Happy Holidays! (you know which holiday)

You could say that last year, when it was two months after my wife died, around christmas time, I was a big, fat ball of grinch. I spent xmas eve and day in a delicious fog. I may have grunted at people. I think I slept until 4 or 5 PM and I wish it'd been longer. There were no gifts or ornaments or cheery fucking carols. My christmas was neither white nor blue, no silver bells nor green pine trees, just a greyish-brown blur of awfulness.

Did I mention that christmas is one of my favorite holidays? I'm not Christian. I was raised Jewish. But all that shameless commercialism around this time makes me just cynical enough to guiltlessly enjoy a secular xmas. Christmas memories with my wife are some of the best I have, like the year we went after halloween and bought all the clearance spiders and fake blood from that for our halloween-on-christmas tree - complete with a witch hat topper. So this year, I've decided that I'm not gonna let grief ruin everything, dammit. It's ruined enough.

It's not even December yet, and I've already hung myself...a string of lights. It just goes up the wall outlet and randomly around the ceiling. But I'm determined not to grinch it up this year. That being said, I still need all the christmas music to back the fuck off. Those songs are cute a handful of times for a few days before the 25th. But if I have to listen to them for a month straight, they make me wanna stab orphan puppies. That's not being grinchy, just a fact of nature.

Tale as cliched as time

I was told, time and time again, that the second year isn't any better than the first in grief, which I took to heart. So now that I'm in this second year, why am I so surprised at just how not-better it really is? I took the warning to heart - didn't that safeguard me against the reality of the it? Feels like I'm walking a thousand miles, and at marker 500, I'm shocked there's still 500 more to go. That can't be right.

But I still got grief. I still get angry and depressed and feel awkward about my deal in social situations and want to sleep all day. And of course, I still cry in the shower, while driving and when a TV show or movie shows anything even remotely emotional. Sure, I've made progress. 500 miles walked so far. I can laugh at funny things and smile when I'm happy. Shit, I'm able to say I can be happy: that's a hell of a miracle.

I guess I just want to know when things can actually start getting better. Nobody has anything conclusive for that one, though. They say grief takes it's own pace and every grief is different, and other thoroughly aggravating truths. At the end of the thousand miles, is that place called 'better?' Or will there be two thousand more before 'better' gets to where I am? The only thing anyone can tell me is to keep walking. 'Just keep swimming,' as Dory would say. Or 'keep moving forward,' from Meet The Robinsons. Disney seems to have a bead on this shit. But that magical, mystical land of 'better:' I can't just flash forward there like Simba going from adolescent to adult over the span of one rendition of "Hakuna Matata." I guaran-goddamn-tee you, they cut out tons of footage of Simba shower-crying.

The One Ring

It's been one year, one month, one week, and almost one day since my wife died, and I'm thinking about finally taking off my wedding band. It's not because it's poetic, but more because the damn thing keeps falling off. It doesn't fit as snugly as it used to. I've been hitting the gym, and you can really see it in my fingers, I guess. I just don't want to lose the thing, or drop and break it (it's tungsten-carbide, it actually can break).

I should clarify, by "finally taking off my wedding band" I mean "finally moving my wedding band from my hand to a necklace." It will be added alongside my wife's wedding rings, at the risk of having one very crowded and jingly necklace. But on my left hand, the fourth finger (what's that finger called again?) will be bare for the first time in more than half a decade. It's something I've known would have to happen at some point, though the reason sure ain't what I'd expected.

Honestly, I'm kinda glad to have a practical reason to take it off. It's better than trying to decide when my love for my wife has sufficiently waned or some shit like that. I'm already anticipating more than a few freakouts. But it had to happen sooner or later, I always knew. Might as well be on the day that's one year, one month, one week, and one day after losing her. Makes for a good story that way. My advice for grief: do what makes for the best story. Like Tolkien.

#WWTD

Writer's cell block

Around now, grief really feels like 'doing time.' I got one year down on my sentence. And a month. How many more? I can do it, I know it sucks, but I made it through the first year. Now I just need to get through however many I have left. Got used to the food, my cell, the shitty routine, yard time. Warden seems to like me, I guess that's good. Feeling this prison metaphor?

This will be the second holiday season away from my loved one in this solitary confinement. I'll live to have many more, and that's if I'm lucky and don't get shanked. My fear is becoming institutionalized, of forgetting what it's like on the outside. But I can't forget, just being trapped in this box is such a glaring reminder. And when I get to have my freedom back, I'll still be stuck with this on my record, just like any felon. But until then, I'm just doing time, the hardest time I've ever known. I'll do it, and loathe every minute of it.

Maybe, like prison, getting out is dependent on 'good behavior.' Which, to grief, 'good behavior' kind of feels like 'fake it 'til you make it.' If I do things that make me happy, eventually I will be happier. That's the theory anyway. But even after this much time, happiness is still a slippery subject. And when you're surrounded on five sides by cement and one side by iron bars, it's hard for happiness to stick - even if the cement are bars are just metaphorical. But every day I'll carve another tally mark into my wall, and every day I'll be a tiny bit closer to serving my time, and finding out what freedom has become while I was locked up.

Humpty-Trumpty sat on a wall

There's countless things I wish my wife could've lived to see: Lady Dynamite on Netflix, all my recent writing efforts, age 28. Donald Trump being elected president is not one of those things. In fact, she'd be horrified, like the rest of the rational world. If she were alive to see the outcome of November 8th's election, she would've been outraged, scared, protesting.

Actually, that's not true, we both lived through the Bush years, and we would've both lived through the Trump years. She'd be disappointed, maybe get a bit more cynical, but on November 9th, she would've gotten up and gone to work like every day. She would not have been rioting or throwing Molotov cocktails into Banana Republic stores because it sounds like 'republican.'

Together, her and I could've stoically faced the election of a bigoted, xenophobic, misogynistic, egomaniacal, lying, hot-headed, inflammatory carrotman - and we would've be just fine. Because we had each other. We would joke about how the comedians have their work cut out for them in the coming four years, how Canada has lovely weather this time of year. As long as the candidate didn't threaten to outlaw love, we would've been fine with the president-elect being an actual carrot. Am I happy with the outcome? Not in the slightest. But I have more important things to stress over, like how my wife isn't here to stress over Trump with me. The next four years are going to be pretty much unchanged to my frame of reference, whether the next president is Trump or Clinton or even that wingnut Shia Labeouf. (And besides, Trump can't really change much, the lizard men are in control.)

The LOL-ing Stones

Sometime earlier this week, a blog post was laid out for me, and I found it tonight. My wife's headstone finally got put in, and much to my lack of surprise, her family totally fucked it up. The reason why this is a blog subject is because I found it hilarious. I'm actually glad it took so long to come in, because if it'd come in even a few months ago, I might be kind of upset. But really, it's something she and I would've laughed about.

As I talked about before, at the funeral, one of her family members came up to me and asked me directly what I wanted on the stone. I said "She Will Be Loved" which is the title of our song and, in my opinion, a nice message for someone who's passed on. Ignoring that entirely, they put her legal last name in parentheses (she took my name when we married) and left her maiden name as if that were her married name. Bit misleading, if you ask me. Someone might think my name was her family name and vice-versa. They also included "Daughter, granddaughter, sister and wife" in that order, a clear attempt to minimize what I meant to her. If they all think they were more important to her than I was, I don't mind letting them think that, because I'm the one with the memories, not just the imaginative wishes, regarding her opinions. Could be worse, though. The only obnoxiously Christian imagery was an angel: at least they spared her the disgrace of an unwanted cross.

There's a chance that the reason the stone is so different from what I requested was because I remember hearing that the family member who would be taking charge of the stone was developing some kind of dementia. But from everything my wife told me about her family, it wouldn't shock me in the least if another family member butted in and took control for their own easement. And it was really similarly worded to the newspaper obituary, which I know wasn't composed by that particular family member.

I think the only reason I'm actually a little annoyed is because I'm the one who has to look at the thing -- because I actually visit her. My wife wouldn't be surprised either, to find out that her family used her headstone for their own self-centered reasons. But honestly, it has all the makings of a running joke between us, if, you know, she wasn't dead. All I can say is she died knowing who really did and didn't care about who she was as a person. Based on that gravestone, she was right.

As I've mentioned before, I'm working on writing projects inspired by and honoring my wife's memory. I think I know which memorial she would've liked better. But what do I know about my wife's opinions? I only have countless memories of her expressing them.

Sweet purrender

So I'm sat down to write for my blog and stressing because I can't think of what to write. Well, and I'm also stressing about whether I should work on my novel. Oh, and I'm also stressing because I have another writing project that is coming along. Well, two other writing projects. If you're keeping track, these stresses are all things I've put on myself. Oh, and there's grief! Which always helps with stress.

