Seven Long Days Quickly

It’s been a week. A god damned week.

–––

Today, wasn’t so weepy. Just sad, and numb.

Since I don’t know what my emotional equilibrium will look like, I don’t know if I’m there. I assume not. It’s only been a week. I still feel the tears just under the surface, and my eyes still well-up at the slightest push. The sadness remains. But some of the shock seems to have faded. Or the numbness has increased. Or neither, and tomorrow will also be awful.

I dunno how I feel about this, mainly because I don’t know what this is. It’s probably too soon to tell. The pain (crushing, overpowering) feels, in a way, needed. Like it confirms that I love him. In a way I can’t describe. Whereas depressed numbness, with the occasional flash to near-tears, just feels inept. I’m not sure how to describe that, either.

–––

Today, I didn’t eat much, but I did eat more. Because the weight loss is the only positive aspect of this, and I’ve always had an unhealthy relationship with food, I don’t mind the non-eating. Hunger, for the most part, isn’t evident. Or the hunger is, by my appetite isn’t. And the weight loss does feel like a reward for – the only benefit of – going through this.

As life normalizes, I’ll probably keep up the slight intake of food. At least until it starts to visibly harm me. I mean, what’s the worst case – I die? Seems like that would stop the pain and end the guilt. I’m kinda okay with that, scary as death is. And it’s a passive kind of suicide I can get behind. The only downside is I’ll have to buy some new clothes in the meantime, but maybe only for a little while.

–––

I’ve returned to my always-podcasts-while-walking habit. This passes the time and fills in the quiet. I’m not sure this is a good idea. As I walk home later tonight, I’ll do so quietly. I’ll see how that goes.

–––

Last night, I fell asleep again around 7 am. Woke up for reasons I can’t recall at 9 or so. Perhaps I got a message. I considered getting up. When the thinking starts, it brings pain. If I’m up, I’m occupied. Instead, I quickly fell back to sleep and woke up almost three hours later – at about 11:50. Just shy of 5 hours total. That seems to be the way things are shaking out.

I know that, at some point, I’ll actually sleep again. Especially when the mourning starts to resemble typical depression. But now, the being tired lessens the amount of energy that can come out of me in crying sessions that are so deep and wearing that I’m not sure I’ll come out of them. My thinking is, if I’m rested, they might come back. I’d rather be tired.

–––

The only really productive thing I did today is this: I washed some clothes. There was no choice. I was running out of things to wear.

My inability to do things related to the future continues. I’m just sitting in my extremely tiny bedroom, mostly doing nothing. I keep thinking I can organize my things, make it easier for whoever has to throw them away, or give them to my family, if it comes to that. But the idea of cleaning, which is a kind of expectation of future days, is just too sensitive.

Why clean?
Because you have a life to live.
It’s too soon for that.
It always will be.

–––

It’s been a week.

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New Moon Tonight, Extra Dark

It’s been 6 days.

–––

I dunno what to say about today. I managed to do a couple productive things, and I ate a little food.

Curious to see how much weight I’ve lost, I walked to an electronics store about 30 minutes away and bought a scale. This week alone, I’ve lost around 4 kgs, I think. Nearly 9 lbs. In 6 days.

As I said, it’s a horrible diet, but it sure does work.

–––

I’ve needed a scale for a while, so it wasn’t a big deal to actually go buy one. And I really was curious to see my weight. But today marked another small milestone that I’m not sure I’m comfortable investigating. I added a couple tasks to the to-do list app Things. That gesture points toward the future. And that… that hurts to think about.

–––

A feeling I’ve had my entire life is more prominent now: the idea that not many people would miss me if I were gone. For the first time, I am so deeply alone that that number is, at best, down to the low single digits. At some point, the awfulness I feel will be overwhelming; it’s very nearly here. Then, I dunno what happens.

I’m scared of death, never been suicidal, but I’m not sure that the future holds much in the way of promise – aside from the promise of yet more pain (and more disappointment). And that’s what I have right now: I can only feel pain – just pure, abject, unmitigated pain. I’ve never suffered well. I am not up to this.

