Nick, Carolyn, Eve, Sky (June 2004)
Friday, March 22, 2019
A fleeting shot of happiness
For just a moment, it was you at Ocean Beach. Laughing, throwing a tennis ball for your dog, holding hands with your girl friend as you walked by. I burst into tears, seeing the life I wish you could have had. I miss you every day.
Monday, August 26, 2013
6 years and not forgotten
Shine brighter than a shooting star tonight bro.
http://youtu.be/S_Fthwnp1W0
- Han
Sunday, August 26, 2012
Saturday, July 21, 2012
Miss you
I had a dream about you last night. The details are fuzzy. But I do remember you being missed by many. I miss you, too.
xoxo
xoxo
Friday, August 26, 2011
Monday, October 18, 2010
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
As you doubtless discovered, I'm an inveterate clipper-and-mailer of media tidbits... newspaper articles, oddball statistics, book passages, snapshots, adverts, found objects... anything that interjects itself into my life to remind me of someone. For all that I've always found the impulse vaguely embarrassing, a pursuit better left to helicopter moms and well-intentioned grandparents, it's never been enough to deter me. Nowadays it's made worse by all this new-media nonsense -- amidst the online flood of information, it's just so easy to fling things across the virtual divide via Facebook, or Twitter, or what have you.
Except when I want to send something to you. That's not so easy. Where do I direct the links, the photos, all that wry commentary that isn't half as clever as I think it is? I'll find myself reading something, thinking of you, and copying the URL, with no idea where to paste it. It's not like I forget you're dead; even when I want to, I can never lose touch with that. It's just that I can't seem to forego the ritual: encounter something, mark it, and send it your way. It's an orphaned impulse, a dropped connection, and I don't know how to resolve it.
And today, in a whole other conundrum, I find myself lost about how to mark your birthday.
So I guess I'll solve both problems at once (though imperfectly), and address something to you here. A sort of unsendable birthday card, on an uncelebratable birthday.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/01/magazine/01fob-consumed-t.html?_r=1&ref=magazine
I saw this awhile ago. It made me think of that high-heeled woman on her cell phone, leaning against her stalled/steaming Hummer in the central valley-- and of course you joining in the long, gleeful parade of middle fingers extended out hundreds of open car windows, part of that slow line of mudspattered Tahoe refugees inching back to the Bay, airing your collective opinion of that lady and her classy manicure and her broken-down monstrosity of a vehicle.
It made me think of your countless small acts of provocation against unattended SUVs. It made me think of you, teetering between satisfaction and sheepishness as you recounted a carpark confrontation with some especially vapid Hummer driver. (Had she stumbled across you leaving a note? Writing in her dirty windshield? I can't remember...) As I recall, she first seemed naively bewildered at your hostility towards her "car", then increasingly apologetic as you explained your environmental reasoning. It hardly seemed possible, but she'd simply never thought about her gas consumption before, or any of the other multidude of sins against the environment, vehicle safety, or simple taste that she was committing.
It was you at your best: puckish, idealistic, earnest. You felt like it was a successful encounter -- ground-level activism gone right.
I would've liked to know what you thought of the article. Would you find it funny? Or would you be irritated to find Hummer-driving assholery elevated to anything so heroic as "brand-mediated moral conflict"? I wish I could find out. I wish you could be around to tell me.
Happy birthday, I guess.
Except when I want to send something to you. That's not so easy. Where do I direct the links, the photos, all that wry commentary that isn't half as clever as I think it is? I'll find myself reading something, thinking of you, and copying the URL, with no idea where to paste it. It's not like I forget you're dead; even when I want to, I can never lose touch with that. It's just that I can't seem to forego the ritual: encounter something, mark it, and send it your way. It's an orphaned impulse, a dropped connection, and I don't know how to resolve it.
And today, in a whole other conundrum, I find myself lost about how to mark your birthday.
So I guess I'll solve both problems at once (though imperfectly), and address something to you here. A sort of unsendable birthday card, on an uncelebratable birthday.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/01/magazine/01fob-consumed-t.html?_r=1&ref=magazine
I saw this awhile ago. It made me think of that high-heeled woman on her cell phone, leaning against her stalled/steaming Hummer in the central valley-- and of course you joining in the long, gleeful parade of middle fingers extended out hundreds of open car windows, part of that slow line of mudspattered Tahoe refugees inching back to the Bay, airing your collective opinion of that lady and her classy manicure and her broken-down monstrosity of a vehicle.
It made me think of your countless small acts of provocation against unattended SUVs. It made me think of you, teetering between satisfaction and sheepishness as you recounted a carpark confrontation with some especially vapid Hummer driver. (Had she stumbled across you leaving a note? Writing in her dirty windshield? I can't remember...) As I recall, she first seemed naively bewildered at your hostility towards her "car", then increasingly apologetic as you explained your environmental reasoning. It hardly seemed possible, but she'd simply never thought about her gas consumption before, or any of the other multidude of sins against the environment, vehicle safety, or simple taste that she was committing.
It was you at your best: puckish, idealistic, earnest. You felt like it was a successful encounter -- ground-level activism gone right.
