transmothraOur dog bit me today. But good. Father’s day my ass. He was defending his right to eat toilet paper.
After the scolding, he looked like he was going to cry.
So now my hand is all bandaged up. It wasn’t stitch-worthy, but it wasn’t very far from it.
Bad dog.
Billy Preston has left the studio at the tender age of 59.
A kinder, sweeter man i have never met. He had tons of heart. He saved the Beatles in their last year. Rock music wouldn’t have been so good without this wonderful man. Here’s just a partial list of credits. He also played with Earth Wind and Fire during the group’s heyday.
(1970) Let It Be — including “Get Back”
(1970) All Things Must Pass (George Harrison)
(1971) Sticky Fingers (Rolling Stones)
(1971) The Concert for Bangladesh (George Harrison And Friends)
(1971) There’s a Riot Goin’ On (Sly & the Family Stone)
(1972) Exile on Main Street (Rolling Stones)
(1973) Goats Head Soup (Rolling Stones)
(1974) It’s Only Rock’n Roll (Rolling Stones)
(1975) Blood on the Tracks (Bob Dylan)
(1975) “You Are So Beautiful” (Joe Cocker’s biggest hit)
(1976) Black and Blue (Rolling Stones)
The funeral for our old buddy Mark Hild was today. The viewing was yesterday. Attended both. Got no sleep. Saw Grandfather. He looks like he weighs all of 75lbs and is sweating like a pig in that inferno of a house. Extremely depressed over both situations.
Yesterday, Mark’s wonderful mother Alice remembered me (my god, the woman is superhuman after all!), and said that Mark had been on a breathing tube for a few years, and that he’d pretty much lost control of everything but his brain and mouth. She said that he was ready, that he was done with being sick. She looked remarkably at peace, and i am incredibly glad. What a sweet, yet strong, woman. Today i thanked her for being such a good mother for our friend.
Friday, i cried. Then, i was numb. Today, i’m crying again. Mark had a helluva Will. He Intended to keep on keepin’ on, until there was nothing left to keep. And he damn sure did just that. He did exactly that. Kid was a fighter, a tough MF.
Just a few short years ago, i honestly thought that he could beat that Muscular Dystrophy shit straight to hell. I really thought that he was Neo or something.
I noticed that the word “shame” was bandied about in regards to MD (unless i was hearing wrong, which may well be the case… i hope). I’ve never had it, so i have no right to any opinion on that, but i’ll give it anyway: Where is shame? Show me shame! All i see in people with MD is passion, sweetness, love, and some serious freakin’ people skills. I guess if i had it, i’d feel pretty self-conscious, and maybe even shame. But as a free-standing man who takes his health for granted, i can tell you that i have never once associated that foul word with Muscular Dystrophy, or any other disease. The very idea makes me think of those sick freaks who get all offended by the site of someone with a different physiology than their own. And to them [i say]? “Fuck you.” Seriously. “Fuck you.” Who cares what idiots like that think, who barely even deserve to walk freely at all?
I called out from work today again. I’ll go back tomorrow. Today is just a little… heavy for me.
These are just words, really. I’m just pouring them out of me with my tears. Sorry if i offend. I’m emotional. Go read Dale Huffman’s great story about Mark instead.
One of my favorite friends of all time is Melissa R. She and i go way back to around 1997-98, when we wore headsets at AT&T Wireless together. I really only knew her in proximity for several months, actually, because she ended up moving to the left coast relatively soon afterward. But we got along so very well. She’s the kindest, most gentle soul who has ever graced this planet. She’s also wicked funny, madly intelligent, and insanely charming. She’s been though a lot, and has the most wonderful beaming smile that just fills you up with such incredible, serene warmth. Truth be told, she’s one of my favorite iterations of the Bodhisattva. I’m very, very lucky to have had the opportunity to meet her in the short year and a half that i worked at that company.
I haven’t seen her for a long, long time. It’s been a couple of years since last we spoke, in fact. But thanks to her comment on one of my posts recently, we’re back in touch. What a great weekend for memories. I was thrilled to hear that her little buddyboy (2 1/2 years old!) is doing great and that she’s got a new beau and is going back to college. She deserves so much that is good, and so i am very pleased!
