That's my girl

Last night I was thinking about "West Side Story" for some reason, and remembered 5? 6? years ago when it came out on DVD and I bought Anita a copy for Christmas. We were opening presents, and Katie handed the package to Anita. It was obviously a DVD, and Anita looked surprised and said, "This must be for one of you -- I don't get DVDs".

Without planning, without coordination -- without even looking at each other -- Katie and I burst into song: "Oh no, Anita, no, Anita, no -- it's for you, not for me; that is your DVD" (to the tune of "A Boy Like That").

That's the Katie I want to remember.

For the benighted among you who don't get the reference, here's the original scene on YouTube. The part we were mangling starts about 1:36 into it.

The boys are back

A month or so ago, we were driving down Rounding Run and a passel o' kids were out playing street hockey, with a couple of dads. We stopped and asked if they needed another net, and they said "Sure!"

So one of the kids followed us (on his rollerblades) to the house and took away Kt's net, as well as a stick. A few days later, the group showed up on our court (which is a better place to play anyway -- less traffic!), and I gave them the rest of her stick collection, including the Koho I brought from Canada in 1986.

They've been showing up every few days, and again today, and it's good to hear the cries of joy and exuberance. Kt would have been thrilled to see them out there, as are we.

Made the day a bit better, although they're gone now, and I'm sinking into the late-afternoon funk that always seems to hit me about this time. I guess it's that during the day, it's easy to pretend that Kt's at school; but about now she should be slamming through the door, or texting to say that she's doing something with friends and will see us later.

Instead I'm sitting here trying to ignore the tightness in my chest and get some work done. Without much success.


I have been working a lot on documentation the last few days, which gave me a chance to listen to a number of covers of one of my favorite songs, Talking Heads' This Must Be the Place (you can hear the original here). There are a ton of covers here on YouTube, ranging from the unlistenable to the amazing. The Numa Numa Dance guy and Justin Bieber notwithstanding, YouTube is pretty darned cool.

Another non-blizzard

We've had two non-blizzards in a row: major snowstorms that missed the DC area. Both times we got under an inch -- not even enough to close the schools. Kt would have been irritated (at least pre-college).

Just before waking up this morning, I dreamed that I woke up, and as I was about to leave our bedroom, Anita rolled over and said, "Where's Katie? She's taking a long time". And I just stood there, gutted again, with absolutely no idea what to say or how to react. Then, mercifully, I woke up.

And day before yesterday I made the mistake of dropping some canned goods, hotel soaps, etc. off at a nearby church, for their food bank. Why was that a mistake? Because they have a preschool. It was bad enough seeing a rack of kids' books and hearing them in the classroom; as I was leaving after bringing in the last box, the class went somewhere, and 20 or so little faces all peered at me, probably wondering why this old guy looked like he was about to burst into tears.

Katie was such a happy child, and so interested in everything. My father once commented to me that he'd never really thought about enjoying talking to his kids, and was quite pleased to realize that this happened. We always enjoyed talking with Katie, because she was interested and interesting and made connections we'd never seen before, and damnit, just plain interested (there's that word again, I realize) in the world.

When I was a boy, I was determined that I would understand everything when I grew up. Of course I eventually realized that was unrealistic, but I never thought I'd wind up understanding so little.

Saga link of the day: Believe

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain

Someone commented that I "seemed to be doing remarkably well". This wasn't a strictly positive comment: it clearly had a note of "...and that seems wrong".

What they were referring to was that in social situations, I often seem pretty OK. Part of it is that I crave the everyday interaction with other people. I suspect this is a function of working from home, where I'm relatively isolated from other people's day-to-day lives (I have my love Anita, of course, but that's our life, and I already know what's going on there).

But the biggest reality is that it's all an illusion. I wrote before about someone saying, "I don't know how I'm supposed to act", and that's still true. I do know how to act -- in all of the varied senses of the word -- around other people, in casual situations -- shopping, visiting, or whatever.

And that's actually a comfort to me, because, Goddamnit, I do not know how I'm supposed to act in real life. I can't go around being a sad sack every minute: I mean, I suppose I could, but I'm not going to, it's too hard. I can't just hide, though in a lot of ways I'd like to. But I know how to do small talk, so I do that. Maybe this is weird, I dunno, but it's where I'm at now.

Saga link of the day: "If I Were You"

Happy Boxing Day (?)

Growing up in Canada, the day after Christmas is Boxing Day (and also in most of the current and former UK). Not a true holiday, but for some reason still sort of a big deal. And a statutory holiday in Ontario, at least when I was young, which meant "real" Christmas -- everyone off and visiting, etc. -- spanned two full days.