Snoopy, I think, once advised not to “contemplate the universe in the middle of the night.” Nights are harder than days, and the next day the sun will rise again and all will seem a little less bad. I know this intellectually. I know the pain will fade, a new kind of balance will be achieved, life will continue. But the sheer devastation I feel, the lack of hope I have about the future…. At some point, the accounting needs to be completed in a frank and honest way. I just don’t know what it will amount to for me. I suspect it won’t be good.

I’ve never been optimistic and I don’t naturally have much hope. Now, tho, there is absolutely none of either. Life feels increasingly dark and there’s no moon tonight.

Again, I’m sitting here alone in this god damned Starbucks trying not to cry again or cry in public (again).

–––

I still haven’t had a meal since he died. I’ve eaten things each day, but not much. Mostly I’ve just been mainlining caffeinated drinks for energy, for distraction. Today I did eat some things – unhealthy, mainly for their calories. Because food, I dunno – it just doesn’t sound good at all.

I’m still not sleeping much, and the sleep I do get doesn’t offer much relief. I slept last night around 7 am again. Woke up about 11:30 and couldn’t go back to sleep because laying there trying to fall asleep is really hard to do. The thinking starts, and the pain returns, and I get restless. So I shower, and take a walk.

–––

This Starbucks closes in about 40 minutes. I’ll finish this post, take the last sip of my (terrible) iced latte, and head out into another long, middle-of-the-night walk toward home. Hopefully, it’ll wear me out. Hopefully, I can sleep.

It’s been 6 days.

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Today's Lesson: “is this it?… oh, fuck… *boom*”

It’s been five days. And four hours.

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At night, I’ve been walking. Nights are more painful alone. The streets are less crowded, safer if I start to cry. It’s a chance to move around, to think, to remember, to attempt a census of my feelings, without being trapped alone inside. My days are slowly shifting, as they always naturally have if unchecked, later and later. Last night I went to bed around 7am. Today, I woke up about 11. The only reason I got out of bed was that I had a doctor’s appointment.

I got up, teared up twice in the shower, dressed, then went to catch my train. It was a sunny Saturday, so there were people everywhere, the trains were crowded both ways, the doctor’s office was packed. To escape the crowded train, I took a longer walk home, getting off one station early.

A bit later, I took another walk, but didn’t accomplish anything useful, and was home just about the time he died on Monday. (I don’t know what time he actually died, and I don’t know how to ask the question. My aunt called me at 9:24 pm. She said he died about 15 minutes earlier. Maybe that means he died between 9:07 and 9:13 pm Tokyo time.)

All of this was a distraction. My brain only flicked back to my new world a couple times. Both times with painful, but brief, stabs to the heart.

Again, I didn’t eat much (altho I did aim for calories). At about 10:45 pm, I started to get ready to leave, to walk, to think, to be. At about 10:46, I had a three-second warning that it was coming. I thought, “is this it?… oh, fuck… boom” I cried intensely for about 20 minutes. An absolutely crushing sense of loss, of grief.

It hurt.

–––

This hurts so much. I don’t know how people make it through this. My expat friends are nice but young. My sister sends messages but typing is slow and gets in the way. My entire family is in timezones that are nearly opposite mine. My doctor has caring words, but is not much help. There’s no one to talk to. I dunno if talking would help, but being alone is horrible. And maybe sitting quietly with someone would feel better? I can’t imagine it feeling any worse.

This is easily the worst year of my life. There’s no comparison. I don’t know how people do this. I don’t know if I can or if I will. I’ve never felt – never been – so alone. And the year’s not even over.

[O]ne of the essences of hell [is] the unceasing potential for things to become worse than you fear. –Charles Taylor

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Appetite for Self-Destruction

On Monday morning, after I found out he likely had mere hours to live, I took a walk. I can generally remember the route I took, but I’m not sure what the destination was. As I walked, I sent messages to many different people — my sister, my aunts, a cousin, some coworkers. I’d stop and stand by electric poles, lean against parking barriers, sit on small brick walls, and type. I also stopped to call my boss so he could prepare for the likelihood that I would miss work the following day — Tuesday. (I haven’t been back. Currently, I’m not scheduled to return until Thursday. I’ll likely extend that.)

