kvetching up

So many years gone. Time evaporates like sweat on a summer morning in Death Valley. I was cleaning my office last week when I came across a hard drive of images dated from 2905 to 2016. Video too. Images capture time like a mosquito in amber. I could look at some pictures and tell you the date--not simply birthdays and holidays-but special days. Yesterday I brought the hard drive downstairs and plugged it into my laptop .  Looking at these images of the family in happy times touch my heart--to be sure. However, clicking through the pictures I felt like an archeologist looking at a lost civilization. The children are adults, not the kids in the images. My mom, Jenny's parents dead, but smiling back at me in picture after picture. On the Photo from an old hard drive . computer screen.  My happy, beautiful family. Jenny engaged in parenting like a hummingbird bird harvesting nectar hovering over a flower. Traveling in Canada, the East Coast, New York, Europe, San Francisco, Lake ...

For 30 years we were together. For 30 years, if there was a family event, from a small dinner to a large holiday celebration, I went. My sisters-in-law both have spouses. They would show up at all the large celebrations, but often, for smaller occasions, they would not attend. So, it would be Jenny, Omi, our kids and me. When I would on occasion find out my analogues in the family weren't attending a given event, I would sometimes suggest to Jenny I skip the event. It is not as if these were rare occasions. Jenny was always offended and never agreed. To keep the peace, on all but maybe one or two occasions--let's call them excused absences (pretty much only sick or work obligations)--I would just attend.  This isn't about Jenny, believe it or not . The question I have asked myself over the last several years is why I didn't push back harder. We had serious arguments over this, the few times I suggested I not attend. When I would point out my cohorts were not attending, ...

I love the train. I prefer riding them in Europe. 4 hours is the ride from Northampton to Penn Station. The girls are sitting and talking across the train car from me, catching up. I am listening to a story--not voluntarily--being told by Abby about a roommate had irresponsible sex and asked Abby to drive her to get Plan B. Abby doesn't understand train etiquette. She is clearly excited to see Leiney, which just melts my heart. The last time the three of us rode a train together must have been Europe. I remember presidential candidate Paul "Clinton is a pander bear" Tsongas talking about the hollowing out of Massachusetts and the East Coast back in 1992. No one has done anything about it--and to be clear--the bone yards of industry are filled with bldgs which are made of brick, most likely from clay dug and fired in Renton, once the location of the largest brick manufacturing plant in the US.  A brief aside--we are on a train that just dropped people off in Springfield. N...

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?

Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, 1628. Entry 1 I felt better with the sun out. It leavens my depression, not lifting it completely, but enough to relieve what is otherwise unrelenting. While the sun was rea balm, I crave the darkness when I am blue. I wrap it around me like a blanket each night, and curse the longer days. While i hate the gray and darkness of winter in general, being swallowed by darkness is nature's metaphor for what I crave.   William  styron, in Darkness visible, a memoir about his depression written well before anybody was listening to Prozac, describes the "gray drizzle of horror induced by depression takes on the quality of physical pain." For me it's an ache, a nagging beast reminding me I am still here. I think my flavor of depression is less acute and yet longer lasting than Stryon's, but that is only speculation. If his was a failed transmission, stopping him dead in his tracks, mine is more like haivng the low air light for the tires...

Entry 1 In 2015, when Leiney first showed signs of depression, our world was rocked. The suffering she was going through was painful to watch and experience. I was just about that age when I went through my first bout of clinical depression, so I could feel her pain. At the time our kid fell ill, I was struck by how many tools Jenny had in her toolbox to help Leiney. She knew who to call to do intervention. We pulled together as a team to help Leiney, but Jenny, because of her profession and job, knew what to do, and who to call and got Leiney the professional services she needed. I remember spending days with Leiney, taking time off work and caring for her, snuggling with her on the couch, and watching television. We watched Deadpool on our big leather couch together--her first R-rated movie.  What strikes me about these memories is how hard Jenny and I worked as a team. I always was the one who stayed home with Leiney those many days she was too sick to go to school. There was a ...