So with all these projects to work on, I ended up doing nothing but stare at the computer screen, schvitzing. Then, one of my cats, the one that used to belong to my wife, hopped into my lap. Annoyed the hell out of me, but I figured what the hell? Not like he interrupted me working. I started petting him. Then my cat came over and looked up with those big ol' jealous eyes of his. My wife's cat went up on the back of my chair (with some gentle shoving) and my cat took the newly-available lap. And for a while, I tested my multitasking skills, trying to pet two cats (who don't like each other) simultaneously (one of which was behind me).

With all my writey efforts and a regular job as well, my life has started to feel pretty complicated. Cats are simple. It's hard to imagine something so incredibly simple as petting a cat when your mind is running in several different circles. That's why they like to invade our space: to remind us that when we aren't sure what we should be doing, but have a million things to do, maybe the best thing to do is none of them: just pet a cat (if you don't like/don't have cats, then the cat is a metaphor).

Present times are still the best times (so far)

I freaking love the internet. In addition to it letting me whine about grief to anyone in the world, it houses resources that generations before me would've happily traded their polio legs for (mm...too soon?). As a side project for the novel I'm working on, I am also pursuing self-publishing a collection of short stories online. And 50 years ago, that sentence would've sounded completely cray-cray.

But with that there internet, I found a site that introduces authors to freelance writing professionals, and after filling out a few online forms and clicking a few buttons, I can request quotes from up to 5 cover art designers or content editors - just like that! Boy I'm glad it stopped being The Not-Information Age. So I did. I've already heard back from 3 of the graphic designers, and one of them, who works at a major publishing house, said my title is great! Me! But for the price of a professional book cover design, I could also go to Best Buy and get around 55 inches of flat screen TV. Totally worth it! I've been buzzing all day!

What actually motivated me to come and share all this in blog form is the realization, just a few moments ago, that I haven't actually accomplished shit yet. I still need to finish editing the short stories! The graphic designers are freelancers, they'll take money from anyone they want. In fact, I should get to work on that stuff now, what am I doing wasting time blogging, when I-

For Whom The Taco Bell Tolls

I was in the drive-thru lane at Taco Bell (which could describe more of my evenings than I'm proud to admit) and I realized that now, a year has passed, and I still possess the ability to cry about B.S. minutiae! Thank god I still have that!

You see, back when my wife was alive, we wound up in the drive-thru lane at Taco Bell more of our evenings than we'd be proud to admit. Now, I have a well-known fondness for their nacho cheese sauce (which I'm sure is legally a "cheese product" that has never known the touch of a cow, but to me it's basically yellow liquid crack). Occasionally, in those days of yore, my wife would order something that came with a little cup of nacho cheese sauce, and if it was more than she wanted to use, she would, of course, give me the remainder. Which, as you all know of course, is true love.

So that all hit me and I burst into tears. Fortunately, I'd already ordered, and I had time before my turn at the little window to reign it in. So yeah, turns out I can still have those moments after a year has passed. Darn. And I'd really been hoping. I will say that this time, among the random griefbursts over minutiae, I felt a bit foolish, more than I used to. Is that progress? I'm calling that progress.

Life is long, hard and gets messy too fast

I've said it before, and I'll probably say it again (though my opinion is subject to change with time): I'm not afraid of death. Even after losing my wife, I can honestly say that I face that hereafter or everafter or whateverafter without any squeemishness. I attribute this to the grandfather I never knew, who died twenty-ish years before I was born: as soon as I learned what a grandparent was, I knew what death was. There's no great enigma to dread. It's just dead.

But I'm still pissed off as all hell about losing my wife. Her dying isn't the problem, the problem is that I'm still alive. I would've happily died when she did. Death is easy! Death means you don't have to go to work, don't have to pay taxes or shovel snow. Death means you don't have to deal with some moron in a BMW cutting you off and then driving in front of you 5 miles under the fucking speed limit. Living's what's hard.

If nothing else, I'm glad that my wife doesn't have to endure life's bullshittery anymore. I'm still stuck out here, and I can't kill myself, because it's not the right season anymore (late Spring, according to Maria Bamford). I know that my time with my wife was the happiest of her life because she told me so. But there was a lot of time when she wasn't with me, and from those troubles, she's now free. I just wish I didn't have to still be here trying to survive life. She's dead, I'm not, so my job's waaaaay harder.

Regularly scheduled grief

I've said it before, grief is losing it's pizzazz. Now that I have a job again, and a schedule, there seems to be less to write about on here. Certainly less of the side-splitting variety, if any of my humor can be considered that. Turns out routines are dead boring. This is not news to me, but it also turns out that even grief can't spice up a Monday-through-Friday work week.

It doesn't help that the weeks are flying by, either. That's another thing about routines, they can make a week blink past and all of a sudden it's Monday again and even grief is like "Hey wait-! Ah, fuck it." Grief's still around, but it's just another part of my routine to slog through.

I hate the idea of routine at it's core, because they are, as previously illustrated, dead boring. My two worst fears are watching the love of my life die, and being boring. Probably a good time to mention that life wasn't ever boring around her. But I've already lived through the one fear. Is living through the other so bad? Ye-he-he-hes! But as long as I keep writing, I can convince myself that I'm not totally boring. Gotta be a little boring for a while, though. Just enough boring to be useful against the grief, and pay back my damn student loans.

Life is mean(ing)

I have to admit, in my grief, I'm a bit smug. I've talked to many griefy peeps in the past year who have expressed sadness over feeling they have no purpose without their loved one. I don't really know what to say. I can't really relate, because me? I have a purpose. You're looking at it right now. I am determined to honor my wife and simultaneously carve out a new meaning for my life through writing. How am I doing so far? Can you feel the meaning-y goodness?

If you feel that your life has no purpose, I would say that this is an opportunity to scrap whatever you're currently doing with your life, and do anything new. You've already lost everything that mattered: why not finally pursue designer basket-weaving or a degree in mime science like you've always talked about doing "someday?" You can always tell people you're doing it "in their honor" and nobody can bitch about that.

But following through on a new life purpose is hard, even if you know exactly what you want to do. I'm still back living with my parents to pursue my thing, and if the person you're grieving is a parent, well, you know. I've talked to people who feel no reason to live whatsoever, and that's a dark place to be. If you can think of anything, no matter how humbling, that would give your life reason to go on, I'm sure your loved one would support you. So if you always told your loved one how you'd like to learn the cello one day, go buy or steal a secondhand cello and start plucking away, or however cellos work. If it makes you want to keep living, it's what you should be doing, in my clearly biased opinion.

Grinding out smiles

Happiness is hard work! I've often said how lazy I am, and trying to be happy is pissing me off. Now I have to schedule happy and then follow through with a plan. Who has time for that? And even so, happy is still tainted with that earwaxy aftertaste of grief.

Used to be, all I had to do to be happy was come home. As effortless and spontaneous as a nice fart, and thoroughly more satisfying. Even if I was doing something else, as long as I had that proximity to my wife, I was simultaneously happy. Hell, even just thinking about her when I was at work could make me happier than the sorry excuse for happy I have to scrape together these days.

However, if you had asked me about happy a year ago when my wife was freshly dead, I wouldn't've even known what language you were speaking. For a while, "happy" was entirely removed from my vocabulary, and the fact that I have regained use of the word means I might as well get over my laziness and accept whatever I can get. Eh. I'll do it tomorrow.

The paper anniversary (sometimes OK to burn)

It's officially been a year. Plus two days, now. And what a shitty year it's been! So now I just have to do it again. And again. And again. But I only have to keep doing it over and over again until I die. The good news is that all the shittiness of the past year will start becoming the routine for how I go through a year! I've been hearing in my grief groups (for almost a year now as well) that the second year is usually worse than the first, because the fog is wearing off now, and reality is still, well, reality.

At least the anniversary day went well. Myself and a few friends who knew her as long or longer than I did met at her grave (which is still headstoneless) and swapped stories. We also burned some of her favorite incenses as well, because as I've said before, burning shit is just awesome, but you have to exercise discretion. Incense: OK to burn. Building you're currently living in: not OK to burn (tempting though it may be). But all in all, the anniversary passed with more laughter than tears, which is a net gain in my eyes.

So now I'm back to grinding through existence, just like I was on the 14th. I'm no stronger or wiser or peacefuler than I was a few days ago. I'm still fairly incredulous that a year has possibly passed since the love of my life stopped being alive. I still yearn to punch walls and I still cry at songs that don't call for it. And it's not getting any easier, as I've been warned. But at least...at least I have an upbeat, optimistic zinger to close this on: I am not dead yet.

Sick of grief

So about grief throwing me a curveball around the one-year mark for my wife dying: I might end up sick that day. I woke up this morning with a scratchy throat, and it hasn't gotten better through ignoring it today. I've got to hand it to grief: I did not see this one coming. Griefbursts, I'm all geared up and prepped for. But a sore throat? Cunning. Absolutely cunning.

Part of wonders if this sore throat really is supernatural in some way. What if I mysteriously catch a cold every mid-October now? Like some cheap M. Night Shyamalan movie, The Sickening. I'll have to make my ritual of visiting her gravesite include tissues and Dayquil.