The walk was slow, and sunny, and hot. After heading back from whatever else I did, I gave up and bought lunch at McDonald’s. That was Monday, somewhere around 12pm. It’s Saturday, now — almost exactly 5 days after receiving the call that he’d died. I haven’t had a meal since. I’ve barely even eaten.

On the first couple days, I did feel hungry, I just didn’t want to eat. Since then, the feeling of hunger has fallen away. I don’t have an appetite. Food does not sound good. As always, I’ve been drinking milk tea (and the occasional can of Grape Fanta) — partially for the energy it contains, but primarily because I’m getting so little sleep that the caffeine is keeping me functioning, if you can call this functioning.

And I don’t really care. All told, aside from the drinks, I’ve probably had fewer than 3,000 calories in the intervening 5 days, and I’ve been walking a lot. It’s the shittiest diet of my life, but it is effective. I’ve surely lost weight; my pants have grown bigger. I’m just not interested in food.

I’m not interested in much, actually. I just feel numb.

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From two days ago, posted on Facebook (improved here)

A blog post is inadequate to express how I feel, will always feel, about him. Or to encapsulate a person. I’ve got notes everywhere, physical and digital; scattered thoughts scattered all over. Memories appear, are jotted down, and I wait for more to come. I hope for more to come. Tears flow. It hurts.

My dad died a bit over two-and-a-half days ago. That’s an eon, and the blink of an eye. Time’s heading in the wrong direction.

He was hilarious.
He was kind.
He had a temper that would flick into and out of existence like light from fireflies, like antimatter.
He was talented in everything — except with anything mechanical.
He loved words. We’d talk about them for hours.
He loved history, too, which connects to his love of words, often little histories of their own.
He loved books and reading. He’d often awaken at 2 or 3 am, if he’d even slept by then, and read for a few hours before falling back to sleep, even on weeknights.
Christ, he could cuss!
He was so smart.
He loved (and loathed) politics.
He loved quotations. We shared so many of these, too.
He loved dogs. He taught me they are also people. Often, they are the best people.
He loved movies. We saw so many movies together that I can’t even offer a guess at the number. It’s in the thousands. If he wasn’t traveling, we’d see one or two per weekend, usually two; we saw more countless times. We saw so many movies together that we sometimes had to drive ridiculous distances to see a new one. Or we’d just give up and go eat dinner.
He loved learning, travel, and the arts.
He thought and felt deeply.
He loved philosophy and better arguments.
He loved context and nuance.
He was ethical.
He loved museums.
He loved science, especially astronomy.
He could fall asleep anywhere.
He had a sense of direction.
He worked hard
He loved loud music and blonde women.
He could write.
He could spell.
He loved drawing but rarely did it.
His favorite color was taxicab-yellow.
He had beautiful penmanship.
He had a sense of direction.
His favorite poem was “Ozymandias”.
He loved music and played the guitar.
He loved tacos, and beef with broccoli, and hot and sour soup, and chili.
He loved Diet Coke and Diet Dr Pepper.
He loved milkshakes, and pumpkin pie, and yellow M&Ms.
He always knew he’d have a beard when he grew up, and he did.
He was short and that was okay.
His fine hair had a perfect part.
He paid attention.
He was engaged.
He cared.
Big things mattered to him.
He hated injustice and cruelty.
He hated onions and the Republican Party.
He always chose the side of the afflicted over the afflicters.
He loved.
He suffered.
He experienced tragedy.
He was wise and comforting.
He had a calming voice.
He was a natural storyteller.
He knew how to tell a joke. And more importantly, he could take a joke.
His laugh was big and contagious.
He was a sergeant.
He was human.
He was complicated.
He deserved more from life than he got.
He was self-aware, but he was too self-deprecatory.
He made mistakes and he had regrets.
He was apologetic.
He was nostalgic.
He was generous and empathetic.
He was open-minded.
His liberalism never ossified into conservatism.
He was honest.
He was humane.
He was good and he was decent.
He didn’t live long enough.
He loved Vonnegut.
He loved Tolkien.
He loved Don Martin.
He loved Catch-22.
He loved Mark Twain.
He loved Tabasco Sauce
He loved 1960s folk music.
He loved Yellowstone.
He loved the Tetons.
He wanted his ashes spread at the base of Mt Moran.
He loved the Beatles.
He loved Bobby.
He loved Brandy, Powder and Sugar, and Red and Bear.
He loved family.
He loved [my sister].
He loved me.

