kvetching up

  It is just there. I mean, there is no below the surface. There are no good days. There isn't a day I don't wish I didn't have less cowardice to just be done. Or less worry for my girls, lest they follow after me. I am not bereft. I am neither morose nor sullen. It isn't that I can't find some modicum of pleasure. I am sitting in a candle lit bathroom with music I have collected and curated since my teens playing in the background. This is a small dream for a small life. I stopped being alive a very long time ago, with some.punctuated moments-like traveling across the country with Abby-of unmitigated joy bordering on perfection. But, it slips away. I have ambled into a castle's keep, the walls of which I only fortify to my own detriment. And yet, as I have done since loss became real back when Corey drowned, I pull back. Without love, without that risk, you can't be hurt, can you?  Whether it's disappointment, betrayal, or death, I wasn't built as r...

Musée Mécanique,  2017.   This morning is the last chance for me to climb in the beast and go to the Puyallup Fair. Jenny stopped going to the fair around 2015, as did Leiney. Abby and I would go together without them, each year since, until she went away to college. Last year I went alone. Twice. I have been to the fair this late in the season. I go for the animals, the arts and crafts, some of the sellers in the pavilion, to see my cousin, and of course for the scones. I can't imagine going today, but maybe.

"I loved you in the morning, our kisses deep and warm Your hair upon the pillow like a sleepy golden storm" In large beds in Seattle, New York, Riverside and Renton I would wake on weekend mornings, Jenny beside me asleep--for I have always been an early riser and she a late sleeper--I would turn to gaze upon her. Her summer lightened hair--flaxen-colored from the sun's rays--I would softly and silently stroke, knowing only I would ever know of such moments. She would wake,  a pixie smile would come across her face. We would hug, cuddle, and begin to plan the day. It seems those moments were plentiful in NYC. Despite the troubles we had in Riverside, there too our weekends were filled with fun and adventure, if not  the feelings of love I remember elsewhere.    Memory is tricky, though. For, I know that in NYC and elsewhere Jenny's mercurial temper could show up out  of nowhere.  It would appear like a process server pulling up in their car at the house whi...

 I was awakened shortly after 1 a.m. to the beeping of a dying battery alert from a smoke alarm. These alarms are hard wired into the house, and the battery is only for backup. It turns out the power had failed.  The house was dark, my phone near dead, and the dog on the bed punchy-pawing me as the chirping of the smoke alarm scared the bejeezus out of her. I groped in the dark to the floor where my pajamas reside in the night, finding them and then sitting down to put them on one leg at a time. Willow and I went downstairs and I let her go do her business--searching for squirrels and raccoons as it turns out--and giving her a treat on her return.  I sat on the couch for a moment, trying to grok how to proceed if the power was not back in the morning. I could go to work, I thought, and then laughed loudly in my head at the idea. Shrugging my shoulders, the chirp of the smoke alarm sounded again. Given the number in the house, I wasn't sure where it was coming from, so I s...

I have opted over these many years to build an insular world, one that extended only to immediate family, and in a more granular sense an interior space of only me--for all of us I suppose this is the case. Even when home, if not with my kids, much of my time has been spent in my head with music. As I am sure I have written about before, I suppose because of my mom's influence and the era I grew up in, singer songwriters have been everything. From Cole Porter to the Carter Family, Lucinda Williams to Led Zeppelin, Mary Black to Mazzy Star, and on and on, I have lived in my head their music and lyrics wrapped around my thoughts, and providing structure to my memories. Nancy Griffith died of cancer during the COVID epidemic, as did John Prine (he of COVID after a battle with cancer). I discovered both during the early years Jenny and I were together. Around that same time I discovered Kate Wolf's work at a boheme apartment Jenny was housesitting at right next to the Safeway I use...

My mom loved music and shared that love with me, for which I will be ever grateful. Music brings me peace and happiness. I remember listening to KRAB radio back in the 1970s each weekend, where the then hippy-run nonprofit radio station served up pop and  folk music from the 20s and 30s, contemporary "experimental music" which I probably falsely remember as the banging of pots and pans, triangles and the sounds of chainsaws, car engines and anvil hitting the floor of a garage. There was also bluegrass, and lots of it.  Her nurturing of my love for music, whether intentional or not, was profound. Each year for several years we would go and see Peter and the Wolf at the opera. During my asthmatically bound early years, I remember three things most vividly: the sound of a now old fashioned humidifier pumping steam into the room to aid my breathing; listening to a Disney album that showcases and discusses a variety of unusual musical instruments from around the world (narrated b...

