Thank you so much everyone!!.. There's alot of us trying to get through this loss. The last 2 days I keep running into people that somehow knew her. She really was a rock star in so many ways. My sister told me yesterday that when they used to work together for, prescriptives (make up place).. that they shared lots of cool stuff. One time Jamie was talking to my sis, and my sister said she loved the way she parted her hair but she could never do it because she had a widows peak. Jamie showed my sister that she had a widows peak too, and showed her.. "see you just do it like this!!!"... I loved hearing that story. Especially since She didn't know that was my sister, and Eve didn't know that I hung out with Jamie. Sigh.
I'll leave you with this post from my best friend of 10 years, Carl Bochek, regarding this saturday and his reaction:
A Day In the Life
It's 2:55 a.m. Saturday morning. I've beaten the alarm again. It hurts to wake up this early. It's not right. I should be going to bed now. Coffee then shower; followed by the commute downtown. The drive in is always melancholy and eerily backwards. "I'm usually driving home now," I mutter to myself. "At least this is the last day." The cold of the morning has not yet been beaten by the heater and I ache. My discomfort even makes me oblivious to the fact that I forgot to turn on the radio. The job: freelance corporate audio-visual for a hotel. The convention: End of Life Nursing. I can't say that it's not interesting and the money is great. I'm a winner.
I wrap up an eight hour day at noon, a weird feeling. I grab a coffee on the way home and run into someone from my past, a black Kung Fu master named Mark. Eastern philosophy with a hint of urban wit are what followed_think of a physically intimidating Dave Chapelle crossed with a fortune cookie, not a Bruce Lee wanna-be with an afro. We talk briefly of the good and the bad and how I've had both in spades this year. He praises me for my good fortunes and brings light to the bad by saying it is usually only when something tragic happens that we make changes in our lives.
As if continuing some conversational thread in his own head, he starts to tell me about the virtue of observation. I've come to learn that subtle turns in Mark's dialogue signal an impending lesson; no doubt a personality trait inherited from his master and passed down from his master before him. He slows his voice and starts to concentrate on a spot somewhere on the horizon, off in the distance. We are sitting outside of a coffee shop and, as is typical in Pittsburgh, there is no sun. He says, "If you look at the sky, it looks grey. However, the longer you look at it, the more shades of grey you see, the more contrast appears, the more you see the clouds, the more you see their shapes. This is what most people don't do." I'm reminded of the writings of Chuang Tzu. Then, the twang of Adam Duritz's voice singing "Mrs. Potter's Lullaby" pops into my head: "If you've never stared off into the distance then your life is a shame."
An older gentleman, no doubt an acquaintance of Mark's, walks up to us and starts talking to him. He has a long beard, wore a dingy plaid shirt and an even dingier hat. If I saw him on television I'd guess grizzled fisherman. He tells us he just bought a house. It was built in 1791 and it was owned by a man who was sentenced to be hung by George Washington but was pardoned by Thomas Jefferson. He was buried in an unmarked grave in the cemetery at the end of the street.
This man's family history was even more interesting. He is a Siberian and a painter of icons. (You know_the very saturated, highly traditional paintings of saints and biblical figures, covered in gold leaf, scattered all throughout Eastern Europe?) His family has been painting icons for 650 years. He is the last in the line. He has no children and the tradition will die with him.
As we sit some precipitation begins to fall. I make the obvious comment, "It's raining," and am promptly corrected by this elderly gentleman. "This is not rain," he says, "We have 47 words for rain." From here a slew of Siberian words are put forth and their meaning expounded: "Aadahdhdhdhdf: that is mushroom rain. Ftrrttirieen: that is doctor's rain, the type that brings pneumonia and typhoid. Woornbvicged: makes thatched roofs curl You young guys don't take the time to notice things like this."
Mark leans in and quietly says, "You see," so as to drive home the overwhelming coincidence between the two conversations.
