more disasters, old grief

There was a hurricane yesterday, or most of a hurricane.  Hurricane Irene was actually Tropical Storm Irene by the time it made landfall here, and though it actually did make landfall in New York City, damage and power outages were minimal.  I think I did myself more damage worrying about it on Friday.  Even though we're relatively close to the water, we weren't one of the "low-lying area" that had to evacuate.

Amazingly, mass transit was back up again today, pretty much 100%.  The MTA was incredibly smart and well-organized for this one.  They closed up shop about eight hours before they expected trouble (apparently, 39 mph wind speed is their cutoff), and stored the trains and buses in places unlikely to flood.  I live about one subway stop from one of the major subway yards, and it got totally flooded, but the trains weren't there.  The MTA wasn't able to restart entirely for days after the blizzard last December.

Otherwise, things are pretty much status quo.  My brother actually called yesterday and for the first time in a couple of years, we didn't discuss That Bad Thing, which was a whole lot more pleasant.  Of course, the occasion for the call, besides the storm, was That Other Bad Thing, the one where my mother died 30 years ago this month at age 45.  Her birthday is also in August, so August has just become The Month of Feeling Mildly Shitty.  Not much in the way of big crying fits, possibly because we don't really do any family get-togethers or (ptui! ptui!) cemetery visits. 

Those "ptui!s" are spitting noises, because I REALLY hate cemetery visits.  To me, they're very morbid, and seem like invitations to get upset.  To me, they're something like religious services:  services put you in a spiritual mood, but you don't have to attend to be spiritual.  Cemetery visits put you in a mourning mood, but you can mourn anywhere and in your own way.  One of the really bad memories I have of the period right after my mother died, maybe at the services or the cemetery, was overhearing friends and relatives talking about how upset I was and how much I was crying, in a way that made me feel like my outward mourning was being judged.  I've always considered it something kind of private.

I'm about the opposite of my aunt (who I did not call this month, although my brother did), who used to drive out to the cemetery and pick out the weeds around the headstones, bring water and paper towels to clean the lettering incised in the stones, etc.  (My mother, stepfather, and my mother's parents are all buried in one plot together.)  I just think it's fetishy to get so involved in the location of a dead body, even if the location is considered something of a memorial.  I have my own ways to remember, and my own places, and my own times to grieve.

It's true that death anniversaries hit me a little harder the first few years after the death, I suppose because it's still so fresh.  The five-year anniversary of my mother's death clobbered me so hard that it landed me in AA at the end of August.  Wednesday will be 25 years since I drank or did coke.  I also didn't go near herb for about a dozen years but did eventually start that again, so orthodox AAers or NAers wouldn't consider me clean or sober.  Still, I haven't had a drink in 25 years, or any coke, which was a VERY severe problem.

I recently ran into an old program friend of mine who had also been a co-worker at NYU.  She was something of an old-timer when I cleaned up, but apparently had problems a couple of years ago.  She said, "I've been around The Rooms for 36 years, but I'm sober for two."  I'd put it that way if I were still around "The Rooms."  I stopped going at around nine years.  But I went constantly for my first four or five years, anywhere from once to four times a day, and did tons of service (setting up, chairing meetings, speaking, sponsoring).

I have to say that I really did not make lifelong friends in AA.  Some friendships simply did not last because I stopped going; there are some people in the fellowship who do not care for those of us who have fallen away, and some who won't have anything to do with people who are not sober in AA, period (that means not even people who aren't alcoholics). 

I guess I mostly had AA friends who were good for my recovery during those early years.  On the other hand, recovering addicts share a lot of similar emotional problems, so a lot of these relationships had difficulties or endpoints.  The good end of socializing in AA was having coffee with groups of people after meetings.  I used to go to a double meeting (one after the other, same room) on Saturday nights, and then coffee with a big bunch of people, and that took care of the I-need-to-have-fun-on-Saturday-night urges.  But sober dances and sober dating were horrible.  You cannot possibly imagine anything as awkward as a sober dance, those alleged substitutes for going clubbing.  And sober dating mostly seemed a parade of people who changed their minds with the breeze -- like a guy who stared at me at meetings for sixth months and panicked on the first simple-ass dinner date.  There was one who liked me until he realized I was actually available, and then went back to mooning over a tall, blonde married woman in our group. 

I did meet one fairly amazing man very soon in my recovery; we had a fling fairly early, and seemed very close to getting together right before I met Barry.  The guy and I drifted apart after I got married.  In truth, he had major commitment problems and it would likely have ended badly.