 Entry 1 WSP, Greenwich Village, 2022 175.0 lbs. Pretty happy with that. It too shall pass. My goal weight is so ridiculously low (or is that high?)--not set by me but by a chart. I will be happy when I hit 160 lbs.--my intermediary goal. 160. It will happen. I would like to be alive long enough to see my girls finish college. If I can become obsessed with this, well, there may be hope for living for another decade or so. After two years, and sparse use, I have taken to using my treadmill to supplement my cardio rehab. It knows my name, my goals and talks to me as I work out, addressing me as Geoff which is a bit forward if you think about it. It is pseudo-AI. I can't wait until all the workout equipment, and the fridge, stove, oven, microwave, debit card and all the items in the store are all connected by AI. I can see it now. I go to open the bakery door. It is voice activated, no more nasty germ contact. I say, "Open the donut cabinet doors, pal." A voice emanating fro...

Entry 1 Yesterday, I finally started cardiac rehab. I have to drive all the way to NW Hospital, where the UW has centered It's cardiac rehab program in Seattle to attend. Believe it or not, I actually tried to sign up at Valley Medical for rehab. If you call there yourself, you will be sent straight to voicemail. They promise to call you back. Despite calling several times, I never did get a call back. NW is materially different--and much farther away. I called last week--and they found a cancelation and got me in yesterday morning.  My nurse, whose name escapes me, is amazing. Yesterday was really mostly a two hour interview, where I talked about my diet and exercise regimen, the former not much to talk about, the latter a discussion about how I don't exercise at all anymore. I had to disclose my depression level through the standard survey. I am never very aware of where I land on the scale, meaning I am simply not in touch with my feelings, but yesterday's  outcome was d...

Leiney's graduation from Central at T-Mobile Park was lovely. The vast majority of her classmates were immigrants from Asia, South Asia and predominantly Muslim African countries. At Western, she was the only person of color in her cohort at Fairhaven. It made it difficult discussing issues of race, which she did in seminar routinely very uncomfortable for her, with kids who were considering the idea for the first time, as a rule. Fuck, even if you don't get it, I do. This is especially true after being surrounded by all the brown and black folk at the graduation. So, bully for her. She hears from UW Bothell soon. Fingers crossed. Abby couldn't come to graduation, she was stage managing Romeo and Juliet at Center School, it was the day before opening night and Juliet called off with an infection post-wisdom tooth extraction. She met us afterwards at 13 Coins for dinner. The wait was 25 minutes, the kids didn't want to wait, so we went to look for food elsewhere. Ivar...

Time Waits For No One, or is it Tom Waits For No One? So much to do and so little time. Leiney graduates this Thursday. Abby celebrates her own graduation Sunday. Abby graduates next Wednesday.  I made reservations at Piccolino's at 5 pm next Wednesday for a family commemoration of the event after Abby graduates. We went there a few times when Jenny was alive, the last time when restaurants reopened during COVID--I am not sure the event. I can remember Jenny being angry with me, although I am sure I don't remember why. Sometimes I deserved her anger--earned it even. Mostly though, in those years of her cheating, her anger toward me went unexplained and was unremarkable. 20/20 hindsight and all that.   I ordered plane tickets for August and Massachusetts. I am not in favor of this move. 3300 square feet and just me and a dog. That sounds like a recipe for the blues. I'm happy for Abby, I am just feeling selfish.   I have to go get stuff for the high school graduation part...

39 years ago today I graduated from high school . 5 days later my best friend since childhood died. He was gone in an instant. It was such a terrible loss for the world. A kinder and funnier person I can't say I've met.  Much love, Corey. I held Buddy yesterday on my lap in our living room as the vet came to put him down. He seemed so normal through the day. Outside, he ran and barked through the fence at who knows what? But his prostate was so large his urethra was pinched off causing him to emit urine like a double kinked hose lets water flow. This made it clear it had to be done. Leiney, Jared and Abby were here too. The vet was very kind. She explained the two step process of giving a sedative and letting it take effect, before administering the coup de grâce. The sedative took a very long time to work, such that Buddy had to get the full dose, which initially we didn't think would be necessary. Holding him as he drifted off slowly, the girls each gave him loving attent...

