Weather and Memory

 Dear Will --

Will and Birdy at the beach, 2016

You would have brought the tomatoes in off the deck last night. And you would have been right, because it was literally freezing outside when Winston and I woke up this morning. At least Alexa told us that it was.

My recent trip to the beach reminded me of those times I got us rooms in places that turned out to be shitty -- the sweet but loud hotels in San Francisco and New York and that crazy New York room where the Sikh hotelier talked our ears off. My travel leadership wasn't always as smart as it could have been. And I have to tell you that Winston agrees with you about wet cold being rougher than dry cold. He did not like going outside to do his business on the coast.

So now I'm starting to make the house puppy friendly again. The kitchen will once again be blocked off. I need to finish cleaning up the downstairs, getting stuff off the floors and stored someplace. I managed to finally throw out all the old, saved wrapping paper this week. I also need to get rid of a bunch of paint cans and other dangerous stuff. I might even clean out the garage, we'll see.

I don't think you would have liked the opera in Santa Fe. You weren't that big a fan of new stuff. So there are benefits to being on my own. But it's always so hard to come home when you aren't visibly present. I've been high and done little worthwhile for four days. I read in church. I met with the Tuesday group twice this week, once live for a lunch and once online to discuss the sermon.  It was good to meet Larry live for the first time as he traveled to the PNW from the IMW.

I don't actually remember the 2016 trip to the beach from which this picture comes. There is so much I don't remember because of my a. b. normal brain.

I'm looking forward to having a big dog again, so I have someone to hug every day.

Our anniversary was yesterday.  Remember how it took us such a long time to even celebrate it - I don't think it was until we got back together in 1990 that we started to do so. And then when did we make it a custom to go to The Original Pancake House? Well, it wouldn't have been until after they opened it in 1997! I remember how you loved the Dutch babies.

I probably terrified that guy at the Oregon Film Museum, I was missing you so hard that day.

Love you now and always

Kake

No Magic Mike

Hunks at Midtown Ballroom

Well, yesterday started off crappy but then got okay.

My friend Stacey and her S.O. came over for dinner last night and it was very pleasant. I made a tuna salad (for the first time in four years) and Chad brought beers to taste. I booted them out afterwards so I could get ready to go out on the town. So nice to have good friends that one can just tell, "time to go."

I had a VIP ticket to Hunks .  It turned out to be an enjoyably sad experience for which I didn't stay long. I was happy I went for the short time I did because I once again experienced something I no longer need in my life. (Like outdoor concerts and festivals.) I love crossing out future FOMO events -- it's almost as fun getting rid of old clothes.

OK. First of all, I need to confess that, in spite of my age, I still enjoy looking at an exceptional muscley male form. The fact that I'm following Thoren Bradley's wood chopping is all the proof I think I need to offer. So it's not the male body I was rejecting when I walked out. It was the scene.

I need a nice setting for sexy times and the Midtown ex-roller rink wasn't it. It's a giant barn of a place. The fog machine onstage made barely a dent in the atmosphere. Strip clubs and whore houses should be comfy. They should have soft seating and a close, friendly atmosphere. The Midtown Barn had neither. The classic metal folding chairs were cold and hard. The front row chairs were well separated for the moments of personal regard sure to come later in the evening but the spacing made the setting even more hollow. If I were younger and sitting in a comfortable chair with screaming friends around me, I might have been in the mood to drink to the point where I couldn't feel the lack of glamour. My one shot of tequila didn't do the trick.

Following the directions that came with my ticket, I got to the event space early when there were about ten other women there. Eventually there may have been as many as a hundred people in the hall which seats a thousand. Most of the other women were in groups and there was at least one hen party that I recognized from the pink cross-chest ribbon being worn  by a Maid of Honor.

Once I sat down I was approached three times by fully clothed "dancers," who checked in to see if I wanted to go up on stage (I didn't) or if I had enough one dollar bills (I didn't as this hadn't been advertised as necessary so I bought $20 worth). They pushed and pushed, verbally.  It turned out that being on stage would have cost me another $20, which was made clear in a later loud, garbled, announcement. 

The show, scheduled to start at 8:00 didn't get going till around 8:25.  The performers did one badly choreographed routine with chairs and hip thrusts and lots of violent movements, including pounding fists on their thighs. The women around me were screaming wildly. There was a lot of fuss with the lighting -- colors, flashing lights, etc -- which just seemed sad as the brightness emphasized the large, 2/3 empty space.

After the first number there were more loud announcements (that I had trouble understanding in the echoing gloom) as the dancers came through the audience promoting the idea of being onstage, talking to individual women, etc.

And that was when I left. I stopped for a minute at the front door to tell the security gal, "It's just not my scene." And she said, "Yeah, and it's mostly this ..." and pointed at the guys shilling for more money. 

Basically, the whole scene was hugely exploitive. Exploitive of the men who were doing the work and probably not being paid enough so they did what all sex-workers must, be constantly selling. And exploitive of the audience who were being pushed to spend, spend, spend. The announcer even said, "Have more drinks. When you drink more, we look better."

So I was very glad that I went to this display of the egalitarian exploitation available in late-stage capitalism. But even more glad that I left and came home to a dog who loves me and a cat who tolerates me.  

I give myself props for trying new things and props for leaving when it wasn't fun.

I thought I was done

 having 2 a.m. mornings when I wake up frightened, heart racing, realizing he is dead and I'm alone.

fuck this shit

HOW IT IS

 Last week was a good week as it clarified what the best of my new life could be like.

