On Ian: No Right Words

I couldn't tell you what had happened very first time I met most of my close friends. In, fact, now that I think about it, I could probably recall only three or four such meetings and how they played out. I'm not ashamed to admit that because so many friendships often start with a chance meeting or inconspicuous introduction. It takes time, circumstance and effort to nurture a budding friendship beyond the measure of "warm acquaintance" into a real connection, so it's not unusual that the early stages for most of my friendships are barely a hazy memory.

Under certain circumstances.

That wasn't the case with Ian. I can pretty clearly remember the circumstances of our first meeting. Not exactly everything that happened, but images of that particular event come back to me with some clarity for a pretty silly reason; Ian was sporting a bowl-cut that would've made Moe Howard proud.

It was the beginning of my sophomore year at Truman State and I was in the 5th Floor Study lounge of Ryle Hall. I'm not sure if I was there because I thought I might focus better, or if I just needed the extra table space but as often happens, I got distracted. I ended up talking to Ian and being impressed. Obviously smart and too mature for his age, I hoped I'd get to talk with him again.

One of the most important virtues of living on campus while you are in college is that chance meetings like this can turn into solid friendships pretty quickly as long as you keep your room door open. My roommate Neal and I tended to do so, and soon Ian stopped by to comment on a game that we were playing or an episode of Star Trek we were watching. And then he stopped by a second time. And a third...

"Do you guys mind if I play some Super Smash?"

The past few days, when describing my relationship with Ian, I have said that we were roommates for "about two years." This is in the strictest sense false, as we only "technically" lived together his sophomore year at Truman, the year after we first met. But after our initial introduction Ian became one of a few guys on Ryle 5 North that might as well have moved in with Neal and I. And later, he did.

Living with a group of such hilarious and intelligent guys was certainly one of the defining experiences of my life, and Ian's wit, intellect and warmth were no small part of what made those two years so important to my own personal development.

Beyond quoting the punchlines of episodes of Sea Lab 2021 and Aquateen Hunger Force we would spend time bitching about classes, each other, and girls. We'd jump from Star Trek to ancient history to meta-physics in the same conversation, and we'd all attempt to understand each other's majors in pursuit of what Truman's marketing department called a "well-rounded Liberal Arts education."

Ian, for his part, was sharp as a tack. Anyone who knew him at all knew how bright he was. He used his intellect just as effectively to shut you down in a debate or to make a hilarious comment about something. No small feat, as these were before the days of "That's what she said."

He forced other people to be intellectually honest with themselves and wasn't afraid to make them challenge their assumptions or behavior, but was (usually) respectful and willing to listen to other points of view. I think I learned more about critical thinking from my friendship with Ian than I did from any class I've taken before or since.

"I have some very sad news. Please call me as soon as you can."

I found out about Ian's death in stages. First it was a Facebook message warning of sad news about Ian. I didn't know for sure that he had died, but from a memorial post on the wall of his Facebook profile I was steeling myself to hear that there had been a car accident or some other random tragedy.

Then it was a tear-studded phone call from a mutual college friend and his ex-girlfriend, Angela. She said that yes, he had died, but she didn't know how yet. A few hours later she called me back and told me that Ian had hung himself.

"You're lucky you got to see him so recently."

I was unpacking my clothes in our hotel room in Des Moines in advance of the service the next day and I still wasn't sure how I felt. I had known about what happened to my ex-roommate and friend for about 36 hours, but it still hadn't quite registered. Angela and Neal had both gotten to see Ian within the last month or so, but I hadn't seen him for a couple of years. And now I wouldn't get to see him ever again.

Ultimately, I felt disconnected. A memorial service would be held the next morning and my heart had not understood what my brain knew about my friend. There were brief stabs of pain and tears as I remembered one inside joke or another while on the road earlier in the day. But on balance it was all too surreal. Ian was so self-possessed, charismatic and talented that suicide would've been the very last fate I would have expected for him.

Somehow I still feel like there was a mistake and he didn't mean to die this way.

"He's in a jar, Neal!"

My hot tears stained the shoulder of Neal's black suit as we stood at the back of visiting room. In the front of the room were the donated flower arrangements and an altar with Ian's photo and an urn with a short candle burning on its lid.

Talking about the service on the car ride home, we determined that it probably wasn't really Ian in that little earthen vessel. But at the time I thought it was, and finally being in the same space as the remains of my friend is what finally connected the circuit between my heart and my brain.

