Hope Collier Buechler

Hope Buechler’s gone. She died just two weeks before my Amazing Bob.

I’ve written about the Buechler’s before. They’re family friends, dating back to the early ‘60s when Daddy and Jim both taught at St. Bernard's, a boy’s prep school in Gladstone, New Jersey. I’ve a lot of great memories of the whole family both from childhood as well as my, theoretical, adulthood.

I visited madre y padre Buechler after they moved to Taos, Susan in Minneapolis and Lydia in der große Apfel. I’ve even had a dream where we were on vaca together in the Seychelles.

Hope once said, to my mother, that I was more niece/cousin than family friend. Man o man, that made me happy.

Hope is the reason that I was able to build a better relationship with my mother. She gave me Lucy's back story, put things into perspective. Mutti and I would never be close but we came to understand and appreciate each other – thanks to Hope.

Yesterday, Jen and I drove out to Webster for the East Coast Hope Memorial. It was held at the summer cottage the Buechlers shared with Hope’s brother’s families. It’s a magical, pastoral place, deep in the woods on Lake Chaubunagungamaug.

This, below, is Hope’s obituary – written by Jim and appearing in the Taos News.
~~~
Hope Collier Buechler died in Taos on June 17, 2016 of acute leukemia. She was 82.

Born in New York and raised in New England, Hope attended Radcliffe College where she met and married Jim Buechler in 1955. The couple and their family lived in New York, Iowa, New Jersey, and California before settling in Duxbury, Massachusetts. 

For a time Hope worked as a librarian. Then she became a historical re-enactor on the Mayflower II, which was moored across the bay in Plymouth, she immersed herself in the role, as such actors must do, even to speaking in the Pilgrim dialect around the house. A high point in her re-enacting career came a few years later when she played the part of Abigail Adams, one of her two most admired women (the other being Eleanor Roosevelt) at the Adams National Historical Park.   

Hope arrived in Taos for good in the fall of 1996. Within two hours she had found the condo on Ski Valley Road where she and Jim would spend the next 20 years.  They were stimulating years for her. She took great pleasure in dancing and was a founder of the Taos Contra Dance. From her friend Jenny Vincent she learned the traditional dances of New Mexico. But her favorite dances of all were those described in the novels of Jane Austen, in the English Country tradition. In recent years Hope became an English Country dance caller and instructor.

Surely the most stimulating, as well as the most exasperating, and yet the most satisfying times of Hope's life in Taos came during her long tenure as chair of the Democratic party's Precinct Nine. At this level of politics she throve. She loved the warm give and take, even with opponents.

She was a good speaker and an effective writer. Like many of her generation, her political ideas reflected those of those of F.D.R. and Eleanor  Roosevelt. She was delighted, upon moving to Taos, to find so many relics of the New Deal such as the murals in the old County Court House. She believed absolutely in the American political system and strove to make it work for all citizens. Hope also devoted time to environmental organizations, volunteering with the Taos Land Trust and Amigos Bravos. She is survived by her husband Jim and their four children: Lydia, of New York; Will, of Taos; Paul, of Aspen; and Susan of Minneapolis, all of whom will sorely miss her lively spirit, inquisitive mind, and unstinting love. She is also survived by two brothers, James Collier of New York and Christopher Collier of Connecticut.

In lieu of flowers, please consider a donation to the Taos Land Trust or Amigos Bravos.

Find of the Day

Here's a funny poem that my Amazing Bob wrote plus a rumination on love, on why our relationship worked (I HATE the past tense!).

Those Terrible Things
             sung to the tune of My Favorite Things by Rodgers and Hammerstein
Green shoes and red coats and bags with cheap presents
TV commercials with bad British accents
Seasonal music with saccharine strings
All of us sneer at these terrible things

Clap on clap off and crap made in China
Chia pets, magic sets, dolls with vaginas
Gold-plated jewelry they market as “bling”
All of us sneer at these terrible things

Teenagers shopping with rings in their noses
Middle-aged people in lamely hip poses
CDs by pop stars who can’t even sing
All of us sneer at these terrible things

When the mail comes
When the phone rings
And I’m going mad
I work at forgetting these terrible things
And then I don’t feel so bad.
~~~

Carl Reiner has been married for 61 years. Here’s what he says about choosing your mate:
Pick someone who can stand you. He says that you can be in lust with almost anyone, that love is more difficult, that like is sometimes tough, but if you pick someone who can stand you, you’ll do well. He went on to say that if you choose someone who just hates the music you listen to or can’t stand the way you use a toothpick in public, you’re in big trouble. And it helps if you choose someone you can stand.

