kvetching up

 The summer of 1974, we moved from 4910 S. Rose Street to 8431 S 117th Street in unincorporated King County. The new neighborhood was filled with kids. I could wander the neighborhood, now going into 3rd grade, my mother didn't care. There were two corner grocery stores, nearby, a diner, a barbershop. I could ride my bike to get a haircut, get candy, or even go to the diner for breakfast alone, which I did a few times. It was Mayberry, except with the racism out in the open. That summer, while walking home from the elementary playfield, I walked past a house 4 houses north of mine where Willie, my 17 year old next door neighbor, was being harangued by his girlfriend out in the yard. Willie always had a basketball with him, and dribbled it as he walked between his house and the home where I heard thr haranguing. My bedroom in our 800 square foot home, was above the unfinished garage (spider stories would chill you to the bone), and had a window facing north. I always had it open. Re...

It's complicated. I wake up in the morning feeling happy.  I take out the dogs, make my coffee, turn on Bloomberg. I make toast, pour my freshly brewed, and then give the dogs a treat. After all of this, I sit and drink coffee, before getting up to take Willow and Buddy out yet again, about 5 minutes later. Somewhere in the midst of this process, as the sun rises into view through our east facing windows and light of day strengthens, my thoughts turn to Jenny, and the void that she left in our lives. I miss her. I know, ultimately, that we were not good for each other, still after 11000 days together, I have many cherished memories and a deep and abiding love for her. It's easier for those who have experienced such a devastating loss to erase the bad facts and engage in hagiography of the  than one might think. I am not prone to mythologizing, nor immune, I suppose. But, I also know over time, after my mother died, the scales began to fall off my eyes and I better understood h...

This morning, as I was letting the dogs into the fenced lower yard, the bald eagle couple that live about a mile from here, showed up in my back yard, having a picnic of all things. I didn't have my phone, so no pics. But Jeff, the guy building the hogwire fence, well, he was there.  The wife was eating a garter snake, while the male kept watch a few branches away.

Thanks to my friend Paul, I got back on the treadmill today. I am trying hard to push forward. My right knee, the bane of my walking existence since I was 23, tried to talk me out of using the treadmill, in fact was rather insistent. I placate the bastard by slowing my  pace, and hope to lull it into a false sense of sloths security as I push forward. That said, the sorrow so distant last night hit me from behind like Harley Quinn's bat at sunrise.

I am abed. I climbed in about an hour ago. The ceiling fan is turning, I have a window open, and am quite prepared to keep this up all night, if need be. I may even sleep like this. French pop music circa 1935 popped up on YouTube after I requested Edith Piaf. Truth be told, my love of early 20th century Parisienne pop arose from the use of what were soon deemed illegal file sharing sites. My law school, which called itself, "The Global Law School," had about 25 percent of its spots guaranteed for foreign students. These foreign students were primarily European. On our shared network in family housing, you could store files. They weren't secure, these files. One or more of the foreign students, I learned from one of them, had created a place on the network for mp3s to share. I eagerly and greedily snapped up all I could. It led me to Kasey Chambers, made me fall in love with Townes Van Zandt, gave me dozens of songs I waltzed Leiney to sleep to each night. Most of all, it...

I am laying naked on the bed, the ceiling fan pushing the cool air over my corpulent magnificence.  The kids seem pretty happy. Abby is back in school. Leiney is on Orcas Island with her boyfriend for 5 days. I, as I mentioned above, am laying in the dark, naked and alone on my messy bed.  Not quite alone. Willow and Buddy are like spiders, you are never really more than 10 feet from one of them at any time. I've nixed sending the girls to Hawaii for Thanksgiving with my sister. I need them here with me. I want them here with me, not somewhere else as we mark our first Thanksgiving without Jenny. If I were to be asked how I am getting along, I'd say, I am lost. I am sad. I am relieved the suffering for Jenny has ended. But, I feel a huge hole in our lives that I can't begin to understand how to fill.  I have resigned myself to living in a terrible limbo. I am utterly detached to anything at all outside my immediate family and a couple of very close friends. I am listless,...

9.11.2022 I left NYC the day before the planes hit the trade center, to work at a legal clinic. Jenny was working at a school on 114th Street when the attack took place. She walked home on Broadway that day to West 3rd, the subways were closed. Traffic was shut down too. She stayed in the middle of the street, for fear of more attacks, until she reached 14th Street, where the military had already cordoned off the area, allowing only people who lived below it access. She was 4 months pregnant. She felt incredibly lonely and helpless. The phone system wasn't working, overwhelmed with callers, and we didn't speak until late that night or maybe even the next morning. All she could focus on, despite being 4 months pregnant, was how she could be useful. 2 days later, she began working (each day until school started, and then on the weekends) 12-16 hours a day pushing wheelbarrows full of bottled water into what became known as the pit, until she was too pregnant with ...