I was so sad when she moved away. Her wit and general personal splendor are like nothing else you can find anywhere – once you’ve met her, it’s impossible not to be moved in a big way. Her humanity is overwhelming – i could have easily lost my faith in people entirely if not for her. It’s great to know such a fabulous woman.
Speaking of fabulous women, Holly and i are coming up on our first year together in August. I thank “Bob” for giving me the SLACK necessary to cheat so well at the game of Life by merely knowing her. Like so many ancient heroes, she has been to hell and has returned more powerful than ever. She’s so funny and bold and intelligent and sexy and tough. A quicker, more delightfully sarcastic wit can not be found anywhere else in this galaxy. When we met, i knew she was important and special and she impressed the hell out of me right away. I was very lucky that “the cute black-haired girl in the elevator” (she looks a little like an [American] Indian Janeane Garofalo) started temping at the same job i was starting. We’re such soul mates it’s just pathetic.
It’s hard to believe that our first year anniversary is coming up. It flew right by. That’s a great sign, although i know that much of the flying is also due to the long hard hours of work that we both do. We get very little time outside of work. But i cherish every moment with this incredible girl (as much of an asshole as i am about having time to myself).
I am glad for the memories i have of all the special people in my life, most of whom are not mentioned here but are in my heart always and forever.
Today i went over to see my grandfather. He seems confused, as usual, and asking him a question requires waiting around for at least a minute before he figures out how to say the answer, if he remembers what the question was at that time. So that’s nice and depressing.
But a really weird thing happened. We were sitting there, watching Curb Your Enthusiasm, when suddenly a little toy Douglas C-47 (a metal/plastic replica of the troop carrier my grandfather was in through all four Market Garden missions during WWII; about 3 inches long, something like this one) that was sitting on top of the television set came flying off and crashed onto the carpet about 5 feet away, right at my feet.
…As in, “WTF”!
I tested it to see how far it would bounce if it had just fallen off on its own due to the vibrations of the television. It landed directly in front of the television, bouncing a few inches at the most. That’s not five feet, i thought to myself.
My dad and Charlie (sp?), the caretaker for the night, said that this had happened before. She said that she herself hadn’t seen it happen, but was extraordinarily nonplussed. She told me that Jennifer, another caretaker, was sitting on the floor in front of the sofa (just about where i was when it happened tonight), when the exact same thing happened.
…As in, “WTF”!?
And then i remembered that my friend Tony once stayed over, not terribly long after my grandmother had died, and had stayed in her room. He reported the next day that he had seen someone in the room with him. I told him at the time that, in the darkness, and in his drunken state, it had probably only been his own reflection in a mirror. He vehemently denied any possibility of that. My friend Tony, who’s pretty skeptical about anything even remotely implausible…
So… now what? I’m a skeptic, goddammit! I do not believe in ghosts! How am i supposed to reconcile this event with reason? I mean, there simply MUST be a logical explanation for this, other than that my grandmother is haunting their house.
I got this in my MySpace inbox the other day. It made me feel terrific. The best compliment i think i’ve ever gotten.
my name is [DL] i am the younger brother of [SL]…now [SW], but i just wanted to say that you wrote a poem and i found a copy of it it started out “each life a letter under an indigo envelope”, anyways i just wanted to say that was one of the greatest poems i ever read in my life, and by the time [SL/SW] told me you wrote it you were already gone to florida i think. anyways, good talking to you i always wanted to tell you that. i actually used that poem for a class in college and we had to memorize a poem and resite it, i picked that one. i hope you are still writing and i hope life and your travels have treated you well.
[DL]
Shame, i don’t even remember the pome. (SL/SW is a girl i used to hang around a whole lot back in The Day, during the grunge explosion and my pizza-slangin’, pot-smokin’, free-wheelin’ heyday. DL is her younger brother. I always liked him, he was a real fun guy.)
my grandpa is always asleep when i call over there. i haven’t even been over in a couple of weeks now. it’s just too goddamned depressing; i can’t bear it at all.
oddly, i’m not drinking it away. just sleeping.
cha-ch-ch-ch-changesFUCK OFF.
tomorrow, i’ll be making an appearance at the Bigger Rd Veterinary Clinic, and then it’s off to see V for Vendetta! wheeeeee!!!
installed a ton of new plugins for my WordPress. still have to get Gravatars, Ultimate Tag Warrior, and In-Series installed. those ‘uns are too heavy to lift at the moment.
