transmothra - signs of the collapse

Originally published at jeremyjarratt.com. You can comment here or there.

omfg where do i start?

today sucked.

preface: we are so poor. that is all about that. we are poor, and it sucks balls. Holly works so hard, and for what? what the hell do i do to make the world any better? not a god damned thing. especially not her world.

on to the viewing…

my old friend is dead. younger than me, dead and gone. i remember yesterday when we were all young and crazy with life and the ecstasy of the world being at our fingertips.

i got there, alone. i killed time rolling a smoke and killing it. i rolled a couple more and walked up. almost immediately some cat comes up for a light. he’s a friend of Jason’s. there is some small talk, then he reveals that there are internal social problems & factioning, a division going on. he calls it childish; “bizarre,” i reply.

after chatting with another of his more recent friends, i mustered up just barely enough guts to go inside. what awaited was hell.

so i go inside and i don’t see anyone i know. except for Susan and Mike, who passed by on their way in. i couldn’t tell if they were ignoring me or if they didn’t recognize me. that was sort of a theme of the evening. they have every reason to ignore me. when i was younger and stupider, i did stupid things and said foolish things to Susan, who i loved then, about Mike, who was actually a terrific guy, really. so there’s that.

i’m in line for about a half an hour, behind a small group of people who obviously bothered to keep up with him in his last years. suddenly i realize that the older gentleman standing idly by is Jason’s dad.

omg. it’s his dad, i thought. omg. is it better that he does or doesn’t recognize me?

see, we used to be really crazy teenagers. really crazy, just completely off the chain and full of joy and insanity. we used to bounce off the walls with energy. we also used to do some questionable stuff. nothing terrible, just not real virtuous behavior. all in good fun, we figured at the time. and it was.

but we got suspended from school once, toward the very ass-end of my senior year, which would have been Jason’s sophomore year, for showing up drunk at a school dance, with liquor and beer in my car to boot. crap. i got him in trouble. i hope they don’t remember that.

he looks at me and we chat, and he doesn’t seem to really remember me well. that’s kind of a big relief.

then the question i was dreading.

no, i said, even though i only live a half hour away, i didn’t really bother to go and see him, as he’s dying, because i just didn’t. because i don’t fucking know, right? i didn’t say it like that, but i certainly meant it like that.

i tried several times to gather a posse together. too many years had passed. i needed a buffer to fill up the empty space of time that had grown like kudzu between us. he and i talked on the phone a few years ago, and the net result of the conversation was, i felt at the time, that he was grown up and doing his thing, and though we were greatly cordial, there was a fairly vast chasm that had come up there in the middle. we weren’t those kids anymore. he didn’t need me in his life. we of course said “we should get together sometime,” and “give me a call anytime,” and neither of us really meant it. though i would have secretly loved to. but you know how it goes. it’s happened to everyone. two old friends, grown apart after too much time.

i loved him, though, and i never stopped loving him. it had just become awkward. that’s why i wanted help, someone to go with me to see him.

so i answered that question. no, i didn’t go to see your dying son in his last couple of years in life. fuck! i wanted to. desperately. i was too scared of that god damned void that had opened up its gaping maw between us to suck our friendship in. i pussied out.

finally, i see him up close.

no mortician on earth really ever makes a dead body look natural. not to me anyway. it’s always a horrific shock to see something that resembles someone you used to know very well lying before you like some kind of expired doppelganger. it was just too unreal. i knew it was him, he just didn’t look… real. that always happens.

the shock, the numbness of it all was overwhelming.

i go outside, roll a couple more smokes, pretend like i’m talking on my phone. anything to keep the questions at bay. thankfully, Travis shows up with his mom. i keep quiet and let them do all the talking. conversations get better that way.

Fred texts me that he can’t show up because he supposedly doesn’t have enough gas. me and Jason were pretty tight back in the day, but Fred and Jason were like peanut butter and jelly. completely inseperable. i am disappointed.

Kevin Holsinger shows up in a little while. the other day i practically cried at the thought of seeing that kooky lil’ kid again. we were never all that close, but i always liked him. you couldn’t not. and we always had terrific laughs together. he doesn’t seem to know who i am, and since it doesn’t really matter anyway, i let the matter be as it is.

later on, Travis and his mom and Kevin and his whole family go out to eat. i didn’t go, it was just too awkward for me. i had a bad day. plus, i needed to pick Holly up from a business meeting. it turned out she got a ride, a fact i knew at right about the same instant as everyone was driving away. not that it would have made a difference.

there was not one single moment of the day that i had any business being a part of. but i owe like hell.

it’s hard when it really sinks in how much you never really mattered in the end, when someone you loved so much and had so much fun with is dead and gone so many years after you last saw them.

