The one I wrote just before her funeral.

I tried to draw you, but my fingers still shake,

I tried to sing about you, but my voice still cracks,

I tried to describe you, but I still can't do you justice,

I tried to listen to others, but the one you were with me is the special one that I want to keep.

With every day that passes, you will keep forever within my heart

Your image will stay with me as I move on where you cannot.

I will hear your laugh when I find something I know you would love.

My love for you will move, as I do, through the years.

I will draw you in my heart,

I will sing to you with every breath I take,

I will describe you to myself every day

And I will listen to others about you, knowing it will make you stronger in my soul.

I love you, Mom.

I will miss you always

Autumn Hobson 04/07/2010

Mother

Mother
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English moder, from Old English mOdor;aking to Old High German muoter mother, latin mater, Greek mEtEr, Sanskrit mAtr
1 a: a female parent, b: a woman in authority; specifically: the superior of a religious community of women, c: an old or elderly woman
2. Source, Origin mother of invention>
3. Maternal tenderness or affection
4: [short for motherfucker] sometimes vulgar: Motherfucker
5: something that is an extreme or ultimate example of its kind especially in terms of scale

How many definitions do there need to be to describe one person?
Considering that a mother can be an infinite number of things to any one person, I suppose there can be infinite definitions to describe her.

Mother love is the fuel that enables a normal human being to do the impossible. ~Marion C. Garretty, quoted in A Little Spoonful of Chicken Soup for the Mother's Soul

My mother has made me more brave than she will ever know. She has let me know, in no uncertain terms, that the road of my life is going to be difficult, that I will fall, but that I will also get back up and keep moving. She made sure that I not only knew how to think for myself, but that I knew how to think. The positive things, that have made me who I am, come from both of my parents, but without my mother I would have been lost. She showed me that you can have a sense of humor when you look at your life, even at its most desperate time and that you can be quite serious if you need be in the funniest situations.

Mother - that was the bank where we deposited all our hurts and worries. ~T. DeWitt Talmage

I have never had the chance to fell that I was unloved or unwanted. She never allowed that. My mother was not only someone that I could and did look up to, but she was the person that all the kids I knew looked up to. Every student she has taught and every person she's known has loved my mother just for being herself. 

If I had a single flower for every time I think about you, I could walk forever in my garden. ~Attributed to Claudia Ghandi

As I walk through the streets of my life

As I listen to he music that surrounds me

When I look into the starts

Anytime I drive past a red convertible

When I'm confronted with 

Strange rock formations, pyrite and quartz

You will forever be in my mind

Your influence on me has been great

And I shall always be a better person

For having been raised by you.

I love you, Mah!

Happy Mother's Day

Autumn Hobson 05/10/07

So I am taking the summer and next semester off of school. I need to work full time and work on my finances so that I can get my own place. I've missed my freedom. Granted, I would rather not have it at the hands of the situation I was dealt. But it is what it is. There is nothing I can say or do to bring her back. So I move foreward, however reluctantly that may be.

I may start baking. Perhaps for money. I'm not sure how all of that will pan out yet. I suppose as long as I keep the prices under the local bakeries, I can make some money. Not at first, but eventually. I have also been considering doing a number of other creative things on the side, like learning to weld and doing metal sculpturing. Or jewelry and knitting...whichever. I have the need to be creative and productive, I am just not sure where to start. Anyone want to be my guinea pig taste tester? I can take requests. You tell me what you want made and I'll attempt it. :)

Anyway, I'm avoiding homework and school right this minute to write this. That's ok. I only have 2 more weeks of school left. And then no more until Spring. I need the break anyway. I have been so lethargic about the work and that was before my mom died. You can imagine how I feel now. I finally found the things I had written my mom that I read at the funeral. I'll post them separately in the next blog. This is a short one and I'm hoping to actually use this thing more for cathartic purposes.

My mom's Obituary

Joanne “Jo” Madelyn Kaupp Hobson passed away on April 3, 2010. She would have been 55 on April 12. Joanne had a passion for science and her ability to make others understand it contributed greatly to her success as a teacher. She was extremely proud of her years spent at St. Tammany Jr. High, Chalmette and Salmen High, and Slidell Jr. High. She received Teacher-of-the-Year twice and numerous awards throughout her career. She was beloved by the thousands of students that passed through her hands over her 20 years in the classroom. She had a Bachelor’s degree in Biology Education from the University of New Orleans but her passion from childhood was in Geology and Space sciences. Her love and interest for the NASA space program resulted in a long-standing relationship with Rocketdyne that allowed her to broaden the minds even further of those she taught. Her love for it and the humor she used in and out of the classroom were contagious and these things made her unforgettable. Her death leaves a black hole in the hearts of many and a vast empty space, difficult to fill, for any who knew her. She will be greatly missed.

