the voices dying with a dying fall

Song of the Hour: Bag of Bones by Owen

I’ve spent the last hour or so digging through old blog posts trying to find the most recent references to my friend Tom. The way Friendster archives makes it kind of difficult, but by changing the layout to include the last 50 posts (sorry if there’s irritating load-time now) I was able to pinpoint it to "I Dreamed of You on my Farm" which was 9/7/06. The reference to when he was really sick was "Insecurious is my new favorite word" on 7/18/06. I mentioned him in the next post a week or so later, and he was better.

I was searching because I was looking for subects at work whose letters had returned. If a subject disappears, we’re supposed to look them up on the social security death index website to see if they, you know, died. One of the drawbacks of geriatric research, I guess. I’d been thinking about Tom a lot recently, but haven’t seen him in forever, so I bit the bullet and looked him up on it. I found this, and the age is about right, but he’s got a rather generic name, so I’ve been trying to confirm whether or not it’s really him. I can’t remember if that time I referred to in the
post is the last time I’d seen him or not, with my crappy damn memory. I think the home state issues the death certificate, and I know he was from either MD or D.C… the only thing that doesn’t match is the zip code– his apartment was in a different zip code. Am I grasping? Certainly. I don’t know how to confirm, really. His phone
number reaches someone not him, he has a sister in Australia I couldn’t begin to find, and it’s not like we had friends in common. The obituary I found was a weak sentence long. I just don’t know. If that’s his record on the SS index, then he died 10 days after I had seen him last.

In my ongoing attempt to decorate my office, I dug through a few boxes looking for pictures. These are the OLD boxes– the ones I’ve had in the closet since highschool– with all the embarrassing letters (my my, we were prolific) with a handful of recent photo packs dumped on top. I found a poem Tom had given me– all incohenernt about being crazy, anxious, drugged, alone. I think he had given it to me when I still worked at Waffle house on Hillsborough street. I’m glad I had saved it. There’s not a whole lot to say really, except that it makes me really sad. Anything else is going to fall into old cliches about how life is short and savor moments together, blah blah blah, the things we all know but always forget until we lose something unexpectantly and then we remember again for a while, and forget again, hypnotized by the rythm of routine that comprises our daily lives. Cherish each other. There. I said it anyway.
I’ll miss him.

Moving on, Joss and I had a fun day out yesterday. I dragged him to a couple of used book stores, where i was inspired to bribe him to read The Call of the Wild– I’ll let you know how that goes. We stopped for bubble tea at cup a joe, where Joss managed to hold a conversation about Angel with a stranger (Patrick) which I haven’t seen him do in forever– so that was nice (thanks). We went to Target and bought a new football, and went to the park to play.
When we got to the park, we parked by the basketball court, where about 30 teenagers were playing full and half-court games. Joss looked out the window, and said "I don’t want to go here."
I glanced at the courts, and asked perhaps a little too sternly "why not?".
He looked down and mumbled "because they’re going to make fun of me."
I turned off the car. "Why would they make fun of you?"
He said quietly, "Because I’m white."
"Sweetheart, they’re not going to make fun of you."
"All the kids in neighborhood do– they call me names. Because I’m white."
"Well, these kids aren’t, and I came here to play, so we’re going to play."
We walked past the courts to a grassy field, and though the language they used was atrocious, we watched them play for a few minutes and then wandered on. There were 2 kids, around 12 and 7, playing at one of the goals by themselves, and everything else was semi-organized competition. We threw the football back and forth for a while, but Joss kept eyeing the kids his age on the court, and I could tell he wanted to play with them. "You want to play with them?"
"Yeah, but I don’t think they’ll let me."
I said "come on" and walked around to where they were playing. I’m not going to pretend we weren’t being stared at, because we were. When we got to the goal where the younger ones were, Joss whispered "Ask if I can play with them."
"No, sweeite, the last thing you need to do is have your mother ask them for you."
He looked at me defiatantly "I don’t care!" Which is cute and somewhat ironic, but he walked onto the court anyway asked the older kid quietly if he could play with them. They started playing, and I sat to watch.

Joss can throw a football, but the kid can’t make a basket to save his life. It was cool for a few minutes, but then older kids would walk by, take their ball, shoot it and pass it a few times completely ignoring them, then eventually pass the ball back and wander on. Joss and the other kids got frustrated, but waited it out. I kind of had the urge start an ethnography about he poilitics of public b-ball courts– it was so fascinating. Anyway, by the time we left he had a made enough of a friend that they played football together. Ordinarily, I try to respect Joss’ anxieties, but I’m glad I forced this one. Those neighborhood wretches are having such a bad influence on him. I remember when it didn’t even occur to him to describe kids by color. I’d ask who he had been playing with and he’d give me a name, a house number, a shirt or a haircut– but not a color. And I never asked. Now he’s hyper aware that he’s white, and therefore different, from the other kids in the area.  Hopefully some of the experiences he has as a minority in these specific situations will give him some insight when he’s older about to treat people.

That’s all for now.
Love you guys.

