Broken Toolbox Drawer.

 I don't sleep well. I wake up and lay in bed for hours, mainly worrying about my kids and about politics and often bout small meaningless things that during daylight hours I would laugh at their insignificance. In additive, I get less sleep than I should. It makes for  groggy days with poor decision making skills. Today, I took an hour long nap at 10:00AM. This also creates a fertile environment for depression, and anxiety. i was getting something out of my toolbox drawer this morning, and the drawer jammed, it would not close. They are narrow drawers and the lower drawer's  contents (chisels in this case) can shift and stop the upper from being pushed in.  In my sleep deprived state, I could not figure the problem out and while if  I thought about it, there were several things I should have done to attempt to clear the blockage. I didn't.  In a fit of cloudy thinking and negative impulse control, I destroyed it and yanked the stuck drawer out by the roots. A flashlight and a screwdriver would have revealed a chisel handle had popped up and blocked the upper drawer. The toolbox is not an heirloom or that important to me, but my lack of mental problem solving is. I don't know where this will take me but it makes me sad.

The real matter at hand is not a broken tool box drawer, it's much more than that. I am to turn sixty four next week and the overwhelming feeling is that I have missed the target and sailed far out into the stratosphere. As long as I can remember I have felt like I was outside watching the real party take place from the window on the sidewalk. Everything was so close but not for me. I can not go back and slightly correct my trajectory or when or if the shot was taken, I can only watch as the intended target drifts ever farther away. I am not an idiot, I know I have it good, but it is bittersweet to look back with regret.

Another Requiem for a Friend. Good Bye Erick

     I have known Erick Larson for probably thirty years. We worked together at Alpha Cine Lab, a motion picture film processing lab (and dysfunctional family), and again at the also strange and endlessly creative American Production Services (later Victory Studios). While we were never close friends, we always checked in with one another with psychotronic film suggestions and various cinema related discussions. We knew many people in common and Erick was always good for an interesting perspective and a encyclopedic knowledge of film. He and Mike Phelps developed and ran a well known film series, "Shining Moment" that brought the obscure and the wonderful to many screens in the Seattle area. Erick had a wry sense of humor and a very temperate personality. It was easy to talk to Erick Larson, he was good people.

    In one of the hard to understand challenges that the universe seems to throw arbitrarily at its residents,  Erick developed Multiple Sclerosis. Like his rugged Nordic Viking ancestors, Erick doggedly went about his life, determined to continue his life's work. He hung on, living independently in his cool  Belltown apartment, working, and running films for appreciative audiences. One by one, gravity and his body forced him to give up things he loved, one by one.  His girlfriend Dee, who is a kind and old soul, stood by his side throughout, as his life changed. It was unfair and disappointing to watch. When he could, he kept his even Erick temperament, but I am sure it was brutal to experience. Much happened to him in the last few years but, to be concise, eventually it just got difficult. May 8th, 2025  he let go.

    My last few visits with Erick, were in the hospital and at the Kline Galland home. Because I am a superficial person we mostly talked about movies and the old topics we knew from many drop ins to his office at Victory. We watched  "Die Hard 2" on the hospital tv making Bruce Willis jokes. He seemed to be letting go even then, in retrospect, but he still enjoyed even a bad film. The next time I saw him was May 7th, he was at Kline Galland home, where he had lived. He was unresponsive but the TV was on the movie channel, an awful 1965 Jimmy Stewart film, "Letter To Brigitte ". I gave him a running play by play monologue on how bad Jimmy Stewart's hair piece was, and a critical review of Billy Mumy and Brigitte Bardot. Like I said, when faced with mortality, the best I can do is superficial movie jokes. Dee came in the room and he lit up. It's good to know, that when faced with your final passage over the bridge, love is the last thing you know.

    Erick, you really are good people. See you down the road.

Bonfire for a friend

    On March 21st 2011 a self declared Christian Prophet named Harold Camping declared the world would end. Based on his personal bible study and some kind of magical numerology Harold Camping came up with this date, that interestingly coincided with the Jewish holiday of Lag baOmer.  Lag baOmer celebrates the end of a horrible plague that killed many students of Rabbi Akiva and memorializes their loss but also the survival of the living and great teachers, so it's a little sad and a little relief and waking up from a sorrowful time.  Not being Jewish, that is probably a very poor explanation of someone else's holiday- please forgive my reader's digesting of an important commemoration day. Traditionally it is celebrated with bonfires. On March 21, 2011 I had a celebratory bonfire to mark Harold Camping's arithmetic error and our survival. It rained but it was very cathartic.  It really appealed to me to celebrate both survival and the great teachers who have come into our lives. I also like to burn stuff.  Lag baOmer for 2025 was a couple weeks ago on March 15, 2025, so I missed it.

