I've always wanted to try a Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster

With grief, there's not a lot of nuance. I could make first contact with alien life in the morning, discover perpetual motion in the afternoon, and if you asked me how my day went in the evening, I'd probably base my answer on how much I cried and missed my wife. Although, me making first alien contact in the morning is fairly impossible, since I usually wake up after noon.

I would be pretty stoked, though, if I made first alien contact. I'd probably introduce the planet as something else, though, 'Earth' just sounds so caveman-ish. But I would also ask them to take me with them, because it seems like a pretty thorough distraction from the static shitstorm of grief. I wonder if hyper-intelligent, interstellar extraterrestrials are good listeners...

But stuck here without my wife, grief is usually a trump card on a day (that's not a political reference). Even when I successfully forget about my grief for the duration of something fun, it all comes rushing back, usually on the drive home. I often wonder, if I got pulled over while crying, the cop'd probably think I was trying to manipulate my way out of a ticket. This is a serious concern of mine. Where's an alien abduction when you need one?

In a long helicopter shot we discover CynicSittinShiva brooding

Two different times, I subjected my wife to living with my parents. It helped that my parents loved her and, well, offered or allowed us back. We also lived together in two different suburbs of our hometown, as well as the Millennium Park neighborhood of Orlando, Temple City in the San Gabriel Valley, and Van Nuys in the San Fernando Valley. We packed a lot of boxes.

Maybe we're nomadic gypsies at heart. Maybe we just always felt like round pegs in square holes, and were incapable of feeling "in place," besides with each other. Maybe we just wanted to feel like we were getting somewhere. Maybe she was just following me, or vice versa. Maybe we were running away. Maybe we'd just watched The Muppet Movie one too many times and figured the "Rainbow Connection" to be a physical place. Maybe I've listed enough possible reasons why, and should move on.

Now all I can think about is the places she'll never see, that we talked about moving to or visiting, and the places she can't ever revisit. It felt much less ridiculous to go to the Renaissance Festival in garb with her to look ridiculous with me. And it seemed much less insane moving cross-country without jobs or apartments holding her hand. Then those things felt "cool," and I mean those air quotes. I think the point that I'm coming to is that I'm going to have to learn how to have a good time duhn-Duhn-DUHNNN!....by myself! That blows.

Gonzo sang it best: "Come and go with me / it's more fun to share / We'll both be completely / at home in midair."

Even Gonzo gets a pensive moment once in a while.

Open Letter To Patton Oswalt I Hope He Never Sees

Patton Oswalt has been a true hero of mine for many years, particularly when I wanted to be a standup comedian. Now, his wife is dead, and my wife is dead. We're practically bereavement bros! I've had people talk about him to me, asking how I felt about the inspiring comedian's loss.

Basically, how I feel about Patton Oswalt becoming a widower is that, well, I did it first. And I had to do it at the rosy-cheeked age of 26. I have my own grief to worry about, so I don't really give a Bulgarian whooping fuck. I'm sure I would care if he decided to move to my town and join my bereavement support group and let me share my story with him every week while he shared his with me. But he's a stranger on the other side of the country: I have my own grief to mourn. He certainly doesn't need my sympathy or empathy, not while he has a huge fan base and social media exists.

That's not to say I can't empathize. I don't have any kids or fame, but I clearly get that whole losing-the-wife thing.  I'm sure I could give him all kinds of wisdom from the POV of being eight-and-a-half months into this thing, like 'you never heal' and 'take care of yourself first before worrying about others.' But I'm still all fucked up over losing MY wife. So I'm not running to Twitter to offer 140 characters of trope he's likely hearing from a thousand other fanboys.

That being said, the fanboy in me would love to sit down and talk to what I consider a comedy juggernaut, and listen to him real-talk about his wife. Plus, then, I could get all blubbery and mourny with Patton Oswalt! *titters and fans face with hands*

Hold your applause until the end, seriously

A few days ago, I had the best day, bar none, of my grief. So naturally, yesterday, I felt like a lukewarm turd. From the moment I woke up, I was drained, depressed, unmotivated, and utterly pissed at existence. To be honest, I was expecting to have a grief hangover from my good day, but it came later than expected. The shiny beam of rainbows and glitter, at least, is the fact that the good day was the result of me completing the rough draft of a book manuscript to honor my wife.