Jackie Corley‘s manuscript for At the Slaughter is fantastic so far. everything that made the earlier drafts i’ve read so damn good, and more. when you see it in the bookstores, PICK IT UP. it’s so heavy, and yet such a fun read. a wonderfully tragic story about a wonderfully tragic character. i’m only a little ways through, though. must read more tomorrow, and also figure out how to get networking fixed so i can print it out and read it at work.
i moved desks today at work. luckily, i’m now on XP and Netscape Browser 8 is installed. i was surprised that NS8 now has built-in FF/IE rendering options out of the box. the downer is that i hate XP’s need to group taskbar buttons together, and i can’t change that. also, i am a very few inches farther away from my ex-girlfriend Lisa, but there’s no longer a cubicle wall to separate us. on the whole, though, i give the move a big thumbs up. big plus = no longer totally alone, sit much much closer to Holly!
i work for a major lingerie retailer that you’ve heard of. i work in Internet Services. i take phone calls, and e-mails, and very occasionally answer the TDD phone. (i have nothing to do with their actual website.)
today, i received the following e-mail:
i located the account. we are supposed to note the account with the request. because there is no account-level notation function in our green-on-black mainframe system, we just have to hope there’s an order and note the most recent one.
she had three orders. the final one was dated to something like July 8th, 2005. it was a backordered 2-piece lime green swimsuit. i did not look at the size – not for any particular reason, it just didn’t occur to me. she would likely not have received it until sometime up to the 22nd. or rather, it would not have arrived until then.
i sat there, staring into the screen, past the green pixellated Lucida Console fonts that spelled out the question: did she get to wear it at least once? did she see it at all? did it even arrive before her death? i knew that the chances were pretty good that she had died before it had even gotten across state lines. something sank, deep inside of me; i was deeply moved by this event which was so small to me yet so gigantic to her family. a longing to touch her cheek, to see what she looked like, to tell her that it would all be okay somehow. i wanted to console her, to forgive her post facto grief. i felt such sadness for that dead ex-customer then.
life is pretty fucking precious when you realize how thin of a string our mere existence swings by; how lucky we all are to be here and be aware in the first place. and how easily and how permanently it can be shattered for all of eternity.
my “human-level response” was excellent on that one. i thanked the mother for her e-mail (as always), told her that it saddened us to hear of it, and asked her to please accept our sincere and humble condolences for her tragic loss. something along those lines.
i’d never meant anything like that in a business e-mail before.
i work for a major lingerie retailer that you’ve heard of. i work in Internet Services. i take phone calls, and e-mails, and very occasionally answer the TDD phone. (i have nothing to do with their actual website.)
today, i received the following e-mail:
her address is:
*** *. ******* **.
**** ******, ** *****
i located the account. we are supposed to note the account with the request. because there is no account-level notation function in our green-on-black mainframe system, we just have to hope there’s an order and note the most recent one.
she had three orders. the final one was dated to something like July 8th, 2005. it was a backordered 2-piece lime green swimsuit. i did not look at the size – not for any particular reason, it just didn’t occur to me. she would likely not have received it until sometime up to the 22nd. or rather, it would not have arrived until then.
i sat there, staring into the screen, past the green pixellated Lucida Console fonts that spelled out the question: did she get to wear it at least once? did she see it at all? did it even arrive before her death? i knew that the chances were pretty good that she had died before it had even gotten across state lines. something sank, deep inside of me; i was deeply moved by this event which was so small to me yet so gigantic to her family. a longing to touch her cheek, to see what she looked like, to tell her that it would all be okay somehow. i wanted to console her, to forgive her post facto grief. i felt such sadness for that dead ex-customer then.
life is pretty fucking precious when you realize how thin of a string our mere existence swings by; how lucky we all are to be here and be aware in the first place. and how easily and how permanently it can be shattered for all of eternity.
my “human-level response” was excellent on that one. i thanked the mother for her e-mail (as always), told her that it saddened us to hear of it, and asked her to please accept our sincere and humble condolences for her tragic loss. something along those lines.
i’d never meant anything like that in a business e-mail before.