I can’t imagine a day will ever pass without thinking of him. I hope one never does. All my favorite memories of childhood include him. I wish my future would. I can’t believe he’s gone.

He was my best friend.

Maybe the Poets Were Right

This is my first death of a loved one with whom I remained close. I'm 42 years old. More than that, it's the death of the person I loved most, and for all my life. This is hard, the pain, the tears, trying to measure the void a person – my person – leaves behind. But, blurring focus, it's also illuminating. We don't really understand loss until we're in it. I'm not sure I understand it now, but I can more clearly see its contours, and its violence.

Some aspect of what I wrote about the photo seemed familiar. That night – the first night – as I was finally falling asleep, it came to me:

How easily could God, if He so willed,
Set back the world a little turn or two!
Correct its griefs, and bring its joys again!
–Edna St Vincent Millay

That's been batting around my head since. And this, from the Agamemnon, which Bobby often recited after tragedies and helped him cope with loss:

God, whose law it is that he who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God.
–Æschylus

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What’s the Shitty form of “Adventure”?

Tell you what I’ll do. I’ll get out of the house and, like last night, I’ll take a slow meander someplace. It’s better than being inside, in a quiet room, thinking. And it’s night, where the mass of dark thoughts is denser, their gravity less easy to escape.

So what I’ll do is go walk. I’ll walk aimlessly. No, I’ll walk to Starbucks in Osaki, which is open late. I’ve eaten almost nothing. I’ll have a scone. And a latte, because he can’t. And I’ll sit and I’ll do some small amount of work. It’s late; there won’t be so many people.

So I’ll distract myself for a while that way. There are lights, and there’s ambient sound, and it’ll be the nearest to people I’ve been since receiving the call. It’ll be okay. I’ll do that. Maybe the scone and latte will even taste good, to boot.

I’m hungry. My stomach is growling and has been for a while. But I don’t want to eat. The scone tasted good, but I worked to get it down, a first for me. The latte is too much, too strong. And there are people in every seat.

The sounds are stronger than I wanted, the lights brighter. People are walking around looking for open seats. It’s Tuesday night - and a Monday-Tuesday, at that. I feel like I’m seated in their world, absent my own, like I’ve crossed realms.

In mine, he lives. In this one, where I find myself, there’s just sadness and discomfort and loss. And I’m trying to stoically sit here, looking like one of them, fitting in. But if anyone looked at me they’d see it. The red nose, the too-watery eyes. The hunching. The lack of eye-contact.

If they register me at all, maybe they just assume I’m sick. Or I’m drunk. But I’m not. I’m neither of those. I’m fine. Except I’m not at all fine. And this was too soon. And yet I sit here, because what the hell other option is there?

I got the scone in. I’ll finish the latte, because he would, and he’d enjoy it. Then I’ll do a little more work, trying to keep the moisture at bay, to fit in, to not panic or worse. Then I’ll wander again, until I’m tired enough to return and maybe, if I’m lucky, fall asleep.

It’s been 27 hours. There are miles to go before I sleep.

And miles to go before I can hope to sleep.

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I'll Miss Him Forever, For Always

I found this picture the other day, taken while we drove to see Ichiro play in Seattle. After the shutter clicked, he looked at me like "WTF?"

It was funny. He was funny.

–––

It's been 5 hours. Time keeps advancing, but it shouldn't. It should go back a bit so I can see him look at me like that again, then turn back to look at the road with a little shake of his head and the same "idiot" smirk. So I can experience the drive again, chatting about dumb shit. So we can sit in the stands and melt again in the hot sunshine and watch Ichiro set the Mariners' record for most hits in a season – then, on the following two pitches, steal second and third bases. So we can eat another hotdog together. So I can have back the time I missed. So things can be as they should: with him around.

