Drinks with A

I managed to keep our location to myself. Why I wanted to be at the bar where Sh had her birthday party maybe two years ago, maybe more, is beyond my current understanding. But I really wanted to be there and it felt right when we sat down, though I didn’t dare walk into the 2nd room, where she sat by the window and I talked to our poet friend who had just begun graduate school.

We ran into the man who’s djing A’s wedding. We talked to him for a while and I asked him about music producing, which he also did. He explained to me why djs were purists – a logical reason: “You got a $10,000 sound system and a 10 cent mp3 is gonna sound like shit.” For once there was nothing but simple and platonic love between the A and me. He likes being engaged. He recommends it for stabilizing a relationship. Call me nutty for wanting the stability before the engagement.  Still, you’ve just said the word “forever” with a couple thousand dollars worth of jewelry, so I guess it’s oddly logical. The idea of platonic meaning post-sexual always seemed strange to me but it’s becoming such a truth in my life.

Sh made her presence known in strange ways. I found myself talking about things I still closely associate with her from djs to computer science to the chapel where her memorial service was held, where I sat among economics professors, Zoroastrians, and young women in dark summer dresses, tears of sweat and anguish seeping out our pores and eyes. I can’t believe that I’ll have to enter that building again under such opposing circumstances. This will be the second time in as many years that I’ll have to celebrate nuptials where I have mourned. Shouldn’t there be a rule against that? Sort of like no shitting where you eat?

Remember This

I’m working on a song and thinking about Sh. I haven’t thought about her in months. Her death was one of the reasons I stopped writing here. Everything felt so horrible and I had nothing to say. I don’t know what brought her into my mind this morning but now she’s everywhere. She’s inside the lyrics I’m writing. She’s shading the song and reminding me of the limited time I have to get it (and anything) done. She’s telling me which of the details matter, and which to let go. Her perfectly beautiful smile and impish humor are teasing me – daring me to write instead of tear up.

Did I have a dream about her last night that I can’t remember? Could it really be that I only tried to look up the bar where she had her birthday because it was in a central location? Did it have nothing to do with her the several times I walked by and thought about going in? Can it be that I can’t find that bar now despite knowing where it is on foot?

I made coffee to focus my brain and dry myself out.

“Cats are dangerous companions for writers because cat-watching is a near perfect method of writing avoidance.”

The above quote is from Dan Greenburg. I’m going to be honest and admit that I googled “cat quotes” to see what would happen. I didn’t know who Dan Greenburg was – turns out he’s responsible for, among other things, the “Zack Files.” He appears to be without a cat, if his adage is at all true because he’s rather prolific.

The reason I googled cat quotes is that I have two cats visiting my house today. They arrived last evening after our dinner with friends and they’re still decidedly uncomfortable. I like cats. But when I think of them, I do think of their disinterest in the people around them. Now I watch them in this new environment, looking so lost, trying so hard to get into our closets and hide from the world, and I realize that even if they were not so very attached to the people in their environment, they were very attached to their environment. Here, despite all the oh-so-soft blankets on cushy chairs that have been proffered, they walk around looking confused, lying on the hard wood floor, looking disappointed in a supreme lack of carpeting.

They stay for a week. Hopefully, as the days pass, they will begin to look less mournful and confused, they will stop smelling my closed closet door (I really don’t believe in cats sleeping in my shoes), they will take to one of the chairs to such a degree that we can’t sit in it anymore because we’d be covered in fur. I do feel the lack of rugs here suddenly and I wonder how homey my home can really be without these little feet pattering around.