Lately I've been tired.  It's been a real thing, apparent to people immediately upon seeing me.  I saw kfringe about two weeks back and he remarked how tired I looked.  He said I seemed... slow.  Like I had been trapped in vaseline.  It's a hard point to argue, really.  Work has been exactly what one would expect: annoying, long, and frustrating.  Also, and this is probably pretty obvious to most, last week marked one year since my girlfriend Star died.  I wasn't exactly feeling up to snuff. 

The day of the anniversary itself, one of three anniversaries I think of when thinking of Star, was strange.  I was angry for most of it, just terribly angry.  The kind where you growl your words out between gritted teeth, where you are so exhausted by your anger that you need to sleep.  I couldn't really be around people.  I spent most of the day locked up in my apartment, occupying myself with little things. 

At eleven o'clock that night I went down to see her.  That's what I call it when I go to see her memorial at Rittenhouse Square, "going to see her".  And it turned me around.  I had wanted to go earlier in the day, in the late morning, but I just couldn't bring myself to it yet.  I'd needed time.  So I went at eleven and we talked.  I just blathered on for a while about her, us, me, and after an hour or so I actually felt calmer, relaxed.  I smiled, I joked.  I felt like I'd maybe figured things out a little more. 

I rode that for days.  Quit smoking for a little while.  Saw nodeva , Tim, and the little man, sarcasmom and Glenn, which was incredible fun.  Those people make a guy feel loved. 

Today... well, today I feel different.  I don't feel so good.  I feel tired again.  But let's not talk about that right now.  Maybe I'll say something tomorrow morning.  Tonight, I just want to leave this on a happy thought. 

Star - writer, dancer, muse, karaoke rock star, pirate, sister, daughter, friend, girlfriend. 

I know that everyone is going through this today.  Thinking of Star, missing her, having that scar open right up again a little, that familiar little knot twisting up in the center of you.  I can't know what the rest of you are going through.  I need to just talk for a minute, to write this down.  I'm afraid of writing this because it might be self -indulgent, but I can't think of anything brilliant and powerful to say (unlike Neil, who gets it right in one).  Let me get through the day and then maybe I'll be able to say something more than just "I fucking hurt."

Last night I sang.  It had been a year since I'd done Karaoke last and I couldn't have asked for a better moment to return to it.  It was Tom Boutell's (or boutell 'round here on the ol' LJ) big 37th birthday bash and I knew I needed to be there.  Last year on the same day was what Star and I would later refer to as our "first first date", when she invited me along to go to her friend Tom's birthday bash, the night I asked her if I could ask her out, the first time we kissed.  I wanted to be there for her.  But hell, I also wanted to be there for myself, to have a good time, to be out.  Good friend, wingman and home girl Kirsten, or crowyhead was a long for the the ride and the moral support and it was on. 

Quick aside: Having Kirsten and Sarah, or feanorsgrrl be my wingmen for my return to the dating world is amazing.  I was scared for a while, but they've been ceaselessly supportive.  A thank you to you both.  Just remember, I'm Maverick, you guys can fight it out over who's Goose and Wizard. 

Quick aside the second: I've seen Top Gun too many times.  I am dangerous. 

We walked up the stairs to the second floor of Moriarty's, a local watering hole and karaoke joint in Center City, and I was immersed in a crowd of good friends.  Tom, Glenn, Michelle, the other Michelle, and so many more were hanging around, most drinking ginger ale or water, singing and having a blast.  There were many people there that hadn't seen me since the last birthday party, so I got a lot of "You look really good!"s, which is strange.  I'd forgotten how bad I looked after Star died.  It was heartening to hear that I looked improved.  I felt improved. 

Four pints of lager later and I was having a grand time.  I met plenty of new people, all very fantastic, and caught up with some old friends.  Tom and I compared tattoos, Glenn and I talked of Marillion, I was introduced to boyfriends and girlfriends. 

I hemmed and hawed a bit about what song I would sing.  You see, I had to sing something.  Had to.  I just didn't know what.  My singing voice sadly lacks the depth or intricacy of some of my favourite singers, like Chris Whitely or Jeff Buckley.  My range is a tenor, so what I can sing well(?) is either kind of pop/rock stuff like Incubus, or do some fairly good male approximations of breathy female singers like Fiona Apple.  Rather than confuse people by choosing a song like Fiona's Criminal, I decided to go the other route.  After a toss up between Placebo's "The Bitter End" and an Incubus track, I went with Incubus.  I felt more confident singing it and I knew that I could remember the words without the prompter.  Also, I chose "Wish You Were Here", which just seemed appropriate. 

