more on 2025 but first Bourbon Street

I had a few things to say about the arrival of 2025 but the attack onBourbon Street pre-empts everything. I woke Wednesday morning to dozens of texts and NOLA Ready alerts and pulled up WDSU on my phone, watching the story unfold in horror. Friday afternoon I walked to the site to pay my respects and yes it was the usual New Orleans chaos, people on Canal loitering, talking, drinking, cars rolling slowly by with people leaning out the window videoing, countless law enforcement and journalists with cameras and microphones.

But the site feels deeply sadly peaceful, candles and flowers and messages, many visitors standing in silence. I felt a deep quiet sorrow and wished the departed souls mercy on their journey. These attacks on innocent souls out enjoying life cut deep, especially in a city which prides itself on knowing how to celebrate.

Maurice Ruffin had something to say in Time. 

To donate: https://www.gnof.org/new-orleans-new-years-day-tragedy-fund-2/

au revoir Pee-Wee

Gosh, losing Paul Reubens this week hit me like a punch in the stomach.
It's been somewhat comforting to read others' equally distraught reactions.
Somehow Pee-Wee managed to be creative, subversive, silly, kind, and supremely welcoming.
I've written quite a bit in my memoir draft about how "Pee-Wee's Big Adventure" changed my life. And I mean this is the most literal sense. Growing up isolated and religious and discouraged from most forms of creativity, his movie and the TV show exploded into my eyeballs and my mind and most importantly my heart, with the wonderful news that it was OK to be weird and there was a world out there that would accept me.
My sisters and I still watch the Christmas special annually, to the dismay of my millenial and Gen Z nieces.
I guess I'm thankful they didn't need Pee-Wee's lifeline and also sad that they don't know quite how much he meant to us.
As a commenter on the NYT wrote, "Today's secret word is sad."

*

 

when tragedy befalls

I've written a lot about a beloved coffee shop nearby. The owner roasts fair trade coffee, offers up a quip and a smile and the best espresso north of the CD.

The cafe been closed the past few weeks, shades drawn, sidewalk sign stowed away, and now we know why: the owner's beloved husband has unexpectedly died.

We've started a fundraiser to help tide her over for a few months. Please give, please spread the word.

https://gofund.me/5247b70a

25 days in

25 days into 2020 and already it's such a twist of conflicting emotions.
--Capricorn birthdays! pizza and private karaoke, family din din and rum slushies
--and yet 3 friends have unexpectedly lost parents/siblings
--worldwide fires and lies
I'm being productive and yet I wonder if it matters.
Reading a journal from my teens, I wrote that I was convinced the world was ending imminently.
I've lost the religion but somehow the delusion persists.

unsere Sonnenblume

via GIPHY

I-70, Kansas, March 2019

I haven't, I thought, I didn't (I knew)

I haven't been able to write much, these past couple of weeks. My mind is faraway, in Kansas.
I thought I was ready for goodbye, and it turns out I was not.
I didn't know it would be this hard. (I knew: Dugie, Mom, Grampa. But I had forgotten.)
*
I haven't slept much since mid-March.
I thought she might make it to 100.
I didn't know at 97 she would fight so hard. To stay in the hospital and then to be let go. (I knew she was tough but not this tough.)
*
I haven't stopped feeling sad at a primal level for so long (Dugie, Mom, Grampa, now Her).
I thought you got over it--the loss--that you got closure, you moved on.
I didn't know that they stay with you always, in the beat of the heart and the glimpse of an old photo and the clasp of a hand. (I knew: Dugie, Mom, Grampa, now Her. But I had forgotten.)

Oak and 16th, Hays, America

over. it.

Today I write from a place of pain, and sadness.
This year has not been the friendliest.
Yes, duh, I know, but I don't mean in the cosmic sense, or Madness USA #wereallgonnadie sense.
(That's starting to feel like the norm--not normal--but, reality.)
For me personally, in my own private universe, things have just felt -- off.
Work is kind of a nightmare.
Last week I smashed up my knee, again. Every painful hobble is a reminder to slow down, to get some rest, to chill.
*
And this week, a person I love so dearly is not doing well, will probably not do well ever again, and I am feeling all the emotions.
I know I'll be okay and we'll be okay but this good-bye forever stuff is hard.
It takes me back 15 years and saying good-bye forever to my mother.
After the sleepless night and the hot tears and the chaotic decisions, and then -- the quiet. The cold despair.
Then, emerging from the hospital into the brilliant Arizona sun, and realizing in a flash that I would never walk the planet with my mother again.
I couldn't believe it, and yet I could never un-know it.
It was the most singularly painful moment of my life, so far, and still.
I did everything I could for her, and I don't regret it. The tears and sadness just remind me that she was a person, my person, and I will always miss her.
*
I wish I had a cheery adieu for this today, but I don't.

shranque the shrinque

So my CEO shrink became ill during our session this week. She was getting over bronchitis, she told me. First, a break for water, then for an inhaler, but neither seemed to help. She sat down, appearing to listen to me but she was also staring intently at my knees with watery eyes, so I gently suggested that we stop for the day.
She demurred. I'm fine.
You always say, accept the things you can't control, I said.
She laughed, and made a face. And we called it a day.
*
The thing is, I could have used someone to listen to me this week. It's Mother's Day tomorrow, and I miss my mom so much. Even 12 years later! She was a vibrant, vivacious soul and is terribly missed. This is a weekend to remember, to stay off social media, to avoid stores and restaurants and events.
To hide. To create.
*
Working on tattoo ideas. This one below is a contender. Like so much in life, I'm not sure how to get it.

