the voices dying with a dying fall

    Song of the Hour: The Wild, Wild, Sea by Sting
        (how’s that for nostalgia?)

So, news in regards to my last post.
The bad: Twickle, as a result of a malfunctioning flight attempt, seriouslyinjured/broke his left leg thursday night. It didn’t seem to be a non-stop pain kind of thing– he just didn’t use the leg at all, and sat rather than perched. (you may have noticed how I’ve gone into the past tense). Yesterday morning, though the sun was up, he was silent and sadly, poor Twickle had passed away in the night.
I had to work all day yesterday, so my father had to bear the bulk of Joss’ non-stop crying. He cried  through half the afternoon, and had gotten most of it out by the time I got back home. I told him that most baby birds that fall out of nests don’t last the day, and that Joss had given him a whole week of love and happiness that Twickle wouldn’t have had otherwise. He liked that perspective better, explaining to me that a baby bird couldn’t live without his mother, just like he couldn’t live without me because then he wouldn’t have any money and he would starve. Bright, that kid.  joss still gets sad when he thinks about, but isn’t brooding non-stop like I thought he might.

[btw- sweet little angel also got into a fight on the bus thurs. and got suspended from school on friday. Why was some girl hitting him in the face with her hello kitty change purse? will we ever really know? why did joss push her back? how many times will he and I have to have the same conversations over and over about accountability? Why is he seemingly the target of every child's belligerence? why does every parent/teacher conference I attend include being read a laundary list ofJoss'  behavioural patterns that come right out of the DSM IV for ADD? What can I do about it? These are the questions that plague me. Even uneducated guesses are welcome.]

the good: I saw (crazy) Tom again the other night. He was at a coffee shop– out and about, the scabs on his arm healing, his legs slightly less swollen, and his mind refreshing lucid. I don’t think he even remembered me coming over, so I left it alone. We talked about life and philosophy stuff (I love him when he’s lucid, christ, he’s a good man) and we even talked about nihilism. I told him my general perspective on things, and he listened, asking the occasional question, and I think I had one of those moments that people remember their entire lives when he paused for a second, turned to look at me directly (we were sitting side by side) and said in his gruff and gravely voice "Damn, Jenny, you need to get a grip on yourself!" as though I were completely talking crazy. Savor that, I certainly did.
He’s a die hard Buddhist (talk about a contradiction in terms) and he gave me some Buddhist advice, some of which was in Mandarin Chinese, and I’ve been thinking it over. But my lack of belief in anything spiritual, or any kind of grand design, creates an ideological rift between us– but I’m trying to be open minded. we’ll see.

The ugly: My brother called me the other night and left me a message that I thought could only mean he had gone even more religous, "rededicating his life to Jesus" as they say in the biz; or that he had cancer. He said he loved me like a dozen times, and sounded kind of like he was crying. I let Brian listen to it, trying to guage which it was, and Brian called it dead on– his marraige was over. The thought hadn’t even occurred to me. But, well, Brian knows divorce.
As I’m sure most of you know, my relationship with my brother is ambivalent at best. I called him back, and he talked for like an hour. She had told him new years day that she didn’t love him anymore and she wanted him to leave. Jimmy refused, saying she’s not taking his kids. So, no one budged. He’s gone to counseling (she refuses, not wanting to reconcile) and has done everything he could to meet her complaints, but she’s not having it. He’s torn up pretty bad, not understanding in that almost doggish way what’s going on. But she’s gone into super-bitch mode, flirting with his supervisor right in front of him, asking other men for rides home (they work at the same factory), and disappearing every afternoon until wee hours of morning and spending every penny they make mall shopping.  My brother’s in and out of suicide mode.
Now, Jimmy is by no means perfect. But I can tell he’s trying to make things work. His biggest problem is anger management (raging temper), and well, a general lack of common sense.  His wife can outsmart him in her sleep (as she’s been telling him, constantly, especially after his stroke which left him a little slower than usual).  And their boys are really fucked up, largely due to poor parenting skills (see: raging temper and super religous mindset) and both of them are on ritalin (Cody’s only 4, and wears a patch).
Anyway, don’t want to ramble about it. And frankly, I have to sign off soon so I can pack up and go to Kinston to see Jimmy in person. Although I’ve thought about doing it maybe a dozen times since they got married, this will be the first time in 15 years that I will have gone to Kinston just to see my brother. Monumental day, I suppose.

well, gotta go. i get lost everytime I go there– probably a subconscious aversion to the wretched city. Well, conscious. anyway, that’s the update. I’ll let you know how it goes.

love.