I remember a line in a book by Donald Barthelme in which he’s talking about love and he says something like: That’s the way it is behind the veil of flummery which surrounds relationships. You put up with her shit and she puts up with yours. That’s the deal.

OK, so that’s not very romantic or flowery but I personally think stuff like that is why our relationship works so well for both of us. Yes, we love each other but, beyond that, we can stand each other. Do you think that makes sense?

~~~
Yes. Yes, I do very much think that makes sense.

TAB wrote this in October of 2004 when I was in the thick of stereotactic fractionated radiation action. He wrote to me near daily while I slept and slept and then, between retching and rounds of dry heaves, napped.

We weren’t the hearts and flowers type but we were truly, madly, deeply in love AND we could stand each other. He took brill care of me when I was in my always illin’ 40s and I took care of him in his annually illin’ 60s and 70s.

We took turns being sick – we were all considerate and shit like that.

You know you’re solid partners for life when you can get through all the smelly, messy, sometimes projectile bodily excretions and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to and still be crazy about each other.

Beyond

Yesterday Oni and I went to see Star Trek Beyond. It was gorgeous AND total escapism. Well, it would’ve been utterly complete escapism IF the damn closed captioning device worked. It didn’t.

Also, for those of you who haven’t read my Lipreading-is-NOT-just-like-hearing-and-all-I-need-to-do-is-concentrate-more rant, click the linky and then, just know, I was NOT able to read the actors lips. Nope.

When I couldn’t get the thing working, Oni very kindly took the device all the back to the far away (the Randolph Cinema de Lux is huge…VAST. It contains multitudes) customer service desk.  Fifteen minutes worth of missed amazing action later, he returned and, once again, we couldn’t get the fucker to work.

The preferred CaptiView

The device was the ballyhooed closed captioned glasses.

Sony Entertainment Access Glasses are sort of like 3-D glasses, but for captioning. The captions are projected onto the glasses and appear to float about 10 feet in front of the user. (source)

Sounds awesome, don’t it? I imagine that it is and that’s all I can do. I imagine that a working one could be tremendous.

Oni asked if I wanted to split. Nah. While there is a lot of dialogue in Beyond, there’s also all the cool-ass space ship and universe shit. We were a good 20 minutes into the flick at this point anyway. I wanted to see what happened next.

Glad we stayed as I've found my newest fave actress Sofia Boutella. She kicks serious ass and does it with mondo style. No surprise there – she's a dancer.


Interestingly, Jaylah’s listed as a scavenger and, waddya know, so was Daisy Ridley’s Rey! Yeah, I want the grands to see these movies. They should grow up seeing women on the big screen who are smart, strong, resourceful, steel nerved and cool as all hell.

So then – incredible movie but, yeah, I def need to see it again. This time we'll go to the Braintree theater where they have the reliable closed captioning arms.

Blowup

I dreamed last night that I was in a building that blew up. Yep, that’s pretty much how I’ve been feeling lately.

It was the Manos Theater. My first job EVAH was there, as ticket seller and then candy girl. This was WAY back in the days of real, drool worthy, can’t-get-enough-of-it movie theater popcorn. *sigh* I miss popcorn.

In any case, the entire lobby area was blown clean out. Mondo wreckage. Yeah, I managed to survive as did everyone else except….except the “suicide bomber.” Fairly quickly we found out that, no, this wasn’t ISIS. Nope, it was some late middle aged white guy with no political agenda. He was depressed, tired of his life that bore no resemblance to an heroic Hollywood testosterone fest where, in the end – naturally, he wins the model beautiful, big boobed babe (or three). He figured he’d go out with a big bang.

