1. Find pictures of friends on Facebook.
2. Find something they said.
3. Combine into CD covers.
4. Hope they don’t defriend me.

Click each picture to see it all big and stuff.

* * * * *

Dear Henry,

Carol is dead.

I have thought long and hard how to tell you the news, or even if I should tell you the news. To say my emotions have been clear of late would be to suggest that London is bereft of fog. In fact, every emotion – every word I dare think, write or say – is heavy and thick like fog around me. This is where I reside now. However, I know you would have wanted to know, so I thought I would tell you in the most abrupt and startling fashion possible.

Carol is dead.

I am unsure how you will take the news, Henry, but I hope you take it hard. Damn hard. Harder than any news you have heard in your life. If I may share the extent of my wishes, I hope your legs have given out from beneath you and you have fallen to your knees so hard that, as long as you live, every step will reflect the damage you’ve done. Further, I hope you are sweating profusely at this moment and that your hands are shaking so violently that it takes the most supreme of will to hold this letter still enough to read these words.

It is understandable if you want details, and I will share them with you. After Carol’s weekly book club last Friday, she stopped by at the mail box between her friend Joyce’s bungalow and our home. Apparently, this was the coda to the book club each week. Anyway, she had just exited her car when she was struck. Hit. Slammed into by a car driven by a group of kids, drunk on their privilege and loud music. They were caught thanks to some well-meaning soul who memorized their license place. My wife flew twenty feet before slapping onto the pavement. When you go out walking on your bad knees, Henry, look twenty feet in front of you always. I always do. That’s the distance she flew.

I was, of course, enraged that she had not returned home. And then, as you can imagine, I had that cold bucket of reality hit me when the hospital contacted me, after I had ignored their first two calls (assuming it was Carol, of course, I admit to feeling spiteful). I’m not sure where my blood went, but it drained out of me. I operated solely on adrenaline from that point on. In my car. To the hospital. Not hearing what room she was in. Rushing to it. Being held back. Being told. And then even the adrenaline couldn’t hold me up. I crashed to the dirty ER floor much like you have done.

Carol is dead.

My mind was full of everything and nothing when I was given her personal effects. Her purse, phone, clothes in plastic and copy of “Tale of Two Cities” by Charles Dickens. I remember being mystified by the tome; I knew it was the subject of the book club, but her copy was tattered and dog-eared. On the inside, just below the title, was a dedication between two strangers: “To 42 with love, H.” I wondered who these two lovers were.

You know what else I was given, don’t you? This is where you silently nod, Henry.

The oddest thing I was given from her personal effects was an envelope, addressed to “H”. One of the staff of the hospital revealed that she had it in her hand when she was hit by that stupid car, and hadn’t let go as she expired a mere second or two later. What was this, I wondered. I opened it and, in a strange way, met my wife again.

“Dear H, I am thoroughly enjoying ‘Tale’. Thank you for this. And everything. You know all the things I can’t say, but I know you hear them. And I can hear you say the same things in return. Love, 42.”

We all have little parts of our lives that no one knows about. But when life is gone, those little parts live on and can be discovered. Behind files and files and files, which I combed through in the interest of catching a smell of her hair or a written word I hadn’t seen, merely to keep her alive a little longer and to avoid the well-wishers that plastered on impossible smiles of encouragement, I found your correspondence with my wife dating back four years. Four years.

I read all of your letters, from the first, in which you had just met her at one of those lectures she loved which I loathed. You recapped, in a rather shaky style, might I say, your meeting and how charmed you were in her. And how charmed she was in you. As the letter progressed, it became clear that you and her fell in love with each other. Perhaps I misspeak. You loved Carol and Carol loved you. You both loved each other so much that you never met again and you decided to not disrupt your respective families.

From your December 6, 2009 letter: “I am happy to hear you are happy. I am happy, too. Of course, my deepest love is for you, and I want you to be happy. Jerry makes you happy. And Tabitha and the girls make me happy. I think I’ve rediscovered love to really be something without demands. Thank you for that. You remain my answer to life, the universe and everything. I will remain your heroin.”

