Anniversary thwarted

So the anniversary came and went, but my account would not let me log in. Hmm... perhaps a sign?

No, not a sign at all :) My previous home account changed and was delayed. In addition to a nice meal and a bottle of wine, our anniversary generally meant Marcie and I would review the year.

All I have to go on is what she decided to give me in the last months we had. Basically, she foreshadowed a lot of what I have come to understand and live through.So, without further ado, a conversation for Marcie about all the things that she knew and I doubted.

Lessons To Remember:

You told me I was a tough nut to crack, and I believe you now. You meant people would misunderstand me, especially my ferocity and passion. You said I was stronger than most women could or would even try to handle, and I wanted to doubt you.

I see what you mean. I don't fall for simplistic manipulations, and I also don't let them go, but rather call them out. People prefer that others play the game. I promise I won't.

On the other hand, I have been a bit frosty lately. I am trying to soften, to be more open, to be less crystalline and to be accepting of the foolishness people indulge in. I am making progress in that way.

I made a lot of progress with someone who I knew was a tough nut herself. I learned what I could.

I move forward and am finding that the simple calculus you applied... that all people have potential in their minds, lives, and hearts, and in unequal amounts, has validity. I opened a heart. It will blossom. I opened my mind. It will not overcome my heart, though.

That is always what you worried about, that some person would wring me dry and leave me broken. You were right to worry, more to say so, and good to me in that you just offered your wisdom. But I think I know what has value, and I am stronger than that. I recognize my worth.

And if I open a heart or two that was closed, then we'll share that passing joy and sigh in my dreams when you come. On this anniversary, your gentleness and ferocity of spirit reminds me that to all there is a moment, be it glory or comeuppance.

But you remind me that, no matter the injury or the depth of someone's fall, there is redemption in love, and it must always be on offer.

Thank you for yours, my sweet.

If You Ever Never Love Again

So you said you would never forgive me if I ever never loved again. I have, but not as wholly as I did you. There just wasn't time. But there was time for some joy and laughs and even travel, and some of it was so very satisfying.

I need you to trust me, baby. I am going to get there again someday. But for now, some of the blessings you gave me, I realize (in these times), will just sit like pearls before swine.

I don't know how to do this dance nowadays, because I have never failed to love. I still believe in it, still cultivate it, still love everyone I can. I just don't know if I should leave it all so very plainly on the table.

I appreciated your visit the other night, and you seem to know my unbreakable heart, unflinching loyalty and ever-questing spirit are all intact. But my sense of ethics in regards to them seems to want me to be more free. I hope that's okay with you.

Good night, baby. Come see me while I travel :)

And for you more physically present folks, a new post tomorrow.

Night!

What a bummer, but also an opportunity

So, today Marcie received her renewal for a driver's license in the mail. I have come to expect the endless entreaties for aid from the animal charities, the cancer materials from Kaiser, the Komen information and the book clubs, magazine renewal appeals and requests from NetFlix.

How is it that the state cannot figure out she is gone?

It hit me very hard today to read their little reminder for her to send them money and renew her license. But then it struck me. I could have a nice, new copy of her license, renewed past her death, with a clear picture of her from a healthier time.

I just may do it and then write a report about it. It would help the state deficit, too, I imagine.

Soothing the beast

It has become more and more obvious since Marcie's passing that she served as a check on my wild side. It was most welcome as I am, at times, far too fierce.

When I cam home upset by work, or the world in general, and wanting to go out and take on the whole damn mess, she could almost effortlessly calm me down, soothe me and put my mind on other things. She knew I needed it.

Her calmative effect on me is sorely missed.

I find myself holding my ground and digging in where I may have let things slide. I am also running a bit wild and telling people what's on my mind, regardless how appropriate or not.

It's all "Damn the torpedos!" all the time.

She calmed me with her love, with her simple caring for me and her gentle demeanor overall. I try to reflect on what she would do or how she would react to how I want to deal with situations.

I guess she's still helping, but I feel that hard edge on me sometimes, and I wonder if I am simply supposed to be that way. I hope not.

