by Michael S. Kaplan, published on 2008/12/24 17:01 -05:00, original URI: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/michkap/archive/2008/12/24/9252170.aspx
As the end of the year approaches, I guess it is a time for reflection.
Oh, I suppose resolutions for the new year. For those you can paste in mine from four years ago, as I am still striving on them.
2008 was kind of my worst year for as long as I have been alive.
The year Liz died (ref: Burying the lead, aka A weekend perfected not by art but by mortality for the magical last time I saw her and It's not (aka She's not) for when I first talked about her passing).
I feel like I am much less than I was before she died, like maybe just a shell of that person.
How can someaone who I talked to only occasionally and saw even less than that have such an impact?
I've talked to her sister a few times since then. I now know that Liz really did imagine we'd end up together eventually, that she had been carrying a torch for years. She called up her sister and cried when she heard I was engaged (especially to someone she didn't approve of but even so...). And she actually threw a party for her friends with the theme of "Dong Dong, the Wench is Gone!" when we called it off and we subsequently broke up.
That last trip, spending time with me here, was (reportedly in her own words, according to her sister) her "Hail Michael pass" -- a pass at me, one that she wanted to make at me. Her last chance, so to speak.
Calling the weekend a Hail Michael pass would probably have been the coolest back-formation ever (for a Hail Mary pass) were it not for the fact that because of my block the pass was incomplete.
Of course when I think about that, I just feel stupid -- how could I have missed it? We shared so much and knew so much about each other, how could I have misread her in this one area to such a degree?
Non-strategic blindness would have also made a good title for this blog. The weekend, in retrospect, feels to me like the ultimate collection of the mother of all tactical mistakes.
Since then I have found many new friends, people who by the simple fact that they live in or at least hang out in Seattle have dran me out of what would have been a shell due to the huge collection of people leaving town and leaving entirely looking now like a serious changing of the guard in terms of the people I spend at least some if not a huge horking bunch of my time with.
Tomorrow I'm heading to Seattle for a dinner for all the Emerald City orphans, and I am going so far as to say maybe to invites for New Year's parties though I haven't accepted any yet. Doing something festive on THAT holiday is a bit too soon for me, I think. Some of the parties sounded cool, but there is always some other year, some day.
The Casey at the Bat imagery is in my head and I can't shake it except by thinking about the Aimee Mann song (It's Not) which is actually worse from a mood standpoint. When I am around people it is not so bad, but I can't be around people all the time, so....
and thus it ends, with the fixed up version of the final verse:
Though I keep looking in her eyes as I search for answers
go through motions although I really can't say why
could I have fixed it all or done something different?
No way too say anything but goodbye.
and I can't close my eyes to pretend she's still there
'cause she's not.
I know she's not.
no she's not.
Not necessarily better, but at least the worst of the scansion problems are gone (since the orginal song had no problems, the difficulties did distract me). I have probably composed more verses to this song in my head then I will ever admit to anyone, ever.
And maybe a re-jiggered last verse of the Ernest Thayer poem:
Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright;
Yes lovers are kissing somewhere, no end to love in sight,
And somewhere, couples smiling, laughing as they all meet;
But there is no joy in Michael--- not since Liz's pass was incomplete.
I don't know. It I know only when I stop to think about it that I feel that awful, and I am busy enough to make sure that isn't so very often.
Maybe I should fly somewhere -- out of town, out of state, out of the country. I probably won't, since it wouldn't make anything better. But the sight of people glad to see me and be with me on that night would probably just make me feel bad that the iBOT has just a 15.5 mile range. I feel like I need to be much farther (and further) away....
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# andrea on 24 Dec 2008 5:09 PM:
Why don't you fly over here for the 1st? Just get away from it all.
# Michael S. Kaplan on 24 Dec 2008 6:45 PM:
Thank for the offer, but that wasn't the answer almost a year ago, it's not the answer now. Though it is a nice, and tempting, invitation!
Dang you were up early!