My song came up next to last in the rotation and I mounted the "stage" with what I hoped looked like confidence.  I grabbed the mic, said another happy birthday to Tom, and said something like "You all should know who I'm singing this for".  I only opened my eyes again about half way through the track, when I heard everyone in the room cheering for me.  Apparently, I can sing. 

When the song ended I walked over and gave Tom a big hug.  We talked for a minute and then it was time to go.  Kirsten and I grabbed our things, went downstairs for a quick smoke, then said our good byes to everyone and drove home, blasting Iggy Pop in the car. 

When I woke up this morning I noticed that the photo of Star that I have sitting next to my bed had disappeared.  This photo is a distinct part of my waking routine, as in it's the first thing that I see and I say 'good morning' to her and all of that.  I found the photo moments later; it had fallen down behind the nightstand.  I fished it out and calmed down and went about the business of waking up. 
The first thought to hit me was "I guess you are pissed at me, huh?"

I smoke about a pack a day.  Sometimes I'm good and I'll smoke less, get myself down to a half a pack, but I won't smoke more than a full pack.  A couple on the way in to work, a couple on the way home, some while I'm sitting around playing on the internet.  It seems to kind of add up pretty quickly. 

Yes, I know.  A pack a day is a lot of cigarettes. 

Friday night I had a dream.  It was just Star and I talking, sitting around.  I have these dreams from time to time.  It's like a strange little visit.  We'll chat about nothing in particular, nothing important.  We'll hold hands, talk, smile at each other.  Just like it was. 

In this latest dream, her and I were talking as usual.  I don't remember where we were, but I do remember her hair was messed up, like it had been raining outside and her hair had matted itself to her face.  We talked a bit about silly little things.  She asked me how I'd been, I think.  I wish that I could remember more of what she told me. 

Toward the end of the dream she leaned over and we kissed.  It was a soft, gentle kiss, the kind you use when you've just missed someone.  Like I miss her. 

After the kiss she said, "Michael, you should stop smoking.  Your mouth doesn't taste right."  I told her I would. 

I woke up not much later and remembered the dream, and the promise.  During my morning routine, which involves talking to her a little, I told her that I'd keep up my promise, that I would quit smoking.  I had about ten cigarettes left in the pack that I had bought the night before, so I thought I would just go through those and that would be it. 

By Sunday afternoon my cigarettes were gone.  I got through the day with no issues.  I fidgetted a little, chewed on some toothpicks, but got through without caving in and buying another pack. 

Monday I was back to work and it was my first full day without cigarettes.  This, of course, means that everything that could go wrong or get on my nerves did.  I got through the day at work, got home and hung out with some friends.  By midnight I was ready for bed.  After doing my normal hour's worth of going-to-bed chores I lay down to go to sleep. 

I woke up an hour later.  And I couldn't get back to sleep.  I tossed and turned.  I rolled over and over.  At around three o'clock i called my friend Cyn, hoping that she would be up and bored just so I'd have someone to talk to.  She, being the good person she is, was willing to chat for a little while but went did eventually need to go to bed. 

Finally, I passed out at around five in the morning.  Then I woke up at around eight. 

Got through the day with little fuss.  Got home, did some chores, played some video games.  Then I came in my room and sat down to wind down.  Only I didn't.  I couldn't wind down. 

The thought had occurred to me that I wasn't able to sleep the previous day because I was too wound up from lack of smoking.  And that thought squatted over me like a dark cloud.  I thought about it, thought about my promise to Star.  Thought about how much I'd hate to break that promise. 

I talked with her about it, as I sometimes do the trivial things in my life.  I said that I was trying, but it was hard.  That maybe trying to do it cold turkey, and without some kind of supplemental oral fixation wasn't the smartest move on my part.  I can remember how a friend of mine from when I was a kid had quit smoking by sucking on little flavoured candies.  I just thought that sheer force of will would help me get over a pack-a-day habit. 

Then I went out and bought some cigarettes. 

I lit one up as soon as I got out of the 7-11 and I honestly couldn't feel much of a difference.  I thought that maybe I would immediately relax, that my muscles would unclench and i would feel my body let go like a spring had lost its tension.  And I didn't. 

So now I feel like shit because I've broken a promise to Star.  I told her I would try and quit, and now I've got a fresh pack of cigarettes sitting in my pocket.  I've only smoked one cigarette.  Maybe that's enough.  Maybe I don't need to have another.  But I really want to. 