stay woke

The news from Ferguson last night was not good.
Listening to the radio at my kitchen table reminded me of waiting for the OJ verdict twenty years ago, in a co-worker's car en route to a meeting, both of us holding our breaths, the jaw-dropping surprise us white knuckleheads felt when we heard "not guilty."
Last night as I listened to the prosecutor run down a painfully long list of defenses, it seemed clear that there would be no indictment.
My social media blew up. Speaking of knuckleheads, several of my Midwestern family members posted some pretty offensive shit. Mostly, among my friends, I saw disappointment, anger, not much disbelief, moms worried for their kids' safety, pissed off activists, plain-old-bewildered people.
I still feel sad and mostly helpless. The system is working as it's designed to, someone said today, and I realized she's right.
DailyKos had some good analysis:
--the questions no one asked
--prosecutor as defense attorney
I'm reading the documents released on the Washington Post.
And bits of this essay stick in my head:
--I'm deeply and profoundly disappointed and honestly lack the words to explain my emotions right now. It's a frustration in which a man doesn't feel much like writing. It's an exhaustion in which one has hoped just one too many times for justice, only for it to escape in the fleeting fashion that is sadly familiar in cases of young black men killed by police officers all over this country.
--I had hoped officers would be found guilty when they were found beating Rodney King senseless. It was on video. We all saw it. They were acquitted.
--I had hoped officers would be found guilty when they fired 41 shots at an unarmed Amadou Diallo standing in his doorstep. They were acquitted.
--I had hoped the officers who fired 50 shots into Sean Bell's car as he left his bachelor party would be found guilty. They were acquitted.
--I had hoped the officers who shot and killed football star Kendrec McDade—after they lied about him shooting at them first—would at least go to court, but the grand jury said they were justified.
--I had hoped the officers who chased Ramarley Graham into his home and killed him would at least be tried, but they weren't
--I had hoped the officers who shot and killed John Crawford in Wal-Mart would be cited somehow, but the grand jury found they were justified.
--Now, here we are, with a young man who ran over half a football field away, after a confrontation with Officer Darren Wilson, only to be shot over and over again.
--I had hoped Wilson would at least face these charges in an open court of law, but it will not happen.
Change is gonna come, another friend posted, with a link to Sam Cooke.
I hope she's right.

how can this

A note in remembrance of a fine, fun, smart and charming young woman, who departed this planet on Friday, abruptly and unexpectedly. Left behind are her equally amazing partner, her baby daughter, and hosts of bewildered friends. I had the good fortune to get to know these women the past couple of years. It's been a tough summer. A friend's mom passed quite suddenly last week as well. I am weary of departures.

big..big..BIG

Big things afoot this week.
I feel abandoned by friends. Left out, moved down the list, the usual cycle of close and not so close. So, my plans for fall change. I may not be traveling as far as I'd hoped. It's discombobulating and disappointing. Hopefully, it's temporary.
Really big things afoot with the fam. And it's hitting me how much I miss my mom.
Boy I wish she were here for this. She'd be in her element.
We are leaderless. I'm sad, yes, but I wouldn't want not to be.

beyond

 A friend told me this week that they have been communicating with "the other side." Confused, I asked who exactly they meant--Republicans? People on the East coast?
This friend had consulted a pet communicator to say some things to a beloved dog about to undergo surgery. In addition to clearing some things up with both of the household's dogs, the communicator also had some messages from relatives of friend. Deceased relatives. And, from my friend's spirit guides.
The communication was part verbal and part experience and even as my friend kept saying "I know this sounds crazy" I couldn't help but notice that their demeanor was supercharged, glowing, ecstatic almost.
My friend asked if I wanted to talk to my momash and I'll be honest, it scared the shit out of me. I didn't sleep much that night.
My friend definitely heard some things that might make life easier. I'm not sure I can say the same for myself.
*

Then I dreamed of momash two nights ago. In the dream, I was lying on the floor of a bedroom, sobbing, "I miss her so much." I woke up in tears.
Yesterday, news that a friend's father suffered a fatal heart attack while hiking in Arizona. Two weeks ago, a bunch of us met up for dumplings and laughs with this friend and his parents. He was an active, smart, hilarious and generous man and I can scarcely believe he is gone. My heart aches.
*
Last night, the much-anticipated Lady Gaga show with good friends and a new one. I wore towering gold sandals just because, and I'm hungover and my feet are killing me. It was a glorious night.
*
photos are reflections in the window of the Union 76 on 45th.

life abbreviated

One of my colleagues killed themselves last week. Young--not yet 40--educated, well-off, and ostensibly happy. Up for a significant promotion at work, with a small child and a spouse and parents and a life. Someone I saw frequently but never felt I connected with. My boss, on a few projects. All this time, I thought it was me--that we just didn't click--but what I've been hearing from other co-workers is the same bewilderment, the sense that we didn't really connect with this person but now we realize, to our horror, there must have been hidden depths, a despair never even hinted at, that caused them to take the ultimate step.
Hey people what is this? We fight so hard to stay alive, we eat right and exercise and undergo medical interventions, we take all possible measures to elbow away the Grim Reaper. And yet this person chose to depart, planned it, I think, prepared and readied and then did it.
How do you walk the Earth one beautifully sunny late winter day, knowing you're about to commit an act that will remove you permanently from the planet, knowing that your act will make an indelible mark on your spouse and your kid and your parents, on all of us?
Who does this? A desperate person. A selfish one? A person with no other options. I can't help but think about it, to try and make sense of the unthinkable, and all I can come up with is sadness. Another human suffered and I had no idea.
*
A writing night, and DJ ShmeeJay is my soundtrack.