It's not too much to ask, really.

–––

He turned back to the road, shook his head, smirked like my taking the photo was weird and I was an idiot and I laughed. We laughed.

Things were better then. That was a good day.

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To Eulogize or Essay

My dad is dying. Because of this, I've been writing notes and snippets for his eulogy. It's the first eulogy I've ever tried to write, but I've already discovered that it's such an odd (or maybe 'specific' is more apt) mix of biography and essay that I'm unable to figure out what should be included. Furthermore, I've never quite noticed that biographies themselves are basically just very long, extremely detailed essays. Maybe I'm a dumb.

I'm not a writer. This discovery is vexing....

終

Baby’s First .gif

Off and on, when I have time, I've been listening to the war-movie podcast Friendly Fire, and watching the movies they review. Before (finally) listening to the episode on "Clear and Present Danger", I'm working my way through its nearly two-and-a-half hour running time that, so far, feels a lot longer.

I've seen the movie before a couple/three times, but probably not in this century. In the only scene I really recall, the motorcade attack, which should be gripping, was this moment of face-acting that is so bizarre I laughed out loud – and then used to create my first-ever .GIF.

I’ve been enjoying this for hours.

–––– –––– ––––

It would be remiss of me not to mention my single favorite thing about this movie existing: There was apparently a porno based on it originally titled – and I have loved this so much for many, many years – “Clear and Pleasant Stranger”.

(Bonus: absolute genius tagline: “Spies doing their best work under covers.”)

終

New Station, Tokyo

I made another thing, for some reason....

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A Worthy New Motto

As I tweeted, this line, from a short article by iMore's Rene Ritchie, would make a pretty solid guiding principle:

In the meantime, stay informed but don't let anyone make you afraid.

(Altho, It'd be more apt to use "and" instead of "but".)

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Bike Repair (x2)

A couple weeks ago, my left shifter-lever popped on a sloping downhill, leaving me permanently in my smaller chainring (lower gear). The season is almost over, but leaving this problem until later was untenable because it forced me to ride most of my common route in an unnaturally high cadence.

Most of the gearing on my bike seems to be a lowest-value hodgepodge of different Shimano types (Tiagra shifters, Sora crankset, etc), so I want to upgrade its entire drivetrain. However, that's gonna require a lot of down time - and money - so I'll do it sometime this Winter (probably).

Until then, I don't want to continue riding with a broken shifter, so I Googled around and found a used set of shifters for not so much that will suit me until I do the bigger repair later.

I went to the Cyclery in Nihombashi, and bought better shifters than I had (Tiagra 4600, up from 4500), for less than half the price of buying them new (which seemed like a terrible purchase considering my plans).

They work perfectly.

Replacing them, allowed me to learn how that's accomplished, and to figure out how to index gears, which I can now do without much problem (it does get tedious, tho - and a little frustrating at first).

I did the repairs on different days. You can watch me (white, chubby) realize I could use more than one camera and end up with coverage I could cut between! And realize it looks substantially better if I clear the background little bit! You can't see it, but I also realized my hair is cut way too short....

I tried to have a little more fun with this video - including making much more interesting title cards. I kinda like how they turned out. But I wish I would've thought more about the first-half's set-up and execution. The second half is vastly superior.

Another Video II, Part Two

And here's part two. I wondered if the quick-flips of a timelapse video would work with slow, somber, orchestral music - something like Barber's "Adagio for Strings". It did, in a way. My original plan was to completely desaturate the video, but the resultant black and white was too stark. I dialed the desaturation back just a little, and ended up with a look that suited both the music and the idea I was going for. Or at least I think it did; your mileage may vary.

Here's part two.

Here's part two, in a different style, because why not? I attached a GoPro HERO5 Session (what a name!) to an axle mount on my road bike's from wheel, then took a ~27km ride to the Tama River and back home. GoPro: http://amzn.to/2yc0We9 Axle mount: http://amzn.to/2xGmeOb (I dunno why it - sometimes - blinks "Part 2" at the beginning.

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