I just hope that I haven't let her down.

I'm still going to quit.  I just don't know how.  Is anyone here a recovering smoker?  If so, how did you give up the habit?

This past Friday was the graduation ceremony for the 266th class of Central High School of Philadelphia.  It was the first time that Star's scholarship, the Star C. Foster Writer's Prize, was awarded, and it was given to Avantia Kim Sterling-Batista.

I won't dwell too long on this.  These past couple of days have been painful.  Hell, I can feel my heart beating through my chest just from thinking on it. 

But that's not the important thing.  What's important is that this young woman will be going to an amazing college or university and that we helped.  Congratulations to Amy, Dan, Neil, Sarah, Jim, Momma F, Glenn, Debbie, Robin, all of Star's friends and relatives and all of those that donated to the Writer's Prize.  Congratulations.  You did good work for her.  I know she would be proud, despite all of the protestations she would likely be making. 

Congratulations to Avantia.  You worked hard for four years at an incredibly competitive and demanding school.  You deserve this. 

I find myself unable to figure out what to say.  I want to put words to my feelings about yesterday and I just can't seem to get it right. 

You see, yesterday we had the party that we've spent the last four months planning.  The party would be the one that celebrated Star C. Foster, my girlfriend, friend to many of the most amazing people I've ever met, sister to two of the most accepting people in the world, daughter to two of the most loving people... well, ever really.  A party in celebration of Star, a woman that I could not help but fall in love with.  A woman with grace, wit, and beauty that overtook me.  A woman that loved life and all of the things in it.  A woman that could tell compelling, funny, beautiful stories as easily as most people can breathe.  A woman driven by creativity and who loved to foster such things in others.  A woman whose smile lit up my life, and the lives of many, many others.  A woman taken with adventure, the arts, music, pirates, coffee, salty foods, pickles on grilled cheese sandwiches, macabre things, zombies, and Johnny Depp.  A woman unafraid to sing and dance in public.  A woman that loved fiercly and without fear, as her family and friends could easily attest.  A woman that loved me so much that it still reduces me to tears when I think about it for too long.  A woman that used "shan't" as part of her everyday language, "because that's the proper way to use it in that sentence". 

How could we not celebrate this woman, who has touched all of us in such a profound way?  A woman whose life was like her namesake, a star that burned through the darkness and shone with such burning, fiery power. 

(I've tried ever so hard to avoid that metaphor for the longest, but I can't hold out any longer.)

So we danced and ate and drank and told stories and laughed and cried, all of us dressed as pirates.  Because we would all wear her colours, we would all of us lift her flag high. 

And because that is not enough for us, we also raised over five thousand dollars at that event alone for the Star C. Foster Writers Prize, the scholarship created in her honor by her family. 

We did this all for you, baby.  And I would gladly do it again and again. 

I love you, Star.  We, all of us, love you. 

I just got finished putting together a pretty good soundtrack for Star's party, and now I'm shaking.  Not violently mind you, just these strange little nervous quakes in my stomach.  We listened to a lot of music together, and to go through all of those songs again and cobble them together, that was.. rough.  There's music on this thing that we talked about, hung out to, danced to, made love to...

It took me weeks to be able to listen to any kind of music again after Star died.  (why was it so hard to type that right there?  it gets harder to say nowadays too... weird.)  Songs would speak to me, like little notes passed to me from wherever she is.  Now I can listen to a lot of things again, but there's still the connection in my brain to moments that float in my imagination like unpopped soap bubbles.   Sometimes they make me maudlin and sad, sometimes they make me happy and inspire in me the desire to dance.  I get the feeling that she would prefer the second option. 

But going through her song collection, from cool indie stuff (The Decemberists), to classic rock (Bread, the Beatles), to jazz (Ella and Billie), to the cheeziest stuff ever (Cinderella, baby?  Really?), it puts me in mind of her again.  And just like more that I recall of her or learn about some fun detail, I feel like every once in a while I fall in love with her a little more. 

I have this problem with filters.  Or so I have percieved.  I really don't have one.  I say what's on my mind for the most part.  While that does include oppinions, I find that it normally gets me into trouble when I'm describing images that I grow in my brain.  Many have noticed that I'm a visually-minded person (haha, Star), which would make sense given my background as an artist.  In truth, I have a better tactile memory than anything else, but that's not the point here.  Stack the lack of filter and visually-tuned brain on top of a  pretty high tolerance for things most people would find disgusting and it's a recipe for trouble.  Mostly trouble for other people. 