Originally published at jeremyjarratt.com. You can comment here or there.

Jason Stafford and his sister Danielle

Yesterday morning at about 7:45 in the a.m., the world lost one of its most gifted and talented minds. My old high school pal Jason Stafford died from ALS after a 2 1/2 year fight that brought his body to its knees.

I met Jason either through mutual friends or through the band program at our old alma mater, Tecumseh High School. Over the years, we became very tight, and performed a number of questionable but downright hilarious acts together. We used to drive fast down country roads and goof off after school. Notoriously, we got childishly drunk and attended a school dance, where we were all caught and suspended. For me, it was my first real taste of alcohol, and became a stupid end to an already faltering career as a high school student.

Jason earned the nickname “Froot Loop” for his unusually wacky sense of humor. You always knew he was around by his loud but always jolly laughter. I don’t think i have any memories of him where he’s not laughing the whole way through. Some of my memories of those times have degraded over the years, leaving just that sacred sound echoing through the fog. If somewhere in the world, something goofy was happening, you could have bet your very life that Jason was involved.

I also credit Jason with turning me on to Drakkar Noir, which was the scent of the day for bemulletted, Camaro-driving guys across the American heartland, and which was virtually guaranteed to get a teenager laid, which it did not in our cases. Or maybe just mine.

Jason played guitar. He had a beautiful gray Les Paul and an Ovation acoustic. He was so humble. He always downplayed his abilities, but he was an extremely capable musician. He also played trumpet. Along with Bill Davenport, we formed an ad hoc band at band camp my senior year called Homicidal Cat, for the sole purpose of playing “Helter Skelter” and freaking out the grownups. We were lousy, but not because of poor musicianship on anyone’s part. In hindsight, we should have had a drummer.

He and i both always ran around with the bad crowd, and by bad crowd, i mean drummers and saxaphone players. People who, instead of rocking out to Phantom of the Opera, were rocking out to Metallica, the Pink Floyd, and AC/DC.

We were in marching band together. That’s probably all i should say about that. Whenever you hear the phrase “this one time, in band camp,” you should bear in mind that high school students who are shipped far away from parental guidance make a habit out of having an absolutely improper amount of fun, and much of it highly questionable.

I can say with impunity, knowing whatever statute of limitations may have been applied has long gathered dust by now, that he was absolutely instrumental, no pun intended, in the creation and probably the transportation of the World’s Largest Spitball (unconfirmed), which had to be transported via industrial-sized trashcan lid, over to the girls building, where it was promptly dropped by the two or three giggling chicken-shits it took to do so, of whom i was among their number. He also assisted in the removal of an extension cord which was inconveniently supplying a camping site worker with electricity which would have otherwise caused him to wake up on time, and with a weather forecast that would have permitted our band director to make plans for us that day.

I only have a single memory of him where we didn’t get along for a few minutes. After school one day, he jumped into my blue 1977 Chevy Nova, started it, and proceeded to repeatedly test out the transmission by shifting it back and forth, back and forth, from Drive to Reverse, with myself on top, pounding vigorously on the hood and demanding angrily that he let go of my precious toy. Within about ten minutes (probably less), he was hugging me and calling me a teddy bear.

I’ve never in all my life, either before or since, met a more good-hearted or sweet-natured guy, and i probably never will again. And whatever happened between high school and now, i will forever be saddened that i wasn’t right there with him, because if there was ever a guy who you could count on to cheer you up no matter what the circumstances were, it was Jason Stafford.

ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease, is a degenerative nervous system disorder that is always fatal. Treatments are available but there is no cure. Famous sufferers include Stephen Hawking, who has had it since 1963, and guitarist/composer Jason Becker. It is terrible, but with advances in stem cell technology, there may yet be hope for the future.

Originally published at jeremyjarratt.com. You can comment here or there.