Like I said, pretty shaky, H. You may note that this missive is equally shaky. I have an excuse.

No doubt you have calmed down a bit, or the shock has completely immobilized you. So I can get to the real point of this letter, Henry, with your full attention.

Carol’s happiness was always on my mind, and due to the minutiae of the day, I didn’t always ensure that it was a priority. I’m imperfect. But to let my wife retain her happiness, I want to write to you each and every Friday and speak of her. I want to read the books you recommended or sent. I want to share with you the spring in her step and sparkles in her eyes, which I knew weren’t always inspired by my behavior. Please help me keep her happy now.

Oh, and finally, as you find the strength to stand and before you plan on dismissing your sad expression from your wife and daughters: thank you.

Until next week,

Gerald

So I heard Rebecca Watson told a scary tale
A scary, scary, scary tale
Of being with a man in a Dublin lift
Wherein there was caused not even a rift.

For there were no signs of ugly aggression
Or even unwanted sexual attention
There was an invite for chat and for coffee
And no suggestion, I understand, of schtupping or boffing.

And when she said, ‘no.’
The man did go.

Well!  So rattled Watson soon became
That while not mentioning this poor bastard’s real name
Took her case to the internet
And angry appetites she did prove to whet.

On camera she stood tall (well… she sat)
And said, ‘guys, don’t do that’
A blanket statement for half the population
To abbreviate or eliminate their perceived adulation.

This scary tale soon reached Richard Dawkins
Who is known for his writin’ and his talkin’s
He found such a proclamation absurd
And voiced as much in many more words.

Dawkins scribed a funny, fictional lettah
To a woman that he dubbed Muslima
And told her not to bemoan her plight
Or dare to complain about her lack of rights.

For women in the West have it far, far worse!
Like being in an elevator and having some verse
Spoken to one, and when one declines
Having that fellow say nothing but “fine”!

Reaction to this joke was instant and fast
As if all the people were joyous at last
To be, at Dawkins, incredibly pissed
And whom they all secretly knew was a misogynist.

People demanded apologies from this Oxfordian mutt
And Dawkins replied ‘Apologize for what?’
Which made everyone all the more mad
Mob mentality does not common sense stand!

‘You don’t know what it’s like to be afraid
Or made uncomfortable or ashamed!’
Came the response from the enraged blogosphere
Laying claim, as they did, to the concept of fear.

For me I find I must wonder about this
Although I’m a Mister and I’ve never been Miss
I’m made uncomfortable all of the time
To live in a city is to live near a crime.

So I could be shot or attacked or mercilessly mugged
By a random crazy or someone on drugs
So I really don’t know what it’s like to be scared?
Half the population thinks I’ve never been there?

And when I attempted to convey skepticism
Of this laying of claim about misogynism
I was told I have no respect for women or their strife
Holy hell, I thought, I hope no one tells my wife.

But if Watson and crew dictated behavior

And allowed only things in which we could savor

Then we’d never hear again from old Richard Dawkins

And forget the hell out of ol’ Sadie Hawkins.

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1. GREAT POST! himself actually coped bracing the bases. Thank better self for rationing.   

-Vincent Truman, June 2011

Everyone is very, very aware that life is short and time is fleeting, but it is a far better thing to feel that it is.

For no one special reason, but rather a domino avalanche of them, several members of a Myspace blogging collective reunited over last weekend. Last year, I was pleased to go and meet a few of them for the first time – including, but not limited to, Aaron Dietz, Gus Sanchez, Andrea Burlingame and Michael ‘Spilt Milk’ Grover – in Seattle. And this year, a trip to New York guaranteed meeting not only Aaron and Gus (and their respective loved ones) but Kristin Weholt, Inga, Erin McParland, Mike Garvey, Shaina Cohen, Christy King, Amanda Van Horn, Jannell Lannon and Luis, etc. within three days.

To merely describe the dinners and social events would prove a disservice to the people who came from all over the world for no other reason than to meet other people who came from all over the world to meet them. So I will attempt mere character sketches of a few of the people I met for the first time, and hope that the minimal lines below will coalesce to form a portrait one can see in one’s mind but one would be unable to draw. Note: I have purposefully avoided talking about girlfriends and wives in any detail.

