MY FRIEND JANE #2

I'm only now understanding the depth of what Jane meant to me.  Anyone could pull up our old texts and see love.  They would see friendship and support.  It was articulated, openly and often.  But I am feeling it now, a profound loss.  It hurts.  My heart actually fucking hurts.  What is that all about?

Usually before we would go for a walk or a coffee, I would have a short list of things to discuss or tell her.  Here's one thing that happened that I can no longer tell her because she doesn't walk on Earth any longer.

Yesterday, my 10-year-old daughter was going through the dirty laundry in search of pants.  She doesn't care that they are dirty, she wants to wear that particular pair today.  In the pile there's a pair of my unwashed period underwear.  These things...how do I say this?  They trap odor, okay?  My girl is pulling things out and then yells, "something smells like...DEAD FISH!"

Jane would have loved that story.

MY FRIEND JANE #1

 My friend Jane died yesterday.  I knew her for 25 years.  I sat with her for four hours on Sunday morning.  By then she was non-verbal.  We had to guess what she was feeling based on the depth of the furrow in her brow.  On Friday evening she was still talking, although not much.  She kept having to close her eyes and rest because her head was dizzy.  The cancer was in her zygomatic arch.  I sat with her and held her hand until she fell asleep.  Before she slept, I told her that I heard chinstrap penguins take 10,000 3-second naps every day.  She whispered, "wow, that's interesting!"  I am gutted.  I'm going to miss her.

RESTRAINT

I have known this for a long time, but this might be the first time I have actually spoken the words out loud:  I am attracted to repressed men.  Some women are attracted to nurturers and others are attracted to abusive drunks.  I like guys that look uncomfortable with/confused about their own emotions.  There is just something sexy about a guy who is visibly straining to bury his feelings deep inside himself right in front of you, especially if those feelings are about you.  He's kind of a lost puppy and that level of vulnerability in an adult man is kind of endearing.  But if you marry a guy like that, you're going to work.  Just...expect to work.         

EXPECTATIONS MET

I bike commute to work most days.  The route I take is either a scenic eight-miles that runs along a body of water, or else it's a direct six-miles that cuts straight through the city center.  Today I took the city streets.  Traveling down a one-way in a bike lane, an old, light-blue sedan approach the red light with me. But after pausing a moment, it just roll through.  Naturally I was irritated because I sometimes get heat from non-cyclists complaining that bikers are always breaking the rules, when I see far more motorists break laws.  There are many traffic lights on this stretch of road so I see the car go a ways and then do the same thing at the next red light, and then the next, and then the next.  Since none of us are going very fast, I am able to keep this person in my sights even though they keep pulling ahead with each red light they blow.  Eventually I get to a spot where I see them pull a U-turn and park their car.  I stop my bike because I want to see this person who clearly lives above the law.  I stop my bike to gawk.  Who are they?!?

The person that emerges is a white lady wearing black cropped pants and a loud pink and black patterned nylon shirt.  She has a belly that hung like sourdough from her shirt and kind of swayed and she moved.  But the thing that I really found arresting about her sartorial sense, she had a neck gaiter that extended from her collarbone all the way up to the top of her head.  Her hair was a tuft, sprouting out the top and she wore these enormous sunglasses so you couldn't see her face at all.  I couldn't have asked for a more perfect answer to the question, "Who are you, outlaw??"  

INTRUSIVE THOUGHTS

Two mornings in a row now I have woken up at 3:50 AM and can't get back to sleep.  It's these goddamned intrusive thoughts.  I want to tell them to bugger off, but instead I offer them a place to sit and I offer them a cup of tea.  

SUPERPOWER

 What if your superpower was this:  All of your farts smell like fresh waffle cones.

RESERVED FOR VETERANS

My husband and I are in a grocery store parking lot in Quebec City and close to the door there is a parking spot reserved for Canadian war veterans.  The Steady remarked, "wow, you don't see that in the states."  I added, "if we did have that the spot would be filled with homeless dudes."  

My dad has this friend who is a Vietnam veteran, who like my dad, was drafted.  The war really fucked him up.  The way my dad describes him, it sounds like he lives in squalor.  I don't think he can work, because he has a lot of physical health problems and every time the U.S. military shows the world its might, this man's mental health just tanks.