And he did.

Unlike Real World Manos, Snooze Time Manos was in a tall building with pale, raw meat hued, marble walls with a long bank of elevators. I rode up to the 13th floor (ominous much?) where there was a funny little mosque and tea room. In my yoga pants, T and purple hair, I felt wickedly, conspicuously out of place.

Why was I there? I’m not Muslim. I’m not Christian, Jewish or Buddhist or even an atheist. Nope. I’m a stone(d) agnostic. I wouldn’t lay claims to being spiritual either. Maybe, probably I am but, well, that’s not the point. More, I was (and am) Islam Curious.

Also, a tea room has COOKIES right?!

I sat down at a low table with a group of hijab clad babes. Guess what?! They were all deaf AND communicated using ASL! How cool was this? (FYI – very) We had a lovely chat – these women were wonderfully friendly and kind. I, as usz, apologized for my weak-ass signing. Grammar. It kills me every damn time. How pathetic is it that I’m embarrassed and apologizing for my language skills even in my dreams . *sigh*
 
And then they told me that the imam was about to come in. I decided to leg it. I’m not real comfortable around the pro religious league. Possibly I’m expecting preachy hectoring and condemnations of my alt life. Yes, got that in spades from the christianists so now I think every god botherer’s gonna be like that.

I was in a crowd of business suited folk, all waiting for a lift down to the bombed out first floor. We noticed then that, of the ten elevators, every last one was showing that it was on the first floor and not moving.

What to make of this? Am I feeling stuck in a strange, new-to-me land? Yup.

I would’ve liked to see if I ever got off the 13th floor but Rocco chose that very moment to get all up in my sleeping grill. He gently patted my cheek (that’s his new thing) and announced “Time to get up you lazy slag! I need pats, chin skritches and brekkie NOW. No, NOW!”

Yeah, I "hear" and obey. Outta my face cat.

and, for no particular reason, Immigrant Song – Led Zepplin.

Strange

Jen and Oni were away on Monday evening. It was the first time in a bazillion and one half years that I’ve been alone. That is, alone and without The Amazing Bob being just a phone call or text message away.

Weird. Weird, weird, weird, weird, weird, weird and even more of that weird shit.

More weirdness – all this empty time I have now that I’m not taking care of my handsome man.

• We don’t head into MGH a couple of times a week for doc visits, tests or chemo-ification.
• I’m not making his breakfast, lunch, dinner and snack and then nagging him to eat, EAT.
• I don’t need to keep track of his many ‘scripts, fill the days of the week pill box, dispense and make sure he’s actually taken his AM and then PM doses.
• No more weekly pharmacy runs.
• No more daily trips to the grocery for his cookies and the morning fishwrap.
• There’re very few dishes and clothes to wash now.

I ramble around the house constantly thinking I’m forgetting to do something important. I’m fairly certain that I’ll adapt. Maybe. Possibly, I’ll just end up painting, reading and napping with the cats all day. Who knows?

TAB stepped off Planet Earth 23 days ago and this still feels truly bizarre and utterly surreal. I don't like it. Too strange. I want TAB back now, tx.
People are Strange – The Doors

 

Notes to a Nomad

 In February of 2000 something or other (it was in the early aughts) I flew to Italy to visit Cindy and Giovanni. At the time, they were living in San Casciano dei Bagni, a magical little town (with castle!) in Southern Tuscany.

While I was gone The Amazing Bob wrote to me.
~~~~~~~
Last night at around 6:40 PM I heard a large jet somewhere in the cloud filled evening sky and decided you were on that plane and it was taking you to Italy. I looked up and thought, Fly well and return.