 It's Friday the 13th. I hate to admit I have superstitions, but here it is and there you are. When I was a kid, around 9 or 10, my mom would tell me stories about how my great grandmother, May Sullivan, was incredibly superstitious. The conversation started one rainy and gray Seattle afternoon, as I was watching KSTW movies. It must have been a Sunday, because they always played Francis the Talking Mule and Abbott and Costello movies on Sunday afternoons. Anyway, I had just watched some Abbott and Costello movie where the latter has spilled salt, and then said, "bread and butter" while throwing salt over his left shoulder. I was baffled. So, I asked my mom what this could possibly mean. She, my mom, was a walking encyclopedia. She never was stumped on any question about any topic I ever asked, or any definition for a word that I sought. She explained that spilling salt was considered bad luck by some, and that to mitigate any problem arising from such an incident, the sp...

"The finest hour that I have seen Is the one that comes between The edge of night and the break of day When the darkness rolls away" My trip blogging fell off. It isn't that there wasn't content generated every day, but I was exhausted at the end of each day--not unusual but more acute than the last two cross country road trips I have done. I haven't driven across the country since 2000, which I did alone, driving from NYC to Seattle in 2 days and 17 hours--it's a long story and not worth retelling, except that my driver side windshield wiper died during severe weather in the Chicago area. I pulled over and took some string and hooked it to the wiper. I then drove for an hour or so with my driver side window down, dragging the wiper as quickly as I could as the rain came down in torrents. And while it is true that I am not mechanical and may have played a role in my jenky-fix and soaking arm, I stand by the genius that is me in problem solving that issue away....

  We left Missoula around 930 or so, after getting coffee. Our goal was to get to Garnet to see the ghost town there. I don't think it was actually on our way, we went MA y miles off course to get there. The ghost town sits smack dab in the middle of land owned by the Dept. of the Interior. It was a few miles in before the pavement ended. I was driving. Up ahead was a gate with a hobble to prevent livestock from entering or exiting, as I soon discovered. I was about 30 yards from the start of the gravel road when I saw the longhorn. It was just standing there, chewing it's cud I suppose. I was driving so I didn't snap a photo. The road, although rustic, could handle two cars, so the beast wasn't blocking. At 30 yards I couldn't tell if it was a young anemic bull or a cow. I stopped the car. As I was contemplating that to do, a truck pulled up behind me, forcing me to decide. I stepped on the gas and drove up and through the gate, onto the narrow road, passing what I...

It's almost 11 p.m. Mountain time. Driving through the town tonight we saw at least 3 men wearing John B. Stetson cowboy hats. I also saw homeless drug addicted men, and wondered where they spend their days when the weather turns cold. Here in deeply red Montana, where Fuck Biden flags compete with velvet paintings of solitary wolves howling at the moon as top of the schlock, one wouldn't expect a bevy of pot shops. One, me, therefore was quite surprised to see no fewer than three dispenseries within two blocks on what I believe are the outskirts of downtown. I sense a disturbance in the farce that is the right-wing Christian "rigorous" moral code; an abandonment of pretending to just say no to drugs. If the homeless drug addicts that we see all around us in big city and small hadn't  already made it evident, the pandemic of addiction doesn't check political affiliation at the door. Life, it appears, is a gateway drug. We drove through some pretty wild thunder...

  Driving through the vast noth9ngness which is I-90 in Eastern Washington, Chappell Roan singing about doing drag in West Hollywood, Abby next to me. The 2001 CRV, packed to the gills with Abby s gear for her sophomore dorm. I often ask myself how we got here. By car, is the obvious answer to that rather vague question. More specifically, I am riding across the country because Abby wants her car at Holyoke, which I support  She had planned to go with a friend, but that person had something suddenly come up--the realization that taking out 50k a year in loans to go to a private art school is insanity.  Can't say I disagree with that assessment. So, here I am, using my precious vacation to spend quality time with Abby. The good news, besides spending a few more days with her, is that we have similar taste in music. A Carole King cover is  playing now by Lucy Dacus. I can do that. We reach Missoula tonight a mere 500 mile drive. Tomorrow we will stop driving when we re...