Home sick

So, I am home sick AGAIN. I started coughing late last night and the hacking just did not stop. I slept three hours and woke with my voice going out, almost late for work, with a massive headache, the pain of which went from my sinuses to the back of my neck. I hate the polluted, Santa Ana-blasted Southern California deathscape we call the environment, I really do.

I seem to have dried out, but I wake up every morning clogged, drain by noon, then just cough and try to stay hydrated. That is hard to do at a school district office where the heat is on even if the building is warm enough for reasonable people. It just dries me out.

I hope I wake up in passable form tomorrow. We are supposed teach a grant writing class at a school. I love that part of my job, actually. We'll see.

This is not today's post, but yesterday's needs a makeup, so I will post later (maybe twice). I'm a tired, sleepy guy right now. I wish Marcie was here to take care of me. She was always good at making the sympathetic noises I needed to hear when I was ill, whether asked to or not.

*Sigh* *COUGH!*

I don't like monster/lifted trucks

Last Night, I was run off the road by a pimpled freak in a lifted truck.I was... annoyed. I also chased the truck. However, other bad behavior, someone noted, is wiser left unshared. Therefore, I have edited it out for now.

Suffice to say that when it was all over, I ran on, back north of Adams, back to my route, faster, my anger relieved and the beast caged again, even if my inner savage had reminded me he was there and ready to back me up.

To make sure I channel it properly, I decided to expend my rage in a poem. Here:

Slips

Against you,
who deny that the sky
and the land,
and the sea could be free
to all man,
all reserved undeserved
I now stand
So that I can defy.

Upon you,
who demand that my hand
and my heart,
be enslaved and not crave,
for the start,
of the way you delay
I impart,
That I yearn to upturn.

With you,
who exact and extract
from us all
who propose and impose
without call
and therethrough take undue,
I will brawl,
and preempt in contempt.

You,
who belie you rely
on a ruse
who intend to depend
on abuse
and fall back to attack
on excuse.
won't assuage my red rage.

For I
am not cowed nor endowed
with your fear
disavowed and unbowed
I am clear,
houl aloud and am proud
and I sneer,
no regrets at your threats.

For I
understand that your hand
now grows weak,
you are ill and your will
becomes meek
And the laws are your jaws
and they creak.

Know I, who will stand and defy,
who is clear and will sneer at your fear,
call your ruse, your excuse to abuse,
and will brawl until all then must fall,
am still in civility's grip.
But it slips.




Marcie used to love my madman poetry, anyways. Hope you liked it. Night/Morning, whatever. Rawr.

F.

Social Insecurity with The Bureauman

So, I finally made it down to Social Security today. I have to admit that it was much, much harder than it seemed to be when I set the appointment. I had it set in my mind:

Social Security employee hears I have arrived
Social Security employee invites me in
Social Security employee accepts documents in pile
Social Security business done.

But we all know things that are sad are never quickly dispensed with. No, we are forced to linger over the minutest details in an excruciatingly slow, deliberate process, then wait. So how did the process go?

I checked in at a computer which found my appointment. A receipt printed with a random-looking set of numbers on it. I waited about 15 minutes. The wails of a mentally disturbed man gave a depressing audio backdrop to the pained and sad conversations around me.

"Well, we didn't know we had to apply then, we thought we had to wait until we were homeless..." a woman said to a bored-looking woman in a leopard-print jacket.

"I did buy Medi-gap coverage, and they were supposed to help me with hospitalization," an elderly man rasped ever more loudly to a sympathetic African American man. "I can't pay $15,000 on social security for that bill, and they say they are going to use my check for the next five years. I'll starve! Hell in a handbasket! Hell!"

"His daddy got me 'pregnit,' but he got blasted in LA," one very pregnant Latina told a very Wonder-bread looking intake guy. "I'm supposed to get some money for when he gets born, right?"

I want to correct her, since her boyfriend has been "blasted" and I can't stand ignorance anyway, but I keep my mouth shut. She's suffered to some degree, and she needs all the self-esteem she has.

"Francis Pruett," a voice from an open door calls. "Pruett?"

Finally. I handed the man my papers as I walked up.

"Just hold onto all of that, we'll get to it," he said.