This morning Jen took me grocery shopping. We had a nice time and stopped at Ginger Betty’s bakery on Sea Street. They don’t make bread there but there are so many tempting pastries! I got a lemon square for each of us and she got M&M cookies for her and Oni. The square was wonderful.

  An aside:  I’ll stop there, today maybe, and have a lemon square in my beloved’s memory.

It’s nearly 1:30 now and there’s a ship out there in the opaque fog blowing it’s foghorn every so often. Since it hasn’t gotten noticeably louder or softer in the last twenty minutes, it must be moving very slowly. It sounds one long tone, followed by two shorter blasts, which must mean something in the language of foghorns.

Your father called around noontime. He mentioned that a relative (for whom he seemed to have little affection) had died at around 90 years of age. I couldn’t make out the name and he went on and on, as garrulous as ever. His shoulder is feeling better these days and he says he’ll call you (I had hearing back then) because he’s always wanted to make a phone call to Tuscany.

Ah, there’s a second voice from the fog now. It's using the same long-short-short pattern as the first but this one is much farther away. Perhaps it’s mating season and they’re trying to attract one another. Who knows?

OK, you’ve been gone for 24 hours. I’m ready for you to come back now. I got my one good night’s sleep in the bed; I’m good for another six months now.
~~~~~~~
The surprises you get when you start shacking up – I snore. I had no idea! Jen, who shares a room with me when we travel, says I’m it’s not loud at all – more of a snuffling sound. It was, however, forte enough to wake my poor TAB.

Yes, this was always, and continues to be, a source of guilt. That being one of my “superpowers,” don'cha know.

Don’t Speak

TAB's fave – Half Moons

Yesterday morning Jen and Oni had a little brunch soirée. On the guest list were Jen’s mother (also named Donna – no, don’t read anything into that!), her fab Uncle Bob, sister Erin, brother-in-law P.J. and nephew Patrick (he’s almost three now!). I haven’t felt like being in groups or around many people AT ALL but this crew is nothing but wonderful, comfortable and awesome.

Mega cool, right?

Erin and Patrick came up on the veranda (as we refer to the raised cement platform which connects Jen and Oni’s house with ours). We were talking about Patrick having just seen his very first movie theater flick – The Secret Life of Pets. Hey, ME TOO! And then Erin very accidentally pulled the trigger.

She used the word cookies as in, I baked you some cookies. And she had. I began trembling and my face began a slo-mo crumble, a silent sob (as far as I know but, hey, I’m deaf) rolled up through my chest. A tsunami of weeping threatened. I ran inside my house – rather I would have but, now that I lock my door, I stood there fumbling with my keys, trying but ultimately failing to keep the gasping, soggy howls at bay. I finally made it inside and collapsed in TAB’s recliner. Honest to Bast, if this display of raw emotion had been intentional it woulda snagged me an Oscar, a Golden Globe and a Tony or three.

Now then, this is Erin McMurrer, Saint Erin (!), Erin fucking McMurrer – the test kitchen director of Cooks Illustrated. Baked goods from her can only be the most exquisite, drool inducing, Valhallian manna. Seriously! So, wut up?

TAB used to bake me cookies – special ones with spinach!  This and TAB was the Cookie Monster. MY Cookie Monster.

Jen came and found me, by this time I was in the bedroom scaring poor Rocco with my howls of pain. She knew that a trigger had been pulled but didn’t know what it was.

"She said the word cookie," I cried, dissolving in a fresh round of tears.

"OK, 'Jen calmly replied, "we won’t say that word again. What should we call them instead?"

"Biscuits. Call them biscuits or anything else. Just don’t say that word!"

"We won’t."

Jen escorted me back to the party. As we walked through the door, Jen quietly advised all to not use the word cookie. I realized, fairly quickly, that I was in Bullets Over Broadway/Diane Wiest-ian territory. You know – Don’t speak! Added to the ban on cookie was Don’t hug. I was in such a fragile state that even the most gentle embrace would set off the waterworks.

I could see and truly appreciate the tragicomedy – the whole business of having the word cookie, of all things, set me off was, really, pretty damn funny. Still, I felt it was best not to rain on everyone’s brunch parade any more. Every kind string of words uttered was a minefield.

I went up to my bedroom to read more Slaughterhouse-Five.

Some days, some moments are better than others. And so it goes...

I asked myself about the present: how wide it was, how deep it was, how much was mine to keep.
~ Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five

Seeing and Feeling

Over the last couple years, I began painting on the stairway and upstairs walls.  There’s the koi pond, One Fish, Two Fish and the almost completed Seussian giraffe on TAB’s study door. He had special affinity for giraffes – they were tall and graceful. Like him!

The last one I’d begun, Thidwick the Big-Hearted Moose is on our bedroom door. I was doing these whimsical murals to entertain, to cheer him up. It worked. He loved Dr. Seuss.

