No Smoking

Seven years ago, my dear friend Billy expressed incredulity when we got the news that Bitching Bubbly Smoking Nonsmoker had been fired, and escorted off the premises of our former workplace. "But she was one of the main characters!" he protested.

Her name was Cheryl, and she died this past week after a few years' battle with cancer. According to the relative who posted the news on her Facebook page, the cancer was beaten - she'd been cancer-free for six months, though she was still undergoing some surgeries. The cause of death appears to have been heart failure.

This is hardly surprising. She kept an upbeat tone, but from the updates she posted on Facebook it was evident she had a crushing amount to deal with: trying to find and keep work, conflicting instructions from doctors, losing her condo off Live Oak, health insurance, diagnoses, moving, the death of her father, moving again, unemployment benefits, finding a job, being laid off, more surgeries, etc. etc. etc. She was matter-of-fact and resolutely un-whiny about any of it, but did occasionally find time to bite the heads off well-wishers ("Stop calling me 'brave!' There's nothing brave about it! What else am I supposed to do, lie down and die?!") Being seriously ill brings with it such a devastating load of things to stress out about that heart attacks seem like a natural side effect of otherwise treatable health issues.

I thought it was funny that she bitched about "Obummer" and continued fiercely criticizing Obamacare, without which health insurance would have been unavailable to her. So she was disinterested, at least. She requested advice on upgrading her computer without losing data; some commenters recommended backing everything up on an external hard drive, and one suggested she contact a mutual acquaintance with a lot of experience in the area. She was short with that suggestion: "He pissed me off once and I won't talk to him anymore."

I hope someone told her that the Sheriff, who managed the Herculean task of firing Cheryl from a state agency, was forced to resign this past year. I wish I had. Cheryl called the Sheriff "Dr. Crummy" and carried a bit of a grudge, understandably enough. It was years later, and hardly the ignominious defeat that Cheryl (and others) suffered at the Sheriff's hands, but at least something happened eventually. And again, in a state agency, that's saying something. Still, the fact is, minus the Sheriff's interference, Cheryl would have coasted along a few more years to retirement, and her life would have been considerably less stressful - therefore, most likely, longer.

Cheryl was never unkind or hurtful, just grouchy. What would the world be without curmudgeons? She smoked, she quit; she groused, she worked hard to be positive. I remember trying to help her with a jamming copier once and she stopped and took a breath and closed her eyes. "You're trying to help," she said. "You're very sweet. Please just walk away now." And you have to respect that, really, more than someone who is always bubbly and sweet and nice to your face and then goes and writes mocking blog posts about you, don't you?

Bon voyage to you, Cheryl. Give Heaven hell.

Religious Leanings

Robbie gave up alcohol for Lent, which means that although we have every bit as much fun running around being crazy as we ever did, we feel a lot less shitty the next morning.

Last night we stopped by Tony's house. "What'd you give up?" Robbie asked him.

(Why do I know so many Catholics?)

"I gave up negativity," said Tony, and again it's a good thing we weren't having wine or some would have come out my nose. Not because Tony has been particularly negative - not at all. I just instantly pictured Easter service as being a great deal more interesting. Perhaps, when it comes time to give the peace to your neighbor, instead of shaking hands or hugging, he'll flip them off or punch them.

Then again, who hasn't wanted to do that?! Hug me, willya... I don't even know you, you damn Jesus freak! I'm just here to keep the in-laws quiet. It may also be worth mentioning at this point that a few years ago, when I first knew Tony, he suffered a badly broken leg from tripping while trying to outrun some little kids at an Easter-egg hunt.

I guess I gave up 3-martini breaks for Lent, although the timing wasn't exact, and I know I won't get them back at Easter. This is one of the disadvantages of not being religious, although getting to sleep in on Sundays outweighs almost every other drawback I can think of.