Mark and the Siberian then exchange stories of the trials of growing up in generations harder than mine. I listen. I hear of bitter cold winters and frostbite from the Siberian. Mark retorts with the soul-callousing wounds that racism leaves on a youth. Next up, the woes of a village running out of food. This is countered with the very real scars left by the violence of the ghetto. They stop and a tinge of discomfort and guilt creep into my being as the relative ease of my life is made apparent.
I am struck by the difficulty of their lives and, despite this fact, the large amounts of happiness they exude. Their duel of hardships had a subtext; it was not commiserating, not bellyaching, not bitching or moaning but a humanistic exchange designed to build rapport and kinship. They smile at each other and we encounter that natural pause that happens in conversation, the one curiously absent from movies; the one that takes place, on average, every seven minutes according to psychologists. It is broken by Mark with a Japanese proverb: "A wasp bites even a crying cheek." We turn back to the rain and the silence endures. Poignancy made a good place for me to eject. Who knows when I will see Mark again and who knows if I will ever see the Siberian again?
Driving home, I think of the job I just finished, a week of sitting through hours of presentations on end-of-life care. I heard countless nurses discuss what happens when we die, how people prepare for the days, weeks, months, even years of waiting to expire. I listened as doctors explained the breaking down of organs and systems in the body. Methods of easing the loss of family members and spouses were discussed by therapists. I heard about morphine, codeine, Vicodin and Oxycontin, all the drugs that numb the pain. It amazed me to discover that antidepressants are usually prescribed along with these drugs to combat the negative effects of narcotics on the mind. Every facet of death was discussed from every angle by hundreds of accomplished professionals; all doing their best to bring meaning and sense to one of the few things that every human being shares in, yet wishes we didn't.
The rain comes down harder, night fall has arrived, and I get home. The phone rings. "Wanda died. She was in a car accident." No planning, no preparation, no days, weeks, or months; just here, then not here. Psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan said, "We are born into a world of pure being, which language cannot fully express, so we are always longing for a Real we can't describe." You really can't describe it, can you? I don't think there is any way I could bring anything to this in any way. "We don't know what we ought to pray for, but the spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express," said Paul of Tarsus. The only thing that I can think of is, now, everyone reading this has something we share in, yet wishes we didn't.
I take off in my car and head towards the voice on the other end of the line. I see the green turn yellow and push down the accelerator. Red wins, I lose. The stupidity of my decision grabs me and my hands tremble. The flashing lights gets closer; my luck, my wasp. A split second and $106.50 disappears. I wonder about Wanda's split second.
Sitting in my car, ticket in one hand, tears from a stinging cheek in the other; my heart feels like the wipers. Drag, thump. Drag, thump. Drag, thump. Thoughts are like the rain, an indiscernible pitter-patter. The big, black, ominous wall called pain is before me, insurmountable and obstructing all I can see. Immobilized, I start to see things in this black. Different shades appear, contrasts come forth. Lines form, things swirl and in this I start to see past hurt, failures, losses, dreams that have turned to wasted time. I see the wrongs endured by the hand of faceless corporations and the wrongs incurred by the faces of relationships that deceived an all too willing heart. Accidents and sudden mishaps that cause setbacks, ruin plans, dash hopes and wear me down float by next. Memories of days wasted due to illness and broken-heartedness sweep in. The things I couldn't change and the things I could have but didn't all become clear. I see the other half of my life, the part that is either choked down or mysteriously forgotten when someone asks, "So, how are you doing?"
George Bernard Shaw said, "The wise man adapts himself to the conditions that surround him. The foolish man adapts surrounding conditions to himself. Therefore, all change depends upon the foolish man." Tragedy is only senseless when it doesn't evoke change. Pain is only meaningless when it is not used. Wanda's passing is something we cannot alter. The only thing foolish is not changing.
The first time I met Wanda it was under strange circumstances. We were meeting a mutual friend. He is always late, very late. "Dude, she's there, just look for her. Her name is Wanda. I'm on my way."
