The Wordmistress

Mourning Has Broken

Well the anniversary of Ross' death has now come and gone, and I was right. Things are exactly the same. He's still gone. I guess I was sort of thinking in the back of my head that if we did the right thing and spent our year grieving and healing and doing "what he woulda wanted" like people love to say, somehow something would change. Course I knew this wouldn't happen, but that's how I feel. In the Jewish religion, after one year, you are no longer in mourning. Fairly arbitrary, huh?

My father lost his sister to cancer when she was around my brother's age. He never talks about her. For him, I guess, it's too hard to remember. I intend never to be that way, so I talk about him all the time. And I think about him. I think it's okay not to officially be "in mourning" anymore. But I will never stop thinking and talking about him. And in that way, he will always be with me.

And so it goes ...

Rest in peace.

From the Hands of Babes

I don't know what I'd do without her. Mia's first painting. I see birds and trees. What do you see?

Used To Was

One year ago tomorrow, my mom drove down to Chicago to babysit Mia while I was supposed to go on a couple of job interviews. They were to be my first job interviews since I lost my job in 2001. As I was preparing to leave, the phone rang and my sister-in-law told me the devastating news: my brother had fallen into a coma after suffering a severe allergic reaction. Within three days he was dead. These last couple of weeks have been very difficult. I know how to do a great many things: I can change the oil in a car; hook up a VCR; and soothe Mia's tears. But I don't know how to deal with the anniversary of my brother's death.

In the Jewish religion, you light a candle. You remember the person. But tomorrow, and Saturday, isn't any different than today or yesterday. I think about Ross everyday. I miss him everyday. How do you act differently on the day?

I was at a little party in Milwaukee over the holidays and a woman asked me, "Did you know that guy who died?" "It depends," I said. "On which guy you mean." Cause you know, my brother wasn't "that guy." He was Ross Kurzer and he was a great guy who didn't deserve to die so young. He was big and full of life and humor and happiness and he brought a lot of joy to a lot of people.

In high school, Ross was a merry prankster. He often orchestrated erroneous school closings for sport. On a teacher's challenge, he arranged for famed psychologist B.F. Skinner to speak at our high school, fooling the old codger into believing that he was talking to grad students. He starred in every musical production. He hosted his own radio show on college radio and sold a recording of Ronald Reagan's "I Will Begin the Bombing" speech to the Talking Head's Jerry Harrison for a dance mix.

In college he dabbled in university politics, worked in college radio and was pretty much a cool cool guy. That was when I was finally cool enough to see him as the amazingly brilliant and inspired man he was and felt lucky and proud that he was my brother. When he met his soulmate Margit, his demeanor changed. He felt truly blessed and was extraordinarily devoted. Though we both felt that our family had its foibles, he embraced our eccentricities and both he and his wife went out of their way to make my parents feel young and included, warm and loved.

Shock, devastation and enormous sadness have torn their way through our hearts this year, but our calloused souls have endured. And so we are treading lightly on this year's anniversary, letting it inch on by, not understanding it completely but realizing that it is about the passage of time ... a precious commodity that for some reason we are afforded. Tick tock.

Day for Night

Somehow over the past few weeks, I've gotten my nights and days mixed up. Every night I am bone tired right around 8 pm, but I cannot get to sleep. Oh, how I try! But I'm lucky if I get any snooze time before 2 or 3 in the morning. By Mia's naptime, I am so wiped, I literally pass out (if not before while the wild one is getting into all sorts of trouble ... please don't call social services on me!) What's worse, is that I work at home. At night. So while this sleeplessness might seem like a boon, it isn't. I'm still tired and trying to sleep. And confused and bleary and, well, unable to write. Mia is great in the mornings, she wakes up at around 7 am and puts on her aquarium, which is this Fisher-Price toy that plays the same infernal music over and over again. But it keeps her occupied for nearly an hour in the morning and that is all right with me. Around 8 she gets more insistent and I drag my sorry ass out of bed. And the cycle begins again. Circadian rhythms, where are you when I need you?

Reality Bites

I have to come clean ... I am willingly participating in the rapid disintegration of class and decorum in the world. I have been watching My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiance on Fox. I claim that I don't watch non-MTV or non-Trump reality shows, but somehow the remote found its way over to this program and now, of course, I'm hooked. It's true train-wreck TV. The criticisms are too obvious, so I'll just tout its, er, appeal. This suburban blondie is willing to put her fairly tolerant, but uptight family through an emotional meat grinder for a million dollars. Once you tune in, it's impossible to turn away.

My name is Robin and I am easily manipulated between commercial breaks.