If I do happen to be sick in some paranormal way related to grief, and my wife sent a poltergeist to give me this poorly-timed bug, I guess it could be worse. If I really am sick, then I have a legit excuse to take care of myself that's hard to argue against. I may be forced to lay low and take it easy for a few days. Drat!

Regretulations

There's a lot of things to regret when someone dies. Like every thing. The regrets get easier to ignore - where regret used to be an unbearable cluster headache, now it's a dull migraine. But oh-by-the-way, new regrets can also pop up at any time! Ain't that special? And they can take the form of accomplishments, too. As in: "I regret my loved one isn't here to see this accomplishment, they would be so proud."

I made a decision when my wife died that I would live on, since she couldn't, and that means I have to, you know, keep living on. I also realized fairly quickly that if I keep living, my wife will never see me become the best version of myself. Because I'm still improving. I have to improve. Otherwise I'll implode. And if I did that, my wife would be piiiiiiiissed.

I'm writing a book in honor of my wife that she will never read a word of. Well, I try to write, when that regret doesn't get in the way. Isn't that fascinating, how progress on a project can be hindered by the grief-regret that the project's progress can trigger? There's a lot of loopiness in grief. Enough to give anyone a headache. Like a mental headache. A headache of the mind. I guess just a head-headache.

Grief-ception

I've already lived through some major events without my wife: her birthday, my birthday, our anniversary, the release of Lady Dynamite on Netflix (seriously, everyone watch this). I've been learning. In five days, when I get to the first anniversary of her death, I can expect to feel a bit shitty on that particular day. I also know, from past experience, that I will likely have a griefburst, not on the anniversary, but the day before. Know what this means? Not only can I anticipate my regular grief, I can anticipating my anticipatory grief!

Maybe now, because I'm expecting it the day before, the griefburst will hit two days early? Grief is sneaky like that. Maybe I'll have two griefbursts, or none until the day after? But I know to expect...something! I'm totally ready for grief to- well, be unpredictable. Which vaguely sounds like I'm back to square one.

But I'll get through whatever it is. It's a miracle I made it this far at all. Another day won't kill me (knock on wood for freak meteor strikes, rampaging llamas, etc). But I'm watching you, grief, studying your patterns, learning the way you think. I'm inside your mind, grief! How does that make you feel? Oh wait, I already know, cuz I'm seeing your thoughts!

The lamest astrological sign

So I may officially be the worst son ever! Grab the popcorn, kids. So my mom has cancer *uncalled-for rimshot*. One of the first few thoughts that the honorable son of the year had was "I fucking hate my life."

MY life.

She's got the cancer, and I hate my life.

And then, to make things even worse, I went and talked about that private thought on the internet! Did things get a little meta just now? Anyway, the doctors say the cancer is curable, with a surgery that cancer is making all too routine these days. And a friend told me that it's a big thing that they're willing to say it's curable. I guess doctors should know better than to throw "curable" around lightly.

But it's just a little much for me. Grief for my wife is still attached to me like a tum-

...maybe I won't make that joke. Suffice it to say, my mind has no shortage of things running around it. I hope that it's as simple as they say it is, and my mom gets the surgery and boom! she becomes a badass cancer survivor. But I think that, if anything, grief has prepared me mentally better than I would be otherwise for this news. It's something. I forget if it was Confucius, or maybe Shakespeare, or possibly Socrates who famously said "fuck cancer."

2016: Year of the Fog

There's two fogs in grief. One is the fog of shock. That's where most of us grieflings were for a good few months or so after the death. Shock is a survival thing, it's our mind shutting out the bad stuff so we can, you know, not die from it. The other for is a fog of loneliness. That fog doesn't protect you, it just drives you up the wall.

When I think I'm doing well in my grief, something small can trigger my loneliness, and even crying doesn't make it go away. I am a pretty extreme case, though, where I went from being a lonely teenager, to an 11-year relationship that went quite codependent, and now I'm back to the loneliness. I've said it before, I suck at keeping myself company.

Shock fog makes you do things like sleep, and watch Netflix, and bullshit small-talk about politics. Loneliness fog makes you do things like draft online dating profiles over and over, and hate your friends when they ignore you for a few minutes, and change your masturbation habits. Loneliness fog can only be cured by time, and positive human interaction. But for grieflings, positive human interaction is...complicated.

Think. Overthink. Repeat.

Things used to be simple. There was a time when my thoughts were only about one thing: surviving grief. Now, also jammed in the mix are how to honor my wife, and how to live without her. Surviving was about the present, total minimalist. But the other two are about the past and future. You could say my thoughts are hard to organize these days.

If you ask me what I'm thinking at any given moment, I'll probably answer you "what?" I spend huge swaths of time dwelling on how to go about dating, TV and music to de-stress, and writing to memorialize my wife: often semi-simultaneously. Also, often replaying the same thoughts over and over for no discernible reason. And this is with me meditating once or twice a day (if I think of it). New thoughts are being generated faster than old ones can be cleared out! Critical mass! System overload! Phrases!

Oh yeah, and with everything on my mind, I have a job and a schedule and a-sponsablilties to remember, too. I don't have to be thinking about them, but I sure can't forget! I should buy a day planner: for my subconscious.

Things used to be simple. There was a time when my thoughts were only about one thing: surviving grief. Now, also jammed in the mix are how to honor my wife, and how to- Wait...I think we passed by this thought already.

Normal is boring (but I feel fine)

I think the charm of grief is wearing off. I've been a little stumped trying to think of stuff to post these past couple of days, at least things that can be funny and on-topic. It's just not what it used to be. We all know how much natural humor there is in grief, how fertile a ground it is for comedy. But as I settle into my new job and roll closer to that one-year milestone, grief's just becoming...boring.

I still have a lot of griefy moments, but it's kind of getting old. Turns out, even traumatic tragedy has a finite period of novelty, much like a shiny toy or Invader Zim (if you don't get the reference, that's the point). I cry and it's like "Yup. Doin' this again. Sucks. Again."

I am by no means asking to go back in time to the seven month mark when it was easier to make fun of grief. I knew I was setting a challenge for myself trying to write a funny(ish) grief blog, but I didn't anticipate the challenge coming from, well, normality? I don't know if that's the right word, I'm not quite sure I remember what normal is, if I ever knew. This may have to do for normal. But if anything, I'm going back in time like 18 months and preventing all this hell.

The silence has been filled

I don't do silence well. See, I have these stupid anxieties, and when it's silent, I start hearing the walls creaking and little ambient noises that could be dust settling, but also might be a tarantula or burglar or the ghosts of my high school self. It was nice to have a wife, someone with whom conversation never felt out of place. But now, I'm like some kind of sound junkie, desperate for a fix.

I like a lot of 'regular' music, but when she died, I got big into classical music to relax. Then Celtic music, and recently, the white noise of rain, and even more recentlier, music from Japanese anime. I was thinking today about starting to explore blues or blues-rock. Because I need to fill the silence, and every on of my silences needs a custom-tailored sound, apparently.

When I sat down to write this, I had to select some acoustical accompaniment, of course. I tried and turned off two things before deciding on a third. This is what grief has done to me. I'm so addled about the brain that I can't even pick my own sound! I decided on rain noise. I figure that in the next few months and years, I'll branch out even further. Perhaps I'll explore the sounds of badgers weaving wicker baskets, or trance remixes of Belizean folk songs, or pop music. Oh god. I hope I don't get so desperate for new sounds that I turn to pop.

The stone at the grave (not a gravestone)

So it's been 11 months since my wife died and still there's no headstone. Am I pissed? You bet! But I've also heard how long it can take. I don't know, we've been cutting stone and engraving it since the Egyptians. I figured the techniques would've improved since then. I'm sure there's a perfectly good reason why it takes so long. But 'perfectly good' isn't enough.

I do, however, finally have a hint that the stone may exist. When I visited the cemetery this evening, there was cement, still in a wooden mold drying. It's not a gravestone, but it's the stone at the grave for the gravestone, I assume. Fucking weird thing to see.

I wasn't sure how I felt, really. I took some pictures of the blank cement next to a vase of plastic flowers (her mom probably bought them at the dollar store) which was tossed aside by the workers, like some piquant symbol of are-you-fuckin'-serious?

Then I got an idea. A fantabulous idea. The cement was almost dry, but not quite. So I decided to scratch my own epitaph! So I keyed the title of Our Song in like a romantic vandal. It's what I told her grandma to have written on the stone, but I'm doubtful she remembered the correct wording since I've heard she's going senile. Well worth ruining the spare key to my lockbox to write in cement that will be covered up forever soon.

"This is perfectly normal"

Just me and my shadowy thoughts

Losing a significant other is a little different than losing most any other other. In addition to losing a friend, a lover, an ally, I also lost the one person in the world I could talk about anything to. And I mean anything. She endured a lot of creepy shit, bad puns, poorly-thought-out ideas, inane babbling, embarrassing stories, closet skeletons, crushing cynicism and dirty words.