Our meeting had all the characteristics of a blind date. I walked into the bar and did the awkward scan, the one where it is painfully obvious that you are looking for someone. I think I see her.
"Wanda?"
"Yeah"
"Carl?"
"Uh-huh."
"Hey!"
"Hey!"
"So, what's up, can I get you a drink?"
The small talk was progressively usurped by more meaningful things; a good sign. Top five bands, best horror movie ever, if you were an alcoholic beverage? I liked her answers. I felt comfortable around her.
My favorite Cure song drifts into our conversation. "Wow, I'm not the only one here with good taste." She laughed. She got me: hyperbolic arrogance as self-deprecation; and if she didn't get me, she certainly made me feel as though she did. I had a suspicion that she probably made most people feel as though she got them too.
Laying eyes upon her, she had jet black hair, made meticulously messy in a way that any rock star would envy. Her skin was white and porcelain-smooth. It seemed to reflect any colored light that existed at the bar; giving her an ethereal quality and making you wonder if maybe you hopped into some movie in a weird hallucination that you are now just becoming aware of. Her clothes were not something off the shelf. She worked at it. She was a six foot tall Elvira/Valley of the Dolls combo making her way to a Motley Crue concert on Sunset Blvd. The look would be very intimidating if it wasn't for the way that she glanced at you, smiled and made everyone else in the room seem weird and disconnected from the moment.
Flash forward several days and I am at her house with Nate. The three of us are careening towards a memorable night. Records are pulled from their sleeves and evidence of her musical prowess spins on the turntable. She pours us two enormous Jack and Cokes and gives us the tour. We go room to room and stumble upon artifacts of hers, dug up throughout the years, now on display. She is proud of each one: her records, insane pieces of antique costume, a book on sexual positions from the 1970's, lauded as much for its cheesiness as any carnal knowledge it may impart. Even plastic fruit has its time in the limelight. Kitsch as catharsis, I got her.
Remembering this evening, I see what our tour was: a humanistic exchange designed to build rapport and kinship. However, this one is unique to our generation. "The bonding over your collection of cool shit you found in a thrift store"_it's a shortcut to shared experience and personality. It thrusts all involved parties back to a time when they were a little younger and expresses the commonalities of skipping classes, taking a few dollars you earned at the minimum wage job you loathed, and losing yourself in a Salvation Army to emerge victoriously with something, anything; whatever it was, you liked it and for some reason, your world was a little more complete. It was one of the ways we dealt with the hardships of our generation: boredom, loneliness, depression. Identity through consumerism; proof of the post-modern bricolage that is Generation X, the crafting of itself out of the remnants of decades past.
If a hospital for rock stars existed, Wanda would have made a great end-of-life nurse. Her uniform would be the standard nurse's outfit, the naughty one, albeit a little too short and with the sleeves cut off. She would wear white fishnets slithering into thigh-high white boots. Her black nails would be too long to do any real work and blood-red lipstick would be the icing on the cake. She would look incredible dancing on the days when the patients weren't too sick to pick up a guitar and wail!
I could hear it now: "Come on Nikki, Come on Mr. Sixx. This hurts me more than it hurts you. Now drop 'em!" All shots in the ass would be followed by a swift spank. The little cup of water administered with the daily dose of pills would be filled with vodka, and a big wink lets Slash know that it's just between the two of them.
I am now lying in the bed of another. It's 3:00 a.m.; I've been awake for twenty-four hours and five minutes. I am writing this all in my head. The new, expensive, shiny laptop sits beside the bed, unused, so as not to disturb her; she's too important, especially today. I can't sleep. I think about Wanda, my ticket, the weird Siberian. I'm tired and I want comfort. I put my hand on her hip and I feel a wave of something, something good, throughout my body. She turns toward me slightly, the corners of her mouth ascend up into a smile and she lets out the faintest sigh. I feel less tired. I think about how for hundreds of years a people endured, all the while watching something as simple as rain. I think about how this smile is different from when I make her laugh, and how different that smile is from the one she does after she puts on lipstick and looks in the mirror. I think about how I want to watch her for hundreds of years until I figure out her forty-seven different smiles.