He was dead now. Now I knew what that meant. The same matter that was in that little jar had shaken my hand, had hugged me, had beaten me in Super Smash brothers, had stayed up way too late playing my copy of Grand Theft Auto, had eaten dinner with me, had listened to me bitch about girls, had critiqued my art, had introduced me to Billy Joel, had helped me with math and joked about politics.

It didn't seem possible that this is what was all that was left of my friend. It wasn't possible, and it certainly wasn't right.

A few words.

The intense flood of grief finally subsided and we sat down for the service. A family friend gave a eulogy. One of Ian's second cousins, a priest, provided an encouraging sermon. Then they opened the floor for anyone who wanted to speak so that they could share a memory or word of encouragement for the family.

One of Ian's professors started off talking about how bright Ian was and how proud he was of the path Ian was taking in his career and the potential that Ian had showed. And then another person got up to speak after him. And another. And another. Family, friends of family, cousins, ex-girlfriends, roommates, co-workers. It was over an hour of collective stories and memories about an extraordinary individual whose charm and intelligence left an impact on so many lives.

Thinking back I recognize something remarkable about all the things that were said. When a young person like Ian passes away, a lot is usually made about all the wasted potential and how it's a shame that so much promise will go un-delivered.

Ian's mind, independence and drive to succeed made him the dictionary definition for potential, but for all the stories that were told and comments that were made, very little was said about the "what-ifs." In his all-too-short life Ian had already had such a measure of success in his endeavors and projected such a personality that we had plenty of accoplishments and events to remember fondly. Even for his paltry collection of 25 years.

That, ultimately, is what I will choose to think about as I remember Ian. I will remember a man of formiddable intelligence with a charismatic personality and healthy ambition. Confident in his ability and his interactions with others, he was in some ways a challenging person to know because I understood how much he expected from himself. And that made me feel like I should expect more from myself, too.

That combination of mental clarity, personal warmth and sharp humor will be my mental photograph. And I hope that as I face challenges and opportunities in my own life I will be able to become a person that Ian would've been proud to continue to call his friend.

Godspeed Ian. You won't be forgotten.

Of all the souls I have known, his was the most...human.

Really? My dad is named Roger!

Razar? Is that You?

"There's a huge turtle over there!"

I look up from the small park's lake sparkling in the heavy sun. A kid, about 13 or 14, is smiling intently at me. His orange hat matches his orange tanktop; I didn't catch the color of his pants, but they might have been orange too. He has a fishing pole slung over his shoulder and a pronounced country accent.

"Oh?" I look at him. It's after 6 p.m., but the sun is still at about 60* in the sky. The bench I'm sitting on must be facing northwest because I have to squint to see the young dutch fisherman in any detail.

"Yeah! A huge one. Huge. Big alligator snapping turtle. Head as big as I don't know what."

He makes a quick gesture to emphasize that the turtle was, in fact, larger than normal and points to the north side of the lake when I ask him where he saw it. I thank him and get up to go see if I can find it for myself. On the way I mull over names I might give the turtle after I take a picture of him/her.

"You've got two pairs of legs with trousers on and so do I."

Now I was sitting on a bench on the other side of the lake. I hadn't found the turtle, but I had found a man, probably in his late seventies, sitting on a bench by himself. I say hello. He looks comfortable on the bench,, like it was his favorite recliner. I ask him about the artwork all over the sidewalk that snaked its way around the small lake.

After he answered my first question we moved on to the weather. He seemed open to an actual conversation, so I asked if I could share his bench and he happily agreed.

So, where have you been?

A lot of weird stuff has happened since my last post to this blog. A lot of stuff that was really good for me, some stuff that I wish had played out differently, and the rest is just stuff that I take for granted but really shouldn't.

I'm amazed at how much can change in such a short span of time and how a chance encounter or a brave gesture can plant a seed that turns into a central drama in your life for the next several weeks. I guess it's one of the "up-shots" of being a bachelor or a bachelorette. You have a blank slate and, at the very least, the opportunity to meet new people and do exciting things.

And, if you're open to it, seizing those opportunities can teach you a lot about yourself...for better or for worse.

"And the point I was making was that..."

Roger had a metal plate in his head. In his forehead, more specifically. In fact, it pretty much was his forehead. His forehead and scalp were sunken in by an eigth of an inch from the rest of his face and head. It looked kind of like there was a door on his forehead that you could open so you could store your action figures in his skull.