Now, I have to keep all that stuff locked up in my head, and let me tell you, it is not well-organized. It's like an old-fashioned rolodex with all the little cards. Then it exploded. Now, I have nobody to talk about the serial killer book I'm reading with, or vent to about how I said something to a coworker that could be misconstrued as racist, or to help me pick up all these rolodex cards. Or That Thing. She would totally not mind listening to me talk about That Thing. She knows what I'm talking about.

It's how I know that I had true love: she knew everything. She could've blackmailed me for the rest of my life and on into ghosthood. But she didn't. Instead, she replied by telling me everything. I can't tell you how great it is to have your worst aspects be perfectly tolerated. But now, I have to hide it all away so I don't get thrown in the loony bin or driven out of town by a torch-mob. I do not need that again.

Riding In Cars With Coworkers

Today at work, a company van needed service, and I dropped it off and picked it up, which meant that for one trip there and one trip back, somebody needed to drop me off or pick me up. Two different people helped me, and they gave two different reactions when they found out I had one of those dead wife things you hear about sometimes (it just came up, I wasn't like "hey, thanks for the ride my wife's dead).

One person was unfazed, or at least showed zero outward reaction. The other had actually known about it already, but forgotten. Neither are going to be joining my support circle. So which one bothered me most? The answer may surprise you!

*Wait 30 seconds or so before reading the next paragraph for suspense*

Trick question! I didn't really give a fuck either way. Even when Forgetful apologized numerous times, it didn't matter, and it was easy to forgive. And I'm guessing that Unfazed didn't want to say anything to possibly upset anyone, or just has his own bullshit to deal with. Luckily for me I'm pretty numb to petty crap you know, because of the horrendous grief-pain. Dealing with death is useful for one thing: comparing other pain to. If you can survive losing someone you love dearly, you can survive an apocalypse (zombie or Biblical).

Patton Oswalt pt. 3: Now it's just getting sad

So I'm sitting here trying to think of something funny to blog about the Patton Oswalt show last night. You know, the standup comedy show? What's something funny...something funny about the comedy...hmmm. I guess this is why he's the badass comedian and I'm just the whiny blogger.

Oh yeah! The show! The show was funny! That's a thing. But you kinda had to be there. There was this one part where he was like doop-bop-beedily-boop-pee-! Eh, umm...nevermind. Something cool that isn't very funny is that I met him after the show! I hung around with the rest of the vultures behind the venue for one more brief glimpse at a comedy genius in the five feet between the door and the safety of his rented black escape SUV at the curb.

I shook his hand, told him he was a hero of mine and that tonight was the funnest (or I may have said funniest) night I've had since my wife died. Stammered, I should say, as I was completely starstruck. I've been thinking about trying to meet him for a few days, what I might say, and when it was my turn in the little line of us to meet him, my mind went blissfully blank. He quickly jumped in, asking how long we were married and how she'd died and it was clear in his rapid replies that he was trying to make the conversation as courteous but brief as possible. I can't blame him, he's four months, almost five into grief. He doesn't and shouldn't give a fuck about me, that one fan that after that one show. But the fanatic in me wanted a full conversation, and one about him being an awesome comedian and not about my wife and how she died. I didn't even get to mention that he's a big part of why I spent three years in Los Angeles trying to be a standup comedian.

Naturally, I've been rehashing it in my mind ever since, and I know exactly what I should've said and what I could've said and what I would've said if things had been starstruck. And I cried and felt bad for myself and tried to tell myself that I don't need him and I'm just gonna keep working on my book and that'll show him!

And when I can, I remember how awesome and hilarious the show was -- it was very. Like I smoked an hour's worth of crackeroin. Opener Nate Fernald was great, too. Patton Oswalt is always looking to promote new, underrated comedians. Because he cares about comedy at it's core, just like me. It's why he's a hero of mine. It's why I started this blog: so I wouldn't lose my sense of humor after losing my wife. But I tried my hand at standup, I'm just a big fan. I wonder how Patton Oswalt would end this post? He's one of the people who taught me to always end on a big joke.

Belligerent brain goo

Think love is a battlefield? Try grief! To take the metaphor of grief being a battle inside my head to the Nth degree, I've determined that chemical weapons are, in fact, being used by both sides. In fact, it's all chemical warfare! No gas masks can save me now! See, animals have survival instincts, things that happen automatically, for example, releasing chemicals to numb the pain of injury until done running away from the predator who caused the injury. But only humans have grief responses, like producing more CRH, a hormone that, in high levels, is related to major depression. You've heard of dying from a broken heart, right? I'm dealing with survivalist brain chemistry and bereaved brain chemistry simultaneously: it's a lil cray-cray.

In the beginning, the grief's forces overran us! My survival instincts were in full panic-protection mode: we were hunkered in the bunker of my body, barely able to move with all the suppressive fire. There were Griefies in the trees, we were flanked on all sides, and there was no support from the air. Trying to survive, we could do nothing more than sustain the position. But in recent months, the survival instincts have been striking back! After such a long siege, morale is low among the Griefies. My will to survive is rallying the troops for a new stand!

The absolute beauty of this battle is that however it goes in the short-term, I know already who will win in the end. I will survive. I'm not going to die from a broken heart. That threat level has been lowered from red to orange. Grief won't win a war of attrition: I can endure. I can't tell you what it means for me to be able to say that, but it's true. Even though it has often felt like I'm dying, and many days, I still lose little skirmishes and sorties. Grief likes to pick fights, but survival wants them to end.

Male fangirl fan mail

So Patton Oswalt, a favorite comedian of mine since I was totally, like, a tween, is coming to MY hometown!!! IEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!! Imagine how a twelve-year-old girl would react if Nick Jonas or that guy from One Direction with the flippy hair was coming to her town, and now imagine that same reaction by a chubby 27-year-old guy with a ginger neckbeard. And because he is a widower (just like me!!!), after I bought my ticket, I cried for like twenty minutes. You know. Hormones. So naturally, I figured I had to try and spin this funny. I mean, they say comedy equals tragedy plus time, so really, the joke's already in there! Wait for it...

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So can I tell you how shocked I am that Patton Oswalt is coming? One, because it's only been like five months since his wife died, and two, because my home town is not....one of those cities...that...people come to. But I'm so excited! If my parents embarrass me, I will just die. And nobody better say one single word about the first time I talked about Patton Oswalt's wife's death. Nobody's gonna ruin this show for me, or I will just scream!

...So. Time has passed. Is the death of a spouse funny now? I think I heard a few sniggers from way in the back? No? Just crickets? Eh, it'll hit you on your way to work tomorrow and you'll laugh so hard you have a fender bender. Now, I just have to decide what to do for when I go. Should I bake him some cookies? I am definitely wearing that slutty skirt mom hates...

The once and future tense

As a thingman that likes doing the writing, I often think wordishly. In grief, there's trouble with tenses. These days, if I'm talking about my wife, sometimes the past tense applies (which pisses me right off in general), but sometimes, the present tense still works. Kind of makes talking to someone who doesn't know my wife, or that she's dead, a personal minefield.

"Oh, my wife loved that song."

"She doesn't love it anymore?"

Somebody's about to learn some somber shit! Awkward silence in T-minus 5 and counting. Or I could've said 'My wife loves that song' which implies she's still alive, which is bullshit, because if she was still alive, I wouldn't be having this conversation right now, I'd be having a conversation with her, thank-you-kindly.

But I will always say "I love her" in the present tense. Her death did not interrupt that continuity. And don't even get me started on the conditional unreal tense with things she "would've done if she were here." Or the future progressive tense with "She'll be watching over me." It's more than I want to deal with: just too tense.

I hate adulting

This is going to sound like a resume, but I'm a very fast learner and can learn to do almost any job. My new job is no exception. That being said (and how you can tell this isn't a resume), I hate all jobs forever. My new job is no exception. The work is no problem. The problem is that it's a job.

I've been dealing with some waves of depression in the almost two weeks since I started this gig. The work is fairly easy, the people are incredibly nice, and everyone's been telling me I'm doing a great job. So naturally, I already want to quit. I must be wired wrong for what most adults do every single day: work a regular job.

Like all jobs, I need this. Settling into the grind of doing this every day for an unpredictable number of months or years is daunting, to say the least. But I have a secret trump card. Turns out no job is worse than losing my wife! I'm indestructible, now, really. My wife can't come back to life and die again, so what's the big deal? There is no big deal. Just a humble-grumble grind.

Single, ready to mingle (platonically)

I'm still not ready to date. Oh, sorry, thought I heard someone ask. But today in my grief group I heard from a widow of a similar age to myself, who has gone on a couple of dates recently. She's 14 months into her grief, I'm ten-and-a-half. One: I'm so glad she was able to try that, I know it was confusing and new for her. Two: there is no way I am going to be ready to date in three-and-a-half months. Three: I'm still pissed I even have to worry about dating.

I had to laugh, though, when she told us how she was saying things to her date, basically to try and scare him away. I can identify with this. As I've confessed before, I occasionally find myself composing an online dating profile in my mind, one of the saddest caliber, basically written to repel and frighten. And I can only imagine that if a woman took up the challenge of dating me, I would try to scare her off.