Song of the Hour : The Stranger, Leonard Cohen

Whatever it was I was about to write has been perhaps permanently erased from my memory, completely annihilated by the discovery that Leonard Cohen is going on tour.
Seeing that, I couldn’t breathe for like 10 seconds. Then I scanned the venue list and my conniving sanity returned, because I of all people haven’t a passport, and right now only European and Canadian dates are listed. Breathe. OK. It says August dates will be listed soon… surely, surely, he’ll play somewhere in a 1000… ok 2000 mile radius? Surely he was thinking of me specifically when he designed his tour?

Ok, did a little research, and unless my info is outdated, if you drive into Canada, you don’t need a passport. Passports are for when you fly. Plane tickets to Northern US+ show tickets + rental car + hotel + gas +foodandsuch = I don’t give a damn I want to see Leonard Cohen. A lot of the shows are sold out and if they’re not it’s because they’re not on sale yet, so I’m going to end up facing the dilemma of do I go ahead and take what I can get, or wait and hope he comes nearer. Those with experience, please advise. I’m going to leave this here for now, else I’ll write about it for hours.

In other news, I’ve finished my first month at work. Everyone I interact with is almost creepily nice; my co-worker time is predominantly spent with Carolynn, the previous coordinator for the study who’s moving on to another one, and the Psychiatrist for whom I’m working, Dr. Taylor. Carolynn is a saint, insanely patient with my never-ending questions, and happy with the speed with which I’m learning.  She’s got a strong Native American heritage, and is very… Carrboro. She works 10 hr days 4 days a week so she take Wednesdays off to paint (very talented) and meet with her writing group. Dr. Taylor happily discusses Lost theories, also eagerly awaits the April premiere of BSG, and the only sharp word he’s said to me has been to make sure I turned in my my one-day-on-the-pay-period timecard, even though it was late, after I offered to just let it go because of the paperwork hassle. Seriously, people. Did I luck out or what? Benefits package rocks, if I were to stay with Duke they’d cover Joss’ college tuition (up to 15k a semester),  and there are a zillion little perks I couldn’t begin to list. For the first time ever, I don’t dread going to work in the morning.

I spend half my time sitting in my office listening to pandora, pilfering through databases organizing reports, entering subject answers to questionnaires,  or contacting subjects to be in the study. The rest of the time I’m taking the subjects  through the various stages of the study– to the MRI lab, the psychiatrist’s office, and soon I’ll consistently be running them through 2 1/2 hour memory and cognition tests. Since I’m dealing with elderly depressed people, these tests are kind of stressful to them. Each knows their memory isn’t what it used to be, and asking them to repeat 100 word stories verbatim 10 minutes after I’ve read it to them, tends be upsetting them when they can’t do it. I’ll have to resist the urge to say "It’s ok– nobody ever remembers the entire story, these tasks are really hard, don’t feel like you’re failing, please, really this stuff is impossible…." because comments like that can set up a bias, an expectation of failure, that interferes with their results. I just hate to see people suffer, especially when they’re already depressed and are going to internalize a stupid memory test into how they somehow aren’t worthwhile.

I practiced on my dad last week, warily, fearing to find him slipping, since he’s constantly losing things more than the average bear. But dammit, he was spitting out answers faster than I could write them down, kept track of the stories and geometric patterns better than I could, and it was wonderful. When asked to write a sentence, he even wrote, "I love you very much, Jenny" which I think may be the sweetest thing he never actually said to me. That was a nice day. (As a side note, I also practiced on Joss, and though his memory is child-like perfect, he really struggles with language production. I was more impressed that he sat still so long).

The only drawback is that I feel like I have zero time. Leaving around 7:45 gets me to work 8:45, and leaving around 5:45 doesn’t get me home until about 7. I’m getting into the swing of things, but I’m asleep before 11 now and I feel incredibly old through the whole ordeal. The time change isn’t helping. I’d always thought that getting out of school would return to me some kind of social life, but it isn’t really happening. I am however getting more time with Joss, and we’ve been getting along a LOT better than the immediate post-graduation time frame. Perhaps that he’s completely kicking my ass on a daily basis at this Tony Hawk 5 business has something to do with it. Makes him feel obligated to be nicer to me after he shit talks through 5 landslide trick-attack victories. Eh, whatever works. He also has a new teacher that is, by far, the coolest and best teacher he’s had yet. I think there’s hope yet, that he may indeed get out of the fourth grade.

Ever start writing and then just completely not feel like writing anymore? That’s me right now. No clue why. So briefly:

1. I have every intention of insinuating myself into Amanda’s wedding planning, because should I ever marry, I have every intention of going to Vegas. Vicarious wedding planning is good enough for me.

2. Again, watch the Wire. You know who you are.

3. I have an office. Like, my very own office. This is my first, and I find it wonderful and exciting. Also, I haven’t the slightest idea how to decorate an office on a budget, and would very  much welcome ideas. It’s small, like 9 x 12 or something, with off white walls, 3 shelves, and an L shaped desk. Help me, it’s kind of sad in there.

4. Really really not feeling the writing. Weird.

Love.