I was taking the #72 Golden Gate Transit bus home from San Francisco, when my phone rang.

I typically shun people who pick up phone calls on long-distance public transit, but it was my sister-in-law; since my brother passed, I am keen to pick up calls from family, regardless of whom I piss off.

“Do you have a moment to chat?”

Wait. Actually, no. That’s not what she said. She said:

“Are you in the emotional state to capably talk?”

Yes, this is more like her (she’s a psych grad). I pinched my face together and attempted to raise my voice as high and as soft as I could, and whispered:

“I’m on the bus.”

These four words, I reasoned, were sufficient to convey worlds.

“Okay, but you are feeling all right to talk?” she clarified.

I said nothing, but telepathically sent to her: I’m currently available, and my emotional temperament just dandy, so yes — I am in an affirmed mental state to continue a discussion with you; however, I am on public transit, so out of courtesy to others, I would like to keep the conversation brief and my participation to as few words as possible.

“All right. You can talk?”

[pause. Scrunchy face and baby voice:]

“I can listen.”

“Oh,” she went on, “well, I just heard from the coroner.”

My heart started beating. We’ve been waiting to hear back from the coroner on the cause of my brother’s death for three months. It has been a major source of frustration — how could they keep a family waiting this long? Isn’t that disrespectful? Don’t people have a right to know as soon as possible the reason for their loved one’s death? — and I’ve been feeling both heavy and empty with so many unanswered questions weaving themselves through my days.

And now that I had the answer coming to me, I didn’t want to hear it.

* * *

There is a funny tendency we humans have, where we can’t quite bring ourselves to do something good for ourselves, even when we know we will be happier that we did it: drag ourselves to the gym, get out of bed on time, tell someone No, I don’t have time to baby-sit for your whiny toddler all weekend for no pay, ETC.

It’s as if the anticipation of that first initial highly uncomfortable moment outweighs all of our logic and reasoning that knows this is actually what we want.

I’m discovering the same goes for the grieving process. Doing things that I know will help me are the very things I find myself wanting to avoid: I don’t want to see friends, I don’t want to read spiritual texts on death and dying that give me some sort of omni-grounded perspective, and I certainly don’t want to witness myself going through any sort of “process of growth.”

…Even though it’s good.

…Because it feels uncomfortable.

I want to, on this 29th day of February, leap right over all this “middle stuff” and end up squarely on the polar end of grief– oblivious indifference.

People think the opposite of grief is joy. Au contraire, mon ami. I am plenty joyful, finding the dynamic complexity that is life, and appreciating it for all it’s beauty. Really. I am.

What I am not doing, and what I will never be able to do again, is swim in the lukewarm waters of ignorance.

And perhaps that’s why, when my sister-in-law called with the news that could begin to bring me closure, that could continue to move me along the path of understanding — I wanted nothing of it.

I didn’t want to come one step closer to acceptance. Acceptance, in my mind, was some perverse form of betrayal to my brother, a kind of resignation to what is; so long as my life is disrupted with the lack of his, his absence is not fact — his death is a strange cognitive dissonance that my brain still suspects of ir-reality.

Once I accept, once my life returns to “normal”, my brother Really, Is, Dead.

Closure? As someone once said “I prefer to leave the door open to interpretation, thank you.”

Yesterday was the three month anniversary of my brother’s death — well, actually the three month anniversary of the day I found him. The police said it was likely he was lying there for a day or two.

Let’s just take a minute with that.

There are so many emotions that come up at this point in the grieving process — the “deep grief” stage, as our Hospice worker explained — that I don’t know how to hold them all in my sorry little body.

I’m still in disbelief and numbness a lot of the time. My parents and I have begun to go back to most of our daily activities — my dad golfs, my mom is finishing her cooking school, I am working on a lot of naming projects in the city — I often find myself thinking my life hasn’t changed a bit since Thanksgiving, the day from which I had to start living my life as an only child.

