Death Comes in Three Flavors

I am alone in my apartment in New York listening to a Pandora channel that has lots of Joni and Redbird and Nick Drake…and facing death and time. Fine. This is living. They say death comes in threes. For me, it is coming in three flavors.

Sweet:
My Recognized-by-the-State-of-California-Domestic-Partner’s-father died. Though it is sad, and it is sad, it is also sweet since my feelings for Bob, my future-father-in-law-if-they-ever-allow-him-to-be-called-that, which of course will be in the past, are sweet feelings. Bob was dry and funny and a scientist, three things I enjoy, the remove. That easy, inquisitive remove. In the later years he suffered from Lewy Bodies Dementia, not a fun thing, so it is also with a certain sweetness that I feel relieved for Bob since, you know, who the hell wants to barely walk around barely not knowing what the hell is going on? Especially if one likes to inspect and inquire—

Bob was a Dupont physicist by way of Yale, having spent a portion of his career working on the spectrum properties and applications of the color yellow. Truly. This happens in research careers. He was a true Quaker pacifist, a bike rider, a sailor and above all in my life, a warm and wry presence who naturally made me smile. I liked to make him laugh and he liked to laugh, something about busting through his propriety into his inner whoopee cushion was very satisfying. I wanted to take him to Greece but he got too ill for that. We once took him to the Queen Mary in the Long Beach Harbor. I’ve traveled with him to national parks, to Kauai, throughout California and a bit in the East. Old fashioned in manner and modern in thought, Bob was a great combo. He always brought out feelings of tenderness in me. Always. I will miss him. I feel sad, but I feel sweet about it. Time is passing.

Confusing:
Osama is dead, long live Obama. I feel good that the job is done and that this bad dude is gone. But I do not feel anything close to closure, prideful or victorious. Okay, I do feel victorious---only because “my guy” got the job done in a smart way as opposed to “that other guy” who swaggered around in battle fatigues, succumbing to shoulder shaking smirks, having the tiny enough balls to stand on a boat declaring “Mission Accomplished”—like some bad late night cable access hawker dressed up in aspiration-wear. Fuck that guy, really. Outside of my competitive nature in politics, I do not know what this means.

I don’t care so much that there’s a new extremist corpse disposed of. I mean, better his corpse than yours or mine. But what does it mean? Really? Will Iran ever become modern? Will Israel forge a representative government inclusive of ALL people within its borders? Will someone (okay I’ll do it!) come up with a religion called Worldishness that mergers the greatest hits of Judaism, Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, Hindu, Confucianism, what-have you? Then water it down a bit to make it palatable to reasonable moderns? Something? What will time bring?



Funny:
The Nanuet Mall is being torn down. This is something else. It was built in 1969. I remember when it opened. I remember taking the bus there and shoplifting at Expressions and Bambergers at Christmastime with my brother and friends. (I was both a very good and very bad kid.) I remember the two curvy sculptures at one end on the upper level---you could sit in them. They were highly polished yet distressed metal so you could slide some. Brushed aluminum? I used to wonder. I got too old too quickly to fit in them and whenever I would see kids playing in them when I was older, I grew wistful for when I could fit inside, too. Eventually, Paramus Park became much more enticing---with its huge fountains and zig-zag construction and trees and carousel and large bird sculpture, being ridden by a Native American, was it?

I used to take my grandmother to the Nanuet Mall. But she preferred Alexanders, also closed.

Stores close. Time passes. Paul Simon, now on Pandora, has admitted he has lost any edge he had. I grow gray and fat. I better laugh. Have another clam roll at Friendly’s.