What I have been listening to lately

This is the song that has spent a considerable amount of time on my MP3 player this week. Of course the version on my MP3 player isn't live and doesn't have the conversation part in the front and back. This was the only really practical means I had of sharing it with you folks. At this point I will reserve judgement on whether my obsession with this song is healthy or not.

I apologize of the sound quality is bad on this video, I am posting at work so unable to listen to it to confirm quality.

Just a little musical commentary on life, or something close to it.

Samhain

Other than my complaint about not getting to listen to the preachers again this year, I haven't commented much on Samhain. (Not even to cop out like I did last year by linking to the article from the year before.) I fully planned on commenting on it, as for various reasons Samhain was going to be more notable this year than for several years past. In that presumption I turned out to be somewhat correct.

There were two reasons that I expected this to be a notable Samhain. First, being a celebration of honor and remembrance of the recently departed, the loss of one of the most important people in my life this year was certainly going to come into play. As of yet, I have not celebrated a Samhain in which such an important person was central in my personal celebration. I wasn't sure if this was going to make for a good night or not.

The second notable reason was the fact that a Wiccan friend of mine would be coming with her family. It has been several years since I have practiced any Samhain celebration with others who had their own religious/spiritual attachment to the celebration. Our two families had a wonderful time on Lughnassadh, and I imagined that this too would be a quite enjoyable experience.

These were the thoughts if things didn't go wrong. Now I will move on to the realities of my Samhain preparation and celebration. The day before Samhain, while at work, I gave my Wiccan friend my cell phone number again, in case she had misplaced it. I told her that I fully expected plans to be changed many times over the course of the following day, and I would just appreciate it if she updated me when they did, since she had no cell phone (and would be moving from house to house several times during the day) and I would probably be incapable of calling and checking in with her.

The morning of Samhain, I got up much earlier than any mortal should be waking (like 10am or so) and went to work on preparing the house for guests. You see, for those of you who don't know me, how the hell did you end up here? Oh, wait, that wasn't what I was going to say. For those of you who don't know me, I live in a house full of working adults, a 2 yrd old and a destructive little four legged monster that is supposedly a dog. In short, when we entertain, it requires some serious housework to make the place as presentable as possible. We make up for the fact that the place gets cluttered through daily life by making everything shine (including the carpets) when we have guests.

So that early hour had me scrubbing the bathroom from ceiling to floor, just like uncle sam taught me. It had us doing every scrap of laundry in the house. It had every surface sparkling and every one of the kids toys put away. (The latter was an endlessly repeated chore.) We prepared things for the spiritual and casual sides of the celebration, got as much to be "just so" as possible and headed out to the changeling's birthday party.

After her birthday party, I took off while they were taking the kids trick or treating, and my sister and I made final preparations and waited.

That last word is the most important part. Because we did a lot of it. The expected arrival time if nothing changed (remember the phone call I was receiving if it did?) was 6:30p. Messages were left at their home at 8:30p. We finally decided to begin our own miniature celebration at 9:30p. We never heard, and they never showed.

I have worked with this friend of mine and her boyfriend several times since then. I am too professional to say anything to them in the work setting. Neither side has brought it up at all.

So the celebration was noteworthy. Not in the way I celebrated, as it was basically a solitary event as it has been in years past. It was noteworthy because out of all of the various egocentric folks I have known along the path I have walked (and there have been a few) I have never been so directly disrespected as that. I don't ever remember being so angry following Samhain at any other point in my life. There is only one reason I can't say it was ruined by my attempt to reach out to these disrespectful people. Because it was for me, basically a day for Jamesomeone, and as far as he was concerned I couldn't have helped but hear him telling me to let it go. I don't think I can just let it go. As I have said before, forgiveness isn't my thing. But for that night, I could hear him as if he was right there, telling me that this disrespect to him wasn't that important. It's what he would have said. He would have been wrong, but it is what he would have said. For that, perhaps I owe them something. Other than a good swift kick in the ass. But lets take care of first things first.

Thus concludes my Samhain tirade. Feel free to return to your life, or something close to it.

Gomenasai

Some of you folks knew him as Jamesomeone. Some of you knew him by name. Some just in passing. Most of you have the misfortune of not knowing him at all. As of April 28, 2007, those of you who never had the opportunity missed your last chance to be blessed by knowing him.

My memories don't go back far enough to not include him. He was my friend for most of my life. He was the best man at my wedding. He was a brother to me. Now I am left holding onto emptiness and thinking of so many ways that I might have failed him.

He was always so impressed by the intelligence MC and I possessed. He would frequently comment on how much more intelligent I was. About how it sometimes took him a considerable amount of time to catch up to what we were talking about. Not wanting to be patronizing, I told him that he was right. I told him that the paperwork stated that MC and I were, in theory, more intelligent than 98% of the population, so he was in good company. Now I wonder if I should have lied and disagreed with him. I pointed out that methodically and at his own pace he always caught up. That he was the storehouse for tons of knowledge that I knew nothing about. That this helped us as a team, with his wealth of knowledge and my quick little brain, we accomplished all sorts of things. Apparently this wasn't enough.

He used to praise all sorts of accomplishments I had made. Things that I gave little credit to. Things he gave too much credit to. My ego would get in the way of beating him over the head with the obvious facts that belittled my accomplishments. A band we were both fans of sings parts of several songs on their english album in russian. I used to (and still do) listen to all of the russian versions of the songs more frequently. They just sound more natural that way. As such, we would ride around in his Saturn and I would sing along with the songs, and he would be amazed that I sang right along with the russian lyrics. It didn't matter to him that I could do so because I listened to the songs every day, and at parts was simply emulating the sound. It didn't matter to him that the translations of the songs were available on the internet. At one point he commented that it was cool that I knew all the words and I learned them from listening to the songs. It wasn't until a later conversation that I realized he thought I taught myself the language by repeatedly listening to the russian versions of the songs, forgetting that I actually had studied the language briefly, and all of the above reasons.

I couldn't break him of thinking that I was somehow better than him. That I was something to be looked up to. I couldn't get him to realize that he was so much better than I was. That he was someone I looked up to.

He was the one who always inspired me to be a better human being. His giving nature, his work for the community. His history as an Eagle Scout, habitat for humanity volunteer, volunteer fireman, and life guard at several different installations just amazed me. I couldn't see how one person could have that much to give. Even before friends and family were brought into the picture. Perhaps one person can't. Perhaps that is what happened.

There isn't a place I can go that isn't touched by a memory of him. He is in my MP3 player, since half of the songs on it were of bands I got him into or vice versa. He comes to mind when I am watching television, or listening to conversations on the bus. I can't go anywhere without the risk of this hole suddenly ripping itself open again.

I can't help but feel that I failed him. There had to have been something I could have done. Something I could have seen if I just paid a little more attention. I just stare at my hands and feel as empty as they are.

On April 28, 2007, he took the last train for the coast. Two days later a phone call brought to a screeching halt my life, or something close to it.