"I read the news today, oh boy." (John Lennon)
I get home the next day and open the paper to find five short sentences about the accident; a stinging in the cheek of many, I'm sure. It's shocking to see how easy it is to get lost in this world.
I'll leave you with this post from my best friend of 10 years, Carl Bochek, regarding this saturday and his reaction:
A Day In the Life
It's 2:55 a.m. Saturday morning. I've beaten the alarm again. It hurts to wake up this early. It's not right. I should be going to bed now. Coffee then shower; followed by the commute downtown. The drive in is always melancholy and eerily backwards. "I'm usually driving home now," I mutter to myself. "At least this is the last day." The cold of the morning has not yet been beaten by the heater and I ache. My discomfort even makes me oblivious to the fact that I forgot to turn on the radio. The job: freelance corporate audio-visual for a hotel. The convention: End of Life Nursing. I can't say that it's not interesting and the money is great. I'm a winner.
I wrap up an eight hour day at noon, a weird feeling. I grab a coffee on the way home and run into someone from my past, a black Kung Fu master named Mark. Eastern philosophy with a hint of urban wit are what followed_think of a physically intimidating Dave Chapelle crossed with a fortune cookie, not a Bruce Lee wanna-be with an afro. We talk briefly of the good and the bad and how I've had both in spades this year. He praises me for my good fortunes and brings light to the bad by saying it is usually only when something tragic happens that we make changes in our lives.
As if continuing some conversational thread in his own head, he starts to tell me about the virtue of observation. I've come to learn that subtle turns in Mark's dialogue signal an impending lesson; no doubt a personality trait inherited from his master and passed down from his master before him. He slows his voice and starts to concentrate on a spot somewhere on the horizon, off in the distance. We are sitting outside of a coffee shop and, as is typical in Pittsburgh, there is no sun. He says, "If you look at the sky, it looks grey. However, the longer you look at it, the more shades of grey you see, the more contrast appears, the more you see the clouds, the more you see their shapes. This is what most people don't do." I'm reminded of the writings of Chuang Tzu. Then, the twang of Adam Duritz's voice singing "Mrs. Potter's Lullaby" pops into my head: "If you've never stared off into the distance then your life is a shame."
An older gentleman, no doubt an acquaintance of Mark's, walks up to us and starts talking to him. He has a long beard, wore a dingy plaid shirt and an even dingier hat. If I saw him on television I'd guess grizzled fisherman. He tells us he just bought a house. It was built in 1791 and it was owned by a man who was sentenced to be hung by George Washington but was pardoned by Thomas Jefferson. He was buried in an unmarked grave in the cemetery at the end of the street.
This man's family history was even more interesting. He is a Siberian and a painter of icons. (You know_the very saturated, highly traditional paintings of saints and biblical figures, covered in gold leaf, scattered all throughout Eastern Europe?) His family has been painting icons for 650 years. He is the last in the line. He has no children and the tradition will die with him.
As we sit some precipitation begins to fall. I make the obvious comment, "It's raining," and am promptly corrected by this elderly gentleman. "This is not rain," he says, "We have 47 words for rain." From here a slew of Siberian words are put forth and their meaning expounded: "Aadahdhdhdhdf: that is mushroom rain. Ftrrttirieen: that is doctor's rain, the type that brings pneumonia and typhoid. Woornbvicged: makes thatched roofs curl You young guys don't take the time to notice things like this."
Mark leans in and quietly says, "You see," so as to drive home the overwhelming coincidence between the two conversations.
Mark and the Siberian then exchange stories of the trials of growing up in generations harder than mine. I listen. I hear of bitter cold winters and frostbite from the Siberian. Mark retorts with the soul-callousing wounds that racism leaves on a youth. Next up, the woes of a village running out of food. This is countered with the very real scars left by the violence of the ghetto. They stop and a tinge of discomfort and guilt creep into my being as the relative ease of my life is made apparent.
