Hiatus, disjointed;

I didn't want to write about this, about any of it, because I don't want to think about it and I don't want to have to read it again, and but so I am doing it, and then I'll probably bury this post under the type of silliness I am posting to the Facebooks these days (reason I post there is, the "likes" and comments and stuff remind me that I do have friends, people do know me, people can actually hear me).

***

Five days after my mother died, died in my arms, I am running in the bright cool blue California sunshine, watching my heart rate on my Garmin but mostly jumping my eyes around to all the beautiful things -- the breezes in the palm trees, the bright red blooms of a flower whose name I don't know, the baby shoots of green grass from the first rains we've had in a year, somebody's fluffy new Christmas puppy (little furball!) -- and I can feel the soft air on my arms and the breath in my lungs and the solid way my feet strike pavement and even though I know that my house is full of people who are growing more resentful of my absence by the second, I take another lap around the park and feel alive; not happy, not joyous, not anything really except alive.

***

Four in the morning, again. I am grateful that she got to have some fun these last few years. She lived in a new house instead of the old wreck in town, with its cracks and leaks and heavy ballast of 35 years of family memories. She had a great group of friends -- they had sleepovers! they took art classes! they traveled together and sent back pictures of themselves on barges, in pubs, at historic sites and in front of hilarious road signs! I am desperately sorry I never got to go on any of those trips with her -- the reasons were valid at the time (i.e., I was breastfeeding a newborn, etc.), but I knew she wanted me there.

***

Sunday afternoon. I think of all the times I didn't call. We had a longstanding tradition of talking on the phone on Sundays, but sometimes I didn't call. I would be too busy, or out of the house, or knew she was traveling, or just didn't fucking feel like it, or passive-aggressively testing the theory that she didn't know phones would work both ways and if she wanted to talk to me she could call ME, dammit.

***
She wasn't afraid of dying -- she was sure she was going home to Jesus. I'm glad of that, but I wonder what it feels like to have that certainty, and I further wonder what kind of a god would allow her to be so troubled by my lack of belief. That awful morning after she passed, the home health nurse (who is also a family friend) told me that my mother had said to her that she doesn't want to go to Heaven if her kids aren't going to be there. So I told the nurse that I'd take that under advisement -- I think those are the words I used.

***

We were planning a family trip next summer -- she wanted us (me & my fam, my brother & his wife, my sister) to all go somewhere together. I was looking up various destinations, but primarily Maine, which she had in recent years started really really wanting to visit. Those bookmarks are in my bookmark bar. I keep seeing them when I scroll down to look up my other sites.

***

Sixty-six. That's not old. It's fucking ridiculous, is what it is. It's one huge bad choice (smoking for 30+ years, although she quit in 1996, aka the Worst Summer Ever) and a whole bunch of other un-good ones (no exercise, Texas diet, complete lack of preventive health care of any kind), plus who knows what cards drawn from the genetic deck. Those pictures I have -- her as a bleached-blonde teenage cheerleader, a slim local TV personality, a hip young mama -- how are those the same person who only made it to 66?

***

My last words with her were via text. My kids are young and will not understand for years what has happened. I curse openly on Facebook now, and feel free to hit "like" on pretty much every Planned Parenthood and/or Obama thing I see. My sister, alone in the house we have to clean out and vacate by January 31, keeps sending me boxes of stuff from the house -- handwritten recipes, a ring, yearbooks 1964-67, uncatalogued photos from both sets of grandparents and great-grandparents. I can't wash or get rid of the navy Lands' End turtleneck I was wearing all that awful night and day and night and dawn when I was lying on the bed with her as her breathing gradually slowed, pinged awake from a light doze by the alarm on my iPhone every half hour to administer either atropine or lorazepam via liquid syringe the way I'd dose my babies with Tylenol back in the day, talking to her even though she couldn't hear me, reading aloud "To Kill a Mockingbird" from my phone when I couldn't think of any more ways to say it's OK mom, I love you mommy, I'm here, I'm here, I love you and it's OK. 

But, what the hell? Anybody who wanders around the world saying, "Yes, I'm from Texas," deserves whatever happens to him.

Yesterday marks 15 years since Mr. Gleemonex and I became official residents of California. That was the day we parked our U-Haul at his sister's apartment complex in the Silicon Valley and walked into the middle of her birthday party. We stayed there for a couple of months -- Shatner bless her and our BIL for their generosity -- while we hunted down jobs and an apartment in San Francisco. To mark this happy anniversary, I give you: 

A Partial List of Things About and Around Our 15 Years In California So Far

Reasons We Chose San Francisco
--It sounded cool
--It was a city, but was not NYC, which we both loved but needed a break from
--There were a shit-ton of jobs available
--Neither of us has ever lived there before
--It was about as far, in every kind of way, from Texass as we could get
--Mr. Gleemonex's sister lived nearby and could provide a home base at first

Length of Time We Expected to Stay in California
--"awhile"
--"a couple of years"

People Added to Our Family 
--Kid Gleemonex
--Danger Baby
--Nephew B
--Niece A
--Sister-in-Law J
--my Surprise Adult Half-Brother

People We've Lost
--my father
--my paternal grandfather
--my paternal grandmother
--my maternal grandfather
--my maternal grandmother
--Mr. G's great-uncle L.