I mention it because it was a pretty prominent feature and the first thing I noticed about him. But years of trying to be a sensitive gentleman had tought me to control where I was looking pretty well, so I kept my gaze on his dark brown eyes for most of our talk.

Which was pretty great, I have to say. By great I mean perfect. Like, it was exactly the kind of talk a 25-year-old man(?) dreams of when he sits down next to an elderly stranger. Roger was looking for someone to share his experiences with, and I'm nothing if not a good listener.

He takes after his father.

My mother recently retired from her 30+ year career of working with the infirm and elderly at a sheltered care home. When I was growing up she would take me to her office som times and all of the residents there would fawn over me. (Except that time when I was in high school and one of them accused me of being gay because I didn't have a girlfriend.)

I don't think I've ever told Mom this, but it was hard for me to go there. I have always been uncomfortable in hospitals and nursing homes, even when I was too young to really understand what was going on there and what those places were for. I don't know if it was so uncomfortable for me to face mortality so directly or if it's just the way in which the people in these places spend most of their time just...sitting...waiting.

I'll always admire Mom for being so compassionate towards her residents. She has a way with those people that can only be explained on a level as basic as spiritual magnetism. Mom has many stories of elderly strangers that approach her and understand there's something in her that they can latch on to and connect with.

I don't really feel like I have that capability or connection myself, and that's always been something I am ashamed of. But tonight, with Roger, I was doing pretty well.

"I didn't mention this before, on purpose, but..."

We talked for over an hour. Well, Roger talked and I listened. Which seemed to suit him just fine. Any time I interjected with an example from my own comparatively miniscule experience he looked like he was ready to take the reigns back as soon as possible.

So Roger talked and talked, and it was all good stuff. He told me about how he had met Henry Kissinger when he (Roger) was the president of the International Business Club (or something) back in the 70s. He told me how he was the vice president of sales at an international manufacturing company and how he had spent more time in airplanes than out of them.

He talked about how he'd lose clients to columbian drug wars and political assassinations. How he'd met Telly Savalas - Kojak - at an opera house in Latin America. He opined about airplanes and how most airlines in South America didn't keep their equipment on a regular maintenence schedule. We covered what I'm sure was a tiny fraction of his dating life and found out we were both Star Trek fans. He even shook my hand and then said "You just shook a hand that has shaken hands with Neil Armstrong!"

Roger said that Neil Armstrong was wearing glasses when he met him, which made me feel pretty cool.

Just like a gold crown.

Sitting on that bench in the park, watching the geese waddle towards bread crumbs tossed by curious children, listening to the water gush from the fountains in the middle of the lake and listneing to Roger talk about his amazing life, I relished in my Greeting Card Day.

A "Greeting Card Day" is what I call the rare day where everything is in sync. Circumstances adjust, the planets align and Murphy has taken the afternoon off. It leaves you with a feeling that all is right with the world and you are, at that very moment doing exactly what you should be doing where you should be doing it with the people you should be doing it with.

For a moment you get a taste of the uncomplicated joy of life. The ideal experience that the commercials and magazine ads try to sell you by claiming their product will get you there. It evokes that stock photo on a Father's Day card of a man and his son sitting on a pier, fishing while the sun sets behind them. 

But there was no greeting card. No Oreo cookie or hot chocolate mix. It was a Greeting Card Day brought about by good weather and two strangers who were simultaneously in very different places in their life but both looking for the same thing; someone to talk to.

"That's your business and none of mine."

After the talk about women and money and celebrities Roger talked about the plate in his head. He had had a severe but non-cancerous brain tumor that had been removed. He said it had totally changed everything and had cost him everything...but his life. But he said that in a way that made you understand how thankful he was that he had been spared that much.

He talked about God and how the experience of his tumor had made him humble. Every now and then as he was discussing this story or that story he would interject with something like "Now that's just me" or "obviously you've got a pair of legs and some trousers on them, just like I do..." as a way to make me feel less bad about the fact that I had yet to dine with South American Strong Men or Secretaries of State.

Ultimately we settled on the fact that no matter how much or how little experience you have days like today are ones to be treasured and nothing should be taken for granted.

I'm thankful for Roger and beautiful girls and liquid courage and the internet and airplanes and Greeting Card Days. And I hope that when I'm in my 70s and I decide to walk to the local park to watch the ducks, there will be some curious young man willing to sit down and listen to me talk about how I had to use a telephone to dial in to the internet and got my drawings published into a national bestseller and who knows what else. 

So Roger, I know I have some catching up to do but I've got about 50 years left and I'm going to make them count.