And I would happily give up my book manuscript for my wife to be here to share the good news with. I've been wrestling with whether or not to make a blog post about it, because it's not a final manuscript, or a publishing contract, it's no more than a rough (90,000 word!) draft. But my wife would be over the moon, so proud of me. And obscenely flattered that it's written in her honor. She was someone I could share even the most trivial accomplishments with, and she sort of had to acknowledge me. But she never made it seem like a chore to be stoked on me. But you know me. I still need validation.

I don't expect everyone will like my book. If you've been keeping up with the blog, you know I'm fairly disturbed. I've heard that art should 'comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable,' which I've taken to heart. So the more comfortable you are in life, the more you may be disturbed by my creative writing. But I hope that some of you are paradoxically comforted, against all odds. My wife would absolutely love it, and that's enough for me. You could say feeling disturbed was a bonding quality for us. So look for my book, coming eventually, to a store or e-store near you! But, when you read the inside jacket or online description, expect very little in the way of rainbows or glitter. 

Burned at the steak

As we loved to reference South Park together, my wife promised me she would never leave me alone on this crappy goddamn planet fulla hippies. Yet here I am, and there she went. When I have to deal with folks I'd rather not, or tackle an aggravating task, it pisses me off that she's not there to deal with it with me, or at least have her to come home to. I moved after she died, and had to change over my car registration. Without my wife there to people-watch with me, the DMV just isn't as fun.

After the crappiest day at work (no, the customer is NOT always right) I could always look forward to day's end when we would at least be together. With my wife, there was a baseline of happiness. Whatever ups and downs the days brought, we always leveled out, content in togetherness. Now my baseline is awful. At the end of the day now, it's just grief. It's like I'm in a nursing home that just switched from daily filet mignon to salisbury steak (assume for the purpose of this simile that I like steak, which I dont, although my wife loved it). I can't go to another nursing home: my kids are paying the bills. And the Chinese delivery has my number blocked cuz I just call up and complain about not having the filet anymore.

Maybe I always had salisbury steak, and my wife made it taste like mignon, simply by sitting next to me and eating with me. Our life had a lot of struggles, but they seemed so trivial with her by my side. She would be happy to listen to me bitch as I pick gristle out of my teeth, and laugh it all off with me. And I was there to listen to her bitch about her getting a well-done steak when she ordered rare. Now, all I can do is bitch in blog form, and if I don't make sure it's at least a little amusing, I don't really expect anyone will bother listening.

Thank you for listening, and if you laugh, I'm absolutely flattered. It means the world to me these days. I miss my wife's laugh so much. If I was hearing it, that often meant we were listening to each other, and I was likely laughing, too. Always end on a punchline.

Game Graved Successfully

Whenever I traveled on a school trip or with Boy Scouts, we played "punch buggy" or zitch dog" or "yellow car." My wife and I were more morbid, though. We played "My Cemetery." You say "my cemetery" first when a graveyard comes along, and you get a point. We knew how to have fun.

I know what you're thinking, now she's in a cemetery full-time, isn't that kind of ironic? No. She would've been stuck in a cemetery sooner or later. The inevitable happening sooner than expected is not irony. I still find myself calling "my cemetery" when I pass by one, though. The game's a bit one-sided now.

We loved cemeteries when she was alive, we used to take walks through them. My wife has an awesome cemetery to rest in, it's tiny and really old. Some of the stone year dates start with 17--. It's crazy exclusive, too, the only reason she got a space there is because her grandmother was instrumental in restoring it through her church. It's a real, old-fashioned churchyard, one of the oldest in the county. And it's hers now. That cemetery will forever belong to my wife, at least as far as I'm concerned. She'd be so stoked. I may pick up points toward our game alone now, but that cemetery I'll always concede.

We'll be arriving at our destination uhh...someday.

"In the event that the cabin loses air pressure, oxygen masks will descend from the panels above. Secure your own mask before assisting others."

Griefy people are actually a pretty helpful bunch, at least the ones I've met. They help, because they want to, not because they have to. I want to help for the same reason I wanna eat a whole pan of lemon squares or binge-watch South Park or set stuff on fire: it'll feel good. We can't help ourselves, so we like to keep busy somehow. And other people who are grieving seem like prime candidates for our kind of blind-leading-the-blind help.

