win and tonic

I haven’t been sleeping, which itself isn’t terribly interesting, but the reasons for it perhaps might be.

My grandmother’s mind is leaving her, walling itself off from her access one section at a time. When I was 10 Grandad would tape on his hyper-sophisticated VCR Pokémon for me, and every Sunday after church I’d visit them and Grandma would make me a grilled cheese sandwich with bacon in the cast iron skillet she later gave me when she was no longer able to eat things that are cooked in it. It’s been seasoned for twice the years I’ve been alive.

When I was 12 we started discussing books more regularly - she introduced me to Steven King, and she always had a small stack of novels in every room. I read the Dark Tower series at her behest, and it gave me nightmares, but I never told my mom about them.

When I was 14 I started bringing my Xbox over every week. She loved Halo. Soon she wanted to try playing it with me. She got pretty good, but she was more interested in the story than participating.

She always talked too fast. Before her first strokes. My family always compared me to her that way, in how we’d both become unintelligible whenever discussing a subject that excited us.

I went to see her last week. She remembered me, but jumped across decades as if they were channels on a television. “You married yet?” she asked with a wry grin, seemingly aware that information was missing, but with still enough present to joke about it. “Not yet, grandma.” My window of opportunity for coming out to her has closed and now I regret it.

A friend-slash-sort-of-ex of mine moved across country unexpectedly a couple of months ago. He just learned he has HIV. I’m still a little numb about it - I’ve been tested long since we’ve been together but I’m still reeling. I know someone who’s been symptom free for 10 years, but I don’t know if it’ll be cured in our lifetime. In his lifetime. I’m reminded of Machine of Death, a collection of short stories taking place in a world that exists a machine that tells you how you die on a tiny printout. HIV is like that: You will die from X, Y and Z. And it will be awful.

I lost a couple of friends in the tsunami in Japan. They were brothers and they lived in New York City, where I met them, and I slept on their couch and in their bed and we did drugs together and I loved them dearly and they were visiting their father on his farm, they didn’t even live in Japan anymore, they just happened to be visiting on that day, and I guess I’m still in the anger stage of acceptance about it.

I dressed as a cartoon dog and made a bunch of kids laugh on Beggars’ Night.

I finished my album, almost. I’m listening to it now and hear another mistake that I need to fix. I reckon I’ll do that until I die.

Tonight we workshopped some skits for the improv troupe I’m in. We made each other laugh. I think that’s a good sign.

Things are always happening.