Not how you thought It would be.

I will destroy everything around me that prevents me from being the master.

I am writing this right now because I'd prefer not to be. Or rather, I don't feel like doing it "right now." Procrastination is the enemy of my creativity and focus. IT MUST BE DESTROYED.

This particular blogging endeavor is in danger of drowning under the own weight of its serious tone, just like that moleskine I mentioned earlier. Sometimes I can be serious and melancholy...other times I am flat-out ridiculous. (Where I say ridiculous feel free to read RETARTED if you're not offended by that sort of thing.)

It's a consequence of my underlying mood lately. But ultimately I know that this too, shall pass. I don't have anything to actually complain about...and the things I feel like complaining about anyway are things that I can at least try to remedy.

Let me tell you how I see myself.

There's a trick to writing out your introspections and then posting them to the internet and hoping or expecting people to read them... and find something that they can latch on to. To be a worthwhile read people need to identify with you or at least find you funny. So far it has been all about (aiming for) the former. As of yet I acknowledge that the funny is nowhere to be found, but I will bring it to the table eventually. 

Before that, though, I needed to spit out all this, well, meta-blogging if you want to call it that. Meta-blogging, Christ. Blogging about my style of blogging; a self-indulgence feedback loop. But seriously, meta-blogging. I think  I am more interested in the "meta" anyway - the about, the aside, the outside of.

But you do know that it's your fault.

For almost three years I have been living in a town 100 miles away from most of my friends and family. The friends I had made right after I moved here have all since moved away, but I remain. I know a few people that I see every now and then, but nobody that I see on a regular basis that I have a common frame of reference with. After most of my friends left, I made a half-conscious decision to keep this place at arm's length. I didn't think I'd be here much longer myself, after all.

Two years have gone by and now I'm paying for that short-sighted philosphy in the kind of lonliness that sits just above the pit of your stomach. The workplace with colleagues that are too different or too married to form a social circle. The frustration of wanting to go places but not wanting to go by yourself. The feeling of futility you get when you go anyway and still come back alone.

Where do they all belong?

Ultimately I know that in these feelings I am not at all unique. Even as I describe them there's a part of me that wishes I hadn't bothered. But we're into the hundreds of words by now so I might as well keep typing. The rub is that I know that I wasn't designed to feel this way. That even though I might be introspective and quiet, I still have to belong somewhere. I still have a niche to fill. And that my best of all possible worlds isn't so different from the one in which I am living on its surface.

I'm like a puzzle piece, jammed into a hole that sort of fits. But I'm the left ear of a kitten that has orange fur and someone thinks I'm the left ear of a kitten with tan fur. (If we want to get meta again we can say it is also me who is doing the jamming.)

This is a thing that I can fix, given enough time. So the question becomes: do I need to change the puzzle, or can I change myself? 

If You Write It.

I have a little moleskine journal I bought a couple of years ago. The original intent was to write things in there just for me. Things I had been thinking about for a long time. A lot of volatile and depressing thoughts that I figured I could write down and that would somehow flush them out of my system.

It seemed to work, for a few days. But the things that I was writing were so personal and private that there was no way in the world I would let anyone else read from this little book. 

Ultimately I stopped writing in it for a couple of reason. Getting all of my mental baggage down on paper was therapeutic to begin with, but soon it just got more depressing than relieving to process those feelings into cogent sentences and I decided to abandon the endeavor as a method of therapy.

The other reason had more to do with vanity. I knew if I was going to spend time writing something I wanted to be able to share it with other people. No one would want to read the stuff I was writing, least of all me. And sometimes I think about tearing out those old pages with their silly self-involved scrawl and throwing them away so that I might use the rest of the book for something else.

The jury is still out on that.

If a tree falls in a forest.

How did I end up here?

The bartender hands me the Blue Moon that I had asked for and I take it with a mumbled thanks. The bar is a big open room, well lit with two TVs hanging on the wall in front of me. The one on the right is playing ESPN basketball highlights and the one on the left is Saturday Night Live.

Andy Samberg mouths something I assume might be funny if I could hear it, and you can see the rest of the SNL cast wait for a laugh from the audience that I can't hear either. A few seats over, a woman in her mid thirties smiles at me and then looks back at the man whose thigh she is touching with her hand. He takes a drag from his cigarette, and I wonder how cocked baseball hats ever became the fashion.