Also too – I did these in order to stay upstairs, close by in case he needed anything. His health, his mobility was on a major downswing these past five years. I wasn't comfortable being away from him, not even to go to the grocery store.

I also drew animals in Illustrator on my little laptop. I could sit with him in our living room, doodle away and then show him the results. It made him happy. I brought the laptop to the hospital so I could doodle for him there. Above left is my last one, a turtle, the only one I did there.

We talked of more Seuss – as he was spending more and more time in bed, I told him that I'd begin painting teetering stacks of Yertle the Turles around our wide closet door. He laughed. He was delighted. I lived to inspire smiles and giggles in him.

I’m moving my painting studio up here to the living/dining room now. My next big (4’x6’-ish) stretched canvas (and this may be the last one on canvas as I’ve been planning to switch over to all water based medium on paper) will be of that last scene in TAB’s ICU room – the Avalon-esque one.

Some of my artist chums’s have, in turn, given me some of their work and, boyhowdy, they've given me big fat smiles.

Linda Baker Cimini sent me two mega awesome prints – Grande Jette and Toadalisque. Christ almighty, I love her work!

Holly Sears made me a wild, bittersweet yet waggish pair of earrings. Chagall, very happily, always comes to mind when I see her work.

Ellen Huie brought me this gorgeous, dream-like plate (below)

God, I'm lucky.

Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.
~ Thomas Merton, No Man Is an Island

One eye sees, the other feels.
~ Paul Klee

Distraction Action

Just as I need to experience, really feel my grief and sorrow in real time – repression’s a sucker’s game – I DO need distraction. Ya know, all woe and no joy makes Donna a psycho kind of gal. Can’t have that, mon ami.

So then, I’m working again. The simple layout and small design jobs help. My mind is completely focused when I’m Creative Clouding away. It’s a balm.

I went to see another movie – The Secret Life of Pets. Very cute but it may still be too soon for me to be able to enjoy a movie in a theater surrounded by, ya know, PEOPLE. I found, in this one and in Ghostbusters,  that I wanted to get up and go home almost immediately. Yes, I wanted to see the flicks (and I did stay) but I yearn to be home surrounded by Bob things, Bob smells, Bob-ness. What to do? Get my DVD player fixed and watch sci fi, animation and such here at home.Workin' on it.

I’m planning a trip to see Daddy in late August.  This one’ll be slightly more leisurely since I don’t need to race back to Valhalla and The Amazing Bob (*sniff*). Jen and I will stay overnight in a town close-ish to where my father lives so that we can have lunch with him on two consecutive days. Two shorter, less taxing visits.

Sadie, Trixie and Giselle Cumulus

Brother, George Cumulus

Jen, Oni and I are making a plan for my upcoming birthday, the first without my TAB and I’m dreading it. The idea is to do something completely different from past years.  We’ll drive out to Mass MoCA in North Adams, MA. I’ve never been and I hear tell the place is fabola. As long as we’re at the far western edge of Massachusetts, we’ll zip up to Hoosick Falls – just an hour further north – visit Helen and fam, have a little dinner party and stay the night.

I’m starting to have longer stretches where the grief’s not dialed up to eleventy-billion. What this means is that I think mebbe I can trust myself on the trike again. In the past, when consumed with worry or anxiety, I’ve been less than careful and observant. I've rolled the trike… twice. Yeah, fucking, ouch! So then, I’ve been off my beloved three wheeler for almost a month now. Time to get back on. I’ll take it easy at first. Short rides, just around the neighborhood.

The weather report says that the next four or five days will be in the 90s. *Oof City* What this means is that I’ll get out mega early to trike or walk the beach and then I’ll be home to hibernate in the ACed boudoir. I can get back to cleaning, sorting, organizing and discovering forgotten bits from my long shared life with TAB OR I’ll indulge in trashy mystery novels, hippy dippy sci fi (rereading Stranger in a Strange Land) and Vonnegut. Probably both.

Cousin Trinnie Stratocumulus

I’m trying to enter this new TAB-less life. I don’t want to. I want to stay in my cozy home with him here. So much of the time I find myself still stunned that he’s gone. I just don’t get how we could be happily hangin’ at home one day and the next we’re on a horror ride. The Mantle Cell Lymphoma was supposed to be just a piffle and then all of a sudden it was Godzilla stomping through his body like it was a cardboard Tokyo. Pneumonia piled on and then his heart decided to get into the action. My man was ganged up on! NO FAIRS!

Hell’s bells, I get it – his body passed its expiration date. Check. Did it have to flame out so fast and spectacularly though? Could we not have had something a little slower, more peaceful or, at the very least, just ONE damn disease at a time?

Sometime in the past year, TAB was in pain from a crushed disk in his spine. He just couldn’t get comfortable. Sitting in his recliner with a heating pad on his back and Coco on his lap, he pronounced that, in a better universe, we wouldn’t occupy these meat sacks. We’d be Free Floating Sentient Cloud Beings.