I had a mix of bad grief moments and great connection with friends.

I got called "exciting," "remarkable," and a "deep thinker" who encourages others to think deeply.  And I got to comfort someone who had experienced a recent loss and who also has a screwy family issue.

On Saturday I videocalled (Oi, we're "living in the future," as my dead-friend Mike used to say) with my friends Diana (morning) and David (evening), both of whom I love and it's always so nice to check in with them.

I got a bit of work done on the house, both by me and by a gal who stained my deck for $400 less than the blokes who did it a couple of years ago.

Yesterday, I met up with a high school buddy who was going through town to visit with one of her closest friends. We went to church together and then had coffee before she needed to move on.  It was very pleasant to talk with another child free person who has had a successful career and a somewhat complex personal life -- another person who loves opera and traveling (I was able to impress her with my tales of the Met and La Scala).

We had a great sermon yesterday focusing on food (because the Gospel was John 6:1-21). Tears just started running down my face because it made me think of Will. My friend understood. I was happy and sad at the same time.

I also got high and rewatched (for the umpteenth time) three of the Season 1 (1998-9) episodes of Midsomer Murders. Samsung freetv played the entire first season for binging purposes over the weekend. How many times have I seen Death of a Hollow Man?  This time I enjoyed especially the scenes outside the theatre, as I stood on that very square to take a picture of it.

Taken during my visit, May 29, 2024

Still from S1E3 Midsomer Murders, 1998

The real and the cinematic, the actual and the pretend, were never supremely clear for Will and I, we both enjoyed being inside the movie. When we were in Paris in 1997, he actually said that to me, that it was like being inside a French film.  That's one reason I was so very happy to be on my super-fans tour. Not only was I seeing beautiful countryside, but I was also being inside a movie.

Theologically, this connects to the Platonic concept of this world being a shadow of the real world of pure forms.

And as far as shadows are concerned, Sir John Nettles is one of my favorites.

Flippered

 Monday and yesterday were hard days. The heavy grief came back and with it the mental twistiness.

The Sisterhood of Widows Facebook group is so helpful, even though it ISN'T run by the author of The Grieving Brain, as I thought it was (there are two Mary Frances' doing grief analysis I found out, though the gal who runs the FB group is Mary Francis, with an i). There are women on there three and seven years out that still hurt.  One woman, 15 years out, reminded everyone that the loss and the feeling of loss are forever.

I got stuck in a loop on Monday trying to explain myself to a friend.  She gave me good advice about getting friends: to show up, be amiable, and have low expectations.  This advice was pretty much what I did in my classrooms, in which I loved everybody and, after the first five years, stopped expecting anybody to work the way I thought they "should." I just haven't wanted to be a "fake" person while I'm looking for connections.  But like many other people, I need to make the choice between authenticity and connection.

from Zdeněk Macháček on Unsplash

I got angry Monday with an online poetry teacher for not knowing what iambic pentameter is and giggling when she said she didn't know.  I dropped the class but what I told her was that she was energetic and cared about her practice but that I had thought we'd do more writing and sharing in the class and it wasn't for me.  But yesterday's teacher was much better and we did lots of shared writing.

I'm also annoyed because my eyes are going and soon I'll need to wear glasses all the time again, as I did from 1964 (4th grade) to 2008 (eye surgery).  It annoys me that everything has an outlined blur around it when I'm driving now.

Another irritation is that my guts are a mess.  On the other hand, I'm very lucky that my bones and joints seem okay with just a minor, annoying amount of osteoarthritis in my neck and spine.

As for blessings, I am so thankful for the Tuesday morning group and I told them that - that after EFM folded, meeting with them helped me stay alive.

WHAT IS MY PORPOISE!  Argh.  I have no function. 

So, even though there's no reason for me to be alive, it's okay that I'm alive.  It's literally just fine that I'm still alive, even though I have no purpose and serve no function. It's okay. If all I'm able to be is a stoner slacker, that's okay. If stoner-slacker is the very best identity I'm able to produce right now, that is acceptable to God.

But wait!  HELP IS ON THE WAY!  My new puppy is waiting to be born and is expected tomorrow. Maybe by fall there will be someone new and exciting in my life! Can't be a slacker with a puppy in the house!

I am, indeed, a very lucky person that most of my pain is in my old noggin'.  I've been dealing with mental pain and confusion my whole life!  I should be good at it by now!  And there is, after all, a great freedom in no one giving a fuck where I go and what I do each day. At some point, with God's grace, I'll figure out what to do with all this liberty.

 

Questions

 Dear Will -

Do you remember the last time I was flopping about like this, back in 1979 when I was wondering what I was supposed to do with my life, when I'd been unable to do much of anything except sleep and watch TV for a year and I asked you about what I should do and said that I wanted to make a difference and wanted to save people and you said something like, "isn't saving one person enough?"

And now you are free from the need to be saved.

Yet I'm still here asking that question. Except now I'm so angry and cranky with people and I'm not sure I care anymore.

I want to care.  Jesus asks me to care. But I'm ready to say, "I'm okay with not making it off the wheel this time around."

Thank god I have a dog.

Missing you every day.

Kake

Missing you

Dear Will:

Yesterday morning one of the women in the FB widows' group offered the metaphor of a shoebox with all the stuff of our lives in the box and someone takes out the most important thing and then we need to reorganize the box.  I responded that it was more like the box was thrown out and now I need to figure out how to go forward without a container.

Love you forever,

Kake