I do and follow him into the maze of cubicles with identical desks, identical computers, identical plastic furniture, identically lacking in personal items, identically sterile, identically institutional, identically empty, identically oriented workspaces. Still, it takes him a long time to find the "right" one for us to sit at, which he motions to.

"Well, Mr. Pruett, first of all, Social Security wants to express to you our sincere condolences on your loss," he says, logging into the workstation with no eye contact whatsoever. "We know this is a difficult time for you, and we appreciate you reporting your loss to us."

I started to ask him a question and he interrupted me.

"We are going to fill your application out and then I will have you certify under penalty
of perjury that all of your answers are correct after you review it," he said, looking at me as if I had planned to lie, suspicion and derision in his gaze.

I nodded.

"May I see a picture ID, please?" he asked.

I showed him my license... he nodded and tapped into his computer as if his first ruse had failed him. "Damn! He has ID!" he must have thought.

"May I see the death certificate?" he asked.

I gave it to him, then my birth certificate, hers, our marriage certificate, which conspired to choke me up. Then, a copy of her memorial book fell out and I reach down... the whole pile of things I carry with her paperwork hits the floor, old pictures, her degree.

I thought to myself "I just spilled my Marcie." I gathered her up silently. The stuff had spread far and wide. There is no help from Bureaman, though. Just his impatient silence.

"Did you live with the deceased when she passed away?" he queried, staring angrily, defiantly at his screen.

"I took care of her to the last minute," I said.

He huffs and moves his head a little. "Did you live with the deceased when she passed away?" he repeated, his hands poised to clack at his keybord.

"Yes," I said. I wanted to add, "Yes, I lived with her as she died, I lived with her as she lived, I lived with her for a few hours when she was dead and I lived with her around fuckers like you who I would rather not let fucking live you fucking nitwit."

I didn't.

"Did you ever apply for Social Security benefits? Did she ever apply for benefits? Oh, I see she had disability benefits. Did she ever serve in the military? Work overseas? Work for the railroads? Work for the federal government?"

Yes, no dice, but they made me work, I wasn't crazy enough yet. Yes, that's what she... No. No. No. No. No, she had a soul.

"When did she become eligible to receive benefits?" he asked.

"I don't know," I respond. "It was a while ago."

"I see," he said, tapping loudly, frustrated that he has to look it up. "She became eligible in 2005. She worked one year on disability and made $13,000."

Wow. Bureaman can do his own homework. Good for him.

"I am going to print out a copy of your application. After you review it, we'll certify it," he said, getting up. He walked a few feet away and snatched each piece as it printed.

I scan the paper slowly and read the details. I notice him drumming his finger and not looking at me.

I nod and had it back over. "It looks OK," I said.

"Good," he said, whipping the paper around and into a folder which he snapped shut as he stood abruptly.

I stood as well but he had already turned and walked to the door, which he opened well before I got there. I took my time walking to it, noting him getting frustrated.

"It will be thirty days or so before your check arrives," he said. "Maybe faster."

Thanks for the $255, USA. Mighty white of you.

Fuck you, Bureauman.

F.

Tonight's Movie

So, first off, “Starting Out In The Evening” was long and it was layered. Certainly, the core story, concerning an author (Leonard Schiller, played by Frank Langella) whose long creative snooze is almost interrupted by ambitious and somewhat manipulative graduate student Heather (Laura Ambrose) is interesting. But it's not that interesting.

Not helping is all of the window dressing going on. Creative death abounds. Schiller's daughter Ariel (Lili Taylor) is a former dancer who now teaches pilates and yoga, which she characterizes as, "what happens to dancers when they die."

Ariel's smashing her head up against a wall of stereotyped 40th birthday female angst and her "Oh, my god, my clock was ticking and I think it stopped" shenanigans provide the movie with more a hoped-for audience demographic than a plot element. Lame attempts to cast Langella's Schiller as disappointed non-grandparent aside, Ariel's newly rediscovered love for, then liberation from, then love for an emotionally distant man-child only serves to set up a punchy line or two between her and her father. Even the cross-racial window dressing is just that.