Yup.

Advice and Cats

BOP!

Coco and her pet human, TAB

The Amazing Bob gave me brill advice over the years. In going through all his papers, I found this one, below, from 2008-ish. This was in the days of BOP (Big Orange Pumpkin) before we became Tux Central.

An aside – TAB was especially fond of large orange tabbies. Jen has suggested that if reincarnation is a thing, TAB’s gonna come back as an orange tabby who’s adopted by a certain cat lady (*cough* me) here on the Neck.

Yes, yes this would be good.

In any case, here are his words of wisdom imparted on that day:

You’re not required to like everyone in your family or all your in-laws. I didn’t and I’ve never met anyone who did.

No one – including you – is expected to win over people who show you no respect.

You’ve got plenty to cope with already. Like what?

Like dealing with your neuromas, your deafness, your full-time job in a failing economy, your fight to keep your increasingly svelte figure, creating and marketing your works of art and taking care of BOP and me…to name a few.

Lighten up your load, my sweet.

Yeah, my man was wise – not just a wise guy.

If you're really a mean person you're going to come back as a fly and eat poop.
~ Kurt Cobain

TAB, as a cat, will have nothing but Fancy Feast Grilled Tuna and Catnip Fever treats. Of course.

An interesting take from Faulkner:

You know that if I were reincarnated, I’d want to come back a buzzard. Nothing hates him or envies him or wants him or needs him. He is never bothered or in danger, and he can eat anything.

and I like this, from Nuno Roque:

I love the idea of reincarnation, so just in case it doesn't exist, I decided to be different people in the same lifetime.

TAB and I mebbe would've done this but, ya know, that's a lot of work and we have a herd of cat to feed and cosset!

Movieville

Jen, Oni and I went to see Ghostbusters last night.

Maybe it was too soon after my mondo, horrific loss for me to go to a big, summer, happy, blockbuster. Just FYI – this, that The Amazing Bob is gone, blows gargantuan Gamera wang. Or maybe it was that there was a shit ton of dialogue so I had to keep lifting the 3-D glasses to read the little closed caption display. Maybe it’s that we went to an evening show versus a matinee and, as ya’ll well know, I am most def a morning person.

The flick was fun. Definitely. We’ll rent it when it comes out on vid (or download or whatever it is “we” do now) so’s I can view it again, not in 3-D and at an hour that’s more in keeping with my current, wonky sleep/wake patterns. I’ll assuredly catch more of the repartee then too.

Here’s what stood out to me big and mega bold – the inventor Jillian Holtzmann played by Kate McKinnon. Holy flaming shit, she was incredibly awesome!

“Most great comedy people like to live on the edge,” Feig told Vulture this week, “but Kate lives about ten feet past the edge, suspended in midair with no parachute.” (source)

I want to be McKinnon’s Jillian Holtzmann when I grow up. Ya know, should that ever happen and don’t hold yur breath.

The worst parts of last night’s big this-is-supposed-to-be-fun-dammit outing?

A) We went to dinner beforehand and I ordered something called The Pain Eraser. Yeah, with a handle like that, I HAD to order it. FYI, didn’t work.
B) Post movie, as we exited the fabulously comfortable Braintree cinema, I realized that TAB wasn’t waiting up for me at home. I wouldn’t be walking in the door, breathlessly telling him all about how utterly cool McKinnon was. I wouldn’t be vogueing any of her awesome moves for him or pestering him to buy me a pair of goggles JUST LIKE HERS!

Do you know how completely full to the brim of hot molasses covered, bloated maggot carcasses that was? Yeah, you might and I’m very sorry if you do. I was a big ol' sobby mess the whole way home in the car. I noticed the beautiful, not quite full, deep orange moon and remarked that TAB was alive at the last full moon. He was here to view my fuzzy pics (I just can't manage to take a good night shots) and encourage me to try again next month.

I’m not giving up on the movie escapism yet. I’m gonna go see a matinee of The Secret Life of Pets  maybe today or tomorrow. And Star Trek Beyond opens TOMORROW! Suicide Squad which looks like all kinds of big, skeezy fun, opens on August 5th.

Hollywood blockbusters as broken spirit salve – this could work!

Triggers

Whoever's calm and sensible is insane!
~ Rumi

The only order in the universe is just a cycle of calm and chaos.
~ Toba Beta, Master of Stupidity

Spent Monday at the smartcar dealership where Bix was having his annual physical. This check up woulda cost just north of $300, expensive enough, BUT they discovered that Bix needed new brakes too. The bill came in at just over a grand. OUCH! The very nice folk there also let me know that I’ll need 3 new tires in about 4,000 miles too. More ouchy.

Ya know, I just wanna know how come life doesn’t come to a full fucking stop (or at least a full fucking pause) because MY HUNNY PIE DIED!

Rilly now, if this was a just universe, it would. I wouldn’t need to jump through a thousand and one half hoops to cancel or get my name alone on various accounts. My kitchen and basement wouldn’t, molto inopportunely, flood. For that matter, bills should just flat out STOP for a coupla months. I should get a free ride because, fer fuck’s sake, The Amazing Bob is no more.