And I met one very wonderful man, maybe one of the best I've ever met.  It took about four and a half months for us to properly notice each other -- well, maybe for me to properly notice him.  Unfortunately, I was rather dazzled by his better-looking friend, who treated me like shit.  But then I really noticed Joe, and realized he'd been crazy about me from the start...and before we could even go on a first real date, he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and died a little over four months later.  It just doesn't get much more tragic than that.  On top of that, since our relationship wasn't known by more than a few close friends, the two or three mean old maiden aunts who were his final caretakers did not offer me (or any other close AA friends) any keepsakes, nor did they invite us to join them after the funeral.  In fact, those nasty aunts tried to keep me and Joe's other friends away from him when he was dying.  One or more of them had decided that the best they could do for him was permit him to die calmly, and that having his friends around would disrupt his peacefulness.  They moved him to a hospital in Red Bank, NJ, and were clearly not pleased when I continued to show up there, with or without other friends.  They said anti-Semitic things.  (They were very old-school Irish, what I believe is called "Lace-Curtain Irish.")  They wouldn't stay in touch by phone, either before or after his death.  I guess they had good intentions, but they were so unkind to me.  And every time I visited, no matter how out-of-it Joe was, there was always at least one little window where he recognized me and knew I was there, which made it all worthwhile.  He'd even do funny shit which I'm convinced he knew he was doing, because I think he found his aunts somewhat of a pain -- the last time I was there, he kept yelling "What's THIS?" and grabbing my tit.

Anyway, who knows what might have been.  Joe was gone, his family was gone, and even our mutual friends vanished pretty quickly.  A few of us went out for coffee after the funeral, and one said to me, "You can't dwell on this forever," meaning that I should already be past it, an hour after burying him.  Another was the better-looking friend, who stayed glued to the woman he had dumped me for and basically ignored Joe the last couple of months.  (I understand that it's hard to see an old friend die, but that's no excuse to be an asshole.  Joe asked for Larry a lot, and Larry was nowhere to be found.)

I also seem to remember a lot of AA people looking rather impatient when I shared about "my friend" who was dying, who died, who had died.  My allegedly "near and dear" didn't stand by me too well.  I know these things make people uncomfortable -- hell, being in hospitals makes me uncomfortable.  But when I have to, I go to hospitals, I go to funerals, I deal with it.  A lot of people in AA seemed to stayed cocooned and whining.  That wasn't for me.

good music, great music, really really great music

After carrying on endlessly about how wonderful the Holmes Brothers are, I finally saw them play again last night, for the first time in over ten years.  They don't play in New York that often, and sometimes it's at places I can't afford at the time, but still, I should have managed at some point in all those years.  Anyway, they certainly didn't hold it against me.  They may be the tightest, most diverse, and most purely entertaining band I know.  I'm not sure why it is that I'm getting older and they're just getting better, especially since I believe they're all past 70 now.  I was really spoiled in the 80s when I got to see them a couple of times a month.  Hard to believe that I used to carry the tip can for those guys at the ever-sleazy Dan Lynch Tavern (former scuzzy home of the blues in NYC).  And I used to go to some horrendous places to hear them, although it was mostly at Lynch's.  They'd play there one or two Saturday nights a month, just pack the place, and Sherman always said that if any guy hassled me too much, I could say he was my boyfriend.  I used that a few times and it worked really well. 

This Friday, Los Lobos are playing in Prospect Park, another very talented and diverse band.  And I have a terrible crush on David Hidalgo (file under Attractive Chicano Men).

I guess that thing about Sexy Jewish Men was a little silly, since the truth is that there are sexy men of every race, creed and color.  And as much as it makes sense that I did eventually marry a Jewish man, it still kind of surprises me.  I never really thought that way when I dated.  I knew that a guy was this or that, Jewish or Catholic or Protestant, Irish or German or African-American, my age or significantly older, and I appreciated all of the differences and nuances of each.  Good things to be said about all of them.  But it wasn't as if I would think, when I was dating a Jewish guy, "This might lead to something," or when I was dating a non-Jewish guy, "This won't go all the way."  For a large part of my life, I was actually not convinced that I would ever get married, although there were two men I did think about that way over all those years.  The first was German-American and older (I was 20), and the second was my age and African-American (I was 35). 

And speaking of the guy I wanted to marry when I was 35...I guess I owe it to him that I wasn't in the middle of Hurricane Katrina.  In mid-1994, after he had gigged in New Orleans, he started telling me about how much he loved it there, how much he could work there and how cheap it was to live, and that we should think about moving down there together.  We had actually planned a vacation trip down there to check it out, and I was thinking about getting a graduate degree at Tulane (this was about a year after I got my B.A., and grad school was much on my mind).  About a week after proposing this New Orleans thing, he broke up with me, saying he didn't want to get too seriously involved with anyone.  Commitment problems, you think?  So, I've still never been to New Orleans and managed to miss Katrina.  Still, I'm not really sure I ought to thank him...

I'm rereading The Right Stuff on my Kindle, one of my favorite books ever.  (I love the movie almost as much.)  I don't feel much about the Space Shuttle era coming to an end, but I have a real sweet tooth for anything about Mercury, Gemini or Apollo.  Not to mention, of course, that Tom Wolfe is a pretty amazing writer.  Reading the book is almost like watching a documentary film rather than reading non-fiction; it's vivid and wildly entertaining.

Even with all of the health stuff and still feeling financial pressure (I have a decent job, to be sure, but it's still one salary supporting two people), I always feel blooming in the summer.  It's my first full summer with my great summer wardrobe and trying on a particular style of dress/grooming, and I actually feel somewhat attractive for the first time in a great while.  I know people who will go to great lengths to feel attractive, which is not me, but I'm pleased when I'm comfortable and feel good about myself and it also affects other people.

