After much back and forthing over the last 24 hours, I've decided that, instead of switching to bi-weekly, I'm pulling the plug on THE SHORTBOX MEMORY REVUE completely. While it was a fun little experiment, my reasoning boils down to the simple truth that I'd rather spend my creative time writing fiction and my usual little slices of whenever/whatevers here. As you were.
And Huey The Truck is off on his journey to Carvana heaven, his factory stereo reinstalled, license plate removed, all traces of both my grandfather and I (save the tool box in the bed and the phone mount, which I had to superglue to the dash; let both be someone else's problem) removed. Strange seeing Vanna, the truck I wanted so much and that I so love, sitting in the driveway without Huey looming over her, though not in a creeper sort of way; while Huey was a good little truck that got both of us through a difficult time, that helped me get all of my grandfather's final wishes realized, this final goodbye to both is long overdue: when it's time, it's time.
RIP Tom Wilkinson, one of the greatest actors of all time. Easily one of his best scenes:
Feelings of being walking death are abating to the point that I trimmed my Hughesian fingernails for the first time in a month and, for the first time in same, writing doesn't feel like a triviality.
Wish I had seen BOSCH LEGACY 2-7, for Honey Chandler's "What fresh hell is it now?" answer to Bosch's phone call: would've used it for the last two months when I had my phone glued to me at all times. Still getting used to not having to be available all the time, for better or for worse.
A phrase, swirling about: there are no more roles to play. I'm the end of his line, the end of the line; and here I am now (entertain myself). All I do know about my future is that writing will continue to be part of it, though only a part: I've wasted too much of my life on hopes and dreams and things outside my control and would rather spend it on pursuits that fascinate and stimulate, with the art and craft of writing as my means of processing all: perhaps not all that different from what it is now, though moving forward with the benefit of acceptance. As boxing and running and weights and yoga are my daily training for my body, writing is the same for my mind. Whatever chips fall will fall where they may.
Decided on one thing I want to do: purchase a motorcycle that requires me to rebuild it before I can even think of riding it. I want to learn the ins and outs of how these wonderful things work and doing it myself feels like the best way to go about precisely that.
Note: I've adored motorcycles my whole life but I'm only getting one now that he's passed because he was terrified of something happening to me on one.
Only three major – and only one's all that major – hurdles to get through over the next several days, weeks, months: most immediate (and the one that I'm dreading) being his funeral because I absolutely loathe funerals. Take it back, then: I suppose there's one more role to play - avatar of grief and memory for a town and for a county; I will aspire to be comfortably numb, though I am far from it: Uncomfortably human, being both more apposite AND the role to which I'm dedicating myself for the remainder of my days.
After that, house clearing and selling and estate settling, for which I'm only responsible for the clearing (and figuring out how to get a pool table out of there and where, precisely, the fuck to put it in our little quarters), in contrast to my mother's passing, where I had to do everything. Nonetheless, all I want this week is to see Thursday in the rearview from my chair and my comfy pants.
The obituary I wrote for my grandfather is live.