But like on an airplane, if we want to help someone else, we have to help ourselves first. If you see someone passing out from oxygen deprivation, and help them before yourself, it's just gonna end with two folks passed out instead of one. No use trying to tell someone how to transcend grief if you're still in shambles or denial. Although, if you are in denial after a significant loss, you may think you're doing fine. Look for clues in your own life, such as: eating whole pans of lemon squares, binge-watching South Park, and setting stuff on fire.

My parents can probably attest to the fact that, since my wife died, I'm being very self-caring, self-focused, self-indulgent or just plain selfish. My grief groups would probably not want me to use the word 'selfish,' so don't tell them I told you. But I don't even care if it is selfish. I've never dealt with anything this traumatic before, and if caring how I feel over how you feel makes me selfish, I'm not gonna stop. Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to antagonize. Just trying to make sure I get the air I need before I pass the fuck out. 

"Please check the upper compartment as you exit, as the contents of your mind my have shifted during the trip."

Single traumatized male seeks emotional-lightning-rod female

"Extreme discount: damaged goods!

Hi, I'm a man in my late twenties, and life is pretty well a shitnado! I've been married once before, and I'm still totally in love with her, but don't worry about me cheating, because she's dead! But I'm looking for that special someone who wants to play second fiddle to the love of my life! And I've only ever been intimate with one person, so you'll have that to deal with! My redeeming qualities are my empathy with grief and morbid humor. Message me if you're an emotional masochist!"

I find myself doing this, composing the most dreadful online dating profiles in my mind. I guess I'm not really ready to start dating again, huh? Don't get me wrong, I'm soul-crushingly lonely. But I'm not going to run out and look for wife number two until I'm strong enough to carry my own baggage, otherwise I'll just end up dropping my bags at some poor girl's feet and saying "you like rainy days and Mt. Dew, too? Help me carry these."

No, I have a long way to go before I ever put together a serious dating profile. But I can't stop my head from dictating these gloomy snippets that are so depressing it's almost funny. The bit at the top is just a small sample, I could go on for pages in the same fashion. You know, I was really looking forward to never having to date again. It'll be fun explaining my deal on all kinds of first dates to women just looking for something stable. I'm more of a 'fixer-upper,' and not the kind who just needs a job and shave (although I could probably use both).

I said GOOD DAY sir!

Somebody asked me how I was and I said I had a good day. What I meant was that I had some relatively expectable moments of griefy emotion, and otherwise, nothing bad happened. That's what a good day is to me now. I got some good work done, too, and had a grief support meeting, and it added up to what the old me would've thought dead boring. But now it was a good day!

That's not to say I didn't cry today. I'm not sure if I've gone a day without, since it happened. And today is now the nine-month anniversary. Am I happy? Not really. But I don't have much to complain about regarding the past 24 or so hours. None of my bad things got worse, and none of my good things went wrong. Bitchin'.

That being said, I still don't trust that rat-bastard tomorrow. Tomorrow could come shank me in the ass for gloating about today. That guy's always jealous. I guess I assume karma is spiteful, not benevolent, or you'd think I'd have a good tomorrow because I had a good today. But that's just crazy talk. Although, me saying I had a good day sounds pretty bonkers, too. It certainly was no "my-wife-is-still-alive" good day, but I'll take what I can get.

Daydream Bereaver

One thing that's truly amazing in my times of grief is my capability to dream. I've had trouble sleeping since I was a tween, and dreams were things I barely ever remembered. When I did, it was always fragments only. But just today, I dreamed I was wearing a Target "Store Security" jacket outside a BJ's Wholesale and had to wash my hair and beard in the outdoor drinking fountain several times, then got accused by BJ's store security (who wore similar jackets) that I'd "poisoned the well" and they were gonna called the cops, so I fled the scene. I've also had dreams about my wife, both miraculous and horrifying.