I would've liked to know what you thought of the article. Would you find it funny? Or would you be irritated to find Hummer-driving assholery elevated to anything so heroic as "brand-mediated moral conflict"? I wish I could find out. I wish you could be around to tell me.
Happy birthday, I guess.
Monday, September 21, 2009
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Heartbeat
Yo Punko.
Sometimes I think I can move past you being gone, but it's just not possible. I wanted to be with Eve and Coggy for their dinner at Greens, it looks like they had a great time.
August 25th is also the day D moved in with us. He gets the red "You are special today" plate at dinner, and we toast him and talk about how happy we are. Last night was adorbale, and we toasted eachother, clinking a glass of milk, an almost empty glass of milk, and a Shiner Bock. We ate our dinner and felt happy.
Minutes later I was exhausted and I wasn't sure why. I laid down on the couch and almost immediately went to sleep. As I drifted off I could hear voices as Shannon put D to bed, reading him Dr. Suess or whatever.
Then I woke up with a racing pounding in my chest. my heart was pumping hard and fast. It felt like a panic attack, but I didn;t feel panicky...just worried about my pulse. I scrounged around for a heartrate/blood pressure cuff I bought (thanks again for the genes, Dad) and slipped it on. 115 over 65. Normal.
It wasn't until Shannon mentioned, almost in passing, that perhaps I was feeling stressed about not being at Greens with the sisters that my ticker started to even out. I realized that in some deep place I was horribly missing you, that August 25th will never be the same, and will forever be a jumbled mix of the worst day of my life and one of the best.
I used your tools this weekend to make a playset for the kids. They make me think of you. Maybe tonight I'll bolt more shit on the thing.
N
Miss you, love you.
Sometimes I think I can move past you being gone, but it's just not possible. I wanted to be with Eve and Coggy for their dinner at Greens, it looks like they had a great time.
August 25th is also the day D moved in with us. He gets the red "You are special today" plate at dinner, and we toast him and talk about how happy we are. Last night was adorbale, and we toasted eachother, clinking a glass of milk, an almost empty glass of milk, and a Shiner Bock. We ate our dinner and felt happy.
Minutes later I was exhausted and I wasn't sure why. I laid down on the couch and almost immediately went to sleep. As I drifted off I could hear voices as Shannon put D to bed, reading him Dr. Suess or whatever.
Then I woke up with a racing pounding in my chest. my heart was pumping hard and fast. It felt like a panic attack, but I didn;t feel panicky...just worried about my pulse. I scrounged around for a heartrate/blood pressure cuff I bought (thanks again for the genes, Dad) and slipped it on. 115 over 65. Normal.
It wasn't until Shannon mentioned, almost in passing, that perhaps I was feeling stressed about not being at Greens with the sisters that my ticker started to even out. I realized that in some deep place I was horribly missing you, that August 25th will never be the same, and will forever be a jumbled mix of the worst day of my life and one of the best.
I used your tools this weekend to make a playset for the kids. They make me think of you. Maybe tonight I'll bolt more shit on the thing.
N
Miss you, love you.
South America For You
Hey Sky,
It is two years later and my heart still hurts like hell. Every year for the past two years, I drank too much in your honor on this date. This year, I decided to be proactive and snowboard for you. I am in Chile snowboarding right now. I wish you were here, you would have loved it. I still miss you and I will drink one too many gin and tonics today. However, this year it will be different. Instead of drinking by myself, I will drink with a couple random Chileans and tell them in Spanish how great you are.
Next stop: Africa
- Han
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Can't sleep
What was it like for you, this night, 2 years ago? What horrors, what waking nightmares? Oh, Sky.
Tonight Coggy and I had dinner at Greens, chosen in your honor. Dinner rocked. You would have loved it, all veggie stuff of course. We laughed our way all through dinner. Then when we got our credit cards out to pay, we both also brought out the pictures of you that we each keep in our wallets, all the time. Coggy's is an adorable school pic of you, not this one but I can't find that one, which is a few years younger.
Mine is your crazy high school ID card with the "Follow Me to Hooters" sign. You fucking nut.
I don't even know how to feel the depth and breadth of this loss. I'm still just blindly feeling my way around the edges of this thing.
Jesus, I miss you, bro. We all do. I guess I don't have the right words to even say it right.
No way am I getting to sleep any time soon tonight.
I love you, baby. I'm sorry. Hope you're having safe travels, happy trails, peace.
xo,Eve
Tonight Coggy and I had dinner at Greens, chosen in your honor. Dinner rocked. You would have loved it, all veggie stuff of course. We laughed our way all through dinner. Then when we got our credit cards out to pay, we both also brought out the pictures of you that we each keep in our wallets, all the time. Coggy's is an adorable school pic of you, not this one but I can't find that one, which is a few years younger.
Mine is your crazy high school ID card with the "Follow Me to Hooters" sign. You fucking nut.
I don't even know how to feel the depth and breadth of this loss. I'm still just blindly feeling my way around the edges of this thing.
Jesus, I miss you, bro. We all do. I guess I don't have the right words to even say it right.
No way am I getting to sleep any time soon tonight.
I love you, baby. I'm sorry. Hope you're having safe travels, happy trails, peace.
xo,Eve
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