In a world that made sense, I wouldn’t, now, need to lock my doors and windows. The strawberries in my fridge should NOT have withered and gone fuzzy – what were they thinking? I was gonna put them in my yogurt this morning. Oopsie, that's gone past its expiration date too. This ain't right.

On that note, the grocery store’s just chockfull of heartbreak triggers.

As I’m sure I’ve already mentioned, TAB and I had very different eating habits. Every single morning for brekkie, he had a bowl of Frosted Mini Wheats and a cup of tea. Me? Leftover sushi or Sichuan Asparagus, sometimes oatmeal and, always, COFFEE!

I can’t go down the cereal aisle now –  it sparks a big fat round of waterworks.

Same with the cookie aisle. TAB loved him some Milanos (especially mint!) and Nantucket Dark Chocolate biscuits. When he baked (which used happen, minimum, a few times each week), he’d make himself regular old chocolate chip – his fave. For me, he’d magic up some wondrous oatmeal, spinach and butterscotch chip babies. It’s been at least six months since TAB employed his kitchen wizardry at all and well over a year since he cookied us up with any regularity. Given this, I was in that section of the grocery a few times a week. Yeah, do recall – my man was a serious Cookie Monster – I had to keep a big supply on hand. So then, that lane’s a no-go now too.

The bakery section where I’d pick up TAB’s sammich bread and his beloved pumpkin pies is off limits too unless I want to indulge in a fit of public weeping and wailing.

Really now, just about every lane in the store holds solid sob kindling. It ain’t fair.

The ideal of calm exists in a sitting cat.
~ Jules Renard

It's so hard to forget pain, but it's even harder to remember sweetness. We have no scar to show for happiness. We learn so little from peace.
~ Chuck Palahniuk, Diary

Found

While going through my wonderful, sweet man’s papers, I found part of a notepad. It was a diary, of sorts, from a few months in 2004/2005. This was back when I was majorly illin’. It was from when I was undergoing stereotactic fractionated radiation – the hope was that it’d shrink the bully-boy neuromas and, thus, preserve my hearing.

Nope. Didn’t work – just made me, 24/7, sicker than a binge drinking college kid but without the fun, sloppy protestations of LURV or ill advised hook ups. I’d get up in the morning, shower, dress, puke and head out to the car for the inbound commute with Jen and Oni. At that point, reliably, I'd lose my cookies all over the driveway and then head back to bed.

This went on for an obscenely long time – six months to a year mebbe? (yes, there were breaks in this lovely routine but not many) In that time, the docs played with the beam so’s it wouldn’t hit the hurl portion of my brain quite so much. They weren’t entirely successful BUT I was able to, eventually, make it to work for a few hours on most days.

In any case, this was a bad time. I slept an awful lot and TAB wrote to me. He said that he wanted to record what was going on in our world just so’s I would know. It was also his way of continuing our endless, ongoing convos and reflections.

From January of 2005

I was just thinking that a lot of shit has happened in our lives, mutually and respectively, since we got hitched in that wonderfully bizarre ceremony in 2002.

Since then, we’ve moved from East Cambridge to Quincy (AKA Valhalla) and become house-owners versus exploited tenants. And since becoming house-owners we’ve dealt with replacing a water heater, a gas furnace, sewer pipes and the Little Big Dig between our houses.

Since then, I went from full to part-time to laid off to retired and you’ve dealt with new employers and tons of responsibility with no help.

In February of 2002 we had our last ASL class with Bob (AKA Sign Language Bob).

In March, on Jack Kerouac’s birthdate, you had spinal surgery. In October of 2003 I had a stent stuck in my heart, followed by useless artery exploration and later a colonoscopy (which was definitely a pain in the ass). And in August of 2002 your mother had her surgery.

In May of 2002, Miles started his job at Channel 8 in D.C.

Oh and we had that tree chopped down and hauled away (it was huge and, very sadly, diseased).

I’m sure I must be forgetting a lot of other significant stuff but it has been an eventful three years, has it not?

Yeah, this wasn’t the most cheerful or snarkarific of his notes but it’s the one that really hit me first. My man was feeling the weight of our vida loca which'd gone into overdrive.

I’ll be sure to post his reflections on Hunter S. Thompson’s death, gamma ray shooting neutron stars (and how that could, possibly, have effected us), our crazy cat herd, contractor woes and more, soon.

Vonnegut Monday

I've been going through The Amazing Bob's bookshelves. What to keep, what to sell? Kurt Vonnegut was a fave author, along with Shakespeare and Twain. I believe it's time to get lost in a few good books.

From Slaughterhouse-Five:

- Why me?
- That is a very Earthling question to ask, Mr. Pilgrim. Why you? Why us for that matter? Why anything? Because this moment simply is. Have you ever seen bugs trapped in amber?
- Yes.
- Well, here we are, Mr. Pilgrim, trapped in the amber of this moment. There is no why.