Teeny Weeny Itsy Bitsy

My friend Lisa dropped her three-week-old daughter Lili off and so Mia and I are babysitting. 'Cept Mia doesn't even know that Lili is here because the baby is enjoying the sweet slumber of life atop the dining room table, safely ensconced inside her infant seat, oblivious as can be. Mia was intrigued by the blanket hanging down over the seat and tugged on it a couple of times, but I told her it was for the baby and she seemed to be okay with that. I can't believe that Mia was ever that small. Or quiet.

Um, OWWWWW!!!

So my throat is killing me. I put off going to the doctor for about a week cuz since Mia came along it's been impossible for me to actually gauge whether I am really ill or just faking it. Turns out I'm faking it. Doctor says that my throat is really red but there's no strep so it's a "virus", which I'm beginning to believe is doctorspeak for, "you don't have anything, go home and get out of my face." Still it was good to have some confirmation that it actually was red cuz I thought I was going crazy. And it was a good excuse to buy popsicles in the middle of a Chicago winter. Actually, ibuprofen is helping with the pain relief. I bet Vicodin would help even more ... know where I can get any?

Physical pain is of course, just one manifestation of the emotional pain that is growing this month for me and everyone in my family as February, the bleakest month of all, continues to march on. As some of you may know, the one-year anniversary of my brother's death is fast approaching, coming up on February 28. It is solemn and shitty and oh, so sucky in so many ways. Although I do not know exactly how my parents, my sister-in-law or anyone else who loved him feels, I know that we all miss him dearly and still grieve him with a lot of pain, agony and confusion. It's no wonder that it hurts to talk ... I'm surprised I can speak at all sometimes.

But time, for us, does go on. There are reasons. Mia mostly, little monkeyshine. My folks want so desperately for us both to be healthy and I really do try.

In the meantime. OWWWWW.

Snap Crackle Pop Culture

After a protracted absence, my favorite pop culture blog has returned with a brand new look! Go check out Pop Culture Junk Mail when you get a chance. Gael Cooper is such a clever writer and I marvel at how familar I am with the obscure nostalgia she manages to drum up. She is a way cool chick; you will not be disappointed.

While I was getting my pop culture fix, I was reminded of a little Web odyssey I took a few weeks ago when Captain Kangaroo (Bob Keeshan) died. As a tot, I was a big fan of the Cap's shenanigans and dug his loony, but tame cast of characters. I was especially enthralled by a cartoon character that was presented in very strange animation, only appeared a few times and no one ever seemed to remember. Well, when the good ol' Captain kicked, I made it my business to find out who this fine fellow was.

He was not Tom Terrific. Oh, I remember Tom and Tom was, well, terrific. But though Tom was drawn in distinctive, hand-drawn animation, this guy was drawn in an even stranger way. After hitting the Web hard, I ascertained that he was Fred (scroll down on the page), an Aniforms character that only appeared on the show a few times. Aniforms was an early TV animation process that was really very cool, enjoyed a brief popularity and then blew out of fashion as quickly as Joyce DeWitt. If the Web was worth anything, I'd be able to see a picture or video of dear Fred, wouldn't I? But this was not meant to be. There is a dearth of information out there on Aniforms, Fred and all his weird and defunct Aniform pals.

Anyhoo, go check out Pop Culture Junk Mail. Or find out more about Fred for me. It's a poppy pop pop pop world tonight, I've decided.

Who's That Girl?

That icon over there on the left that indicates my mood has been usurped lately by another person, a person who lives in another country and has a completely different web site. The whole system is run by the fine folks at unkymoods who recently had a big meltdown and suffered a big mix-up in their database. So every time I'd change the icon to indicate that I was, say, "depressed", this person in Sweden or some godforsaken place would change it to something like, "delighted", thinking of course that they were just doing it for their own web site. Or if I would change it to say "sick", like Mia and I were this past week, it would be changed to say "hungry". I think it's fixed now, but I feel like my web site's been inhabited by a an elf belittling my true feelings.

Speaking of little elves, Mia's been acting mighty strange these days. No longer the mellow child who was content to sleep long hours and never cry, this kid has entered the "pick-me-up", "put-me-down" zone punctuated by lots of screeching and wailing. She is very dramatic and loves to twist and flail her body when she doesn't get her way. Thing is I'd give her her way if I just knew what it was that she wanted! Do you want the phone? No. The dolly? No. Okay. No, you can't have the knife. No, the garbage is gross. What are you pointing at? Do you want to go outside? Up? Down? Honestly, I don't mind any of it, I just want to make sure that she's not in any pain. I can't wait until she can talk ...

I'll try to post more. We've been sick. I've been working. I've been not working. Sincerely, I've been so sick of this country since the whole Jackson flap. There are so many problems, real problems, and just so much spinning of wheels and bureaucracy over nothing. How's someone supposed to write intelligently, when the world seems to be so, er, stupid? I keep hoping that some of these little kiddies can do something about it. I sure hope so.