I will start with Erin McParland, someone who I just missed meeting last time I was in New York. She went out of her way to suggest or arrange places for us Out of Towners to go to, as well as being generous to host a big party with everyone from everywhere. Her smile is easy and her youthful energy is infectious. And she opened her home and heart to everyone.

Mike Garvey was known to me for many years as Armand Assante’s Left Testicle on Myspace. He is acerbic, crude, vile and nasty – but it comes from such a good place that, upon meeting him, the handshake was quickly abandoned in favor of a warm bearhug. Although we did not have too long to have a heart-to-heart, we were able to share a few minutes and a few years of history together. He’s genuine.

Christy King is angular, stunningly attractive and energetic like an Oprah-in-waiting. She described her religion/god to me as the nature she finds in the hearts and minds of other people; one could picture her hosting her own hour-long show and telling her stunned studio audience to look under their chairs. When the audience would return to their upright position, she would smile and say, ‘I didn’t say you were going to win anything – suckaz.’

Amanda van Horn would be a good cartoon lioness. Soft eyes, a perfect mane, a sly smile, a tat of a heart on her right shoulder. Virtually impossible not to greet her with, ‘gawsh, yer purty.’ We did not talk much, but she was a great pleasure not to talk to. I will work on that sentence.

Shaina Cohen sports one of those smiles that turn down at first, and is as vibrant as the ink that decorates her arm. An author/artist finding her way.

Allie Smith – a Smith girl and a Leo – was the biggest surprise.  We are e-friends of an e-friend and only got introduced as Allie was considering relocating to Chicago.  As it turns out, we were very old friends immediately, and while she had not met any of my fellow refugees from Myspace, she dove right in and held her own brilliantly.  Sharp as a razor, soft as a prayer.

Finally, there is Kristin. Like my friend Inga, Kristin hails from Norway. She is what one imagines when one imagines Nordic goddesses, which I never do. She was the first person I met in New York and the last I saw. So New York can be bracketed by the hugs with Kristin. I believe we find each other equally adorable and annoying. Instant siblings. Encouraging words come from one when the other is a little down; and when one is feeling overly confident, the other one pours a nice hot cup of sarcasm. As a result of our multiple meals and long walks through Central Park, we were very adept at finding each other’s buttons. Whenever I might look at her for more than two consecutive seconds, she would snap back, ‘What?!‘, drop-kicking me into a fluster that would take me some time from which to recover. She also enjoyed calling me “creepy”, which is one button that terrifies me – and one that was pressed more repeatedly than Helen Keller’s doorbell.

In return, I would poke fun at her many stories of her boyfriend – and how she misses him and how wonderful he is, etc. It did get to the point where Kristin was thinking of him so often and fondly that whatever we were discussing would snap, quite quickly, into a story about her boyfriend. During one of the days, lounging in a hotel bar and sampling oysters on a half shell, Inga and I wondered if there was anything that we could say that would not instantly turn into a story about her boyfriend. I offered up that my wife was enduring her time of the month. Within a minute of this revelation, Kristin pointed out that, yes, her boyfriend, too, gives plenty of blood.

And coursing through all of these people was, of course, that beast known as New York, with its constant murmuring, breathing and rumbling that make it sound like either an underground animal, living under the pavement and plotting to escape, or a music more melodious than Mozart and thick like jazz. Even at 330am, when the city is most quiet, one is aware of something under the pavement, itching to get out to take on another day.

As I sit on the stoop of Park 79, the bastard child of any number of overnight facilities (hostel, boutique hotel, YMCA, some social experiment), I am pleased and happy and on fire with inspiration. It is these diamonds of contentment that, when worn properly, permit one to forget about who one is and what journey one is on and simply bask in the reflections of the friends one has.

Perhaps the group is best summed up by something Aaron Dietz said to me as we were saying goodbye for the second time:

“Keep hugging me. She’s going to take a picture.”