But I can also, against all logic and sense, dream in the figurative. I still have the desire to write, and write with the purpose of getting published. I've never been published, unless you count the North Star Writing Journal that my teacher in second grade got me into, which you shouldn't. But I can still dream about it. I can't imagine how I still have the ability too...well...imagine. So many parts of me died with her, the fact that that sector of my mind is still alive makes me feel so incredibly fortunate.

Don't get me wrong: I don't really want there to be a future. If my wife can't be there, I don't want to be there. But- if I have to keep living, and have a future without her, at least I can try to have a future I want to be part of.

Double-don't get me wrong: I'm still not sleeping for shit. But I'm dreaming more when I do. And let me tell you, my subconscious is kind of like "Porky In Wackyland" directed by Tim Burton. Which means that if you can weather all the surreal, ghastly stuff that may or may not be out to get you, you might get a disturbingly cute love scene.

Deep down, isn't that the whole world's dream?

Valid bar

There's parts of myself I'm not proud of: my "Insane Clown Posse" years, tabletop RPG addiction, how much I liked the "Mamma Mia!" movie. But one of my most shameful sides is my desperate need for validation. You know. Like, instead of making a private grief journal, I made a blog. That kinda thing.

The thing is, with being a widower and all, I've lost as she said herself, my 'number one fan.' She gave me just about all the validation I needed, which is a lot. Because my validation needs to come from an outside source, you see. I can't validate myself. It's not like, I'm an authority on myself or anything. I'm just me, what the hell do I know?

I know, I've always known, that I will learn lessons from losing my wife. I have to. It's a learning experience. But I hate it, because now I have to learn to find validation from within. I know it's one of them there lessons to learn. I've done some things since my wife died that to me, are clearly cries for validation, and it gives me a certain measure of shame to be that way. The shame is also something I could learn to do without, but there you go. I'm working toward writing a novel that I hope becomes a best-seller. It's a healthy outlet for emotion and a way to honor my wife, but it's also a cry for validation. My wife hated cheerleaders. But for me, she was the best cheerleader ever. Maybe I can release some of my need for validation in knowing my wife would validated it if she could. Because that is true. I just need the message to come from the voice in my head that's hers, not the voice in my head that's mine.

Seriously, I'm fine. Like, 98% sure. Maybe 94%.

I'm crazy. No, I'm not.

I am worried, at least, that I might. What if undiagnosed mental illness runs in my family? Maybe it's too late! Maybe I'm just being paranoid. Maybe I'm becoming paranoid schizophrenic! Probably not. But I certainly worry a lot. If you can't tell.

I was already worried about going insane before my wife died. I figured I was always the quiet one they were saying to watch out for. The fact that I still think I can probably say that I'm most likely not insane, is, well, a miracle. There are days, though, that try my sanity. Basically, I feel like I'm on borrowed time. When I look back at all the stuff I've been through, I think I'm overdue for a little lunacy.

Maybe constantly worrying that I'm going crazy is helping me stay sane. Maybe constantly worrying that I'm going crazy is making it worse. I wish I knew how people who were sure of themselves, you know, did that. It's like walking up stairs with no handrails: I know how to use my feet, and to operate stairs. Is it really any more dangerous? Maybe if there'd never been a handrail at all, I'd be more certain of my steps. OK, I've completely lost what this metaphor is getting at. I hate falling down stairs, I guess. And I assume I'll hate being crazy. Although, getting tossed in the loony bin might simplify some other aspects of my life...

OK, let's not start that kind of talk now. If I do lose my grip, please tell everyone I went "batty." I think that's my favorite term for going wacky-nutso-cuckoo.

Politics are punchlines already

I live in the United States, which, for all of 2016 and lots of 2015, means I've been bombarded with crap about the upcoming election. Everybody wants to know, especially, what I think about that carrot-looking fellow with the hair. Personally, I think that we should all stop talking about him if we want him to go away (the fact that you know who I'm talking about is the problem [if you don't know who I'm talking about, I like you]).

But honestly, I couldn't give a rat's ass right now about the results of November's election. It's still five months away! I'm grieving, which means I'm still trying to come to terms with five days from now. As far as I'm concerned, November isn't real, or at best, it's a story to frighten children into behaving. "If you don't calm down and go to sleep, November's gonna getcha!"