Joanne was preceded in death by her parents, Gerard and Ruth Kaupp. She is survived by her husband, Jim Hobson, her children, Jesse and Wendy Hobson, Autumn Hobson, and Holly and Dale Goodman, and her grandchildren, Tyler, Joey, and Arianna Hobson and Carlin and Ella Goodman. She is also survived by her siblings, Tom and Cindy Kaupp, Jeri Ann and Tom Barron, Kathy and Gerard Gambino and Gerard Kaupp, Jr. She will also be missed by a host of nieces and nephews. Her family expresses regret that they are not able to fulfill her final wishes of being shot into space on the next shuttle mission, so they will be having an open wake and service for all those that wish to pay their respects. The wake will be held at Honaker-Forest Lawn Cemetary in Slidell on Thursday from 6-9pm with a service at 7:30.

Self Importance and Other Issues

I think that mental illness is less hereditary than it is a problem with familiarity. I am beginning to recognize, in myself, the fact that I become various degrees of unstable depending on my proximity to those that are unstable or mentally ill. The only thing I can think of to compare it to is that of an animal charging. If you see a bull coming at you, nostrils flaring, and you can't manage to get out of the way in time, you instinctively prepare yourself for the impact. Your body curls into a standing fetal position, trying to cover sensitive organs, etc. In that respect, I think that crazy tends to be challenged with crazy. If someone begins a behavior around you suddenly, like screaming incoherently, most people tend to react by retreating, grabbing the person trying to make them focus, or, more commonly, screaming back. This really doesn't accomplish much, but I can see it as some form of emotional block to what the brain perceives as danger.

I feel unstable and out of my normally logical state of mind when I'm closer to crazy. But, like with anything I do, this realization came on me like a shower. That among a few other things this week. I am a random thinker. That is not to say that I'm spacey. Every one of my thoughts tends to originate somewhere perfectly logical. But my mind is the greatest player of the word/identity association game. For example, if I'm thinking about Fruit Leather, I have the tendency to be almost instantly hungry for either white rice and Japanese chicken or Thai food. And if I'm not hungry and I'm thinking about Fruit Leather, I can be almost instantly reminded to take the medicine for my diabetes. The reasons for this are random associations in my head that happen within fractions of a second but of which I remember every link. I first learned about Fruit Leather in Colorado at the office. The girl who introduced them was named Kelly. She was a girl who was totally into hiking. She also worked with Somer, who was from down here. Somer talked me into trying Thai food from a local place once when I was attempting to stray from the normal Taco Bell and Quiznos. The first time wasn't good, but then I found a couple flavors I liked and a place I loved and I was a Thai food junkie. When I'm not hungry, I remember a conversation had with a bunch of us, including Kelly, about the various medical problems that women suffer and hormones. That led me to my own issues, reasons, all the medical problems that go along with my hormone problems, the reason I now have diabetes and voila! my medicine. So that's a small taste of how my brain functions, but the links are not always that closely related. Here are a couple more of the revelations I've come up with this week.

Last semester I was referred to as a kiss ass because one of my professors hit on a nerve that I'm just really good at. Come to think of it, that probably has something to do with the aforementioned way that my brain functions. Anyway, we were researching a 7-page play. We had to present a book on that play as if were were going to film it. Character and story boards, script break down, and reference material to the time and place. The play was J.M. Synge's "Riders to the Sea." Well I was able to find all sorts of really interesting information that tied in to the time frame, what Synge had in mind when he wrote it, the personal influences for the play itself as well as what the characters would really have worn and the origins of the lines in the script. My did my association trick with keywords in Google. It worked, I got an A in the class. This semester, I'm already at it. The first day of classes, I managed to score a job with my previous professor to be the design assistant for the two upcoming plays at UNO. That is part of my class credit. I feel important. Something that tends to lack most of the time in my life. I will end up working my ass off in this venture and in this class where I will lack in others that my importance is no more, or less, than others there. This annoys me about myself, but it's still the truth. I like the feeling that it gives me when someone is visibly impressed with something I've done. Like the rest of humanity, I'm constantly in search of approval on one level or another.

The other thing came to me yesterday. And it started from the word, "sorry." Romance for me is not something I think about often. I repell advances when I get them and I really don't get them often, for obvious reasons. That aside, the idea of romance in normal society is one that sounds pretty and can be very beautiful. But it ends up being annoying because it is so generalized. I suppose you could consider it commercialized romance. A rose, a teddy bear, dinner, holding a door, etc. Tripping it up from time to time helps break the monotony. Too much of it can get to be just as bothersome as having none and a lack of emotion in a relationship.

I have actually stopped dating guys that I would consider to be classically romantic. They are the "nice" guy that I will only end up hurting because I know they will get on my nerves. Unfortunately, there is not a lot of comeback from that. As with anything I write, I thought about this only randomly and analyzed it minimally until I suddenly hit on the subject from a random tangent thought. I whispered "sorry" to someone in class yesterday morning and almost right after, my muse hit me upside the head with the realization.