~~~

Like so many Americans, she was trying to construct a life that made sense from things she found in gift shops.

~~~

That's one thing Earthlings might learn to do, if they tried hard enough: Ignore the awful times and concentrate on the good ones.

~~~

All moments, past, present and future, always have existed, always will exist.

~~~

It is just an illusion here on Earth that one moment follows another one, like beads on a string, and that once a moment is gone, it is gone forever.”

~~~

When a Tralfamadorian sees a corpse, all he thinks is that the dead person is in a bad condition in that particular moment, but that the same person is just fine in plenty of other moments. Now, when I myself hear that somebody is dead, I simply shrug and say what the Tralfamadorians say about dead people, which is "so it goes.”

And so it goes...

From Player Piano:

I want to stay as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can't see from the center.

From The Sirens of Titan:

I was a victim of a series of accidents, as are we all.

From Slapstick, or Lonesome No More!:

Love is where you find it. I think it is foolish to go around looking for it, and I think it can be poisonous. I wish that people who are conventionally supposed to love each other would say to each other, when they fight, 'Please — a little less love, and a little more common decency'.

From Hocus Pocus:

Just because you can read, write and do a little math, doesn't mean that you're entitled to conquer the universe.

From Breakfast of Champions:

I couldn't help wondering if that was what God put me on Earth for--to find out how much a man could take without breaking.

From Bluebeard:

All right - I'll tell you what you did for me: you went for happy, silly, beautiful walks with me.

From Mother Night:

And yet another moral occurs to me now: Make love when you can. It's good for you.

Random words of wisdom:

The practice of art isn't to make a living. It's to make your soul grow.

Maturity is a bitter disappointment for which no remedy exists, unless laughter could be said to remedy anything.

I really wonder what gives us the right to wreck this poor planet of ours.

Until you die .. it's all life. 

Do you realize that all great literature — "Moby Dick," "Huckleberry Finn," "A Farewell to Arms," "The Scarlet Letter," "The Red Badge of Courage," "The Iliad and The Odyssey," "Crime and Punishment," the Bible, and "The Charge of the Light Brigade" — are all about what a bummer it is to be a ...human being?”

and from Timequake:

Ting-a-ling mother fucker.

Yup.