
We twa hae paidl?d in the burn,
frae morning sun till dine;
But seas between us braid hae roar?d
sin' auld lang syne.
And there?s a hand, my trusty fiere!
and gie's a hand o? thine!
And we?ll tak' a right gude-willie waught,
for auld lang syne.

Every New Year's Eve at the stroke of midnight, my dad drunkenly sings Auld Lang Syne at the top of his lungs. I swear all of Dot can probably hear him and any other night of the year, he'd be liable to get shot for it... or at least have something thrown at him... but for one night, he gets away with it. And though my father has never been outside of the United States in all of his forty-six years, he gets this Irish sounding brogue and sounds like Pop Pop. It's beautiful and hilarious and home. This year, I'm gonna see if Rhy'Din picks up the Twilight Zone marathon.

I'm homesick.

Quinn Renee Heartt does not get homesick. So what's the deal? Travel the world over, not a problem in the world. Go on dangerous adventures in mythical realms, not a single fuck given. Spend a little time alone in a relatively safe place, I may as well be floating by myself in deep space, Earth but a glimmer in a far off galaxy beyond what the eye can see.

Bob is sick too.

Maybe more than homesick, I'm scared.

I can't sit by and watch anymore.

2015 New Year's Resolutions:
-Find a way to save Rick
-Find a way to fix Bob/take out stock in Kleenex
-Remember to write 2015 instead of 2014

~Q

April 5th

The good and the bad
So which is which anymore?
I'm not even sure