Connecting across the world-wide-web

Today is just one of those days you step back and go "this is cool". I've downloaded a mp3 of a group in NYC that conducted by grad school classmate that conducted my final piece for my masters. I did an IM with another friend I went to college with who lives in Ann Arbor, MI. And then I connected with someone I knew from my hometown when he joined facebook.

People talk about how the Internet can create distance. I think that is too simplistic a statement. In my case it's helping me reconnect.

I think we're going to need a ladder

Last year we bought a new bed from IKEA. The bed frame is great, but the mattress died after one year. (It was cheap, you get what you pay for.)

But now we have the "bowling ball" mattress. (You drop a bowling ball on one side and a glass of water won't spill on the other side.) But, is it high! We need a ladder to get in. (Or a springboard.)

The Feast of Saint Bruce and the Liturgy of the Gin and Tonic

Bruce would laugh if he knew I referred to him as "Saint Bruce". Bruce was a friend of mine who died of cancer on September 12th, 2001.

He had a great sense of humor and he had married another good friend of mine. I had made so many jokes about them as a couple (he was like 10 years older than her) that I had to promise (at their wedding) that I would "support this marriage".

Bruce died very early on 9/12. He and many of his friends had all worked at the same company (including my manager). We all hopped in cars and drove over to his house to be with his wife. Bruce's favorite drink was gin and tonic. Sometime in the afternoon we made a big pitcher of G&T's and all had one last toast to Bruce.

And that is what I'm intending to do today. I'm filing this under "Life is good" because I am very thankful that I knew Bruce.

9/11/2007

Last night I was trying to remember what 9/11/01 was like. I have such scattered memories from that day. I remember walking in the St. Paul skyway from the YMCA to my office and seeing a crowd of people gather in-front of TVs that were mounted in a bank lobby. I slowed down and saw the first pictures of the hole in one of the towers.

I remember getting back to my desk and trying to call home. It seems to me that the phone lines where starting to go crazy and I couldn't get through at first. When I did get a hold of Wendy she told me she was seeing it on TV. I think while we were talking we heard of the second tower getting hit.

Somewhere in all this my manager, Diane, came by to tell me to go the hospital because Bruce was saying "goodbye." Since about January of 2001 my friend Bruce had been fighting lung cancer. He never smoked. For me 9/11 is a tangle of thoughts about loss both national and personal.

That day Bruce said goodbye to many of his friends and his daughter. He was moved from the hospital to some 30 miles away in the country so that he could die at home. I'm pretty sure Bruce was unaware of what had happened that morning. All his friends talked about the events out in the waiting room at the hospital and at his home before the ambulance got there with him.

There was a brief moment at Bruce's home when I was alone with him in the ambulance while things were being prepared for him in the house. I remember I was at such an utter loss for words. Bruce was fighting so hard just to have enough energy to survive the move into the house. I've always wished I could have said something, anything in that moment. I feel like I let him down by being so quiet.

I remember driving home from Bruce's and being aware that I was driving under a sky without jets. Our house is near the airport so the sounds of planes is just background noise to me. On that day it was quiet, and sunny, and blue skied, and so unlike the smoke that rose over New York. So unlike the pain Bruce was in.

Tolkien quote

"Blessed are the legend-makers with their rhyme
of things not found within recorded time."

from Mythopoeia by J. R. R. Tolkien

And the french word for today is "avis"

And today's word is "avis" (ah-vee), meaning "opinion."

A while back I found the website A French Word a Day. Back in 1994 Wendy and I visited France. Rather than finding the French rude we found them quite helpful if you made the attempt to speak the language. (Having said this I should point out that Wendy is from New York state and I lived there for 8 years.)

Although language was always my weakest subject in school, I had such fun trying to learn a bit of French while we were there. Someday perhaps I'll take a class in it here in town.

So this is "mon avis" for the day. (Hopefully that wasn't a major "faux pas")

A scene from "The House of Gennaula"

(At rise: Father enters dining room. Mother and son, Tommy, is seated at the dining room table. Tommy is playing his Gameboy DS and apparently not listening to the conversation. General small talk between Father and Mother until...)

Mother: ... and Tommy has been a very good boy.

Tommy: (Without looking up from his Gameboy DS) That's what SHE thinks.

(end of scene)