Case in point, the Shadow of Yesterday Zombies game in that I'm playing in on Sundays with crowyhead, harrytheheir and some people that don't have LJ accounts.  (By the way, I shall forever refer to this game as Shadow of Zombie.  This is because that title is undeniably awesome.)  The game is modernish, a post-undead-apocolypse thing like the Stand or Dawn of the Dead.  I'm playing a character named Carmen "Southpaw" Navarro.  Navarro is a woman in her late twenties that was born just after the zombie apocolypse.  Having been raised in such a terrible time, she grew to reflect it.  She became a "ranger", a person that goes outside of her community and patrols its borders for undead incurrsion, gathers supplies, etc.  While out on the range, Navarro and her patrol were attacked by some undead.  The rest of the patrol were killed but Navarro was able to get away, though she had been bitten on her left arm during the battle.  She was able to wrap her belt around the top of her arm and cut off the circulation which has led to poor Carmen having a terrible, twisted, monstrously powerful left arm. 

Navarro, like so many characters that I play when I'm on the other side of the GM screen, started as an image in my head.  She began her life as a picture of a woman with a twisted, leathery, overly-muscled left arm stuck on the body of an athletic hispanic woman.  Kinda like this...



Things got worse from there.  I started imagining what the zombie arm meant for my character, what it could do.  Super-strong made sense, but wouldn't it be cool if it had a little bit of a mind of its own?  And what if I couldn't feel anything through that arm at all?  No sensation.  The thoughts chrystalized a little more when I realized that the arm was a bit violent and for Carmen to sleep she needed to literally nail her hand down in order to keep it from trying to attack her while she rested. 

Not much was discussed of the state of the zombie and undead world outside of our sheltered community of Sulphur, OK.  During gameplay Dan, the GM, revealed more and more that the undead weren't just slavering roving hordes.  They had community, they had memory, they had society.  This made the bite that my character recieved a much different ballgame.  I had orriginally envisioned the zombie bite to be the equivalent of a bite from a rabies-bitten dog.  With this new information, and the knowledge that my character would have known about the presence of zombie culture, it seemed obivous to me that things needed to get much deeper. 

On our first excursion outside of town my character runs into a character named Tottenkoph, a lich from the undead community and a bit of a diplomat.  (I think I spelled that right.)  Dan tells me that Tottenkoph was there when I was attacked and asks me to fill in the blanks.  I immediately decide that my character hates and distrusts this guy.  He was there when I was attacked and he did nothing to help me, so of course I hate and distrust him.  The problem was, of course, that he had already gained the trust of two other members of the group, which ostracized me in turn. 

Dan and I talked about Carmen and discussed what I thought happened.  I had a hard time trying to discribe to Dan the violation that had been done to Carmen and how it would hurt her so much on a psychological level.  His arguement, which extended through the character of Tottenkoph, was that the undead don't just attack for no reason, so I must have been doing something to get them riled up.  And since I've been bitten I am undead too.  I should just embrace it.  I hated the arguement but couldn't really frame a rebuttal. 

It was after a session of the game that I realized how to describe it.  I told Dan that Carmen was a rape victim.  I hated to say it, and I hated to make it a character point, but it was the only correlary that made sense in my brain.  Something had been done to her, against her will, and it was beyond intimately physical and it left her both physically and emotionally scarred. 

It was during the next session that things got worse.  Dan and I had talked about Carmen actually being undead, unlike the "not quite undead" that I'd been thinking about when I first envisioned Carmen.  I liked it, but I needed to make it terrible for her.  Part of my character's point was to show how truly awful, how horrifying the undead were.  And I was willing to go the distance. 


With these images in my head I knew that Carmen was not going to be going good places.  She was changing into the thing that had attacked her, that had killed her friends, and she had no control over it.  She was angry.  She was vengeful. 

During the next session I shot Tottenkoph in the face with a shotgun the first chance I had.  He was a lich, I knew he was coming back, but he needed to be shot becaue of what he did. 

The players were floored.  They didn't know why I did what I had done.  After a couple of scenes they were able to question me in character.  And once again I felt like I couldn't get the other people around me ti understand what I had thought Carmen had gone through.  One of the other player's characters had been going around in the undead community and was taking a liking to it.  The others found them to be inoffensive mostly.  I felt like my character had been neutered.  So I said that only thing that I could that I thought would bring them around to the horror of my character's life.