I am struck by the difficulty of their lives and, despite this fact, the large amounts of happiness they exude. Their duel of hardships had a subtext; it was not commiserating, not bellyaching, not bitching or moaning but a humanistic exchange designed to build rapport and kinship. They smile at each other and we encounter that natural pause that happens in conversation, the one curiously absent from movies; the one that takes place, on average, every seven minutes according to psychologists. It is broken by Mark with a Japanese proverb: "A wasp bites even a crying cheek." We turn back to the rain and the silence endures. Poignancy made a good place for me to eject. Who knows when I will see Mark again and who knows if I will ever see the Siberian again?
Driving home, I think of the job I just finished, a week of sitting through hours of presentations on end-of-life care. I heard countless nurses discuss what happens when we die, how people prepare for the days, weeks, months, even years of waiting to expire. I listened as doctors explained the breaking down of organs and systems in the body. Methods of easing the loss of family members and spouses were discussed by therapists. I heard about morphine, codeine, Vicodin and Oxycontin, all the drugs that numb the pain. It amazed me to discover that antidepressants are usually prescribed along with these drugs to combat the negative effects of narcotics on the mind. Every facet of death was discussed from every angle by hundreds of accomplished professionals; all doing their best to bring meaning and sense to one of the few things that every human being shares in, yet wishes we didn't.
The rain comes down harder, night fall has arrived, and I get home. The phone rings. "Wanda died. She was in a car accident." No planning, no preparation, no days, weeks, or months; just here, then not here. Psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan said, "We are born into a world of pure being, which language cannot fully express, so we are always longing for a Real we can't describe." You really can't describe it, can you? I don't think there is any way I could bring anything to this in any way. "We don't know what we ought to pray for, but the spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express," said Paul of Tarsus. The only thing that I can think of is, now, everyone reading this has something we share in, yet wishes we didn't.
I take off in my car and head towards the voice on the other end of the line. I see the green turn yellow and push down the accelerator. Red wins, I lose. The stupidity of my decision grabs me and my hands tremble. The flashing lights gets closer; my luck, my wasp. A split second and $106.50 disappears. I wonder about Wanda's split second.
Sitting in my car, ticket in one hand, tears from a stinging cheek in the other; my heart feels like the wipers. Drag, thump. Drag, thump. Drag, thump. Thoughts are like the rain, an indiscernible pitter-patter. The big, black, ominous wall called pain is before me, insurmountable and obstructing all I can see. Immobilized, I start to see things in this black. Different shades appear, contrasts come forth. Lines form, things swirl and in this I start to see past hurt, failures, losses, dreams that have turned to wasted time. I see the wrongs endured by the hand of faceless corporations and the wrongs incurred by the faces of relationships that deceived an all too willing heart. Accidents and sudden mishaps that cause setbacks, ruin plans, dash hopes and wear me down float by next. Memories of days wasted due to illness and broken-heartedness sweep in. The things I couldn't change and the things I could have but didn't all become clear. I see the other half of my life, the part that is either choked down or mysteriously forgotten when someone asks, "So, how are you doing?"
George Bernard Shaw said, "The wise man adapts himself to the conditions that surround him. The foolish man adapts surrounding conditions to himself. Therefore, all change depends upon the foolish man." Tragedy is only senseless when it doesn't evoke change. Pain is only meaningless when it is not used. Wanda's passing is something we cannot alter. The only thing foolish is not changing.
The first time I met Wanda it was under strange circumstances. We were meeting a mutual friend. He is always late, very late. "Dude, she's there, just look for her. Her name is Wanda. I'm on my way."
Our meeting had all the characteristics of a blind date. I walked into the bar and did the awkward scan, the one where it is painfully obvious that you are looking for someone. I think I see her.
"Wanda?"
"Yeah"
"Carl?"
"Uh-huh."
"Hey!"
"Hey!"
"So, what's up, can I get you a drink?"
