well, it's not really getting better

dogs at play
Originally uploaded by mygothlaundry

I'm kind of down, by which I mean that I'm kind of down like Amelia Earhart is kind of gone. I can't seem to cheer up much so I'm taking the night off tonight and staying home absolutely alone and getting enough sleep and otherwise gearing myself up to get psyched to work tomorrow while spending another weekend and the rest of my life alone. WOE! WOE IS ME! Okay, I know, look, it's only been 9 days. I'm trying to get there. I'm walking the stupid dogs and taking the fish oil and going to work and even shaving my legs although part of me keeps saying, hey, silver lining, you no longer need to ever do this again and, what the hell, eat whatever you want - who cares, now? No one! No one cares! WOE! Ooops. You see, that's the problem - that keeps happening and it's a bit disconcerting for my coworkers and the occasional passerby when I start shouting WOE at random intervals. Sigh.

Tonight, however, I'm going to install a ton of spyware in the garden. I went to Toys R Us with young M and his friend C last night - it had been a long time since I took young M to Toys R Us. Turns out he still likes it quite a lot. I like it myself, since now I have another reason to get an I-pod: to wit, they make these little robot dogs and cats and penguins you can plug your Ipod into which will then light up and dance and do other nifty shit like take over the world and bite you or something; I'm not clear on that part but I do know that I want one irrationally. Unfortunately, they no longer have much spy stuff. I can't imagine why, because motion detectors and so on are staggeringly useful items for any age, but I guess they no longer sell well since we have become such a friendly, trusting society. All they had was a big box of varied spyware stuff and the note that if you bought it - and it was already on clearance and on sale - that you would get either the Spy Shredder or the Disc Shooter for free. I looked at the Spy Shredder, thinking that it would be pretty cool to shred spies, but it turned out to be a mini, get this, shredder. As in shredder, like the one you have in your office. What kind of brilliant mind came up with that? Hey kids! Won't it be fun to have your very own tiny shredder? Hours of fun! When that pales you can move on to Excel-Lite Fun With Spreadsheets. I can't imagine why it didn't sell. So we got the Disc Shooter and young M and C, despite being so old and all, promptly got it working and shot each other and the dogs and got most of the discs loaded under the refrigerator and couch which is where all anything shot from a novelty gun thing must go to die.

And Toys R' Us did not have any pinwheels. Can you imagine? No pinwheels? Not even Pirates of the Caribbean pinwheels (there is an inordinate amount of Pirates of the Caribbean merchandise, like if you want Johnny Depp stamped on every single thing you own from your clothes to your backpack to all your toys including trains and cars and microphones and, well, everything, really, then that is not a problem at all) or other character branded pinwheels. "It's a different world, Mom," said young M cheerfully. "Those things were oldschool." And I guess they were. Maybe the dollar store still has them. I saw the groundhog again this morning - desperate measures are in order.

Update: Fuck the spy stuff, the groundhog, the lawn and staying home alone. I'm going to Broadways.

project 365 #68: red shopping cart by the dollar store

project 365 #68: red shopping cart by the dollar store
Originally uploaded by mygothlaundry.

I have nothing new under the sun to report. Tomorrow morning I'm leaving for Charleston but only for a short trip; I'll be back Sunday night. I took this picture while stuck in traffic on Haywood Road, which is not interesting enough to blog about and then I went to the Westville and drank a couple of beers with my friend S and then I came home and had a fight with M and made dinner and drank a few more beers and, momentarily, I am going to go and pack a bag for the weekend, keeping in mind that Charleston is dressier than Asheville.

I'm going to a memorial service for my old friend Michael Tyzack, who was my professor when I was an art major at the College of Charleston, who taught me about paint and color and how you should take care of your brushes. A couple of years later, when he was on a sabbatical year in NYC, living in a Soho loft, we dated for several months. And then we didn't anymore and I went on and lived my life and he lived his and there was no contact. Then, a little bit after I moved here and was working at the art museum, a card came announcing a retrospective of his at the College gallery, where, in other news, I did my work study stint in college, hanging shows and arranging gallery attendants and, incidentally, firing my friend D, who is still a friend of mine and still prone to always being late.