I like dangerous romance.

To me, romance is less about puppy dogs and flowers and more about menace. Artistic and beautiful menace. Even in minute doses. Being in a large crowd and being whispered to by him. Even something simple as "I can't wait until we're alone." A dark, mysterious look from across the room. Being made to feel utterly feminine solely because of the overwhelming maleness of my counterpart. These are all menacing and dangerous feelings. Let's leave aside that I like to play the historically classic female role in a relationship (women's lib people beware...). That is, I play that role without compromising who I am and my own thoughts and mind. I still want the romance, but I can only take the sweet stuff in small doses.

I don't really have an ending to all of these thoughts. I suppose I hope I never do. As long as I'm still finding out about myself, I'm still alive. In the meantime if any of this information ends up useful to me in a meaningful way, then I'll have accomplished something.

Too Fat to Graduate

Lincoln University, in Pennsylvania, will soon be implementing a rule they set in on the incoming freshmen of 2006. Graduating seniors must have their BMI (Body Mass Index) tested before they apply for graduation. If their BMI is 30+, they are required to take a fitness course before they are allowed to receive their diplomas. Their reasoning is to promote healthy behaviors the same way they promote good math skills with basic mathematics courses.

I understand the need to promote healthy living and wise choices when you are sending students out into the world. I think it's a phenomenal and bold idea to be so actively geared towards helping out the next generation of movers and builders. We are a rather obese country, speaking in general terms. Fitness is a fad that comes and goes amongst the lower and middle classes. It's been sticking around a bit more in the last few years and that's great. I genuinely hope that we, the fat and unhealthy of this great land, are able to get with (and stick with) the program to get us on the right tract.

That being said...

Why on earth would Lincoln University think that it is at all acceptable to intrude to deeply into their student's lives as to require a testing of their body fat in order to allow them to graduate from college? The last time I checked, academic aptitude is what tells you whether or not you have earned your certificate or degree. The passing of courses related to the program in which you are enrolled is what determines the ability to use that degree towards a job and a life. Oh, let's not leave out the fact that the majority of these students have paid a rather large amount of money to take these courses, prove themselves to professors and college administrators over and over again. I guess I never realized that an individual's body structure has any merit, at all, over how that person is going to function in the world, where knowledge in the field of study should suffice.

Have we seriously gotten to a point that we are forcing our idealistic beliefs down the throats of others to the point of dangling their futures in front of them? I'm totally against this idea. I think they are able to mostly get away with it because they are an independently run and very small university. At least I hope that's the only reason they're able to get away with it.

Again, I'm not opposed to what it is, I'm opposed to the idea that people HAVE to take a BMI test and a fitness class before they're allowed to grasp their very expensive piece of paper and move on. I'm opposed to any rule that says I "have" to do something. There are those rules that are just simply there for the safety and sanity of the rest of the world. Do not drink and drive, murder people and harm animals. All very good rules. Glad those are laws. I am a citizen of the United States of America. I should not HAVE to pay thousands of dollars for an education only be told that I'm too fat to complete it. I absolutely should not HAVE to opt for health insurance just because it's being offered to me. These are choices. They should not be rules or laws. I refuse to get on board with anything that dictates how I live my life (or how others should live theirs for that matter).

I must need plastic surgery...

At least that's what I keep getting told. I have received TV, internet, radio and billboard ads stating that it's obvious that I need plastic surgery. Today it landed in my mail, with my name on it and everything. So here's something I immediately wondered after making disparaging comments about plastic surgery and those who seek it. Do I hate it because I've never, myself, possessed the type of beauty that these people are trying to achieve/recapture?

I'm not ugly. I'd be downright pretty if I lost the weight. Let's move past that. Perhaps I really do feel that plastic surgery for anything less than massive disfigurement is a complete waste of time, as mother nature has a way of reversing that shit. Or, perhaps I have only managed to come to that conclusion based on the fact that I've had to come to terms with myself and my own inept beauty. Is a person forced into realizations about the world because they've never had the vanity that imposes stupidity on certain subjects?

Should it piss me off that doctors are getting paid to tell people that they are ugly and that they have a right not to be? "Here, let me fix that slightly irregular nose for you, my dear. I'd hate to see you miss your potential to be beautiful." Should I congratulate people who are able to change those things about themselves that have given them a pain of concern during their lives? I suppose that given the proper amount of pocket change, there are things about myself I would change. A little lipo here, a little electrolysis there, perhaps have my hymen reintroduced...

If society keeps changing itself to look like each other, eventually it will be physically difficult to find any difference in each other at all. That just isn't the direction that the world needs to go in. The bastards who advertise this shit could, at least, do me the favor of not throwing it in my face that I'm wholly unattractive and let me keep up the pretense that I'm ok with it. I like my bubble and would appreciate being left to decorate it as I see fit!