Dye my eyes and call me pretty

This is a very difficult week for me, for several reasons, all of them having to do with Jack. It's my birthday next week, and he hasn't missed it since 1995, and he knows that there's only one thing I ever wanted on my birthday, because it's the same thing he always wanted: another one. He didn't get his wish this year, and I probably will, and I'm feeling guilty about that, as well as 48 other things I'm not going to enumerate to you, Gentle Reader.

Sorry.

So here's what I did this week, to keep from crying all the time, to keep from going crazy: I went tattoo shopping, and I went therapist shopping. I've done both of these things before: therapist shopping, and tattoo shopping.

Jack had a therapist, Doc G, he called him. I always had his number, in case of emergencies, but when the emergency happened, well, it was too late, and I thought maybe it wouldn't be appropriate for me to call him. I struggled with it for weeks. And then one day, I picked up the phone and left him a message. I thanked him, for what he had done for Jack for all those years. I said, I'm not sure if you know who I am... and I left my number.

He called me back within the hour, and invited me to come see him, in the City. And I did. And the first thing he said to me was, of course I know who you are! Jack told me all about you. He loved you, you know, and I said I know, but no one else does, and then I cried more than I'd cried any time since Jack died.

The second thing Doc G said to me was, Jack wanted you to have his car. Doc G is the only other person on Earth who understands what Jack's car meant to him. That Beauty is more than just a car. That not only did he want me to have her, to look after her for him, but that I owe that to Jack. I owe it to him to take care of her for the rest of her life, and I will, if I am allowed to. But it's not up to me.

She's sitting there, still, in the basement of his building in Pacific Heights.

I sat in Doc G's office for an hour, in the same chair that Jack had sat in for all those years. We looked out the window, and there was Jack's building, you could see the roof, where the owls are. Where Jack and I stood, and watched the fog roll in.


Talking with Doc G, I felt closer to Jack, that here was another soul who really, truly, understood him, and who knew about the bad shit. I love Jack's father, I really do, and he knows me, and I think he likes me just fine, and not just because of the bottle of single malt Scotch I carried throughout the wake, but he doesn't know about the... um, complications, of my relationship with his son. He doesn't know, because his son kept me a secret. From everyone except Doc G. He's the one person, the only person on the entire planet, who knows what I know, who really, truly, understands. The one person I don't have to pretend with.

And I can't see him anymore, Doc G, I mean. Because he belonged to Jack, not to me, and we both agreed that it wouldn't be right, wouldn't be proper; would be, somehow, disloyal, if we were to have a doctor-patient relationship. There's no other kind of relationship we could have, I mean, it's not like we're going to go out for a beer together, that would be too weird; it's never going to happen.

So I have to find another therapist. Someone I can talk to about Jack. Someone who I can cry in front of, because I can't cry in front of my friends anymore. If there's one thing I've learned in my life, it's that friends, no matter how great they are — and I have some really great friends, I do — they want you to hurry up and get over the sadness, and get back to you being your regular self, and if you cry in front of them for too long, it scares them away, and they don't want to be around you anymore, because you bring them down.

What's it all About, Alfie?

Yes, Gentle Reader, I'll get back to this story soon, but it's still very hard for me to write about Jack now that he's gone, so allow me to distract both of us with a different tale.


If you know what "what does this mean" means, you must be a Lutheran, and just like only Newfies can make Newfie jokes and really really get them, only Lutherans can make catechism jokes and really get them. For example, that picture is Martin Luther doing the Chicken Dance. Come on, that kills!

On the other hand, if, unlike Newfie jokes no one else even thinks they're funny, the whole politically correct issue is deftly avoided.

Where was I? Oh yes, so, when Rochester Facebooked this video the other day, it not only had me in stitches but it impressed me that in addition to being a Sloan fan and knowing to say hockey, never ice hockey, he was one of mein people.

I know what you're wondering, Gentle Reader: We thought Postmodern Sass was an Existentialist? I am, now, but if you know anything at all about Germans you know that you can't ever un-become what you were born into. California is not exactly what you'd call a land of diversity in culture, so discovering that Rochester is Lutheran was rather like spying a Canadian flag on someone's knapsack in a rural Chinese village.

He's a friend of a friend of the Librarian's, and I first met him about a year ago when the Librarian's friend, JB, took me to his apartment. Rochester's apartment, I mean.

That sounded so much better in my head.

See, the Librarian and I had been out at one of our favourite pubs, O'Flaherty's, and JB's wife had let him out for the night so he called — my cell phone, because the Librarian doesn't have one — to find out where we were. The thing I like about JB is that when he goes out, he goes out hard, so even though the Librarian checked himself out around 10:00, JB was still rarin' to go.

I like going out with married men because you always know where you stand.

"I'm going to call my friend Rochester," said JB. "He lives downtown, and is usually amenable to the idea of beer." I liked him already. More so, when we arrived at his place a few minutes later and he handed me a Molson.

I've seen him two or three times since then, and last weekend we went to see Get Smart together, though it was definitely not a date, which suits me just fine because I don't want to date anyone right now, maybe not ever again, but it's nice to have a smart, interesting man to talk to.

Even if he's not married.