I guess it's a test, really. If you still want to 'come back to my place' after I cry to you about another woman, I'm intrigued. Although, at the present time, 'coming back to my place' would involve awkward instructions on not waking up my parents. Yeah, three-and-a-half months won't be enough time.

Labor Day Pride goes before a Fall

It's my first Labor Day without my wife, and we both loved celebrating the American workers by not having to go work. I'm in my second week at my new job, and already I have a day off - this is the life. More than anything, today reminded me of crap I'm feeling all the time: it's almost Fall again, we always loved Fall. How has it been so long since she died? It's really coming up on a year. It's hard for me to look very far into the future these days, but it'll be a year come October.

So yeah, Labor Day wasn't that big a deal for me.

I refuse to let my wife's death ruin my love of Fall, however. It was our favorite season, my wife and I. So this year I am going to walk through fallen leaves swishing my feet like a four-year-old. I'm going to get apple-cinnamon candles or whatever: fuck pumpkin-spice. I'm going to close my eyes and smell cold rain off the lake. And dammit, I'm going to bawl my eyeballs out.

It's going to be so hard to still love Fall, since my wife during that last one. I won't be able to do it every day. But I'll be able to love Fall the majority of days. Fall is, and has always been, symbolic of change. It's when the school year starts, it's when the leaves on deciduous trees change, it's when college guys in my town put on thicker and thicker hoodies, but keep wearing shorts because "this cold doesn't bother me." I know all too well that change will come, whether we want it to or not. But change is about adapting. And as much as humans suck in other areas, we kick ass at adapting to change.

Them's fightin' words

I talk grief a lot, if you can't tell. I made this blog to do nothing but put words together about grief. It's rather excessive, really. I'm kind of becoming an unwilling expert on the subject. So when some friends of mine experienced a death of someone they were close to, naturally, I didn't have a clue what to say.

I feel like a failure, really. I want so bad to be supportive and empathetic, but I've been mostly resorting to cliches and awkward questions via text message. And 'text message' means I can think about what I want to say before I say it. But everything I think of saying seems like either condescension or like I'm trying to one-up their loss with talking about my loss. Guess I'm no grief guru after all, just a grief hobbyist.

If anything, I'm good at my own grief and nothing more - a specialist, not a jack-of-all-graves. I've been fighting my own grief so long, but I can't move on to the next fight until I win this one. My friends will have to fight their own grief battles. I can tell them what worked for me, but when it's time for me to duck, it might be a better time for them to jab instead. And there's no one-punch knockout for this crap. You only win by surviving.

Bullshit rocks

One of my grief groups, a handful of months ago, passed around a dish of cheap, artificially-colored rocks. They were supposed to be pocket reminders of gratitude, some gimmick like that. It sounded silly, but I saw a purple-and-black one, one Mia would've picked, so I picked it for myself. The colors are mottled and it looks like a small, polished thumb, which, upon close inspection, has a chip right where the cuticle of the nail would be. When I remember, I carry it around it my pocket. But most of the time, it just sits on my desk.

The thing about grief is that it changes your thinking. You learn to let yourself bullshit yourself, even if you know it's bullshit - just because the bullshit thoughts are more helpful than your real ones. It's no bullshit. I've often thought myself fairly nihilistic: a believer in nothing in particular. But grief has me seeing the usefulness of a kind of faith. When I saw my gratitude stone sitting in the middle of the floor a few times in a short period of time: I decided it was a sign from my wife.

Was my wife physically reaching through the Aether and placing the stone down for me as a reminder of both herself and gratitude? Probably not. I have cats who knock crap over, as cats are wont to do. But it makes me feel good to think that it was a mystical harbinger from the Hinterland. It's kind of alike the grown-up version of playing pretend. I liked playing pretend as a kid. After seeing the stone on the ground, in roughly the same spot on numerous, consecutive occasions, I brought it to work in my pocket, and it made me happy. I need happy, folks. And I'm more than grateful to get my happy from a childish game. Grateful. That's...kind of like gratitude, huh?

Employment status: not 'un'

I started a new job yesterday, and it's creepy how much they trust me already. Within an hour of my first shift ever, I was given a key to the exterior doors, a key to all the storage, and a key that opens other boxes of keys. I was also given the gas station credit card for their van fleet and $60 company cash for job duties at the laundromat. Maybe it's my White Privilege, that I'm intrinsically honest in their eyes. Maybe it's the fact that I have Eagle Scout on my resume, and 'trustworthy' is literally the first point of Scout Law. Maybe they're just stupid. I could be a con artist or a larcenous crackhead. I should rip them off just to teach them a lesson about assumptions.

Everyone is crazy nice, though. I wonder when my widower status will come up? A couple of the office ladies know about it, but nobody has followed up or asked about my wedding band. It's bound to come up sooner or later. I'm going to be pretty blunt when it does. That way, I'll sort out the disappointing people from the ones who can hang real quick.

I have no desire to rip these folks off: I like the job too much. I should amend that, I like the job hours too much. I'm working part-time, only afternoons, and that suits me perfectly. The job itself is a bit crazy, as numerous employees have warned me. Like, enough employees have said it's crazy here that, they're saying it as a joke, but I'm starting to think they're not saying it as a joke. The guy who's been doing most of my training has dropped a few swearwords on the job, which is awesome. He also worked today, which was his birthday, just for the sake of training me. Crazy with nice, sweary people? I'll fit in perfectly.

Respect the unexpected

OK, yesterday was my first anniversary after my wife died, and what I'm going to say isn't what anyone wants to hear: it went well and I had fun. Hell, that's not what I want to hear. If I had fun on my anniversary with my wife being dead, doesn't that mean I didn't love her or something? Shouldn't I've been crying all day camped out at her grave with a crate of kleenex?

Well, I did cry. A lot, throughout the day. I did also did visit her grave and bawl my eyeballs out there. I had quite a few dark moments throughout the day, which I fully expected. But it didn't stop me from having a good time at other points. A highlight was meeting with one of my wife's best friends / bridesmaids at the park I got married in. It was the perfect way to start such a shitty day: talking about my wife with someone who knew and loved her (almost!) as well as I did.

This all goes along with my cynicism: I expected awful feelings all day. I ended up having some unexpected good feelings, too. Like I was heading to my scheduled execution, but then the executioner told me I had a lovely smile and great hair. And I didn't die. My personal advice for trying to prepare for a grief: always, always expect the worst, but graciously accept it if and when things fail to meet that expectation.

Plan to fail

In grief, if there is a milestone or anniversary or holiday you're dreading: plan for it. Let me give you an example. Just, you know, the first thing that comes to mind, I guess, is my anniversary tomorrow. Today, technically, but I'm not counting it until I go to bed and wake up. 'My anniversary' would've been my seven-year marriage anniversary. We got married on the five-year anniversary of when we started dating, so it also would've been twelve years together. You could say I'm dreading it.

So, according to the suggestion, I have plans. I'm lucky to have a grief group meeting scheduled tomorrow. Also, I'm meeting one of my wife's best friends at the park I got married in. Guess I'm going to cry in a public park tomorrow! Isn't that special? The good news is that judgmental douchebags rarely frequent nature and beauty, so I'm not worried.

Judgment regardless, tomorrow (today, really, as I said), has had me trembling for weeks. How do you close the book on an eleven-year tradition? Like this! It's just this easy! Or you don't. You plan something entirely new, so the old is preserved in a meaningful way. That's how you do it! Like it's easy or something.

Whatever. As long as I don't self-destruct, everything is going to go as well as can be expected. Plan out how not to self-destruct. That's all what matters, says I.

Off the co-deep-end

This is how codependent my wife and I were. When we were living in Los Angeles, we had a king-sized bed and a love-seat. That was the furniture. And it wasn't a sofa, it was a love-seat. We could both fit sitting on it, but if I tried to lay down, my legs would be bent and still hanging over the armrest. Both of us sitting there, we had enough space for us two, but it meant we were touching, at least our shoulders or thighs. We sat there every night, knocking knees through Netflix.

This was a studio apartment, as spacious as it sounds. But even in such close living quarters, we chose to spend everyday, both crammed onto a single love-seat. Yes, we were deemed codependent by a mental health professional, not just "Oh-em-gee we are, like, so totes codependent." It really wasn't healthy.

As I've mentioned, we had his-and-hers cats, and they did not enjoy sharing the space of a studio with each other. But many nights, my cat would come to me, and her cat would come to her, and even in already cramped quarters, all four living beings would come together and share the space of a single love-seat: maybe ten square feet. What's that song? Love's the only house big enough...in the middle of our street? Love's the only House of the Rising Sun? Love's the only brick house (and it's mighty mighty)? I don't know. I think it's some country song, but I don't listen to country music. Anyway, my wife and I were codependent as hell. I loved it.

Mom and Pop(corn)

Grief changes what matters. I have less road rage now that my wife is dead. People still drive like assholes, but I don't let it bother me. I also worry less, these days, what people think about me, unless they're thinking of ways to resurrect my wife. But now, a single baggie of popcorn can tear me to pieces -- chocolate-covered popcorn.