Years, Out of That 15, That We Have Been Married
--14

Percentage of Our Friends Here Who Came Into Our Lives Via Mr. G's First CA Full-Time Gig
--about 70%

Number of IPOs We Have Experienced In Companies We Were Employed By
--Two
--Or maybe three, one was a spinoff from a Biiiig Co., and Mr. G doesn't recall if there was an IPO

Addresses We Have Had
--SIL's apartment (3 months)
--the tiny, wonderful SF apartment in North Beach/Fisherman's Wharf (6 years)
--the little house on the edge of the continent, just south of the city (7 years)
--the big house in the burbs (2 years)

Presidential Candidates For Whom We Have Voted
--Al Gore
--John Kerry
--Barack Obama
--Barack Obama

How We and the Kansas Kartel Phrased It When People Asked Us If We Were American, On Our Trip to Europe In 2006 (Bush Years): 
--"Yes -- from San Francisco!"

There is no way to explain the terror I felt when I finally lunged up to the clerk and began babbling.

Random Stories About My Dad, Vol. 2: Things Not to Say to My Dad, and Why Not to Say Them

DON'T SAY:
"Where's Sara Orleanna?"
WHY NOT: 
It's none of your business where my wife is, nor why she is not present at this moment. And if that's not what you're asking -- if this is, as is most likely, just a way of making small talk -- don't do that. I don't do small talk. If you're genuinely inquiring as to my family's welfare, you best phrase it differently, Jack, cause all you did there was piss me off.

DON'T SAY: 
[via telephone, when it is you who has called my house]: "Who's this?"
WHY NOT: 
You called me, Bubba, and it ain't your lookout who's answering my phone. The proper way to begin a telephone call that you initiated is, "Hello. This is Bubba Joe Ewing. May I speak with Harper, please?"


DON'T SAY: 
[via telephone]: "Is Harper there?"
WHY NOT: 
Maybe, maybe not. What rude asshole is asking, and why do they think they deserve to know the whereabouts of my daughter?


DON'T SAY:
"Whatchall doin' this Saturday?"
WHY NOT: 
It exactly zero concern of yours what plans my family does or does not have this Saturday or any other time. If you are asking this intrusive question preparatory to making a social invitation, you should instead present your query thusly: "Ellen May and I are gonna fry up a mess of catfish this Saturday afternoon. Would you all like to come?" And really -- better to make your invitations via the mail (which doesn't put me on the spot) or in person to my wife, because social shit is most properly a lady's purview.

DON'T SAY: 
[at the table, as my waitress] "Y'all still workin on that?", "SOMEbody sure was hungry!" or anything unrelated to whether or not you may be of service at this time. 
WHY NOT:
My progress through my meal is none of your business. When I want your waitressing attentions, I will signal you to action. Meanwhile, kiss off, Sweetcheeks.

DON'T SAY:
"I'm Bubba Joe Ewing."
WHY NOT: 
Your name is Bubba Joe Ewing. YOU are not Bubba Joe Ewing.

DON'T SAY:
[adult] "Hi, Rob."
WHY NOT:
My name is Robert.


DON'T SAY:
[person under 21, or any age person who is offspring of adult friend] "Hi, Rob." OR "Hi, Robert."
WHY NOT:
My name is Mr. Fox.


NB: For most of these, it ain't like he'd cut you, or else throw a big hissyfit right in front of you at Easter dinner or anything, but the rules were the rules and if you broke them he would think less of you. Except for that last one. The quickest way to get your teenage ass banned from our house (and most particularly banned from dating me or my sister) was to act like Dad was your pal, your equal, your buddy. Don't do it man, just don't.

Keep Calm and Kick Argentina's Ass

Random Stories About My Dad, Vol. 1

Remember the thing in the Falkland Islands, back in 1982? I was eight years old, I barely remember it -- it's one of those sort of hilarious* "wars" that was baffling to Americans (because we weren't in it, and all we care about is wars that we're kicking ass in, USA! USA! USA!) and over before anybody really got a grip on what what was happening. 