Apropos of nothing:  I got a LinkedIn invitation from V's wife.  huh?  I have problems with her as well as with him, although he was my friend first and closest, and the break was primarily with him.  But it's really odd to be approached by her at this time and in this way.  She actually could have extended herself to me professionally around three years ago, when I lost a job in the same field that she works in, but she never did.  She never extended herself when I broke with V; she had always been supportive of our friendship, but according to him, she totally blocked our last effort to reach out.  I'm very curious;  Barry says, Ignore it.  V was always someone who hurt my feelings unintentionally, by not thinking, but she was mean at times and told stories and badmouthed me and accused me of lying.  Were we dear friends at times?  you bet.  Would that have been the case without V?  doubtful.

Anyway, this is me, trying to let it go....

some stuff

I just deleted a post I wrote last week...I had a bad crush for about five days, and then got over it.  I have kind of mixed feelings about it.  In some ways it was a good feeling, and in some ways I just felt kind of stupid.  You'd think I'd be done falling for musicians, just because they play beautifully.  Musicians are bad, bad boyfriends.  And this dude wasn't going to be my boyfriend, anyway.

This all started when I went with Barry to a jam session he likes, a blues thing.  I used to go to a lot of blues jams back in the early-mid nineties, when I lived in Manhattan and listened to a lot of blues.  Also, I had a couple of blues musician bad boyfriends back then. 

Barry's been going to this thing for a while, and a lot of the people there are my old friends, who he's gotten to know, and there are some other nice folks he's met (one of whom was the five-day crushee).  So I finally went.  A lot of the old crowd is now in their 50s rather than their 30s, and are far nicer and calmer for it.  I did enjoy talking to one of my old boyfriends, who actually hadn't been a bad boyfriend due to being a musician.  He was in fact a fairly good boyfriend except for being a little nuts, or maybe more than a little.  I know now that a good deal of it was chemical, although some was also emotional.  He's on meds now, but still mildly cracked.  But he's a real sweetheart and it was nice to get caught up.

 

(Wow -- I figured out how to put in YouTube videos again!  Yay for me!)

One of these dudes is the sweet old boyfriend and one is the five-day crush.  If you guess right, you get to read this blog for a year, absolutely free.

Work is still great.  One of my bosses brings in bagels and lox every Friday.  (I can't eat the bagels, of course, but I do eat a bunch of nova and cream cheese.) 

I saw my doctor last week, and the finger thing is not arthritis -- it's actually something called "trigger finger," which is an inflammation of a tendon, sort of like carpel tunnel.  (I remember an older lady, many years ago, complaining, "I have the carpet!)  So I'm going to see another doctor this week, an orthopedist who specializes in hands, to get a shot of steroids in my finger.  Eek.  I don't like needles.  I don't like anything that hurts.  I don't mind getting blood taken any more, because the people in those labs are really good at it.  (In the olden days, the doctor or nurse would do it right in the office, and those folks weren't necessarily blood-taking experts.)  But Barry will come to hold my other hand.

Current faves and earworms:  Teenage Dream by Katy Perry (another one that played incessantly in my office at Dweck).  Forget You by Cee Lo is still on the list.  Weezer recorded an excellent cover of Viva La Vida, the Coldplay song I like so much.  I'm listening to my mp3 player a lot these days.  

Also reading a lot, because that's a subway thing.  A Ticket to the Circus by Norris Church Mailer.  Cancer on $5 a Day by Robert Schimmel.  The Ape House by Sara Gruen.  I'm tempted to reread some old favorites, but there's so much new stuff to read.  I did finally finish the third Stieg Larsson book -- I had a hardcover copy, but didn't get the job done until the Kindle.  How did I ever live without it?  I have around 1100 books on it now, plus another 400 or so in holding on my computer.  I bought four or five of them, many are fee (public domain), and the rest were gleefully bootlegged.  I tell everyone that the Kindle changed my life.  I guess the mp3 player did, too, although the Walkman did long before that.  (I listened to Imperial Bedroom and Graceland endlessly back then.)

Free summer concerts coming up soon, and the best one in Prospect Park, hands-down, is Los Lobos.  Also, the Holmes Brothers are playing free at City Winery in a month or so, and I can't believe I haven't seen them in over ten years.  They were great friends of mine when they were a local NYC group, playing in dives; now they're famous world-wide for about twenty years now.  They play all over the world and are rarely in New York.  I particular look forward to seeing Sherman Holmes, who has been a great pal since the early 80s.  When I got sober in 1986 and disappeared from the bar/club scene, of all the "friends" I had while drinking, Sherman was the only one who picked up a phone and called me to see where and how I was.  I don't mean the only one in that band -- I mean the only only one, from all of the musicians and fellow blues fans and bar rats.  Only Sherman.  I will love him forever for that.

There has been some consideration of a fourth cat in the Levy household.  There is a very nice cat rescue lady who tables across the street from Union Square, and I have fallen very hard for a ten-month-old tortoiseshell.  More to come.