1. Our mice have become entirely intolerable. Sometime during the night last night, one (or more) of them have somehow managed to Indiana Jones its way onto the kitchen counter, and ate a big chunk of our bread. Seriously, wtf? This, likely, because we are now even hiding our dog’s food lately, which i’m sure is not a popular decision with our dear little Speck. I have renewed my war with the rodents with vigor and prejudice. Our landlord must rectify this. Conditions are approaching unlivable. Failure: landlord.
2. Oops, somehow missed a credit card bill. I’m not perfect, but i don’t know how i forgot that one. Failure: mine.
3. Vectren, our fuel provider, informed us that our incredible $700+ bill was, in fact, incorrect. Due to - ahem - underestimations, it should actually have been more than twice that. Yes - read that again. We owe $1500+ for gas used over the past year, because of underestimations. I should have been suspicious that our water was, in fact, hotter than the surface temperature on Venus, and yet our bill was never unbelievably high. In fact, they had sent out notices a few times over the past several months, requesting an inside read off of the meter, but i, being an online bill-payer, assumed they were paper bills and simply ignored them. Thankfully, we have a year to pay it off in full. Failure: mine, with a little help from Vectren (hey, they had my voice number & e-mail).
4. Holly’s friend from work called us “idiots.” Holly, apparently for putting up with me; and me for not going out and getting a gas station job months ago (believe me, i’ve been searching, but maybe i set my sites a little too high for this crummy town). Failure: my own. Though her friend’s callousness was a little over-the-top.
5. Holly’s student loans have come due six months earlier than expected. Failure: apparently the lender, as she was quite clear that they would be due six months after graduation. It’s of course possible there was some nefarious fine print hidden away somewhere in obscure legalese.
6. Holly is so very exhausted and just completely strung out from all these awful stresses, which of course now also include her newly-diagnosed diabetic neuropathy (her latest round of medical testing is costing around $1200). Failure: again, mine.

Final tally? Don’t even tell me, i already know.

So you can see how i might be feeling a little crappy about myself, and about life in general lately. Things have hit critical mass, so to speak.

Oh, i didn’t mention a few ongoing issues, like the killer mold that is growing in our bedroom, from water leaking in through the windowsill. Those things weren’t specific to today.

On the positive side, i did have [what i think was] a good phone interview for a corporation i’d actually love to work for. I’m really hoping for the best, but you never know in this town. Just in case, though, i’ve also applied for a couple of menial positions. We shall see how things unfold soon enough.

Originally published at jeremyjarratt.com. You can comment here or there.

When i am dead, i wish to be burned to a crisp, and have my dirty ashes scattered by close friends wherever they please.

It is my wish that whatever organs are desperately, vitally needed by someone else in their direst hour be given to them, free of charge, with the condition that such license to use and/or modify shall be taken up by them also, and that no derivative works shall result in profit. After all, i am an open source, Creative Commons person.

My stuff shall be dispersed however my few close friends see fit, with the understanding that of course my dear love Holly should have pretty well everything to start with, shared mainly with anything my dad & uncle  might want (so you better ask them all real nice if you want my Cure CDs). However, Tony D. is not to have anything until he sobers the hell up. There’s no point in giving anything to a man who’s only going to exchange it for crappy booze or some other escapist bullshit. On the other hand, his wonderful daughter Abby is welcome to just about anything she chooses.

I want my unfinished work to be wrapped up somehow. I don’t care how, so long as i become extremely famous and fabulously wealthy after death. Just don’t screw it up like you do everything else. This is Important Shit.

A grave marker will be permitted if anyone wants to bury my ashes, as long as the epitaph is funny as hell. My suggestions:

• “I probably shouldn’t have done that.”
• “Whew! Good thing that’s over.”
• “Oops!”
• “Not here, and not there either.”
• “Thankfully gone, decidedly forgotten.”

If you have something better, go for it.

No serious religion shall stake a claim on any part of my death, including but not limited to any services performed to mark my exit. No rites or stupid ceremonies are to be performed, with the lone exception being that my homies will be permitted to spill some on the curb for me. No spiritual messages are to be given, and no priest of any faith shall officiate. It is to be wholly remembered that i was a devout agnostic, who leaned heavily toward atheism. Anyone caught claiming that i somehow had a soul that lived on after death shall be haunted by my fictitious ghost forever, or until they come to the conclusion that i am not haunting them at all, whichever comes first. I lived through enough horse shit; i don’t need to deal with more of it once i am dead and gone forever. My passing should be viewed as permanent. There is to be no prayer of any kind, except in jest. Silent meditation is permitted, but please: no god shit, and no afterlife crap.

Two religions which are permitted practices and/or short rites are the Church of the SubGenius and the P.O.E.E. (disciples of Eris, goddess of confusion - i think), and they should mock the whole goddamn thing, if they even bother to show up. I also do not mind Buddhism all that much.

No flowers, please. Take your money and donate it to a non-religious charity that does work with AIDS patients or research, breast cancer (again, patients or research), homelessness, runaways, asthma, the environment, civil and/or human rights, putting an end to consumerism, humanitarian efforts, nuclear disarmament, or anything related to promoting atheism or agnosticism or the like.

On the other hand, any services performed to mark my escape from this terrible veil of lies should have a darkly humorous bent, and anyone eulogizing me must include at least one tasteless joke at my expense, or (more preferably) the expense of others. Weirdness should be encouraged at any cost. Attempts should be made at gallows humor. Thou shalt have joy, and laughter, damn it. Death is nothing serious. Be wholly glad i am gone!