And if you'd like my political views, which I'm sure you don't, I'll say this: if they're a politician, I don't trust them and they won't keep their promises. This coming election is no different. The most important thing in my life right now is dead. I'll happily vote for whichever candidate can bring my wife back to life. If that's not part of your platform, I don't care about you. That's why, this year, I'm writing in my candidate: Dr. Emmett Brown from Back To The Future.

We could all use a little (passive aggressive) change

No, I don't have any spare change. I have ALL of the unwanted change, though. I started drinking coffee, I'm trying to eat 'healthier,' joined a gym, the love of my life is gone forever. That sort of change. I believe strongly in the power of human beings to change. Or at least this human being. Since Muhammad Ali just died, here's one of his: "a man who views the world the same at 50 as he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life." Or something like that. Google is full of variants and paraphrases, so that's what you get from me.

It seems like my parents have both been flabbergasted by all the changes in me. When I dragged my wife's Keurig machine from storage and started using it, you'd think my parents were in 1840's France looking at a daguerreotype. No, me drinking coffee isn't gonna steal your soul.

Augusten Burroughs speaks thusly in This Is How about losing a loved one: "...they are not the only ones who die: you die, too. The person you were when you were with them is gone, just as surely as they are." That being said, I still have a mostly animate lump of flesh to pilot through the rest of my time on this Earth. I have to find out who I've become now, since that me is dead. Maybe I'm not really a coffee drinker in the long run. Maybe I'm the kind of person now who wears tinfoil argues with pigeons and asks you for spare change. Maybe I'm the next President of the United States of America, despite still being under the legal age (hey, Cruz was born in Canada, who knows?). But one thing I'm not, and can never be again, is the person my parents used to know when she was alive. Same name, same face, new contents. Explicit contents (parental advisory).

My tombstone will say "Rest In Pizza"

I would generally describe pizza as "salty," "savory," or "greasy." But there's a kind of pizza that's bittersweet, at least now. At the risk of revealing the location of my Batcave Of Solitude, up the street from my wife's old high school in our hometown is a branch of Cam's Pizza. I went to a different high school, but many afternoons, I would take the bus out to hers while we were dating in our late teens. I love pizza, and she thought it was adorable how much I love pizza, so of those many afternoons, often we walked up to Cam's.

So many formative memories happened while dining or loitering in that NY-style pizzeria. They had huge windows for watching the rain. One inside joke that caused us much mirth was that we would be staring at each other, slack-faced, and one or the other would let our jaw drop open and say "muh." That's all. We took turns doing it. We thought it was absolutely hysterical. And that was us stone cold sober. The college-age girls behind the counter surely thought we were bonkers.

You could also say Cam's was where we got started with our larcenous ways. I never drank coffee back then, but pilfered their little cups of hazelnut creamer. I can still remember Mia's order, if she had money and an appetite: fried mushrooms. Some days we didn't get anything but a soda to split, happy to have a place to sit in a satisfactory amount of shared solitude. I'm sure I'll never stop eating pizza. But now there's one pizza joint that, like Diet Mt. Dew, has an inescapable aftertaste.

Smooth as clutter

As I've gone through boxes of my wife and I's things after moving back to our hometown, I've discovered one thing: we were not organized. No two notebooks came from the same box. Loose photos and albums are stored in half a dozen places at least. And don't get me started on art supplies and books (spoiler alert: they're everywhere). If we ever had children, we were gonna name our son 'Chaos,' no joke.

So naturally, I haven't taken any steps toward organization. I generally kinda know sorta where stuff probably might be. That's good enough, right? To be honest, the task of organizing is just too much right now. It was painful enough to rummage through the boxes in the first place. Apart from a few things I decided I was willing to throw away (photos of my ex-mother- and father-in-law for example), I just threw everything back into boxes from whence they came after a brief look through.

Now, I know what you're thinking, how can I say that we were both disorganized, when I packed all the boxes? Because she would admit to being disorganized, too. I can say that about her, I lived with her for like 8 years. She was more organized than I was, though. But sometimes she organized my stuff without telling me, you know how marriage is. One day I'll organize everything and put all the old ticket stubs together and the greeting cards will all be in one place and from the afterlife, my wife will chuckle as it all slowly drifts into disorganization again, my/our natural state. Entropy is real. She would be proud. Or at least amused.