the algorithm

 Instagram was kind enough to suggest I click on your latest post

Which was puzzling and momentarily startling

(though not as traumatizing as it was)

Seeing how I unfollowed you months ago

(Though you still follow me and occasionally let me know it)

But you see

I still had one particular post of yours saved from when we were together

And so the algorithm thought it was being helpful

It was

of course

a selfie of you and my replacement-within-in-a-month

You in your most curated seductively doe-eyed

He

looking

sorry, but

Like as clueless a dipshit as I was

Except

You never posted those few pictures of us you took

Not once

Not that I could see anyhow

You never asked to

And that was nearly a year’s time we’re talking

And from what I gather

more by what our mutual acquaintances out of kindness to me are not saying

You post every picture of yourself with him that you can in these last few months

There seems an incongruity to say the least

What exactly is that about? 

I can’t not wonder

Do I flatter myself

Thinking

Maybe just maybe

You were too busy being in a relatively healthy relationship to worry about who was watching?

Do I flatter myself further by imagining that the algorithm

Born of a toxic vanity culture

Is doing exactly what you want it to do?

I wonder if even the algorithm knows how effectively subtle it has become at trolling

face

The good news is that I slept til five o’clock this morning

Thank you, Tylenol PM

The bad news is that the trauma followed me into my rediscovered REM cycle

allying against me characters and settings both beloved and unsafe

and again made me a victim in the midst of hopeful recovery

The good news is that I hope it does so again tonight

Because when it does I’m going to punch it in its fucking face

response to the one that got away upon being pressed Part 1

"You didn't need to write more unless you needed to get it out," she wrote with a poor emoji gritting its teeth. "I can take it," she encouraged with the endearing LOL

Well

I guess I could let it out in fits and starts if you really want the criticism

It didn't last long enough to be considered a 'relationship'--there

    I hated that

But was that anyone's fault? Hm?

(I do consider you an "ex" in my mind when relationships come up in conversation

    with friends and people I date.

    What do you think about that, huh?)

Oh, and I really miss your cat!

I really don't miss your dog

    (I was just a sex object to him)

I'm a dog person, so that was a big deal for me!

But I was very sad to lose your cat's friendship

Yeah, I suppose it's possible there's a lot to take out on you

But

It's also possible that maybe you weren't as bad an experience for me as you're afraid you were?

You

I imagine a parallel universe where we’re still together—

We’d get out of the shower, naked, intoxicated with each other, completely intertwined.

What would be different is that I would wipe the fogged mirror and point to your reflection and say

I love that girl.

Because I did.

No doubt you would have responded in that coo-ey, sexy way you have

“And she loves you.”

But I would have said, trying to guide your eyes to your own reflection

No babe, that’s not what I’m going for.

How do you feel about that girl? Do you love her too?

I realize now that I have no idea what you would have said.

I know that if you could have said ‘yes’

And I could have believed you

It would have made my job so much easier.

eulogy 4/10/2019

The basic problem with all of this, of course, is that Jim Richardson never liked to draw attention to himself.  The challenge of eulogizing a man who never liked to draw attention to himself, or be in anyone’s way, inconvenience anyone in any manner, are hard enough. But then there’s the next complicating basic problem: I’m just like him. [It’s not that I don’t have plenty of Jim Richardson stories to share to illustrate all that low-key, self-effacing humility, the kindness…but when you have two guys who cultivated a life of going under the radar so we could just be free to be ourselves, how do you talk about it?

I loved that guy. He loved me. He loved Jesus. He was never big on insisting that I do the same, he just showed me a lot of ways to do it. I was a curious and questioning kid growing up. And he was the smartest guy I knew.

I went into psychology and I went into Biblical Studies. And he loved reading The Bible, but I never talked to him about the academic study of The Bible. When I started really reading it when I was 18, I’d decided I was just going to read it from front to back, and if I had any questions I was just going to write them down and ask him because he was one of the smartest guys I knew.  And I knew he could take it. I felt safe asking him these things. I felt safe questioning. I felt safe doubting. And when I started asking all of these questions about the random things that come up early on in The Bible, and he could see that list of questions I’d made, I could see that he was a little overwhelmed and he just looked at me and said, “What have you gotten yourself into?” But I’d ask ‘how do you make sense of this and of that?…If this thing is true, how can that thing be true? And finally he held up his two thick forefingers and said to me “1) We’ll never really know and 2) It doesn’t really matter.” Which might leave you with the question of ‘What really matters?’ But I never had to ask him what really matters. He always just showed me. He loved his neighbors. He loved his God. He loved Melanie. He loved Susan. He loved Marilyn.

And that was his way. That was his preference. The last thing I said to him in person before I left two weeks ago as I leaned down to hug him was “I love you. Thank you for being my dad.” He couldn’t stand, but he squeezed me back and said “I was glad to do it.”

morbid

3/2

Not trying to be morbid here

But

Really hoping the actual bereavement will go better than the anticipatory grief.

verbatim

My dad was groggy from pain meds

I guess the cannabis isn’t helping enough

This was first time he’s ever refused to talk to me

I asked my mom to put the phone to his ear.

“I just want you to know I’m thinking of you, Dad

I love you.”

I love you too

He managed

“Just…

Just be at peace”

I said to him.

My mom took the phone away before he heard that part

She apologized

“I’m not saying I want him to…

let go entirely just yet.”

And of course that made my mom cry again for the forever-eth time in the last year

My father still has a long way to go with this

And we not long enough