No Tears

I’m not opposed to crying, it’s just not something I do.

This isn’t to say that I don’t feel awful, whine, complain or even know moments of transcendent joy and relief.  I just very seldom express such things by leaking stuff from my eyes.

I didn’t cry when I learned my friend Andrew had died. Didn’t cry over 9-11.  Came close during Gore’s concession speech.  By the time it was Kerry’s turn I’d developed a thicker skin and felt mostly disgust. I didn’t cry at the births of any of my kids or at the miscarriages that punctuated them.

These events were each in their way powerful and moving beyond words and it takes very little effort to remember them vividly. When I do I get lost in them.

I prefer to know where I’m going.

The last time I remember losing it was over ten years ago. My then-fiance and I had two small cats.  One of them got feline infectious peritonitis.  And then pneumonia. We tried very hard to get her past it but it was not meant to be and our very good and compassionate vet told us as much. I was in the shower when I realized the truth that we were going to have to take her back to the vet and kill her.  Gone. Naked and sobbing out of breath. Not yet an atheist and silently trying to bargain with a god I knew wasn’t going to come through because I wasn’t completely naive.

The only thing I can figure now that set me off then was the lose/lose choice I had to face.  Kill the cat or let her suffer and die anyway.  Both of which options were on me to choose. In the end we did the right thing, but only (as Americans are said to do) after having tried all other options. Today my fiance is my wife and the cat’s ashes rest in a box next to her collar and and a photo of her sleeping peacefully, curled up so small that she could fit in my palm.

So having now established that I don’t cry except when you make me kill something I love, I’d like to share something that came close.  It’s an article by a doctor recounting his residency in the Infant Intensive Care Unit, a place where I would last all of five seconds before throwing myself out a window. Here it is.  Don’t read it if you’re already depressed.

I’m still not a crier but as I’ve gotten older and more fatherly I find myself less able to read stuff like this without putting my face in my hands. That’s what I do instead of crying.  I still don’t know if it’s to block out the information I’ve voluntarily put in front of me or to catch tears that ought to be there but aren’t.  Maybe I’m trying to coax them out or maybe I’m trying to hide that they’re not there. Who knows?

I think it most likely that, for me at least, tears are an involuntary response to an unavoidable and shocking reality.  I’m great at avoiding things and I’m hard to shock.  When reading about some stomach-turning horror I can always put the paper down or close the screen.  When going through it myself I can move on to some chore that requires me to attend it. A perk of parenthood is that such things are never lacking.

But the downside of having your emotional wires stripped as only deep love can do is that you empathize more with all your fellow travelers. You know it could be you in the story and even the merest acknowledgement of such pain drives you to put your face in your hands.

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“Sit Up, Boy! Beg for Forgiveness!”

Some Anglican priestess up in Canada is getting the rolled up newspaper for giving the body of Christ to a German Shepherd mix.

Come on, don’t all dogs go to heaven?

Why shouldn’t they get Purina Christy Bites?

And I’m sorry, but the Catholic Church gets to say exactly jack to any other denomination about anything these days.

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Please God, I Can’t Be Dead! I’m Only…

…forty-seven?

Oh, crap. Nevermind.

Forty-seven, that’s horrible. That’s like 17 years past your date with Carousel. Two whole caveman lives, minimum. Just marking time between prostate exams really.

Why would anyone want to do that?

Bring on the speeding bus.

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Can I Blog From the iPhone?

Yeah, but it’s really awkward.
And posting photos and links is out of the question.
Okay, let’s see how this works…

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Are You There, Blog? It’s Me, JJ…

Christ, I knew it had been a while since I’d provided content to this thing but a whole month?

What could have kept me away for a whole month?

Oh yeah…

Little Hulk

We call him “Little Hulk.”

Other things have come up, a couple of weeks of actual paying work that went very well, family visits (for some reason we were very popular recently) and honestly the ease of Facebook when it comes to sharing random neuron firings has certainly bled time from this thing. I also joined Twitter but find it more interesting to follow others than to provide reason to be followed.

In short, I’ve fallen prey to a multitude of time-sucks. I’d say “No more!” but who would I really be kidding?

Almost one a.m.

Screw it, I’m not pulling all-nighters for free.

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Reasons for Living This Week (Nerd Edition)

1.  The Walking Dead #73 by Robert Kirkman and Charlie Adlard.  Also picked up the Volume 9 trade paperback I missed during a brief flirtation with austerity.

2.  Criminal, Vol. 5: The Sinners by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips.

Honorable Mention goes to The Boys #43 by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson.

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My Desert Island Comics, 2010

So far this year, if I had to pick the handful of titles I’d want with me after the Minnow sinks and I devour the other castaways they would be:

Scalped by Jason Aaron and R.M. Guera.

Walking Dead by Robert Kirkman and Charles Adlard.

Criminal by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips.

Garth Ennis Battlefields by Garth and his art team.

Astro City by Kurt Busiek and Bent Eric Anderson.

Irredeemable and Incorruptible , two connected series by Mark Waid and a rotating cast of artists.

Daytripper by Gabriel Ba and Fabio Moon.

The Boys by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson.

Anything by James Sturm.  His latest was Market Day.

Rasl by Jeff Smith.

Afrodisiac GN by Brian Maruca and Jim Rugg.

Any one-shot by Warren Ellis.  I’ve noticed his mini-series seem all over the place, but the one-shots like Crecy and Frankenstein’s Womb are solid, well-structured and to the point.

Give me this and enough coconuts and I’m good to go.

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Good Reads from Last Week

I read a bunch more stuff but this is what stood out as the best:

DAYTRIPPER #6 of 10 by Gabriel Ba and Fabio Moon.  This limited series has one recurring gag: Every issue the lead character, a Brazilian obituary writer named Bras, dies at a different point in his life.  I thought it would get tiresome after a few issues but instead the message of how completely on the bubble of mortality we all live has come though loud and clear.  It’s disturbing to dwell on the fact that any day or moment could be our last, but while reading DAYTRIPPER you are safely detached from that truth, secure in the knowledge that, for a few pages a month at least, some other guy gets it instead of you.  Beautiful art and rich characters help draw you into each issue even though we now know how it ends.

REPUGLICANS by Steve Tatham and Pete Von Sholly.  This is a guilty pleasure with an emphasis on Pleasure.  Basically the artist, Von Sholly, draws demonic caricatures of some of the worst members of the current political far-right and author Tatham writes a brief blurb outlining their offenses against god and man.  You learn a little and laugh a lot at people who deserve it.  And yes, I would support a similar, equally well-crafted graphic indictment of some of the knaves of the Democratic establishment and its fellow travelers.  Sadly, I know of very few humorists on the right with the chops to pull it off and none of them work in comics.  Oh well…

Finally, stuff I await eagerly this coming week includes AMERICAN VAMPIRE #3, EX MACHINA #49, THE EXECUTOR graphic novel, GARTH ENNIS BATTLEFIELDS #6, SCALPED, VOL. 6: THE GNAWING in trade paperback, and WALKING DEAD #72.

Life is good.

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