The small talk was progressively usurped by more meaningful things; a good sign. Top five bands, best horror movie ever, if you were an alcoholic beverage? I liked her answers. I felt comfortable around her.
My favorite Cure song drifts into our conversation. "Wow, I'm not the only one here with good taste." She laughed. She got me: hyperbolic arrogance as self-deprecation; and if she didn't get me, she certainly made me feel as though she did. I had a suspicion that she probably made most people feel as though she got them too.
Laying eyes upon her, she had jet black hair, made meticulously messy in a way that any rock star would envy. Her skin was white and porcelain-smooth. It seemed to reflect any colored light that existed at the bar; giving her an ethereal quality and making you wonder if maybe you hopped into some movie in a weird hallucination that you are now just becoming aware of. Her clothes were not something off the shelf. She worked at it. She was a six foot tall Elvira/Valley of the Dolls combo making her way to a Motley Crue concert on Sunset Blvd. The look would be very intimidating if it wasn't for the way that she glanced at you, smiled and made everyone else in the room seem weird and disconnected from the moment.
Flash forward several days and I am at her house with Nate. The three of us are careening towards a memorable night. Records are pulled from their sleeves and evidence of her musical prowess spins on the turntable. She pours us two enormous Jack and Cokes and gives us the tour. We go room to room and stumble upon artifacts of hers, dug up throughout the years, now on display. She is proud of each one: her records, insane pieces of antique costume, a book on sexual positions from the 1970's, lauded as much for its cheesiness as any carnal knowledge it may impart. Even plastic fruit has its time in the limelight. Kitsch as catharsis, I got her.
Remembering this evening, I see what our tour was: a humanistic exchange designed to build rapport and kinship. However, this one is unique to our generation. "The bonding over your collection of cool shit you found in a thrift store"_it's a shortcut to shared experience and personality. It thrusts all involved parties back to a time when they were a little younger and expresses the commonalities of skipping classes, taking a few dollars you earned at the minimum wage job you loathed, and losing yourself in a Salvation Army to emerge victoriously with something, anything; whatever it was, you liked it and for some reason, your world was a little more complete. It was one of the ways we dealt with the hardships of our generation: boredom, loneliness, depression. Identity through consumerism; proof of the post-modern bricolage that is Generation X, the crafting of itself out of the remnants of decades past.
If a hospital for rock stars existed, Wanda would have made a great end-of-life nurse. Her uniform would be the standard nurse's outfit, the naughty one, albeit a little too short and with the sleeves cut off. She would wear white fishnets slithering into thigh-high white boots. Her black nails would be too long to do any real work and blood-red lipstick would be the icing on the cake. She would look incredible dancing on the days when the patients weren't too sick to pick up a guitar and wail!
I could hear it now: "Come on Nikki, Come on Mr. Sixx. This hurts me more than it hurts you. Now drop 'em!" All shots in the ass would be followed by a swift spank. The little cup of water administered with the daily dose of pills would be filled with vodka, and a big wink lets Slash know that it's just between the two of them.
I am now lying in the bed of another. It's 3:00 a.m.; I've been awake for twenty-four hours and five minutes. I am writing this all in my head. The new, expensive, shiny laptop sits beside the bed, unused, so as not to disturb her; she's too important, especially today. I can't sleep. I think about Wanda, my ticket, the weird Siberian. I'm tired and I want comfort. I put my hand on her hip and I feel a wave of something, something good, throughout my body. She turns toward me slightly, the corners of her mouth ascend up into a smile and she lets out the faintest sigh. I feel less tired. I think about how for hundreds of years a people endured, all the while watching something as simple as rain. I think about how this smile is different from when I make her laugh, and how different that smile is from the one she does after she puts on lipstick and looks in the mirror. I think about how I want to watch her for hundreds of years until I figure out her forty-seven different smiles.
"I read the news today, oh boy." (John Lennon)
I get home the next day and open the paper to find five short sentences about the accident; a stinging in the cheek of many, I'm sure. It's shocking to see how easy it is to get lost in this world.