It's strange how music that you listen to for decades can suddenly acquire meaning, no longer ear candy, but strangely biographical. I've watched Loudon Wainwright perform this song in the Village at The Bottom Line before it was closed by NYU. I have seen him perform it at the Woodland Park Zoo during an early 90s Zootunes, where he walked through a narrow field playing his guitar, like some sort of magical music video.  (Rufus Wainwright covered this, and flips the meaning entirely and makes it his own, unsurprising given his beautiful and at times languorous tenor voice). It never crossed my mind before Jenny was diagnosed that I would be a widower. So, this song was just a fun play on words for me, Loudon making fun of himself for being a narcissist and for being alone and how selfish that can be. The song now comes at me as if, when I listened to it before, I was listening to someone speaking in tongues. It wasn't nonsense  blather, just devoid of any meaning that I...

Entry 1 "Unless suffering is the direct and immediate object of life, our existence must entirely fail of its aim. It is absurd to look upon the enormous amount of pain that abounds everywhere in the world, and originates in needs and necessities inseparable from life itself, as serving no purpose at all and the result of mere chance. Each separate misfortune, as it comes, seems, no doubt, to be something exceptional; but misfortune in general is the rule."                                                                                    - -Schopenhauer  I mean.   .    . I should have read philosophy earlier. I spent a good deal of time reading and not understanding Nietzsche as a teenager and in my early 20s. I had some notion,...

Entry 1 Sunday mornings are as hard as Kris Kristofferson warned they could be. I'm listening to Anna Scouten cover John Hartford's Tall Buildings . It's a sad song about giving up childhood dreams and succumbing to the drudgery of typical American life. I remember when I was excited about that prospect, when I realized I could actually do such a thing. I have missing years. Not Somewhere in Oregon, 2014ish . like Jesus, more like a low-rent Lazarus, some denizen of the original skid road . A particularly apt description, given my Seattle origins, my preteen retreat into drugs and the attendant abandonment of same nearly 10 years later at the ripe old age of 20.  These Sunday mornings are all the more brutal with the advent of spring and daylight savings time. In the darkness of winter mornings, it takes my brain longer to wander into memories and suppositions about what was, what is, and what could have been. In the cold light of early spring, pain shines like a beacon. I...

 I have fond memories of traveling with Jenny. The fondest memories, as I have written about before, involve traveling together.  Sitting at the airport this morning, her absence is acutely felt. I hate the enormity of the space that can't be filled. I am still in this place where I'd rather be alone for 10000 years than risk my heart.  I am alone. I miss her. I am lonely. But I am so damaged, I can't be anything but a burden to anyone. This is normal, I think, given the depth of loss.  I am not wailing into the digital void, at least that truly isn't my intention. I am not crying out for solace or sympathy. However, no matter how much I lie to myself, it's more than a clinical observation.  I miss the touch of a hand, the slight annoyance when we are seated at the gate and I am grumpy without enough coffee on board. I miss people watching, engaging in meaningless chit chat while we stare at the person pacing with the alligator skin neck pillow fully deployed. I...

Entry 1  " Ain't it just like the night to play tricks When you're trying to be so quiet?"                         -from Visions of Johanna  From Notre Dame 7.11.2018. When Jenny was first diagnosed, I had a recurring nightmare. In a darkened room, lit only by candles in candelabra's sitting on an ornately carved dining room table, sat Mick, Omi and my mother dressed in flowing white robes, stern-faced. My mother and Omi sat across from me at one end of the table, with Mic to my right at the head of the very long table. I don't remember if they said anything to me, but I do know they were very disapproving of the way I was and had treated Jenny. Their presence was terrifying. I felt as if I was visiting the land of the dead and being adjudged a failure in my relationship with my cancer-diagnosed wife.      ⬲⬐⬐⬐⬐ ⬐⬐⬐⬐ ⬐⬐⬐⬐ ⬐⬐⬐⬐ ⬐⬐⬐⬐ ⬐⬐⬐⬐ ⬐⬐⬐⬐ ⬲ In my waking life, despite knowing it w...