Ambrose's Heather does everything she can to wring something of quality for her thesis out of Schiller, whose lethargy and doubt in engaging her seem both fortuitous and wise, if boring and lifeless. But when he finally caves in and opens up a little, it comes off as something dirty, and Ambrose's Heather seals that deal for us on all counts. No distance off-camera is off enough in this case, and that is what we get.

When the writer becomes bored with his characters, as both the on-screen and the off-screen and, likely, the screenwriter did, there is a tendency to toss them into tragedy or crisis. Sitting there waiting for it as ham-fisted telegraphing paraded across the screen was excruciating. Foreshadowing my ass. There was a veritable total eclipse every quarter hour with partials on the half.

The end of the movie lingers over small details, which will appeal to the perfectionist whose obsession with endings and closure overrides all sense of boredom. Unfortunately, the "Is it happy?" finish that redirects the movie utterly serves less a delicate touch than a mercy killing that also drags on too long before the screen blackens.

But at least Ambrose was a redhead.

My rating (1-5): No.
Marcie's Probable Rating: "Sorry, honey. That was so bad."

This review does not reflect my gratitude to my coworker for sending me the pass from the Film Commission. Listening to the crowd around me was a hoot, too. Thanks, Elizabeth.

A Hard Day

Today has been one of the toughest "normal" days I have had since Marcie passed. I forced myself to go back to work on Monday, which has actually worked out by getting my mind on other things for a time during the day. However, this morning I simply did not want to do anything.

I got up and trudged in anyway. I worked on little things, caught up on some projects and set my mind to "work mode." I looked into grants for the school district's programs and lingered over dead ends. My heart wasn't into it.

I decided I was hungry today, for both food and a moment of Marcie, so I headed over to Lalo's Tacos (review), one of Marcie's favorites, for fish tacos with all the trimmings, another Marcie favorite.

I enjoyed it in a sad way, but I missed a meeting doing that, though it was rescheduled. I have to get it together.

I got back to my desk to find a message stating that Marcie's death certificates were available, which did nothing for me but cause me stress and make me not want to pick them up. It's a very official, coldly bureaucratic piece of paper that satisfies all of society's stingy and cynical paper potentates that our loss is properly documented and not subject to suspicion real, imagined or procured from spite.

Heaven forbid someone die without being allowed to by the powers that be, that collect and that jealously withhold whatever there is such an event entitles us to. Whatever it is, it certainly isn't dignity or respect.

More on what I will do as a permanent memorial for Marcie tonight.

:(

Six Hours Later

It took six hours to get the oxygen concentrator. The medications came shortly after that. On one hand, the gurgling is gone. On the other, there is now a tube on Marcie's nose. It isn't breathing for her, but it's there.

No food for Marcie tonight, but she did have some orange juice with the new antibiotic, which was prescribed to fight off her new fever. It was prescribed as a 10-day course, but arrived with only 7 pills. I will try a late meal.

Expecting Low Expectations

Hi, folks. A more "me-personal" post for all of you.

I am not at my prime. I am tired. I am awake or on a hair-trigger most of the night so that I can move Marcie, give her pain medication, and soothe her. I will return to work tomorrow, so I will be juggling jobs, so to speak, again. I will only get more tired.

This means my correspondence will be short, I will be shooing people off the phone, and I will probably be pretty cranky if prodded the wrong way. I apologize in advance. It isn't you. I will also be "off" if I am in the 20th hour awake or so...

In short, I am not running at full capacity and wanted to let everyone know that for every miscue, misstep or misunderstanding, I probably spent an hour taking care of our Marcie. Thanks for understanding, folks. F.

Weekend and the busy Marcie

So here is hoping that this weekend will be more placid than last. If I could have whatever I wished for Marcie (and myself), it would be a couple of days without undue fuss and without the parade of family last weekend featured. She seemed to have a great time, but then she slept for practically three days straight.

On another note, the Kaiser people make a mess every time they come. I know they are health care people with too many patients and not enough time. What the hell... could they try to not spread open wrappers and gloves around? Maybe they could not scrunch everything together when they use the table for charting?

I have a lot of cleaning up to do, some rearranging of things for her care area, and I probably need to get out for some exercise. Marcie is snoring. It's comforting, somehow.