So I went to Charleston to Michael's show, because I hadn't seen him in so very long and he was overwhelmingly happy to see me. Michael was an Englishman who never lost his inimitable British accent and some of the stories he told me I still am telling, like the one where he went at age 15 with his Irish uncle to a bar in Dublin and, when asked to order a drink, ordered Scotch because he had never ordered a drink before but had heard his father do it. Silence fell, and his uncle said, "You're in Ireland and you'll drink Jamesons." And so, he did.

He watched me standing by a window once and said, almost surprised, "Do you know, you're really quite extraordinarily beautiful right now." "Yes," I said, since I was gutsier then and naked, "Yes, I know." And he laughed and probably pulled me back to bed. When I saw him in Charleston those five or so years ago I said, "Do you remember how we broke up? Because I can't, and it's bothering me." "Oh," he said, "We just faded away." And I guess we did. He was happy as hell to see me then and I was happy to see him and we went for a drink which was lovely and I would have stayed with all the people for dinner but I was underdressed (which is, I believe, where I started with this) because I had come down from Asheville in, god help me, jeans and probably hiking boots, to re-encounter downtown Charleson in all their finery and I felt dowdy and young and foolish, which is often how I felt with Michael, and so I begged off. We fought about that when I was dating him and finally he took me to a dinner party at Sean Scully's loft and I was, alas, dowdy and young and foolish and ignored. And now I am going to his memorial service: still dowdy, still foolish but not so young.

Damn.

Note. After rereading this a couple of days later I want to make sure it's clear that it was only me and my insecurity (and my reprehensible taste in clothes) that made me feel dowdy and/or foolish. Michael never did; he was great.

Third Shoe

Well, the third shoe in my triumvirate of death has dropped with the loss of Jakov Lind, my crazy bohemian painter auntie's long term love. Jesus. On a pogostick and with a crutch, and so on, and godspeed and fare thee well and the last time I saw Jakov was about 1993 or 4 in the Chelsea Hotel in New York. We sat and drank some wine and smoked a little and, ah fuck, another funny, smart, interesting guy gone. I'll try to scan a truly wonderful picture I have at home tonight and put it up, of he and Annie sitting at a party, smoking, being hippie glamourous.

It's tough to lose people like this; people you meet when you're young and admire, people 30 and 40 years older than you. Michel was a father and a dear friend to me; Michael was a teacher and a lover; Jakov was my uncle, really, and gave me mild uncle-y shit and dinner now and then and told me stories and why I shouldn't be a writer. I guess this loss is natural, this is life, a progression for my age or my generation as we begin to lose the people who are our parents, our guides: the generation and a half or so before us. It's sad to lose them and even sadder, in a horrible way, to think that this is just the beginning, and then you get to the point where my mother is, attending a funeral every week. The lucky ones get there, anyway. Lucky is a funny word.

Why do things happen in threes and fives and sevens? What weird numerical practical joking gods send waves of loss in kabbalistic code? 2007 is shaping up to be a banner fucking year.

Coda & post script: Here's the promised picture. Annie & Jakov from I think the late 70s, in fine form and amazing clothes, as I like to remember them. My scanner died some time back so I took a digital picture of my 1980 scrapbook, the year I lived with them and they tolerated me. The blue on the bottom is from a carton of Ducados, my Spanish cheap cigarette.

I hate time and loss and mortality and change. I hate them and this whole entire thing is some kind of sick fucking joke.

