New Things for Old

It would seem--nay, it DOES seem--that a new post is necessary. All of these convoluted incrementality blog spots are almost as irritating to oversee as they are to behold.

Oui, oui, all the way home.

What's this coming year to bring? (That's a fine thing to consider, Mr. Gallaher; if you repeat that with some frequency, then it stands to reason that the foolhardy construct of a calendar year will dissipate, and that can't be a bad thing. [The passing of time--the impossibly simpleminded way in which those of us ensnared by modernity measure things--is such a lousy barometer of success. First of all, it's elastic (boogie woogie woogie [clap clap]). Second, that same elasticity renders impossible an empirical determination of success.] So, it's better just to change subjects, is all I'm saying.)

So, it's been a lovely birthday, and it's been very much like any other day. I think that this type of thing is comforting--sexy, even. Why have a time that involves such a labor-intensive departure from normalcy in order to commemorate existence, when it's "normalcy" itself that deserves change into something more affirming.

For instance, I would have loved a party with all of my friends around. Of course, that couldn't happen, because we're all far away from each other, and it'd be an impracticable humor game to accomplish. Instead, there could exist options for envisioning (and perhaps enacting) life changes in order to address that issue of separation.

It's possible that it could even be as simple as a perspectival issue, which is something to which I am awakening. Seeing my life and my time spent in relatively remote circumstances not as being shrouded in lack, but supported by a wide-ranging and far-reaching abundance.

I'm going to try to watch the premiere of Mad Men. I've waited for so long.

Revisited Currency

I've been so kinda sad and screwed up over the passing of my friend Glenn that I haven't been able to think in any organized manner over these last two weeks.

What is there to say about it? Glenn Sorvisto was like no other person that ever existed, but I guess that that's true for/about everybody (cf. that whole snowflake milieu), so I'll have to expound, and this is where it gets inarticulate and intangibly sorrowful. And there's advance dread about it, so I'll get to it after an interval during which I'll perform mundane tasks and tend to reponsibilities like getting dressed.

I think that there are too many stories to tell, each of which is too difficult to parlay, so what follows is what I have gleaned as the gist of my friend.

Glenn was disarming, in many senses and senselessnesses of that word. While striking in appearance (not only handsome, but also with a peerless sense of style that featured, among many other items, alligator shoes, an easter-grass bowler hat, and simultaneous boisterous plaids), his personality was truly artful. A dazzling array of people each knew and remember Glenn differently. 

To many, Glenn is remembered for a loose-limbed eschewal of decorum that seemed to verge on haplessness—embodying a defiant and devilishly funny maelstrom of caustic and extemporaneous alchemy. Like a song that swings with such ferocity that it threatens constantly to come apart, until it is made apparent that such swinging is actually fundamental to the song. None of it was orchestrated but for every separate and collective memory of it.

Dozens were the occasions on which I experienced genuine discomfort in Glenn's company, although hindsight reveals its majesty. I'd say so now if I could: 

"YES, Glenn! I am so grateful that you smoked a cigarette in the banquet hall during that wedding ceremony. And inside the DMV that one time." 

Or, "It was brave of you to walk into that liquor store, grab a 6-pack of beer, and walk past the cashier, saying, 'Mañana!' Repeatedly. Until the clerk was so overcome with laughter that he allowed you to leave without paying."

These are among the more minor incidents to which I bore involuntary witness in the company of Glenn Sorvisto.

But that's all shallow nonsense on so many levels, because Glenn the person was so loving and gentle and kind that it's extraordinary for us human people to have been blessed with his presence for as long as we were. In all of the apparent chaos that surrounded him, there was always immense comfort. Glenn subverted my understanding of decency, because he was nothing if not singularly decent. He was deceptively sensitive and keenly thoughtful, even (especially?) in moments of alleged ignorance. He was always himself. He gave himself over to being himself.

There are bazillions of stories, but I don't feel like telling them at the moment, and I know that my facts are only as factual as the distance that separates me from them. I think about his love, Jody, and their incredible 18-year romance. I think about all of the friends that we shared, and the different ways in which each and all of these people experience this loss.

And a world without Glenn Sorvisto appears all the more daunting. But then, I remember that, irrespective of how daunting is any future, it remains inexorably destined for the same pile of pasts and precedents that houses hobbled former futures.