did I say April 17?
I meant May. May 17 is my next day off. I put a little timer over there---->to enhance your pity.
I had every intention of going to roller girls later in the month, and I still encourage all of you to go, but I can't make it, because I will be at a hundredth birthday celebration for my friend, the late Harold Kahm, whose life's work is being donated to the University of Minnesota's library. Harold and his literary contributions were notably gay, and when I met him, he was 90 or 91 years old. He died at 94 years of age a few years ago, of lung cancer in a hospice room overlooking a frozen lake. His morbidity was very compressed, meaning he wasn't sick for long before -whiff-.
Man, did I want to go to see the damn rollergirls. This caused me to debate this decision longer than I felt good about doing. The bottom line is, this is the last time I will be in the presence of so many people whose lives Harold touched, so I have to go. Harold was healthy up till close to the end. For his age, he was almost sprightly, meaning able to climb stairs and walk a pretty long way (even if he did complain about it). Once we went to a restaurant with a piano which no one was playing, so he sat down and played. I have spent less time around musicians than I would like in my life, and maybe it's good in this case, because I was astonished with his playing. Some, I later discovered, called it "German bar-room" style, but to describe it I would ask that you imagine someone beating the keys as hard as possible in a quick, sloppy manner that turns heads and makes the faces on them smile. The old man laid down an infectious groove. Not to turn this into a eulogy, but spending time with Harold was being around someone who predated all the bullshit in our culture. Harold was in his twenties in the twenties. Many were the nights I drank his whiskey and beat him at chess, and not only do I miss him, he's the kind of guy everybody misses once he's gone.
So that's where I'll be whatever night that is.
The internet's out at my house. Time warner's help line says they're working on it.
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