Absentmindedly, I will start to call my brother to tell him about a friend that suggested we go paint-balling for my birthday — and can I borrow his gun? That’s when I have to remind myself that, Oh, right. My brother isn’t actually living.

It’s a very strange and recurring realization.

Then I find the anger. There is just so much rage inside my teeth and I don’t know where to bite: I’m angry at the dogs when they jump up on me; at my optometrist for not having my new glasses ready; at the IRS, my dentist, and Amazon.com; my shoulder pain; my stupid Perspective Fund and the god-damn money I have to give to some god-damn charity; at my boyfriend and how EFFing good he is; that I’m not that good; that it’s raining when it’s raining and it’s sunny when it’s sunny; that the coroner STILL hasn’t told us the cause of death (!) and the death certificates I ordered over a month ago haven’t arrived, making my poor sister-in-law still unable to do something as simple as sell my brother’s car; that I’ll be twenty-seven years old in one month and will still be living with my parents because I can’t seem to take a step forward because every time I start to stand up some big Frying Pan of Life whacks me upside the head, be it heartbreak, serious tropical diseases, or death!

This has been my year… Not that I’m complaining.

And then more loss: I am a bad girlfriend and lose my dear sweet Moo; my favorite, symbolic, tree is cut down; and my friend and roommate in Vietnam writes to tell me that her brother suddenly passed away.

There is confusion. Suddenly life doesn’t seem so clear, my plans muddy, my heart barricades from life. I begin to forget that living is joy, begin to think life is just a series of devastations. I start to believe life is sorrow.

What’s left, after it all, is an emptiness embedded under the dark bone of my body — a thick pain saddled to my heart that slides, drops deeper into the smokey cells of me, and will take a lifetime to excavate. At night I feel the weight of searching, spooning inside for my ribs. I am back to the ugliness, the messy hatred for life that is beyond depression; it is Aloneness. There is no pain like this pain.

And then something funny happens: I go to sleep. I wake up. The earliest morning light winks through my window. It is the three month anniversary of my brother’s death plus one.

I have made it through one more day.

And maybe I do it all over again. Or, maybe the next day my lungs are lighter, and the worst thing that happens is I drop my toothbrush in the toilet. Oh well. But I am here and I am alive and I am standing inside the sun of this day, and waiting for me at the end of this day is another, and — I hope — another after that, and another…

and if I can just make it through the night, there is always a dawn waiting to tell me that there is light.

When I have writer’s block, I check my junk mail.

Or the spam on Not Keeping Score. On any given day, I get about 50 spam comments on my blog (russian mail-order wives, vicodin, porn, help-china-take-over-the-world) and for the most part, I “Mark All As Spam” and delete (yes, I know: there is a plug-in for this, but I am either lazy, stupid, or perhaps like sifting through lines of hyperlink)

I’ve thought of doing a few creative things with the spam my blog generates: found poetry, desktop wallpaper, bathroom reading…

But no. Today, I scrolled through the junk until I was stopped by two really wonderful pieces of spam, convincing and creative (I am always smitten with creative spam*[1].) What wonderful writing fodder! Is it strange I get my story ideas from online blog spam? Ah, modernity.

Of the below, one spam text is evidently from an online mobile phone dealer, the other, for viagra. I’ll let you guess which was which.

Spam #1:
“Eh…. I can’t be bothered with anything lately. Listen, there’s more. Lots more.

[A 19th century man, bespeckled and hunched over a worn oak table centered squarely in the middle of a dark library, closterphobic with books. The man, head in hands, is visibly tired and discouraged. He raises and then shakes his head, rubs his eyes with the thumb and forefinger of his right hand. "Eh..." he sighs, and thinks to himself how narrow-focused and love-less he has become. "I can't be bothered..." He has been searching all day, for days, perhaps for his whole life, for something in these texts, only to realize-- "Listen, there's more," whispers a voice from a directionless place, "Lot's more." The man turns around, eyes wide: the books have spoken.]

See? Instant story.

