Amy, I reset my smtp port so it may have gone through? Stupid entourage.

JZ! You're Mexican like I am Cuban!

Fake Latina high five!

I know it is invasive but what I really wish ancestry.com would do s give me contact information for living people. My grandfather's sister had a son, who has grandchildren and maybe they would know more. Still uncomfortable to ask because of random scandolous affairs and mental illness, though. But I would like the opportunity.

I'd actually be interested to see if I can find anything out about the Great Grandfather Who Was Name was Never Spoken. All I know is that he lived, and I believe, died in Kentucky.

No one knows anything about his parents or his family because it was a taboo subject with my great grandmother.

Jesse! Sister! Hugs!

I got nothing but unspecified slave folks and pretty poor Scots. Remarkably consistent, as far back as we went. I have some relatives who *swear* we're related to the Barrett Brownings or something, but I suspect they're just full of pretentious shit. I mean, seriously.

And, lord, I've been trying to remember the name Barrett Browning for almost a decade now, and I just couldn't work out which poet it was. And it just fell off my fingertips just now.

the other thing about Ancestry is that people submit their family trees, and I don't always know how accurate the information is. I found some family stuff that seems to be verified, but I think it's just based on legend.

Sadly, when Granny in Scotland died, Betty Dick apparently burnt the family bible that had all the Aitken history in it. (And when Granny was alive, always hushed her when Granny was getting to the GOOD gossip, per my Aunt.)

So says Mom's cousin Mary. And speaking of small towns, Mary and Betty are related through a brother and sister who married a sister and brother.

I had a great theater anxiety dream the other night, the bright and vibrant dreams of those woken by menstrual cramps. I was one of a group of four who had a singing, dancing part in a major production. I, of course, didn't know the part and hadn't been to rehearsal, but the reason I was freaked out was that I was in the wrong costume, apparently only one of six (6!) expected costume changes for the show. So I refused to go on stage. It was all very fraught.

And then I walked past this stairwell, all scaffolded up, and realized that I hadn't been in the theater for a very long time and it had gone through a lot of improvements. And I knew very clearly that up that scaffold was one of my favorite dream spots, a place I used to go frequently in my dreams. It's one of the interstitial spaces, basically where you have to clamber around to get through backstage. It only exists in my dreams, but I've been there many times.

Anyway, even though I didn't go, and the whole dream was actually a nightmare, I woke up happy remembering how much I loved teching and climbing around backstage.

It's my Caribbean heritage that makes me.... I don't know what.

contact information for living people

You know there are a ton of other ways on the internet to find that stuff, right? Like, it's creepy how much they can reap from public records. Try intelius.com (another string of characters I've been trying to extract from my brain, not for years but weeks, and boom! Here it is--obviously the sick day has been good for me) for starters.

It's my Caribbean heritage that makes me.... I don't know what.

A cowgirl?