Now that you’re dead, what are you gonna do with your life?
Watched the movie Heathers with Allison last night. She’s off school all week, so we can stay up late & watch movies & stuff - Yay! I forgot how dark that movie was, but Al liked it (maybe that’s why she liked it 
)
Funny/wry quote from the movie:
Whether or not a teenager decides to kill themselves is the biggest decision of their life.
Another good quote:
Let’s pretend I blew up the school… all the schools. Now that you’re dead, what are you gonna do with your life?
Things have been going good with Allison - as good as they can go - much better than we could have hoped for. She & Shelby & Annie are developing their own relationships with each other, outside of their shared relationship with Jim & I. It’s cool to watch. I see her really taking on her role of ‘big sister’, but in such a thoughtful, mature, loving way.
I also see her jumping into life in *my* family, too. My sisters have suddenly realized that Allison is of babysitting age & are calling her to watch her kids. At first Al wasn’t into it. But her attitude seems to have changed, I think after she overheard me on the phone to one of my sisters, telling her that babysitting just wasn’t something that Al naturally wanted to do like it was for us. My mom did daycare - and - we had nieces/nephews who needed sitting when we were teens - it all just seemed like the thing to do at the time. In our minds, that’s just what teenage girls *did*. Anyway, now Al seems to be enjoying that role, that responsibility - seems to be really exploring that side of herself to see what’s there, thinking about how she wants little kids to see her and how she wants their parents to see her, too. It’s hard to pinpoint specific things she’s doing that make me see this, but it’s definitely there in her interaction with little kids, more so than it ever was before.
She has been talking about wanting to do something different with her hair lately, too. I’m trying to find a good salon out by us who can deal with black hair. I want to make sure we go somewhere where they know what they’re doing. I question myself & my own values when I realize that I don’t have any black friends to ask about this. I think, am I discriminating in some way, even if it’s not conciously? Then, I realize, I don’t really have any white friends who I can ask about this, either. And realize that it’s not a racial issue, really - the problem is simply that I am a big loser without friends…
I’ve started networking with some other moms who have biracial kids, to see if they can point me in the right direction. And, if I ever get a chance here at work & work up the nerve, I may ask one of the black women who works out on the floor. Again, I wonder if I’d be this nervous about going up to a white woman who works out on the floor & asking her about her hair stylist. And, I think that I would be. I don’t ever talk to any of them - I work in IT, on the programming end. I don’t go out on the floor for anything, really. I work with client services, setting up accounts, mostly through IM. I don’t know anyone out there on the floor except for my sister, my niece and a few of the people who have been on the phones for years & years (back when I was on the phones, too).
I like that this is helping me to explore myself, stretch & grow. Something as simple as getting Allison a haircut