Like any red-blooded, non-Communist American, I like popcorn, and I like chocolate. I'm not over-the-moon about chocolate-covered popcorn, specifically, but it was a favorite of my wife's. So when I was at a chocolatier with my folks recently, I decided to get a bag to remind me of her. And later that evening, when I came downstairs, and I saw someone had eaten some of my popcorn, I had a griefburst, stumbling and sobbing around the kitchen. A griefburst regarding popcorn.

The next day, my mom actually came to me about the popcorn, and I told her that it was mine. Which promptly gave her a griefburst. She ate the popcorn for the same reason I wanted it: to think of my wife. Remember, this is not an antique pocketwatch she pawned, or an heirloom Ming vase she broke, or an original Van Gogh she Sharpied a mustache on: it's popcorn. She felt terrible, and I felt terrible. But a $3.75 bag of chocolate-covered popcorn + grief = priceless.

Sleeping 'til noon is sexy

My parents will be happy to know I got a job: I was so happy I had a grief burst! And this job is perfect for me, part-time, exactly the schedule I asked the universe for: only weekday afternoons, so I can still stay up late and sleep in, and have evenings and weekends free. So naturally, right after I hung up the call, I burst into tears. I don't think my brain knows the difference between good news and bad news anymore.

This was not a crying 'because I wish she could to see this' or crying 'because I'm so happy' or crying 'because this job reminds me of my wife's eyes.' This was just plain old griefy 'I miss her' crying, nothing more. I think were a few mutterings of 'I hate my life' mixed into the 'I miss you's.' Makes perfect sense!

I'm afraid I'm going to be out on the street one of these days, and someone will drop a hat, and I'll cry at it.

If I was a praying man, Id say mine were answered: I start on Monday and will be able to resume making student loan payments! In all seriousness, I'm ecstatic, I'm expecting to stay with this company until I get published. And we've all heard how quick and easy it is to publish a novel. Wonder how big a grief burst I'll have when that finally happens! 

Oh, grow up!

My wife and I were really just kids in grown-up bodies. We loved Disney movies, even into the age it would probably be considered creepy. Older Disney, though, like 90's and prior. Not Frozen. I will NOT be Letting Anything Go (although I could be persuaded to Let It Be, but that's McCartney, not Disney).

I've found it hard to watch Disney since last October. It doesn't help that damn near every single movie involves the death of a loved one. Simba beside a dead Mufasa made me tear up, even before I lost my wife. So now, I don't even have the balls to turn on the film. And it will be decades before I can once again watch the first act of UP, and even then, I'm sure I'll cry gallons. Disney is ruthless with those feels.

But, as long as I possibly can, I'll still hang on to the childish parts of me. My love for my wife is in there. If I stop liking Disney entirely, then I'd feel like a neo-Nazi, just like Walt was. I guess you can have hate in your heart and still make beautiful art. Or at least hire folks who can make beautiful art. Which is good, because I definitely have hate in my heart, though certainly not for anything so small-minded as anti-Semitism. I don't discriminate - I hate the everything.

Don't play if you can't win

The blinking lights, the high-energy chimes and bells, the three wheels of fate with a one-in-a-million chance of stopping in front of you on 'BAR-BAR-BAR.' Gambling is love. Metaphor. But it's 999,999-in-a-million that you'll end up with less than you'd hoped for. I knew this truth already by 15, when I met my jackpot. I can't tell you how lucky I was, to find someone capable of loving this hot mess, eleven years strong.

I have man-boobies, and odd-looking ones at that. I'm hard on myself. I'm a consummate hypocrite. I dislike like sharing. I can't grow a full beard, only a hipster-looking neckbeard. My sense of humor is dark to the point of alienating. I'm lazy and hold myself to low standards. I have social anxiety and insomnia. I care about myself more than my family. I self-censor in front of people and don't know how to defend myself. I second-guess myself at every turn. I'm mooching off my parents with no end in sight. If I can put something off til later, I always will. I don't keep my promises to myself and always think I'm wiser than you. My head looks like a yield sign.

If you've been reading, my flaws aren't really news to you. No question: I hit my lucky number at 15. At the time, I assumed I would die as a forever-alone meme, a 40- or 80- or 100-year-old virgin. I hit the jackpot, and not the penny-slots; the $20-a-pull, about-to-end-up-on-an-episode-of-C.S.I. bonanza. It's the only reason I have hope, which I do, that I'll ever have true love again. I had it once before. And I don't believe in one-in-a-millions. But now, I believe in two-in-seven-billion.

Truth hurts. Dead's just dead.

Don't talk shit about the dead: especially if you talked shit about them all the time when they were alive. If it sounds hypocritical, you're right! We say nobody's perfect, and yet, every dead person is perfect, if you only go by how they're spoken of.

Now, let me talk some shit about my wife! News flash: she wasn't perfect (bear with me). The good news is that shit-talking is actually not as bad as being dead (seriously, bear with me)!

My wife was fat. She was short-tempered and pessimistic. My wife couldn't empathize well and made me fight to know when something was wrong. She had night terrors and panic attacks. My wife drank too much and procrastinated. She was self-centered and didn't know how to treat herself right. My wife had a horrible childhood and sometimes used certain words incorrectly. She hid important things from me and was depressed. Her fourth toe on both feet were undersized.

Most of these flaws I'm also guilty of: I wear black t-shirts because they help hide my man-boobies. Though I guess you'd call my toes pretty much normal.

I'm a hypocrite about many things, but this is not one of them. I explicitly accepted all her imperfections while she was alive. One thing my wife was not is ignorant. We made peace with our flaws together while she was alive, so I'm not disturbing any rest-in-peace. I loved her lack of perfection. I still do. And I could fill hundreds of blog posts listing ways my wife was perfect -- to me. But who wants to sit through that?

That's 'pack' not 'herd'

Humans are pack animals. I don't mean beasts of burden like pack mules. I mean we've evolved to come together, not stay apart. Being alone all the time is unnatural to us. Yes, we all have figurative burdens to bear, ha-ha-ha. But whether you have a big *stereotype ethnicity* family, or if it's just you and your spouse against the world, we're wired to be happiest as part of a pack. Me? I'm actually stupider by myself.

I like to think I'm pretty sharp, pretty perceptive in general. My grandma used to call me "Eagle Eye." By myself though, I've been becoming a bumble-klutz. I trip more often, I forget things, I bump into stuff. I've dropped my cellphone more in the past nine and a half months than I probably did in that many years. In July, I locked my keys in the car for the first time since like 2011. This is all only when I'm alone.

I've heard it's pretty common with elderly couples, where one dies and the widow/widower starts to decline mentally. So when I claim my wife kept me sane, it's no bullshit. Don't get me wrong, sometimes it's nice to be alone, sitting with my thoughts and freely crying as the mood takes me. But I'll take just about any opportunity to be in a pack, to indulge the part of my brain that lights up around company. I'm less clumsy in a pack. I'd look up some psychology study to corroborate this concept, but I'm alone right now, and every time I try typing terms into Google, my grief-addled head just makes my fingers write "taco muffin taco muffin taco muffin."

"It was her time" and other bullshits

There's a lot of awful cliches in grief:

"They're in a better place."

"The universe wouldn't give you more than you can handle."

"Everything happens for a reason."

Some are actually helpful, like:

"He that conceals his grief finds no remedy for it." - Turkish proverb

"You cannot prevent the birds of sorrow from flying over your head, but you can prevent them from building nests in your hair." - Chinese proverb

"Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak whispers the o'er-fraught heart and bids it break." - some guy named Bill

When I was fresh in grief, it felt monstrous, inhuman, utterly impossible to exist but somehow, there it was. Turns out, grief is as old as humanity, and as normal. It pissed me off how much people had cliches coming out their mouths, noses and ears. But when I started sorting the good from the bad, I realized where it's all coming from at least. This has all happened before; it will all happen again. I can say, I finally see "the wisdom of the ages" in a way relevant to my life. This is why they say to listen to your elders and all that bullshit.

Turns out I'm not the only person to ever lose the person they loved most in the world. It's been happening for thousands of years, folks. Surprised? I kind of was. I'm still going to refer to Google as my lore-keeper and guru in all things modern. But with grief, I'm hungry to hear from those who've been adrift in these waters before. Grief is as old as smiling when you're happy and laughing at farts. I'm glad to know my grief's not unique as it feel. I try to find words to talk about grief in this blog: C.S. Lewis already wrote the freakin' book.

Give me a little credit

I need a job. I've been mooching off my parents since my wife died, and it's time. I'm going to pick myself up by my bootstraps and face the reality of my student loans. I've been hiding from them for months. But that's one aspect of my life that remained unchanged when my wife died. She'll never need to apply for an apartment or can loan again, that lucky so-and-so.