The folk etymology for the name has something to do with actual fighting, but that's clearly bogus. As kids, we thought it was called Boxing Day because it was the day we dragged all the boxes from Christmas out to the trash. Turns out it's much older: I of course looked on The Interwebs, and The Google says that money was collected for the poor during the holiday season, in alms-boxes placed in churches, and this money was distributed during to the poor and needy on the day after Christmas. Somehow those alms-boxes became "Boxing Day" (sounds more like it should be Un-Boxing Day!).

Thus endeth the lesson.

We spent the last 48 hours lying low, not wanting to ruin anyone else's holiday by being depressive. Watched a bunch of movies, but even that's hard -- way too many trenchant references, from the daughter heading off to college in "The Kids Are All Right" to, well, almost every part of "Mother and Child". Heck, even the last bit of "Forrest Gump" (on cable) was rough, with him meeting young Forrest. "Salt" was good escapism, at least.

Today it's back to work, such as it is -- this will be a very quiet week, with most folks off. This is good. We hope to see some friends as we can stand to, and to otherwise just keep on keepin' on.

We have been blessed beyond all logic with friends, and I will write more about that when I can figure out how to begin to do the topic justice.

Friends

Although we of course aren't feeling very merry this Christmas, I do realize that it's the holiday season and that most people are spending time with their families. And I'm kind of proud of myself for managing NOT to respond inappropriately to any of the many cashiers and the like who have wished me a "Happy Holidays". "Not so much" or just "No" were tempting, but clearly not appropriate.

Anyway, the season does make me think about what wonderful friends we have -- far more than we ever really knew. And many of them are because of Katie. We're lucky to have them, and -- despite our current pain -- we were lucky to have had her.

I keep having conversations with her in my head, whether about stupid stuff (bad puns, articles she would have wanted to read, news stories she would have wanted to hear...) as well as more substantive topics. Yesterday I was wondering how I would have answered her if she'd asked, "What do you, as a parent, expect from me in my life?"

The wildly insufficient answer I came up with was along the lines of, "Of course I want you to be rich and famous and do great things to help make the world a better place and have a fulfilling family life with lots of grandchildren. But what I really want most is for you to be happy at whatever you do. Whether that includes any of those other things doesn't matter: if you're happy living in poverty as a hermit, that's fine. I just want you to enjoy your life."

I hope she knew that this was how we felt.

And in another, happier dimension (and forever in my heart):

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan...

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.

So begins Coleridge's poem Kubla Khan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kubla_Khan). Whenever I read the name "Kübler-Ross", as in the "Kübler-Ross model" (better known as "the five stages of grief", http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%BCbler-Ross_model), the lines above come to mind.

The five stages:

1. Denial
2. Anger
3. Bargaining
4. Depression
5. Acceptance

This all sounds very neat and tidy, but of course it isn't really. As the Wikipedia page above notes, the five stages aren't all necessarily encountered, nor are they linear.

I think I'm past #1, although there are daily occurrences of "I'll have to tell Katie...crap." I remember when my dad died in 2006 that these went on for quite a while, and eventually receded to "My dad would have liked...". Not sure that will ever happen this time, although I guess it would be healthy if it eventually did.

I'm avoiding #2, as I believe it's counterproductive, plus I know myself well enough to realize that it's going to cause me other problems. In the usual day-to-day encounters with idiots (like the guy who parked his minivan 3 inches from my door, so I had to climb across the other seat -- thanks, buddy!), I'm making a conscious effort to ignore the irritation, lest I go postal. Not that I don't have moments where I could punch a hole through the drywall, but, again, that won't be counterproductive (and typing one-handed will really suck).

#3 makes no sense for me: nothing to bargain with.

#4 is, of course, the big danger. I'm sure I'm depressed -- I'd be worried if I weren't -- but not in a bad way (if that makes any sense at all). It's manifesting mainly physically: poor sleep, feeling lethargic, just finding my give-a-damn quotient is generally low. I feel closer to Anita and to our many friends than ever, and I know that's a good thing. Focusing on tasks -- exciting things like emptying the dishwasher (though that also often brings to mind the epic battles getting Kt to do this small chore), or researching replacement CFL light bulbs on the web to find the best price -- is a distraction, during which the pain recedes. Work helps here for me, since it can be quite consuming.

#5 -- well, there's an element of acceptance in simply going on through day-to-day living, now isn't there? If "acceptance" means "forgetting it happened" and not thinking about my beautiful, smart, wonderful girl every day, then I don't think I'll get there; and to be quite frank, I'm not sure I want to. Maybe acceptance means just not feeling depressed a good percentage of the time: being distracted by every day life to the point that November 10th, 2010 isn't in my forebrain most of the time. I dunno.

And I guess that's what it all comes down to: I dunno. One thing is for certain: this ain't no Xanadu.