Anniversary 2: DeathMatch

I've been lying in bed, awake awake awake, listening to the rain that's not raining, to the thunder that ain't rollin, to the stuttering scramble in the back of my head that wants to talk about stuff that I find rather trying.
Or boring.
Or...
Or, fuck, just kinda self-indulgent, these 716 days later.

Squirming under my own deadlights.

I've been assiduously avoiding all mention of memorials, of Tragedies, of Community Grieving and alternative therapies. I've glanced at and tossed every email with mention of Survival or Healing. I'm trying to stay out of the glare of notoriety that follows follows, sometimes, even down here. As occasionally desperate as I am to talk and write about the Living Room Murders (which is how my head classifies that rot)...
I'm really pretty fuckin tired of even thinking about it, much less writing or talking.
Guess even I've gotta vomit sometimes...

Thing is...

The thing is,
is that while I'm still plagued by weeks-long nightmares now and again, I'm doin pretty well for myself. The sun and sand and thousand Anole lizards have done me a world of good. I do not, as has been suggested, feel guilty for surviving. Why the hell should I? I miss Jesus/Jeremy like nobody's business; think about him often when I cook, when I taste a good Malbec; but I'm doin okay without him, y'know?
Without all my beautiful Seattle family.
I gotta.
Just, y'know...
I just gotta.
And that's just how Life's gonna rub me right here.
That's just the rub, and they ain't nothin wrong with that.
Ain't nothin but a seasonin.

I learned a long time ago that, for me, the best remedy for damned near everything is perspective. Loooots of perspective. And the best way to jumpstart that heave-ho of a gargantuan process is to physically change perspective. Go check out the view from the other side of the living room. Go from Seattle to Key West. Switch climates, countries, cultures, cant. Switch up everything so as to force the brain out of its cozy little ruts of erudition. It is high time for another jump and shimmy, if I may say so (and I do), but for now,

For now, I know I made the right move. My Seattle family seem to be leaving the city, one by one. Two of them, completely separately, have said it felt like the city just didn't want them anymore.
The city wallows in its mourning.
The city does not understand how to bring laughter out of no-laughing-matter.
The city takes itself (and us) way too muthafuckin seriously.

We die tomorrow and
and every day we wake up breathin is a beautiful day.

Lemme reiterate:

We die tomorrow
(ain't got time to waste on hurtin)
and
and
and
and every day we wake up breathin is a
Good
Goddamned
Day.
...A good goddamned day.
(oh lordy i do love drawin breath, i love it and i try to be conscious as all hell of my continued ability to swell my lungs with oxygen and nitrogen and a thousand airborne chemicalspoisonsdiseases, because i am alive alive alive. i am alive.)

I just kinda dropped off the face not too long after the Thing, so I kinda feel obligated to acknowledge it somehow, to give some sorta shoutout to my misrepresented, misunderstood, monumentally beautiful family.
To tell them that I think about them every day.
To let them know how much their lives mean to me.
To remind them...

Just to remind 'em how fuckin awesome it is to be alive, and how ridiculously fortunate we all are to know each other.

Now that the sun's up, maybe I can get some sleep

Maybe I can get some sleep

maybe sleep....