Spam #2:
“Lady Astor: Mr. Churchill, you’re drunk!
Winston Churchill: Yes, and you, Madam, are ugly. But tomorrow, I shall be sober. ”

[Perfect dialogue. No narrative needed.]

=============
*[1] This is not the first time I have blogged about the creative virtues of spam.

My New Year’s video letter, delivered on February 14:

I’m standing by my Perspective Fund and its inevitable teachings — especially the redirection of complaining into action.

I posted about two complaints (#4 & #5) having to do with my current physical condition – chronic shoulder pain and acne – and I used the time I would have otherwise whined like a 2-yr-old to instead call my general care physician for an appointment for both a determotologist and orthopedic (God Bless HMO’s and the run-arounds)*; see an acupucturist (I figure I’ll cover my bases with both Eastern and Western medicine); order an ergonomic keyboard; get a facial; and write on the chalkboard 100 times that Yes, people like me, nobody hates me, and I shouldn’t go eat worms.

And wouldn’t you know it — progress. After a year of complaining about, well, a lot of things, but these two specifically, I finally discovered that a major side effect of a medication I’m on causes acne, and I’m coming off of it. And my ergonomic keyboard arrived today and hoo-boy — what a difference it makes (with a $135.95 price tag, it better).

Who knew that typing hunched over on a MacBook all day would strain the body?

It doesn’t make life perfect, but it sure makes life better; all complaining did was make me feel like a shmuck (and –okay– every once in awhile, better).

Worth the $5/pop lesson so far.

*Sarcasm is NOT the same as a complaint!

Tally so far: $35

Complaint #6: Taxes. Politics. The nation’s healthcare situation. (Yes, it counts as only one complaint, as it was all part of one long rant).

Complaint #7: That a friend pointed out to me that I was complaining, and that will be $5 thank-you-very-much.

Realization: That I’m more fiscally conservative and “economically Republican” than I knew; that talking about the above subjects while going on a beautiful (uphill) nature hike is NOT recommended if you have high blood pressure in your genetics; that telling my friends about my Prospective Fund was a bad idea.

I showed up the Penngrove Firestation, my polling place, in the early afternoon.

I was excited to vote. I’ve been largely undecided through the past few weeks, owing to my pervasive innate indecisiveness, but also to my mixed feelings about the candidate choices —

before Obama even decided to run, I was a fan. Ever since reading about him in the Economist a year and a half ago, I thought he was presidential material. And of all years for him to run, this was his chance year.

Hillary, I’ve always liked her involvement in health care — a very big issue for me — and although she seems more political and divisive (can you just imagine the GOP going after her in the general elections?), I have to admit, I like Team Billary anyway.

And every one else? Sorry, I’m in it to win.

But I woke up this morning and decided to go with my original feelings — I was arguing with my friend back in January of ‘07 that I wanted to see in the white house someone who could inspire the country again, regardless of experience or politics, and that Obama was it.

Plus, when it comes to voting, my decision methods are simple: Cry me once, shame on me. Cry me twice, shame on you. Oh, Hill- I was with you for the first waterworks, but you should know better than to try the same stint twice. And at Yale, of all places.

So there you go.

I told myself that I wasn’t going to write on NKS about my primary election opinions — honestly, I’m not smart enough to publish political opinions in a public forum.

But then I arrived at my polling station, where my registration was apparently cancelled. I had them call the San Francisco Registrar’s Office in the event I was still registered there. Nope.

I was a homeless voter.

And so, I was turned away with no glowing satisfaction of citizenly duty, nor cocky “I VOTED, DID YOU?” sticker.

Dejected, I drove home and checked my email. In my inbox was an all-call to vote for Obama.

“I wish I could!” I shouted, my voice truly going unheard. [sigh]

And so all I can do, I suppose, is watch as the results come in, and write this little post in the hopes that some of you out there, if undecided, forgive me and my celebrity friends for sharing our opinions:

OBAMA in’08