So, I don't know, but my dad -- who for purposes of this blog, I'm going to call Robert Nathan Fox -- must've been at loose ends that spring and early summer. He was a writer who worked construction of all types to pay the bills, so both the work and the money had their ebbs and flows and riptides and eddies and cataclysms and whatnot. He was super into the Falklands War, and he -- so therefore, we -- came down reaaaal heavy on the British side of things. I think that despite his affinity for Latin America and Spanish speakers globally, he sympathized with the Brits on grounds of the Old Order, the Right and Proper, the Empire on Which the Sun Never Set -- very taken with that sort of prim yet romantic faded grandeur, he was. I remember Sunday lunches at my grandmother's (his mom) where he'd read the latest news of the war from the Ft. Worth and Dallas papers to us; quizzes on the former colonies of the British Empire; scoffing at Argentina's upstart stupidity in picking fights with Mother England, who taught "these Nazi-hiders" everything they knew about civilization. Or something like that -- I was eight, I was heavy into Garfield at the time, so who knows. 

One day, we even made a Union Jack -- my dad cut up a sheet*** and brought us some huge wide-tip red and blue permanent markers (provenance unknown, like every other thing he ever brought us), marked the stripes using his drafting table and engineer's precision, and set us kids to colorin'. We flew it outside for the duration, then it hung in his office upstairs, where it hangs still. I can't look at it without thinking of the way he could carry people along on the tide of his own enthusiasms, make them think his was the only true and right way of seeing a thing, at least for awhile, and somehow get more color out of life than most people were accustomed to seeing. Rule Brittania!

----------------------------------------

*A lot less hilarious when you realize, as I did when reading this Wikipedia article, that nearly a thousand people died in the course of its 74 days, ugh. 

**When they got paid, that is, which was a pretty erratic and unpredictable occurrence, which is one of the root causes of me feeling insecure around people who came from money, and more specifically came from financially stable households -- no wild swings up, down, sideways, just knowing that the mortgage would be paid and there was enough cash for food in the house because at least one adult in the house had a job that came with a paycheck on the reg. My Psyche: You Din't Ask, But I'm Tellin! 

***Which if he followed true Dad Form, was likely one of my mom's good, new ones. [facepalm]

How are they going to deliver a bowling alley HERE?

Things I Received As Xmas or Bday Presents Before the Year 1992

Guess which ones were given to me by my late father?* (Mr. Gleemonex is exempted from this game cause he already knows.)

• Large jar of Hellman's mayonnaise
• Single can of tennis balls
• One-gallon jar of maraschino cherries
• Used copy of the Webelos handbook
• Four king-sized Snickers bars
• Live, actual puppy with red bow around its neck
• Pair of Russian-made pointe shoes
• Tickets to Andre Agassi / Jimmy Connors charity tennis match
• Book of sheet music of "today's popular hit songs," including numbers by Duran Duran and their contemporaries, to go with my kickass new Casio keyboard from my grandmother
• Garfield keychain with bottle opener

--------------------------------------------------------------------
*Answer: All of them. It's virtually a chart of the family's fortunes and/or my pop's sobriety, eh wot?

Remember the one with Charlie Sheen on the cover, waist-deep in a swimming pool, and in the article it became clear he was kind of a dick?

Oh, Sassy!!!

Scans! of the actual pages and covers! The Internets have finally invented a wayback machine that works!

God you guys, this new tumblr is KILLING me. Anybody who wants to know what the little basic nuggets of my heart and mind are made of, how my personality was formed, what is the secret ingredient in the essence that is my humanity -- read it. Sassy came to me at a most crucial, vulnerable time in my life, and it could not have been more important to me at that time. I mean -- oh Shatner just go read these.

-----------------------------------------------------------

PS: Berwie: Remember that ski trip we went on with your dad that time, and we took like thirty Sassys for cabin downtime reading? That was awesome.

PPS: Other reasons it was awesome: 1)Your dad bought us drinks once -- ice cream drinks with about a thimbleful of Bailey's or something, after we badgered him for like TWO HOURS and he was finally all OK GODDAMMIT NOW YOU KIDS SHUT UP. 2)You kept stopping us on the mountain to smoke. I am sure we looked pretty cool to all the hot guys, and the only reason they just passed us by without a word was that we were too cool for them and they knew it.

Dr. Lyle Evans

Internets, I have to tell you this: Mad Men is the reason there's no reason to go to the movies anymore.

This season is ON FIRE. I have become as vehement and unstoppable an evangelist for it as I am for The Wire, which is to say, people who consider themselves filled with the LORD (and who always all-caps the word LORD) will recognize a similar unhingement in me as that which they find in themselves.

Which is to say: Holy Drunken Out-Of-Control SHATNER, is Mad Men awesome.