Entry 1 San Francisco, April 2017.   The weather the last few days has been amazing. It's nearly 6 p.m., spring starting later tonight, and the front door is wide open. There isn't a cloud in the sky, a breeze with a slight chill is blowing. Abby is downstairs, the dog isn't barking. A rather good day, I would admit.  The Cure just won't get out of my head. I really wish I could find the courage to let it all go. Moving will help, I think. Keep your fingers crossed, the odds I will move to Portland are looking better than even. The recruiter, ever optimistic, thinks I may be flown down as early as Friday. I hope not, given Abby is here, but she will understand.  Meanwhile, I learned yesterday that my lazy  boss is, well, lazy. He told me last week that he asked if my temporary status Seward Street Slides, 2017. could be extended so I wouldn't have a break in service and thus not go unpaid, and was told he could. Yesterday, he told me he was wrong. I pressed him, an...

 Entry 1 As I wrestle with the beast, trying my best to climb out of its lair, today I fly to the Tri-Cities . This may be madness--it probably is--but off I go. My kid is on her way to pick me up and deposit me at the airport. The interview process begins tomorrow morning at 6:15 a.m. Yep. Done by noon or so, home by 8 p.m. I expect an offer--they asked me for two pieces of ID, the kind required for the I-9. I can't imagine any other reason they'd ask, but that doesn't mean I would know.  My stomach has been killing me the last 4 days. I feel a bit better this morning, but not 100 per cent. I have no fever, but feel a bit weak. Last night it seemed to have peaked, at least I hope so. I live in this home in a neighborhood ill-designed for walking, with or without a bullet-proof vest. I live in a house my wife died in, and which is far too huge for me. I live in a place far too gray. Richland isn't the solution to the last of these problems, nor is Portland. I am not eve...

 Entry 1    " Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me ."                                                                                                                         -- Psalm 23:4-6  Two years and three days after Jenny's body was taken by the University of Washington to  allow medical students to practice autopsies or whatever it may be that they choose to do, ...

Entry 1 If you are a friend or family member, you likely know I have dug in. Deep. This sun is helping, as will daylight savings time, I expect. Seasonal Affective Disorder is real. I also think living in this house, with all the painful memories, and sleeping inches from where Jenny died, both make depression more likely. Not that there aren't a lot of wonderful memories here. Okay, not so many. Leiney essentially moved out three weeks after Jenny died, for the most part, and completely a few months later. Abby was here longer, but spent much of her time teenagering and then went off to college. We had nice times here, when she was present.  Which brings me to thinking of moving . Today, I met with a recruiter from PGE-Portland General Electric, they are looking for someone with extensive experience, to take the deputy role, and then to likely transition into the Director role. A ratepayer funded entity--the pay is fabulous and the work sounds interesting. The recruiter and I clic...

 Entry 1 It's been two years and a day. Time to get myself up, brush myself off, and start all over again. I will not let this be another excuse to break me. I fought through childhood drug abuse. I fought through depression. I made it through university, law school, bad press and the lot. While this may have been, let's hope, the highest peak to scale, climb it I will. Jared and Leiney spent the evening with me. Jared made dinner. It was tasty. I love the young woman Leiney has become and can't wait to see what tomorrow brings. Now that her tabs are paid for, expired for 6 months, did I mention that, I am much more relaxed. She has such anxiety, I can't imagine how she would have reacted if she had been pulled over, only to learn her tabs were no good. I have a job interview this morning, the never ending quest. It's for a place in Richland. They reached out to me. The pay is insane. It requires a security clearance, I discovered last night. Who knows?

Entry 1 " He's making a list, he's checking it twice, he's gonna find out whose naughty or nice. "  A month after you are diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, you go on a backpacking trip with your husband, your sisters, and their spouses.Your husband notices some weird shit has been happening around the home, like your decision to let someone else cut your hair, despite his pathetic pleading to you to let him do it. He is suspicious, not for the first time since you have been Lake Quinalt, 2013. together. Each time in the past, when he confronted you, you eventually copped to the affair, like you did with Tom. There were other times he suspected, but didn't confront you. There was never  a time he was aware of, when you thought you'd been caught before he talked to you about it. You have been cheating on your spouse for several years with el pinche. The evidence your spouse found of the affair is legion, found on your phone while laying in the tent that nigh...