"They raped me."

This time I meant it literally.  My character became a rape victim.  I hate it.  I really do.  I don't like that she's become another one of those female victim characters.  I wanted her to have more dimension than that, to be deeper.  I didn't want to be the male writer that uses rape, the most horrific fucking thing that can be done to a person, as an excuse.  But so much of gaming is about the exact opposite of subtlety and I saw it as the only way to communicate what I had wanted to, to make the other players at the table to feel it like I did. 

Okay, I'll admit it.  I made Carmen to feel powerless and alone at the outset of character creation because that's the way that I feel too.  After Star, well... I couldn't really wear a character that wasn't feeling the same fucked-up, painful feelings that I was.  I wouldn't be able to relate.  And over time Carmen's become more self-loathing and I've made her more fucked up.  She's become more violent and angry and cut-off and I can relate to it. 

I'm trying to think of a way to make her okay but I really can't.  In a scene from last session I came across a character that was on Navarro's trail for some vengance against her.  We tussled and I cut his achilles' tendon and put him down.  I stood over him with my knife in my hand and I asked him what he wanted me to do.

"I don't care," he says and spits. 

I dropped the knife on the ground by his hands and turned to walk away.  I said over my shoulder "Use it on yourself.  Use it on me.  Either way, use it in time."

In that moment, that one bried excahange, Carmen became the  weathered, beaten down soldier; the broken, weary gunslinger from a western just waiting for that one guy to come along and kill her because she can't think of any other way out. 

I don't know what to do next as a player.  I like Navarro and I like the game.  I want to keep playing, but I feel like I've bullied myself in to a corner and I don't know how to get out.  I didn't feel like I could talk to the rest of the group before as I've been felling distant and I found it hard to communicate.  Maybe I don't have a choice anymore. 

Oh, Ron Edwards, rescue me!

Today started with me being down.  Deep down.  Woke up, couldn't get out of the depths of it.  I dream about Star.  Alot.  And sometimes when I wake up I just want to see her and I can't.  There was a time when I woke up to her laying there next to me, snoring quietly, and now I can't.  I used to wake up before her and I'd lay in bed and curl up next to her and put my hand on her hip or reach around and press my palm flat against her chest right over he heart.  I would lay there and just feel her breath and now I can't. 

Waking up isn't easy anymore. 

Got up and threw on the 360, downloaded a couple of episodes of Veronica Mars, and lit up a cigarette.  Burned through four episodes before it was time to leave the apartment and meet up with people.  The strangest things will make me cry now, like a moment in an episode of Veronica Mars, a scene in the Hustler, or a part in Smokin' Aces. 

I left the house after watching Veronica Mars and went to Dan and Neil's for some sunday gaming with harrytheheir and crowyhead.  I had fun.  Some good laugh-out-loud moments.  After the game we just walked around town, Dan and Kirsten and I.  Walked down to South st., over to Chestnut, stopped in some stores.  Snow was drifting down in fat, lazy clumps that tangled in my hair and my beard.  I love the snow, the way it blankets things and makes the world look different.  The way it makes the outside look like I feel on the inside.  We joked more and talked more and I was having fun. 

We came back to my place, the group of us, and watched some movies.  The Color of Money and Rufifi if you must know.  Played some video games, cracked jokes.  Fun.

And now it's three in the morning and I'm getting ready to go to bed and just twenty minutes ago I was wracked with sobs while I was watching Out of SIght.  Deep, body-shaking wracks of them moving through my body like tremors.  I don't cry much anymore, not the regular kind with tears.  Now these things just punch their way out of me.  One minute I'm fine, the next I'm doubled over, my chin turned up and my breath quavering. 

And it's always for the same reason.  I miss Star.  I just miss her.  I love her and I miss her. 

My friend Lucas was out here from Hawai'i for the last week.  He was going to be moving out here but as soon as he touched down he got a call from his mom saying that his dad had been hospitalized.  He was heading back. 

We got to talking for a little while, Luke and I.  A couple of friends were visiting and we were all talkign and he was saying how scared he was over his father and how fucked up he felt over a lot of personal stuff in his life.  He said that I was strong, he thought, for me to have been through Star's death and be able to function.  I don't think that I'm strong.  I don't know what I am, but I don't feel strong.  I think maybe I'm just good at putting up a strong face for others.

At my last party a good number of my guests said the same thing when to me as they were leaving.  "Take care of yourself."  Is it really that obvious that I'm not doing that?