Forget diamonds, debt is forever. The only time debt was ever funny to me is when my wife got mail asking for bills to be paid six months after she died. Hilarious. So I need a job. I even have an interview already lined up, I'm ready for this, I'm pumped. I'm going to put my nose to the grindstone and punch that clock and other hard-workin' cliches.

Oh, by the way, I'm still going to be living with my parents. I'm only looking for part-time, just enough to get the loan-monkey off my back. I'm not happy about it either, but I need to do it. Because grief. One more thing, can I just say again how fucked up life is that I'm bitching about student loans on my widower blog?

'Twas the night before Labor Day...

Later this month is mine and my wife's anniversary, and, despite the sitcom stereotypes, I never forgot it. But this year will be decidedly sadder than last. Right now, I have what they call anticipatory grief! I'm upset now, because I'm assuming I'll be upset then. Which is a fairly safe assumption, I should think. Although I might end up just back into shock for the day and it could pass in a lovely, blurry fog. 

I've said before how I'm not big on sunshine and summer. Our anniversary was really the only reason I had to look forward to the mosquito-y times of the year. Surprisingly enough, I'm not big on Labor Day: I don't even get a tree or hang lights. And friends sending me pictures of their family as Labor Day cards? Ugh.  I just want the weather and leaves to change and bring me from summer into autumn because...well...actually October is when my wife died. Shit. I guess the anniversary of her death can't be as bad as the actual death was! It's something!

In my grief groups, I've been told that anticipatory feelings can be worse than the actual day. I've also been told that the second year can be worse than the first year, because the shock and fog start to lift and grief feels more real. So regardless of how the milestones go, there's something to look forward to! I think the lesson is to focus on the now: if I'm not too overly sad at the moment, just try to enjoy that. I can articulate the lesson, but actually putting it into practice? I think it'd be easier to find myself a Labor Day tree.

Assholes shouldn't get to reproduce

Losing my wife was one tragedy. Losing my in-laws: not so much. Going through pictures, there are some that make me cry tears of sappiness. Others, I take utter delight in throwing away. Like those of her parents. I hate them, and they hate me. Or if they don't hate me, they should, because I hate them. Every flaw I encountered in my wife, I can trace back to her mom or dad making really bone-headed parenting moves, to say the least.

I have tons of photos scattered across boxes and cellphones and facebooks, and I'm soooo happy to delete, discard and destroy those of her mom and dad. I need the good photos, of my wife alive, and I hate stumbling across those ghosts who haunted my wife while she lived. I'm gonna depend on my photo collection for many years to come, so I'm happy to prune away the rubbish now. There are some memories I don't want to be reminded of. People are always telling me to remember the good times, and not the bad times, so shitcanning pix of her parents is therapeutic, really.

Fortunately, I never have to see those people again, unless I run into them in the store or something. I'm sure, if I do run into one or the other of them, I'll come back and write a blog post about how I bravely leave the store immediately without even buying what I came in for. I'm not a confrontational person, otherwise I'd love to bitch them out and leave them crying about all the hell they put their daughter through. But for now, I'll just enjoy throwing away photos of their likeness, like modern-day voodoo dolls. If I ever meet a witch doctor, I will totally pay him to send them all the bad juju I can afford.

Too Much Intimacy

There's this hot pink Goody hairbrush, a mini one that's perfect for a girl or woman's purse, my wife's purse to be exact. Now I use it to brush my beard. Yes, folks, I went through my wife's purse, the unforgivable sin. Truthfully, I was welcome to paw through it when she was alive, she had nothing inside to keep secret from me. To the straight ladies out there, your boyfriend/husband is not ignorant to the existence of tampons, and we really don't care.

Turns out, being allowed to access her purse takes away all the mystery. My wife had all my computer passwords, too. She even knew where my porn folders were, all of them. Even that one. She still loved me anyway. I expect that after reading this, you're either freaked out, jealous, or you've known the intimacy of which I speak. If you're freaked out, I pity you. If you think it's T.M.I for a public blog, you're probably right.

Even with the horrible way my wife died, we enjoyed a level of relationship people only dream about. I don't mean to, but I'll be judging every future relationship based on the one I lost. I can see the argument for me be too honest, too open. Once you know, you can never unknow, until they invent brain bleach. But I hope you can see the point of my counterargument. You may not believe me, but it's just better when your lover knows and accepts the deepest, darkest corner of your porn folders. 

Posthumous humor

Don't laugh about grief. Seriously. Don't even think about how close the word 'requiem' is to 'rectum.' I know you want to, but there's just nothing funny about death. Even if someone solemnly lets out a toot-fart during a eulogy. Don't you dare laugh. No matter how much the dearly departed loved a good fart joke.

When the eulogy's over, and the funeral procession is en route to the cemetery, and you're alone in your car, let it rip. If you think I mean fart, you have a filthy, filthy mind. If you think I mean release your laughter, then there's hope for your soul. If you thought of both, you're very clever, and I like you, but don't get cocky.

Never let anything ruin your sense of humor completely. To those who've lost a loved one, I promise, if you could ever laugh before, you will be able to laugh again.  If you never had a sense of humor in the first place, may George Carlin bless you and keep you, for yours is the soul most in need (and I strongly urge you fill out the Contact Me form for free information on how the Church of George Carlin might be able to help you).

Without comedy, I would've jumped off a bridge by now, or put a bottle of vodka to my head and pulled the trigger. It's funny because it's true. And the first rule of comedy is always end on a big joke.

Seeking: Lawyer Specializing in Murphy's Law

Driving home from dinner, my dad unexpectedly stopped to run an errand he'd previously stated would be handled tomorrow. The reason he gave was that, per Murphy's Law, something might come up tomorrow, but 'nothing can happen tonight.' We were pulling in. I mentioned that a meteor could fall from the sky in the next few seconds: to me, rhetorical hyperbole is a challenge to reality. I was met with 'well aren't you just a ray of sunshine?'

Well, folks, turns out I am not, in fact, a ray of sunshine. In addition to all my previous posts where I mention enjoying clouds and rain, I'm just not a sunny, bright person. That part of me is dead, so to speak. But something bad could always just happen when you least expect it. I know this better than most. It's the definition of Murphy's Law, really, I'm just pushing it to the comical extreme.

I don't even see why it's so dark of me to bring up freak meteor strikes. If something's falling big enough to damage anything, it'll be all over the news before it hits. Plus, don't we have, like, a system of satellite lasers or something to shoot anything like that out of the sky? Plus, if a meteor did drop from nowhere and kill the whole minivanful of us, it would really simplify our lives and eliminate all our day-to-day worries.

OK, maybe I am a bit darker than most in the humor department. I'm just a snarky little raincloud. At least I amuse myself, even if the joke doesn't exactly 'land' on my audience, pun intended.

My time of sense is off

The early bird gets the worm, but the night owls get mice and voles and stuff. If I have to pick, I'd rather not eat worms. It's 4 A.M., I can't call it Friday anymore, and I should be asleep. If it weren't for that whole 'dead' thing, my wife would be happily awake with me. We were both night owls, and, you know, I still am. We arranged our lives around it: we both worked a 3 P.M. to 11 P.M. job, stayed up til 4 or 5, slept until noon or 1. I don't know about healthy, wealthy or wise, but it made us happy. We usually said 'good night' around when what's really appropriate is 'good morning.'

But if one of us was still going, we both were, like Tom and Jerry. My dad once asked if we ever went to bed at different times. We looked at him with the same confusion as he had on his face when we told him we always slept at the same time. Put it this way, it was always funner to do stuff together, like being awake or not.

I don't quite know where I'm going with this blog post. But, to recap, I'm in the 4 o'clock hour, and not the one most people are familiar with. Things generally end up making less sense at this time. Or maybe they get to make less sense. It's probably why we liked this time some much. Daytime makes too much sense, it's exhausting.

Post titley thing

Self-actualization isn't all it's cracked up to be. I would know. I had the realization recently that I can call myself a writer now. I've been making sentencey, paragraphy stuff consistently for some time now in several capacities. It's a dream coming true. And it feels... just like being unemployed and living in my parents' attic.

Make no mistake, I am not a paid writer. But a writer nonetheless! Nobody can take that away from me! This blog has over 70 posts! I have a complete rough draft of a novel! I have zero income!

I've said before that grief often feels like living in a dream, and then I correct myself and say nightmare. For once, I had a thought that maybe the dream's worth a try.

I do the writing thingy with wordity. It's not much, but it's a dream accomplished for me. Everything from here on out is just gravy. Wouldn't it be wild if I got paid for writing? That'd be like, another dream come true! Double dream come true! And then my parents would get their dream: their attic space back.

Mia-isms - (Flip a cow, Quish/squish)

Here's another round of some unique verbiage that, as far as I know, my wife coined, to my great amusement.

Flip a cow

     [flip uh kau]

verb

1. to berate someone verbally

2. to become animatedly enraged

ex. If that's a parking attendant by my car, I'm gonna flip a cow on him!