My cube neighbor's father passed away week before last. This coworker has been such a kind friend to me. I haven't talked to anyone about what, specifically, was going on, but it's obvious enough I've been very down; and he's been so sweet and sympathetic, not asking any questions, but has lent me everything from a book of funny animal pictures to money (when I mentioned in passing that I'd like to go out to dinner with the field office coworker who was in town for training, but that it was the end of the month - state employees get paid once a month, on the first - and believe me, that's a comment I won't be letting drop again!) He just got back late last week, and I was very glad to see him. But he hugged me, and the first thing he said to me was, "How've you been? Have you got your smile back?" I mean, my gosh, his father. I felt awful.

But we were talking, later, and I asked how he was doing, and he said that he was fine as long as he kept remembering how his dad is in a better place now. "It frustrated him so much, towards the end," he said, "being sick, being immobile, not being able to do the things he used to do. I'm fine as long as I remember that he's able to do those things again now. He's better off, now, he's happier."

This is real comfort. When you aren't religious, you don't have that. Death is nothing but loss - relief, perhaps, if there's been suffering; but really the only positive thing about it is an end to pain. In the case of tragic, senseless, untimely death, you've really got nothing. How do you face the losses that rip your heart out, or the certainty that there will be more losses like them in your future, or your own eventual horrifying mortality, without faith? But you can't base your beliefs on the way you want the world to be, either. What do you do?

So far the best answer I've come up with is not to think about it as much as possible, and let's put that down as reason #126,974 not to give up alcohol for Lent. As for Easter eggs, you're on your own. Watch out for Tony!

The Good Life

One, people who die should not talk to you after they're dead, because it freaks the shit out of you.

Not that they meant to. Today I called my ex-mother-in-law to tell her that I'll be picking up my son (who lives with her) from the airport tonight on his return from Manila. My ex-father-in-law, who passed away last April, answered the phone. "You have reached [their phone number]," he read off in a slow, measured, carefully-modulated tone (which, actually, he did use in real conversation during real life, because he was kind of weird that way). "Please leave your message after the tone."

My stepfather kept my mother's outgoing message on their voicemail for as long as he lived in their house. I guess I got used to it after a while, but it didn't sound like Mom: stiff, stilted, trying to speak clearly, professionally and coolly, since she ran her piano studio out of her home. In real life she was usually giggling.

Maybe she'd have laughed at the voicemail too, later. The first time I called and heard it, without warning, perhaps a month after she died, I took it like a punch to the gut, hung up the phone without leaving a message, and sobbed for an hour. There was no other recording of her voice, that I know of. Maybe four months ago my stepfather left the house and the phone number and moved on. It must have been erased now.

Two, my son is returning home tonight from a one-week trip to the Philippines - Manila, where some six months or so ago, he met a girl online. She's 24. He's 18. Am I thrilled about this? Not so much. Nonetheless, he saved up his money for the trip, he doesn't live with me, he's - more or less - an adult, or at least working on becoming one, in his own particular way. I want him to be happy. She does seem like a nice girl, and teaches English to Koreans over the phone. Most importantly, he had a wonderful time, learned from an experience I've never had (I have never been overseas - never!!) and he's coming back, tonight. I'm picking him up at the airport a little after midnight. He left Manila at 7:40 p.m. yesterday, my time. He's likely to be a scoche on the tired side.

Three, I am a scoche on the tired side already. Life is easy: friends and kindness abound, I want for nothing, even this weird leprosy shit on my neck and arm seems to be finally clearing up. But I'm just not happy. I'm tired. I'm sorry, I'm just ready for things to be a bit better soon, please, please?

Learning Experience

Before booking your work group on a guided tour of a coal mine, you should probably do a little homework.

You might google the tour company and find out if previous groups have returned from the tour alive. Or just read their brochure. If it says something like, "Your thrilling trip to the coal mine ends with a blaze of glory as your guide slings the mine cart caroming into the flames of the smelting pit!" then you might plead a tight schedule and ask for the abridged version.