It's not about the clothes (which are wonderful) or the envious nostalgia for drinkin' & smokin' like it weren't bad for ya (although, well ...) or the thing where when guys you know drink to excess and skirt-chase, it sucks, but when Don Draper does it while being handsome in a suit it's awesome. None of those things. It's about some of the best-written, nuanced, complex, real, honest human life ever captured on film. You forget you're watching fiction, you forget you're watching period drama -- you just live in that world, fully immersed, until it's over, and then it stays with you and you find yourself thinking about it days, weeks, months, years later.

It really is that good. I wouldn't steer y'all wrong.

So like I started to say on Twitter, then realized I needed to expand just a bit: I don't begrudge anyone their understanding of or belief in whatever god. As a former churchgirl and current/longtime secular humanist agnostic, I don't get it -- but I'm inclined to leave it be, so long as it doesn't encroach on me and my (or anyone else's) personal liberties. The problem is, of course, that other people's goddiness does often encroach, and those are rants for another day.

Today, they don't so much encroach as annoy the living rational thinking-brained FUCK out of me. Because when a person suffers a traumatic and life-threatening cardiac event, then has his or her life saved by doctors and nurses trained in a very specific kind of science -- a science arrived at via centuries of relentless methodical inquiry, experimentation, and vast leaps of technology thought up and developed by human minds unwilling to accept prayer as the ultimate and only cure for what ails a mortal human body -- well. When that happens, I don't really be wanting to hear about how it was Jesus who did the saving.

Drive-by

People I Am Just Pretty Goddamn Sick of Right Now

--Meg Whitman. Get off my fucking TV, you she-beast!

--Bill Henrickson. Fictional and majorly dick-tional. I wouldn't follow you to the Seven-Eleven, much less to eternity. Is there anything you don't fuck up?

--The people who set prices at airlines. Look, it's not my fault I have to get to Texass, stat. Why's it gotta cost me nine hundred fucking bucks? NINE HUNDRED DOLLARS BITCH.

On a related note: HEY KIDS. DON'T FUCKING SMOKE.

Guess this makes ten.

Hey kids, don't smoke.

Sorry for the repost. Will have a normal post for y'all soon, I promise.

Hey kids, don't smoke.

Internets, sorry to just disappear like that -- I've had to travel to the Olde Hometowne because of a death in the family, and although not entirely unexpected due to the advanced age and the long-declining health of the beloved in question, it's been teh major suck, and very sad, and just craptacular and has ripped a big old weepy goddamned hole in our lives, so no bloggages. I'll be back, maybe not tomorrow, but soon. In the meantime, be well, and DON'T FUCKING SMOKE. That road doesn't go anywhere good, kids. I mean, we all end up at the same door, but you can make your journey there a lot easier, you know? Live, love, be happy.

Selah

Today is the ninth anniversary of my dad’s passing. I didn’t write about it here last year, and I could’ve saved this post for next year and a nice round number, but for some reason (maybe that I’m a parent now too?), I’m feeling it somewhat keenly this year, so allow me, willya?

My dad was like nobody else, man. I’m not even going to go into it, but to illustrate: A few years ago, after a Howard Dean rally, I cornered keynote speaker and Dad’s Harvard classmate Peter Coyote and thanked him for being part of this movement (which I suspected the old man would’ve really gotten behind, incidentally), and asked him if he remembered [Dad’s name], from back in the day. Pete Coyote -- a guy who has met so many freaks and crazies in his life, so many rockstars and giants and lone gunmen and Hell’s Angels and politicians – he recognized the un-famous name instantly, said “Oh yeah – a real bandito! Are you his daughter?” and talked with me about him for a few minutes before someone else got hold of him. You wouldn’t get that with just any schmo.

There was something of Allie Fox in my dad, of Hunter S. Thompson, of Bob Dylan and Jack Kerouac and Jimmy frickin Hoffa; he was a patron to hardworking people like himself, a crusader for what he saw as Right and True, a deeply, deeply sexist person who nonetheless raised his daughters to fear nothing and nobody. He was an alcoholic, a smoker, a conflicted Christian, a believer both in The Rules and in his personal right to break every single one of them with a fucking sledgehammer. Prideful, epically stubborn, judgmental (apple don’t fall far from the tree, do it?), sometimes megalomaniacal, with a wingspan that could cover most of humanity if he wanted to – far from a perfect person, flawed and damaged, but a loving and fiercely loyal soul, he opened up the world for me and was, as he always put it, “my biggest fan.”

There are things I’m still mad at him for, and things that make me miss the hell out of him; I hate that he never got to meet his granddaughter, but I probably wouldn’t have let him drive with her in the car (between the drinking and the scorning of seatbelts in general and carseats in particular as nanny-state tools of The Man which are going to make a generation of pussies out of our children … oh, I can hear it now …).

But as my friend Tom the Drummer says: “Here’s to ‘im.” Miss you, dad. Wish you were here.