I am busy at work dealing with contract negotiations in Malaysia. It will keep me up tonight until 3 a.m. While I am too old for this shit, I am loving it. Very few people have had the opportunity to participate in overseas collective bargaining, so I am lucky. If you follow my Facebook, you know Abby's car was stolen from school on Monday and that, unbeknownst to us, the car had LoJack on it, and thus the cops found it and found the thieves. The thieves took the state patrol on a high speed chase ending on Beacon Hill where the car was ditched after the front axle was damaged and the transmission ruined. The loss of the car has proven challenging, given that Abby goes to school downtown and I am working so many hours in a day. Today, I will drive her to the Armory and work from there while she attends 1 class. Yesterday was a nightmare, trying to get her from school to home. I had meetings from 2-7. Mind, she could have taken the monorail to the train, the train to the SeaTac stop...

A year ago, on the first Thursday of March, Leiney, my sister Jane and I were lying in the bed that abutted Jenny's hospital bed set up in the master bedroom. Jenny hadn't been conscious in days. In fact, she had very much been in the active stages of dying. We were facing her and chit chatting. As you sit next someone in the throes of death, someone taking days to die and who is unconscious, and suffering, fear dissipates. Compassion and love fill your heart. I remember the day before, I sat alone with her and sang every song I could remember that meant so much to the two of us, that she loved so much, that we loved so much.  On that Thursday, none of the three of us could leave Jenny's side. Some days ago, before she lost her faculties, she had seen her dead mother and father standing in the room, a common happening as you near death. Fish breathing, which had been going on a few days before and is another feature of impending death, had passed, and now, she was taking a ...

Tomorrow is Leiney's 21st birthday. Family will be flocking to the house. Friday is the one year mark . These two events are so closely linked for Leiney it must be painful. For the rest of her life, it will pop up, an undesired painful reality of life's comings and goings. Leiney seems well adjusted, or reasonably so. Honestly, I have no clue how she is doing,it is just pure surmise. Other than the ham handed, how are you doing, I am failing to ask questions that really tell me more than just what she wants to surface.   Truth be told, I vacillate from being just fine thank you very much to abject despair.

I now work for a dot com. Well, I work for a Silicon Valley manufacturer. Well, I work for a Silicon Valley manufacturer. I was offered a lot of money to take the job. I counted all my chickens. I planned on pulling up stakes and moving to California. I have been looking for steal estate in Los Angeles and Riverside. One story with lots of yard. I told all my dearest California friends I am moving down in the fall. On day 2 of the job, three weeks ago, the company announces all bonuses are canceled, there will be a one week furlough in March, and I am not getting stock options. . . Oh, and the coup de grace, the company has ceased to contribute to the 401k.  My plans are pushed back. My effective wage cut in 2023 more than 50k, all told. So, I am putting it on hold. ‐-------------------------------------------------------------- Abby had gotten into all of her fallback schools, Willamette, Columbia College (not the Ivy), and Hollis, a single gender school in Roanoke. 16 schools she...

 T-Mobile updated the phone software. Let's hope it allows me to post. I have so much news these days, and I want to write it down. Glitching still. Nuked 500 plus words. I installed the duckduckgo app. Let's see if that makes a difference. Today, I went to a 3rd party Dept. of Licensing storefront today to transfer the title of the Honda Accord Coupe, Abby's car, from Jenny to me. I then had someone come take that car and Leiney's 2008 Honda away. Both are in need of serious repairs, and I'm done putting money in them. Hence, the purchase of the 2001 CRV for Abby earlier this week. Wow, this is working. . . Tomorrow night it's Abby and me ringing in the New Year. Leiney is going to a party. . . ‐‐----------------------------------------------------------------------- I gave notice at work last week. I am starting a new job on January 23rd. It is not labor related, weirdly, but does involve investigation oversight, investigations and training. I'm ready for ...