Or just don't go at all, because I don't think coal mines are even supposed to have smelting pits.

Death by immolation is one thing. Being misinformed on an educational fam trip? Completely unacceptable.

Drink Bacardi Like It's Your Birthday

To make a mojito, first put several sprigs of mint and two slices of lime in a glass, and muddle them with a - a muddler, I guess. It's a longish implement with a spiked, flat piece at the end, and you use it to squish the limes and the mint together and get the juice out of them. I guess you could also use a meat tenderizer, but you'd have to have really good aim.

Then fill the glass with ice and add a dash or two of sugar syrup and a shot or two of Bacardi. Top it off with club soda and voilà! you've got yourself a pretty tasty drink.

To make potato salad, boil the potatoes about five minutes longer, use more onion, and don't forget to thin the dressing with a bit of vinegar so it's more piquant and not so goopy. Otherwise, perfect.

To make drunken conversation with a stranger in your friend's backyard pool, try to avoid the subject of death.

It was late, and Robbie and several of Diane's other guests had already left. Tony and his friend Larry, Diane's husband Mark, and a few other people were lounging idly in the water. A fine sprinkling rain had begun, and the sensation of tiny droplets of cold water on my face contrasted deliciously with the warmth of the pool. It was full dark out. Another party guest remarked that we weren't so bright, swimming around during a rainstorm - we were just asking to be struck by lightning.

"What are you talking about?" laughed Mark, "it's not thundering."

"It's raining," pointed out the swimmer.

"Yes, but it's just a little rain, there's no storm," said Mark.

"I'm more worried about dying of cancer," I said.

My fellow party guest was taken aback. "Why would you worry about that?" he asked.

"Well, it just seems like the most likely thing to kill me," I reasoned. "Well, that, or I get cut up into pieces and stuffed into the trunk of some stalker's car."

"Cut up into pieces?!" he repeated, sputtering slightly. "Where on earth did that come from?"

"It could happen," I said.

"The trunk of a car??"

"Well, not loose, of course," I clarified, "I'd probably be in a plastic bag."

"No offense," he told me, "you're fine, and all, but that seems very unlikely."

"Oh, you don't have to be super fine to have a stalker," I said, "there are plenty of crazies to go around."

"I want out of this conversation," he said.

To impress men, just shut up and drink your Bacardi.

Indignity

You think you're over certain things, and can often be surprised by the intensity of long-forgotten feelings when some event takes place to bring them out again: they were only sleeping, they were never really gone.

My ex-father-in-law's memorial service was this past weekend. Talking about it to friends, I compared it to "a high school reunion on acid." I'm truly sorry that he's gone. We weren't at all close, but it's always profoundly shocking when someone who you remember as living and breathing and being - well, whatever you thought he was - suddenly isn't.

And the memorial service itself: heavy with sorrow and disappointed hopes, soaked with hard booze (and it was barely lunchtime!), and filled with people I had kind of forgotten ever actually existed. Perfectly nice people, by and large: high school friends of my ex-husband and his brother's, people we used to hang out with years and years and years ago. Ex-girlfriends of my ex-husband's, from around the time he and I were married.

And during. Long-forgotten indignities surface here. Bitterness about this, at this point, would be beyond pointless: any issues I had with that were issues I had with him, not at all with them; besides, why be possessive of something you don't want? Which I didn't. Did I? Otherwise, why would I have been so anxious to throw it away?

I guess the main thing that hurt then, and that rears its ugly head now, is the sense of being rejected and abandoned as not good enough by someone who (you might or might not agree) was not even good enough for me in the first place. What an agonizing, maddening, throw-yourself-onto-your-stomach-and-kick-the-floor kind of feeling.

It passes, it goes away; it always has, and everything will be forgotten again. And all I have to do is sit tight until it's gone so I don't do anything stupid and make more of an idiot of myself than I already am.

You'd think I was a grown-up now. You wouldn't think this would still be so hard.