Tuesday, March 29, 2005

Rainy April

A couple of days shy of April. That's the month that houses both my birthday and Jody's. This year, I'll be 37. Jody would have been 27 five days later. What was I doing at 27? Still struggling to get established. That was the year I got my first real full-time job, computer animating at Hoffmann. Shit, has it been ten years? Apparently it has. Back then, Jody was just a teenager finishing high school, fretting about things that didn't matter, and spending time with me and DM online.

Jody really got out of the gate faster than I did. He was a really sharp programmer and it didn't take employers long to spot it. He was better off at 26, when he died, than I am now. Almost infinitely further ahead of where I was at 26, scratching at the Animation House, employed this week, laid off the next. What a nightmare. Fucken Waiting for Godot. Still, here I am, all this time later. I'm here, and he's gone. It just doesn't make sense, does it? And that's depressing all by itself. Not that I wanted the pain and suffering he had to endure. But if someone had to go, frankly... It's not self-pity, honest. My life's not bad. It's just an academic anger at the illogic of it.

The weather's finally, finally getting warming. It's been a long winter. Snowy. Never tons of it, really, but it just kept falling. It started early and fell as late as last week! I remember going for a walk without my jacket on St. Patrick's Day two years ago. But I'm looking forward to being able to get outside in sandals and shorts again, that's for sure.

Company's about to shut down AIM. Probably ICQ, too. After all these years, I'll be knocked out of touch with some of my friends during the day. Particularly Jody's dad Jim, and R-Lang. I don't know why they have to do this. It seems gratuitous. The company hasn't been hurt, that I'm aware of, in allowing it all these years.

That wasn't very interesting, was it? :) I'll try to remember to log on and record fun and interesting things. I'm not as good at it as I was last autumn.

Monday, March 07, 2005

The muse

It's nine months today since Jody died. It occurred to me this morning. I keep wondering when the first 7th of a month will pass without that happening. I really hope that never happens. But I guess deep down I suspect that sooner or later, it will. Aside from memory, Jody hasn't been a daily part of my life for a while now. There are things I see I want to show him, ideas and dreams I have I want to tell him about, time of day I just want to pass with him... You know, I was thinking about it on Friday, nine months to the day since he and I last shared a conversation... that there's still this childish part of me that looks back and wonders what else I could have done, what bargain for good behaviour I might have struck with God to preserve Jody's life. I mean, I know that there was nothing anyone alive today could really do. His doctors, the closest thing we have to the power of God on Earth in practical terms, could not with all the king's horses and all the king's men hold back the tide of Jody's cancer. Obviously, there was not a thing I could have done that would have given him five more minutes. The only thing I could do was what I did... be there for him, pray for him, sincerely ache for him as was his due. Give his life meaning by resonating to its vibrations. But there's still the seven-year-old inside me who used to make daily bargains with God so that Dad would come home on time and not go drinking with his buddies. It seemed to work then, so why not for Jody? So what might I have done? Nothing. This argument between a simple, honest, childish yearning and cold, clear, adult reasoning goes on and on inside my mind all the time.

Relatedly, on Saturday morning I went looking for pictures of South Park's Kenny without his hood. It always bothered me that he was kind of mute and faceless, except for that one time in the movie. I happened across a Japanese site that worked the South Park boys up as serious anime characters, and it was pretty striking. I got back that old jealousy and it's kind of inspired me to go back to my art and see what I can develop. Yesterday when I was out with Roc, we went into Curry's, and while we were there looking at all the media, I decided the time had come to try to put together a good, decent drawing of Jody to send to his mom in New Mexico. Jody's 27th birthday (or what would have been) will be April 15th. I want to see if I can do something for her by then, or not long afterward. She's said a few times, I've heard through the grapevine, that she'd welcome a drawing by me. I really should have done something long ago. This is something that needs to be done... for her sake, Jody's, and mine.

Wednesday, March 02, 2005

Hot tramp, I love you so...?

I had a dream last night about David Bowie, believe it or not. He was visiting the city and giving little concerts. This particular one was in some little concert hall, or convocation hall... you know the type. Wooden seats, wooden stage, wooden actors. That kind of thing. I was there with some girl I don't consciously recognize but apparently knew in the dream. She was young, heavyset, and ethnically Asian, as I recall. Kind of bubbly. I liked her. Anyway, the David Bowie who was there was the younger, androgynous Bowie. He was on stage alone, no band, and there were only about 30 people in the audience, but he was still playing up a storm and going down like gangbusters with the crowd. Joking with us, making wry observations, and singing his ass off. At the end of it all, this girl and I hung around talking with him, and he was really friendly. I ended up helping him put his equipment back in his van. Nice dream. Worth the price of admission, I'd say. :)