kvetching up

  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  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 what 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 dis...

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 nothingness 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. More specifically, I am riding across the country because Abby wants her car at Holyoke, which I support. She had planned to drive 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 reach the Crow Nation. On Monday ...

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 miss...

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 candelabras 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 judged a failure in my relationship with my cancer-diagnosed wife.      ⬲⬐⬐⬐⬐ ⬐⬐⬐⬐ ⬐⬐⬐⬐ ⬐⬐⬐⬐ ⬐⬐⬐⬐ ⬐⬐⬐⬐ ⬐⬐⬐⬐ ⬲ In my waking life, despite knowing it was ...

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...

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...

  Entry 1 Driving home from spending time with Jenny's family, we repeatedly had a conversation about how devalued Jenny felt when no one asked her about her work that she wasn't important and that her worth was devalued. In their eyes, she would say, I am just a teacher. I would reassure her that her work was the most important work any of us did, and that teachers have historically been paid less because the workplace is so gendered. She looked for insult at each successive visit at any family event, and took greater umbrage.  It is absolutely true that other people's work would be discussed, and that it was rare that we would discuss Jenny's work. I don't know why that is, but it was a thing. I can say that when she was a new teacher she would regale all of us with stories, like when one of her students in her special ed class, would routinely pull his pants down and eat his flaking penis skin and how she dealt with it. As time went on, and maybe because she beca...

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  7:57 AM 2.25.2024 Leiney's First Scone Ever. Evergreen State Fair, August 2004. Tomorrow is Leiney's 22nd birthday! Today, a party at my house. This should be interesting and I may deconstruct that later. Meanwhile, I am going to breakfast with Leiney and Jared in an hour and a half at the Whistle Stop. I am so glad I don't live far away where I can't see her regularly. She has remained, despite growing up, the most amazingly kind, optimistic and driven human. I am a proud papa. Happy Birthday, Snicklefritz!   --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Walking on egg shells was the way we lived for so long. We wanted to avoid the wrath, the anger. For me, I always believed in my heart of hearts that I was wrong. For instance, we entertained a lot all the years the kids were growing up. Whether with our extended family, with friends or, as per usual, both, we had people over. We would host. We would cook. We had the formal ...