Quish/squish

     [kwish or skwish]

verb

1. to let out a short, sometimes involuntary, high-pitched utterance, usually about something cute

2. to make any of a variety of small physical gestures in response to something cute, such as squinting or clasping one's hands together

ex. It's the cutest Welsh Corgi, when I saw it, I squished so loud he barked back at me!

Hey, they volunteered as tribute

If you have any anger with grief, or life pisses you off or you're just plain screwed up in the head, I highly suggest watching combat sports for your own good. It's against the law for me to cold-cock random people in the grocery store to vent my rage. But it's perfectly legal for the fine athletes of the Ultimate Fighting Championship to pound each other bloody for my vicarious amusement. And it is amusing. I've been going through the UFC's online archives of fights that are free to watch as an alternative to handling my anger destructively. One fight struck me, pun intended.

Back in 2007, Randy "The Natural" Couture took the heavyweight championship title in a unanimous decision from Tim "The Maine-iac" Sylvia. Recently, I watched the five rounds of pure domination, and, being so one-sided, it wasn't overly exciting. But after the fight, something got to me. Couture's wife came out into the octagon and gave her winner a well-earned kiss. Goddamn it, mixed martial arts isn't supposed to make me cry!

Only loved ones can turn a great moment into a perfect moment. We're social animals: even in the midst of modern-day gladiator barbarity, we like to share our joys. I'm jealous of Mr. Couture, but not because of any comically oversized championship belts. My wife would've been so proud of me in that play thingy I was in last week. Now I have to try being proud by myself. Ugh. And, oh-by-the-way, my wife liked UFC/mixed martial arts, too. Our nickname for it was 'punchface,' as in "want to watch punchface?" She came up with it. See? Just by being there for it with me, my wife even made pointless violence better. And pointless violence was already pretty awesome.

Hurt so good

So that play thing I was doing is over now, but I have a secret about it. The play was really sad, almost maudlin. That's not the secret. The concept (written by a former teacher of mine from high school) of the play is a circle of friends, most of which use drugs, reacting to one of them dying of a drug overdose. You can infer how I can relate. The secret is: making people sad made me happy.

And I don't mean 'it warmed my heart' to 'share my story' in semi-acting. No, I was spitefully happy, sadistically happy. I asked everyone I talked to after the show if I made them cry, and when they invariably admitted to at least tearing up, I would fist-pump in victory. Don't worry, I'm not really rejoicing in their sorrow. I'm rejoicing in the source of their sorrow: a brief taste of bitter understanding.

Friday, Sunday and twice on Saturday, I, and the awesome cast of JUNK, forced a crowd of 20-40 people to feel the way I do all the time. They only had to feel it for an hour and forty minutes, the lucky bastards.

Most folks don't or can't understand. Some think they understand, and some don't want to understand, both of which peeve me. I don't even think I really understand, but at least I can admit it, and I think that admission is closer to understanding than anything.

The take-home from doing the show is that a small handful of people have a slightly better understanding now. And it made them sad. And it made me happy. But the joke's on me, because their sadness will pass, and they'll go back to their lives. Just as my happiness will pass and I'll go back to my grief. But I'll always have my memory, my hour and forty minutes of morbidly depressing, schadenfreude fame.

I've got a bug

This week, I'm gonna be light on blog posts. As in, this will probably be the only one. Sorry! I caught a bug: the acting bug! Hahahaha! So clever!

I'm currently in the middle of tech week for a community play this weekend, and my mind is engulfed in the flames of preparation. I don't even have time to come up with any better jokes than 'acting bug.'

If you happen to be in Upstate New York, and think you'd enjoy an amateur drama about drugs and death (featuring the music of Bright Eyes and Ryan Adams), the deets are here. Otherwise, I'll be back to keyboard-clacking after the weekend!

By way of apology, here's an awesome grief-related Calvin & Hobbes!

Cherries, no jubiliee

Fuck sundaes. Hear me out, I'm not just trying to be a summer bummer. I love ice cream. Hot fudge is delicious. Whipped cream, of course. But that goddamn cherry on top. I just don't care for the texture of cherries. I like cherry flavored things, I like cherry juice, I like when the slot machine shows cherry-cherry-cherry. But I always donated my sundae cherries to my wife. Now I have to deal with them myself, or stop ordering ice cream sundaes. And the latter ain't happening. Out of desperation, I've started whipping them at homeless people.

I've never met a couple, married or dating, where they both like all the same food. My wife, get this, used to give me her bacon. Bacon! That's true fucking love, right there. Now I get no bonus bacon, and I have to set up the fire pit in the back yard to dispose of all my excess sundae cherries.

Can you imagine the weird looks I would get asking for a sundae, no cherry? I'd be branded a Communist Nazi barbarian Trump-supporter. They'd probably just tell me to keep my money, and give me directions to a psych ward. It's bad enough I have to ask for no tomatoes anytime I can afford fast food. Guess who loved tomatoes? When I'm ready to start dating, I have my ideal new girl's food preferences all mapped out. In the end, isn't that what we all want? Someone to enjoy life's unwanted cherries and tomatoes and cherry-tomatoes?

Crazy cat laddie

As a widower, especially one of the "under-thirty" variation, I'm facing something I thought I was going to avoid for most of my life: living alone. Don't get me wrong, I'm still happily mooching off my parents for room and board at present. But that can't last. I started dating my wife when I was 15, and literally have never lived without her or my folks (unless you count the two marking periods I spent in a college dorm before my 'leave of absence').

The worst part is, though not solely, I've lived with myself before. So I know all my gross, annoying habits. I've just always either had to hide them (as with my parents) or deal with negative reactions (from my wife). But this time, it's just gonna be me, and I'm not looking forward to dealing with my bullshit. I've thought about looking for a roommate, but I don't want to subject a stranger, or worse, a somebody I like, to 24 x 7 x 365 of me. Hell, I don't wanna be stuck with me: that guy is always moping and bitching about his dead wife, ugh.

I do want to challenge myself to take care of myself by myself, truth told. But I'm seriously dreading the loneliness. I'm already lonely, and I don't expect it'll improve once I leave my parents' house again. The only ray of sunnyunnyshine is my cats (not the most masculine of statements, but I digress  [I swear, 'wife' refers to a woman {I don't judge anyone, don't judge me}]). Though they aren't much for conversation, my cats are better than solitary confinement. And they like me. My cats probably tolerate me better than I do myself, if only because I am The One Who Controls Food & Poobox, and I give acceptable chin-scritches.

Morning people are my mortal enemy

If this were Facebook, I'd say, regarding my relationship with sleep, 'it's complicated.' I have trouble falling and staying asleep in the best of times, and grieving my wife sure ain't that. I put most of the blame on my brain, which is rarely my ally. No matter how tired I am, as soon as my head hits the pillow, it starts going thinkthinkthinkthinkthinkthinkthinkthinkthinkthinkthinkthinkaaaaaaaand it's daylight outside. By the way, to the chirping birds: you're not cute, you're freakin' assholes.

I've tried warm milk and melatonin, eye masks and listening to relaxing music. I've tried different pillows and blankets and mattresses and a variety of narcotics. I'll say, alcohol helped, but alcohol also blocks R.E.M. sleep, so it's not the refreshing, wake-up-not-wanting-to-strangle-somebody sleep. No Ambien, though. I'd rather not sleepwalk or sleepdrive or sleepsex (at least without somebody to do so with) like folks I know. If you have any better suggestions, I'm always looking for tips, but my brain has been fighting sleep for years, and it's a combat veteran.

The good news is that I also seem to be blessed with the ability to function on very little sleep, which is good, because otherwise, I probably just wouldn't function. Most of high school, I got ~4-5 hours of sleep a night and graduated fifth in my class, which doesn't say much for my graduating class. It's still fucking aggravating. Lying awake for hours, it's hard not to just get pissed off at my own noggin. I guess, what I'm saying is, if you could, leave me some sleep in the comments, pure R.E.M., uncut.

Hair-brained

I used to have my hair grown out to about mid-back, maybe a bit longer (hard to tell since it was always behind me). My wife's was even longer. Naturally, we both complained about the upkeep and inconvenience. But I liked hers long and she liked mine long, so we compromised on a cease-fire.

When she died, I cut mine all off, with the idea of donating it to Locks of Love. However, I still have my ponytail sitting on the shelf, like some creepy serial killer's trophy. I grew the darn thing, but I still feel like it was hers. I'm not giving it to a stranger. I don't know what I'm going to do with it, really. It's just six or seven years of dead cells, wrapped in an elastic band. Boy, this is sounding more and more serial-killerish the more I describe it. But I can't get rid of it, not yet.

At least hair doesn't spoil. I'm growing my hair out again, now. This time for me (but still kinda for her a little bit). I'd like to think that, by the time my hair is as long as it used to be, I'll decide what to do with my old ponytail. I wish I'd thought to cut a lock of her hair off when she died. That definitely wouldn't be creepy at all, right? In Victorian society, they fetishized hair, especially of dead loved ones, so there's a precedent. Nothing Victorians did was weird or creepy at all. I guess, what I'm trying to say is, sorry chemo patients, maybe next ponytail.