    A couple days ago I found out my college friend, and kind, generous, decent human being, Jerry Weible was in the ICU in Tacoma waiting for a heart transplant.  It is one of those often repeated but very true cliches that people with the biggest hearts are the one who are cursed with this sort of malady. Shocking, because while I knew he had heart issues in the past, he and the equally wonderful Lynn had been at our house a month or so ago and everything seemed great. I gave them one of my favorite paintings (see above photo). Lynn made an incredible coffee cake. All was right in the world. Jerry had been a martial arts instructor, and was in excellent health in his youth, so such betrayal of his physical body is especially unfair. He is, right now, as I write this in surgery- not transplant, but a preliminary surgery that will put in a pump system to get him through until a heart is available. My dad died in heart surgery when I was 10. I don't take such things lightly. 

    I declare a Lag baOmer for my friend Jerry. (I know that that isn't the way it works but...) I am going outside and starting a bonfire, hopefully in celebration of survival, possibly in memorial, but also in recognition of a good friend who is also a kind of teacher, a person I admire and who has helped me be a better person. Unironically Jerry: thoughts and prayers.

    Addendum: Strangely the fire seemed hard to light and harder to keep lit. Usually my fires are pretty much rip snorting  maelstroms, but this was not; smokey and low burning, wet wood and unenthusiastic flames. I don't know if that bodes well or ill or indifferent. I finally put it out at 2:29 PM. At 6:30 PM we heard from Lynn that Jerry had come through pretty well and was doing fine.

Oh yeah..Burning Elf 2024 happened...

    Another fine Burning Elf was had on December 30th,k 2024. Well attended, and our liquor cabinet depleted, many humans wished for and hoped to fully forget many things. The elf bore a slight resemblance to Elon Musk.

The Waking Nightmare of the New Normal

 

   I try very hard to not consume corporate news, or off brand internet news or too much sub-reddit conspiracy drivel, but it's no use: the Tangerine Burlesconi still exists and he is president of the USA and we are heading for the cliff with vacant stares and mouths agape. The idiotic, anachronistic uniquely American two month delay between election and inauguration was like a shot of novacaine to the brain: it couldn't be that bad, could it? It could. It is. It will be. My efete, useless defense to the Trumpanze Term #1 was to make and remake this sign which, was in turn, painted out and then torn down by Trumpinistas. Sadly, the message stays the same. More sadly, it seems that this carnival ride will be more dangerous than the first and the circus may burn to the ground before the clown can exit. 

Scotland with Curmudgeon

 Spent 2 weeks in Scotland, probably the closest thing my people have to an ancestral family homeland. I went with my 73 year old brother Bill, who had not left Washington state in many years and had never been to Europe ever. It was pretty great.  Of course  Trump was nicked in an assassination attempt, Biden dropped out and Kamala Harris-mania began while we were touristing.  It will be well remembered . I did bring home a case of Scottish variant Covid that spread through my house upon my return.

Rolf is Renewed. I am Mortal.

    

Some vandal jackass thought Rolf should have sharpie colored shades. It's fine. It means it is considered an established part of the neighborhood, that needs to be rebelled from.

Lars Fujikawa, in his desperate confinement due to his spiralling ailments had me and my fine sons repair the ROLF NESLUND MEMORIAL in the tiny, almost non existent Pigeon Point Gateway Park. His statue had been stolen for the second time and his plinth cracked and made useless. I made use of the old concrete base of the original post and poured a 200lb base with a 3" concrete infused steel post and built a (very ugly ) masonry column. I did learn not to fill masonry with cement until the masonry has properly set, which any special needs child of 4 could have told me. A new and quite attractive head was cast at the cost of the original mold which finally succumbed to age and over use. In the end Rolf was finished and secure. This is the kind of thing that both invigorates me and also makes me question my motives and life decisions.

As a personal side note, on my 63rd birthday (how did that happen?) I was walking to a neighbor's to pick up the ROLF plaque and I had an "event" where in I almost passed out. Having never fainted in my life, it was fascinating ; everything got dark around the edge of my vision and reduced to a tunnel like matte. I remember thinking, "oh, I am going to sleep now..." and then my legs fell out from under me. I caught myself and never hit the pavement but was on the way.  Atrial Fibrillation? Head rush with too much caffeine? Evil spirits and dark humors? Being a complete idiot I shook it off and finished the plaque project and then went home where a nice telephone nurse and my beloved Laurie got me to go to the emergency room. Not the bad stuff- no heart attack or stroke yet, but  I need to see a cardiologist. It sort of happened (with variations,) again the next day. 

Being old sucks.