Interlude: Glee "On My Way" reaction post

Last week's episode of Glee was... intense.  Several dark storylines, and inspiring Regionals performances.

I tried writing a couple of "It gets better" posts on my old blog.  I'm not sure they're all that good.  Truthfully, I have experienced some AMAZING things in my life, at all stages.  Snapshots of some of the GOOD things that I will eventually talk about,  following the text.  There's just a little -- well, a lot -- of angst to get through first.

Look, I'm still around

As promised, here's some of the songs that help me to feel better.

A bright spot in a dark night

Last post, I wrote a little bit about spending my junior year of high school in a new school, hundreds of miles away from my friends.  That was the first time in a decade that I wasn't taking any sort of music class at school.  But when I said I made the mistake of giving up music, that wasn't completely accurate.  I made the mistake of stopping playing in the band, and otherwise not studying music in school.

What I did do, was sing with the choir at church.  It was all right.  Much of the repertoire was in Latin.  I remember a woman joining us, she seemed embarrassed when they asked what part she sang -- her answer was "Bass."

And then there was another woman, who sometimes in the winter months came to practice wearing a sweatshirt that said NASA.  I commented on it one evening.  Some time later, she brought in 2-3 large photo-prints of the space shuttle, the launchpad at night, a day launch, and perhaps a third.  And she gave them to me.  That one little gift, meant a lot to me.  It gave me hope again.

The very few people who read our teenage work of fan-fiction will be surprised to know, her name was Mrs. Charon.  My jaw about hit the floor, we had named a planet "Charon" in the story written before I moved.

Space & Shuttle Memories, pt 1

How to summarize 30 years of memories?

My father joined the Air Force when I was too small to remember.  For his first assignment, we were stationed at Scott AFB, IL.  The story as I remembered it through my schooldays was that when I was 4 years old, the space shuttle came for an air show.  I think I remember my dad taking us to watch the airplane land with the orbiter piggy-back.  I clearly remember going to the air show that year, walking around the tarmac.  Many of the big aircraft, we were allowed to walk through.  The shuttle was roped off to a wide distance.

Ad Astra

I caught Gene Roddenberry's vision almost independently, when I was very young.  But as a student in Nebraska, I felt very alone.  Criticized for liking "boy things," there were very few who encouraged me to pursue engineering or my interest in space.

My senior year of high school, in the school library, I found a copy of a magazine, titled "Ad Astra," meaning "to the stars."  I loved the phrase, and used it as the tag line for my essay when I applied to Notre Dame.  They must have liked it too... but I didn't go there.