Another Loss

Another old friend - and more - has left the planet Michael Tyzack, I have already missed you for a long time and now. . fuck, fuck and so on and I'm just too goddamn tired of loss to write another eulogy, to pass on memories (once, I saw you naked play the trumpet in a Soho loft, back when I thought the world was still kind) or even to shout or scream or cry. Much. Some. A little. This is a harsh season, this February. This turning gyre is not spinning where I wish it would go.

project 365 #30: frightful the peregrine

project 365 #30: frightful the peregrine
Originally uploaded by mygothlaundry.

Frightful (of course her name is Frightful. What's frightful is how little imagination kids have when it comes to naming falcons.) the peregrine came to visit the museum where I work today. Good thing too, since I was utterly useless otherwise all day, so being called in to photograph a falcon in front of a picture of the earth was at least something good. She's very beautiful and sort of awe inspiring and grounded forever due to an injured wing, which makes me sad.

But it isn't taking much to make me sad today. I'm kind of a mess, actually, and I'm not sure how much of it is grief and shock and so on and how much is hangover from the whole intensity of my trip, also the driving, which does tend to get me the next day. I remember this feeling, though, this wide eyed inability to focus, jagged throat, numbness and exhaustion. It's always a shock to lose someone, no matter how much you expect it, or so my mother says, and she has had some practice, so I believe she knows. I do not want to know. I do not look forward to that part of getting older when this shock isn't so much a shock anymore but a perpetual creepy small thing at the small of your back: another one lost, another down.

For now, though, it's a shock and a feeling that I thought I'd forgotten, that comes back like a blow and I remember, ah yes, this is how grief feels: this is sorrow, this is that feeling that someone is missing from the world, this is that disturbance in the force.

Long, Strange Trip

I'm back.

I'm tired. It was a long, heavy, strange weekend in which I said goodbye forever to one old friend, started to see another old friend in a completely new light, saw and cried and laughed with any number of other old friends, got confused, got sad, got happy, got drunk, got sober and altogether crammed more into four days than really could possibly fit there. Forgive the resultant disjointed prose; I drove for 9 hours today; I haven't slept more than 4 hours at a stretch since last Thursday and, well, there you have it. Adrenaline is our friend. And coffee. Coffee is our other friend.

My great and good friend Michel Zeltzman died at home after Tibetan Buddhist prayers, on Friday at 12:55 pm. I was too late to say goodbye but his family was wise enough to keep him there for a day and night after his death and so, in a way, I did. I knew him for 20 years as a good friend, a father figure of sorts (I keep tearing up on one sentence that runs through my head: I've run fresh out of fathers now) an inspiration, a help - everything a close friend should be. Michel gave me books and the New Yorker every year for years, signed Uncle Vibius. He yelled at me when I needed it and poured wine for me when I needed that more than yelling. Once he told me that I should have been a kings' courtesan, which I still consider one of the nicest compliments I ever got. He introduced my son to Welsh mythology and paid my daughter $5 to learn The Jabberwock off by heart. He sat with me all one long long night in the Johns Hopkins emergency room when I panicked after my marriage and thought I was dying. He corrected my French, encouraged me to read Proust (I rebelled, but I'm thinking I'm going to try it again) and emailed me snippets from the New York Review of Books. He was the first person into the room after my son was born. His wife and daughters and son are among my closest friends; my son came very close to being born in his house; I consider myself honored and lucky to have been able to be there with them these past few days.

When my father died I thought it was the most intense few days of my life. These past four days, when my other father died, are right up there as well. I have kind of learned a lot about family, or remembered it: to wit, families are more than just the people you are related to. This is my family, up there in Baltimore, and I grieve for and with them, and love them and they love me.

Bad News - Notice

I'm out of here for the next few days; a close, old friend is dying in Baltimore and I'm leaving in the morning, driving up. I knew it was coming but it has arrived faster than I thought it would. So if anyone is wondering where I am or looking for me, I'm in Baltimore without a computer. Don't know when I'll be back.

My daughter may be joining me in a couple of days in which case I really need some help - can anyone take care of the dogs? Please let me know; my cel is eight two eight two four two six nine oh one. Thanks.