        Song of the Hour: Run by Snow Patrol

The latest in animal control news at the Bridgers household, is that we have now have a bird of unknown variety, appropriately named "Twickle".  Where did we get this bird you say? Why, I’m glad you asked. Mr. Joss, of course, found the little thing lying helpless on the sidewalk, with its little pink body practically naked of feathers, and promptly brought it home and put it in a tupperware bowl. By the time I got home, it was named and loved with his whole little heart– also know as, "adopted".

I don’t know shit about birds. The little critter has managed to survive on bread dipped in water, living in a tupperware bowl lined with torn-up t-shirt bits. His feathers are filling out, he seems alert and relatively content, and obviously Joss’ soulmate in that it consumes twice its body weight in food every day. We have a cage now that it just seems too small for– but goddamn. What the hell do you do with a baby bird? I really didn’t expect it to last the night when he brought it home, but its been a week and its still going strong. It’s not that I don’t want an animal, it’s that I wake up a few times in the middle of the night to check on it and make sure its little heart is still beating (which, sickeningly, you can kind of see) and it isn’t starving for either food or attention. I worry constantly about it. 1) it’s adorable 2) it’s insanely fragile and 3) if it dies, Joss will go ape-shit; and frankly I have no idea how to insure its survival- so all around, makes me uncomfortable.

Joss had a good birthday party– held at Anne’s, where he wanted it.
we have him with the neighbor’s prarie dog; and joss with cohort josh trying and failing to wrestle reggie to the ground. How cute is that? In the end, Joss got a bike (given to me by a coworker) and a snowcone maker for his birthday, along with an assortment of action figures, DVDs, and a book from everyone else. He seemed, to say the least, happy.

I saw "A Scanner Darkly" which I think could have been great, but well, wasn’t . But as far as I’m concerned, it was pretty enough to distract me from the plot holes and indelicate balance of unexplained & predictability. I love that vector business– don’t know why, I just do.

On the Nihilist battlefront, I had an interesting night last week. Some of you know my friend Tom, or "Crazy Tom" as you may likely remember him. He’s the guy we all met at Waffle House, or Mr. B’s, or Cupa’ Joe. You know, often talking loudly to himself or repeating Buddhist chants or yelling at people no one else can see? The insanely smart sixty-something schitzophrenic vietnam vet, kinda heavy, with the gray hair and beard? You know who I’m talking about. Anyway. He called me the other night making even less sense than usual, mumbling something about medicine and  kool-aid and come help.  After an hour of trying to figure out where he lives (thanks for the help) I finally found him (it was "Beckanna" apartments" not "McKinnon"  apartments)  and got him his Kool aid and picked up the lit cigarette off the floor that he couldn’t reach and anything else I could figure out he needed.

Oh. My. God. He was soooooo out of it he just mumbled and mumbled god knows what while I stared at how amazingly swollen his legs and feet were while he couldn’t breath and yet couldn’t stop coughing and yet chain smoked. He could barely move and when he did it was sooooo slowly… I chattered on trying to make him feel less lonely, assuming that his mind was at least somewhat more functional then his body could allow him to express. I guess I was there about an hour, sitting on the floor watching him. And where my mind went… so nihilist. It was like a zoo exhibit of an organism struggling for survival to some unknown, impossible end. Everything is wrong with his body- heart surgery complications, emphysema, obesity, possibly diabetic; he’s clinically schitzophrenic, and usually depressed if not  bi-polar- he’s certainly had manic episodes. Watching him, trying to get unlaced shoes off feet tripled by swelling, the meaninglessness of life and all its suffering ganged up on me at once. He’s one of the most intelligent people I’ve ever met (when he’s lucid, obviously) has lived this fucked up life of battling one addiction after another, has practically ruined himself in the failing, and just. keeps. going. Miserable, most of the time. Picking at scabs, humming every jazz song ever recorded, going to diners at odd hours just to be around people and get out of his bare apartment. Sweet hearted, yet pissing others off by talking too loudly– having to deal with policeman after policeman— what’s the goddamn point, you know?  So much suffering, struggling,  with so little reward.

An organism. That is exactly what I am. He is. You are. Trying to survive. We are organisms with unique, convoluted  intentions.
I think this is why baby Twickle makes me so nervous, uncomfortable. He wants to eat, and be warm, and his every sound and movement serves those goals. [what goals do mine serve? yours?] And it’s so easy to interpret feeling, to humanize, to suspect he’s lonely when he fusses when alone. I can’t stand the thought of it suffering; and yet, sitting and watching Tom suffer, struggle to survive… I don’t know what I’m saying.

that went to a dark place, didn’t it?

Tune in next time, for more meaningless of life.

love.