grief and grieving

The complexity of things surprises me sometimes. It's hard for me to explain why I'm upset. I mostly feel so lucky to have such a wonderful mother, and such sorrow that her mother was never as kind and supportive and loving to her as she is and always has been to me.

in memoriam J.D.S.

"Seymour once said to me – in a crosstown bus, of all places – that all legitimate religious study must lead to unlearning the differences, the illusory differences, between boys and girls, animals and stones, day and night, heat and cold."

- Franny and Zooey

"You can't live in the world with such strong likes and dislikes."
- Franny and Zooey

"What really knocks me out is a book that, when you're all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it."
- The Catcher in the Rye

"This is a people shooting hat...I shoot people in this hat."

- The Catcher in the Rye

the end of an era

It's sad to think that my good friend is leaving.  Selfish, of course, but there it is.  So much so that I almost understand the allure of a small town, the continuity,  the familiarity: here are your friends.  This is your home.  Whereas we, who had no common home, made one here for a while, but no longer.   Home of course being not just a place but the people in it.  A city is big and doesn't notice that it's changed but it has, all the same.  No home lasts forever, I suppose, and how wonderful that I got to have this one.  Still.  Sometimes.  To slow things down.  The kind of overlap that exists and is allowed in life is not always satisfactory. 

I wish him such good luck.

it's a shame

Crossing Van Ness two days ago, I walked past a man with a crutch under one arm. "You don't have anybody to hold your hand on a Sunday?" he called out to me. "Somebody needs to get their ass whupped! You tell him I said that." By this point I was laughing. "You tell him. You tell him you met a nice black man who wasn't hitting on you or nothing and he said that was a shame, and he needs to get his ass whupped. And if he wants to talk about that, he can come right down here to Pronto Pizza and I'll tell him about it. Somebody needs to get his ass whupped. You tell him."

"I will." I said, "I'll do that." But I didn't.