On my left, a patron starts talking to the bartender. I assume they know one another, as it sounds like they're talking about a party or night they shared earlier in the week. Someone got drunk and sick. I look back at the TV with ESPN and take another sip of beer.

It's still on basketball highlights. Whatever, I'll pretend to watch it because I don't have anything better to do. I don't know anyone here, most of my friends are at least a two-hour drive away. But I couldn't stay in my apartment tonight by myself. It just wasn't going to happen.

Just don't help the boy's team, OK?

There's a knock at the door to my apartment. I'm still asleep and it wakes me up. I look at my phone: 10:14 a.m. I get out of bed to answer the door on the off chance that it might be a natural gas leak or something else important.

I must've been an impressive sight with my bed-hair, black t-shirt and plaid pajama pants. I open the door and a womangirl who reeked of cigarette smoke starts talking to me about some contest she is in. I am for all intents and purposes still asleep, just standing up with my eyes open and my mouth slightly agape.

From the cadence of her speech was obviously a pitch she had gone over several times, either through rehearsal or field-experience. I was still completely out of it, so any reaction she was expecting from the jokes in her pitch fell completely flat and she went to the next line like a drama student rehearsing a play with a lazy co-star.

It wasn't until she handed me a  worn and laminated paper that showed a bunch of magazine covers that I realized she was trying to sell me a magazine subscription. I looked through all the magazine covers and there wasn't one that looked interesting. People, Shape, Men's Health, that kind of thing.

She started asking me some questions.

"What do you do?"

I work for the University, I mumble.

"The ARC?" she repeats.

No, sorry, the University.

"Killer. So, what do you do when you're not at work?"

Why did she care? I like to draw, read, write. That kind of stuff.

"Did I just wake you up?"

Yeah.

"Do you like to work out?"

Not really, I keep it pretty low-key.

"Killer. Are you married?"

Nope.

"Girlfriend?"

Nope.

"Kids?"

Nope.

"Well, do you like to work out?"

I think at this point I realized that when a  girl asks you "Do you like to work out" it qualifies as a "Ray Question" in that the answer is always yes regardless of actual facts. But I just shrugged and smiled awkwardly.

With my weak reactions she had run out of ways to figure out a magazine to suggest. She smiled and said: "Well, promise that when the boys' team comes by you won't help them, OK?" Sure, I said and closed my door before I even saw her walk up the stairs.

I guess there were teams involved, a magazine-selling battle of the sexes. According to the pitch she had given me right after I opened the door, anyway. A representitive from the boys' team never showed up.

Bar Nymphs and Pixie Dream Girls

I finish my second beer and leave the bar. I don't feel like giving in just yet. A short walk down the street and I can hear the muddy din of live music coming from another bar I had never been in yet. I hand the bouncer my card and he asks for cover money. I figure I can squeeze $3 of value from the experience, so hand him the cash and walk in.

The band is playing in the entrance of the bar, so I had to walk through them to get to a place where I could watch. It's two guitar players, a singer/guitarist and a young drummer who looks like a guy I went to high school with.

They're playing something that's probably rock and roll. It's loud as hell and there is drums, bass, rythym guitar, high-pitched screaming/singing. I don't really recognize the song, but that was never my forté. It might even be one that they wrote themselves.

I go to stand behind a pool table and take everything in. The place is pretty crowded. Standard operating procedure for a place like this is to find the girls that look the most interesting to me and then spend the next hour wishing I had the courage or genius to find an excuse to talk to them.

Of note tonight was a woman who bore a resemblance to how Carrie Fischer probably looked in 1987 or 88. Think Princess Leia just past her prime. In the other corner of the room was a 20-something who looked like she was about to audition to be a suicide girl. She sported jet-black hair in a bowl-cut, low cut top that looked more like a bustier than anything, and a generous smattering of tattoos all over her left arm and back. Given how meek I am I always think it's funny when a girl like this catches my eye.

The loud drone of the band doesn't do much to distract me from the disastrous scenarios forming in my head.

Hey, I see you have a lot of tattoos. I designed a tattoo for my ex-girlfriend last month.

Or:

Hey, I know we just met, but you should come back to my place, I took apart my vacuum cleaner today so I could rinse out the filters and the kitchen table is covered in parts!

Or:

I like the leopard print on those heels you have on!

I wait out the live show. The band plays something they claim is ACDC and it mostly passes muster. Most people are drunk, but my twin beers have long-since worn off. The band stops playing and their drunken frontman tells everyone to get the fuck out as the bar is closing.

Fine with me, I didn't really belong there in the first place.