Breaking grammar

I've changed the way I try to speak, things are "mine" now rather than "ours". I only remember to make the adjustment after I've initially misspoken. It's awkward as horrible. I bumble through basic pronouns and possessives.


My house. No longer out house.


My dog. Not our dog.


Andrew's things are still Andrew's. They remain his. Always. His chef's knife is sitting, dirty, in the sink, getting duller with each passing day. Andrew's books, movies, chair.


We watch zombie movies on Easter. No. Now no one watches zombie movies on Easter.


Turning normal phrases into past-tense phrases is humiliating. There's a duty of shame in getting it wrong.


It feels taboo to tell non-poignant stories about Andrew now. Should I tell people about his love of Siggi's yogurt? Is that awkward for them? Do I care of it's awkward for them?

Not Valhalla, but with Hel instead

I try not to count the months, weeks, days, hours, and minutes since Andrew died. I could still easily say, but I try not to think in terms of how long I've been without him. I don't know how to organize, functionally, this timeline. It's always awkward and never pleasant to say it or think it.  But, for you, the reader, as a point of reference, it's been 94 days since Andrew died, and 199 days since his bone marrow transplant.

In September, before the transplant, Andrew and I were laying in bed, talking about Greek Mythology, and how much we loved it. We discussed always being fascinated by tales off Zeus' antics and transformations into animals over lust. We laughed at how awful it must be for Hera, married to such a god. Eventually our conversation turned to Norse mythology. Something I confessed to loving, but being generally unfamiliar with its intricacies.  (To give a point of reference, If I were a better person, I wouldn't say that Andrew could be a blowhard, lecturing, know-it-all sometimes) To my surprise, Andrew wasn't as familiar either. We layed in the dark sharing what we each knew about the stories of Odin; talking about our limited knowledge of Valkyries, Valhalla, and Yggdrasil.  That was one of our last "normal" nights. The next day, he sent links for D'aulaire's Greek and Norse mythology books, we didn't order either then.  Sometime after Andrew's bone marrow transplant he read that Neil Gaiman was releasing his own renditions of Norse Mythology in 2017. We planned to read it together.

After Andrew died, I ordered  D'aulaire's Greek Mythology and Gaiman's Norse Mythology. when they arrived, I poured through the D'aulaire book in an afternoon and evening. This felt safe. I was already familiar; I grew up with my father reading each of the stories to me over and over and over- they were my favorites. I left Norse Mythology on the counter. I walked by it dozens of times each day; it wasn't safe, or comforting.

My friend posted online that she was going to get it, but wasn't sure about whether it would be hardcover or eBook. I convinced her to go with a physical copy. For my own brain; knowing someone I know and love is holding a copy of the same book and enjoying it immensely made me feel somehow closer to Andrew, or to people in general. When I got home, I picked up the book. It felt lighter now, but also slightly gritty with dust. I'm finally reading Norse Mythology. It's beautiful. And I'm devastated.

Things I do in bed now

Yes. The subject of this post is going to be basically a bait and switch. Sorry. But here's a lovely photograph taken by my not husband in of bed years ago.

I've always had an unbalanced relationship with sleep. Either too much of not enough. Before Andrew I was a not ever enough sleep person. Prescribed all sorts of amazing drugs to help me sleep. None did their job.

Andrew and I met in college. Smoking. That's basically how I met nearly everyone that mattered to me at that point. He kept bad sleeping hours, and I kept no sleeping hours. This meant that we had all the time in the world together. Playmates to fill each other's dark and lonely nights. Just companions. He learned everything about me as I'm an open and ever-talkative book. I learned some about him, as he was a talkative but cautious book. The metaphor doesn't hold. He was my confidant, and he kept his emotions and lusts to himself.

We watched countless movies, curled on his bed together, into the night while his roommate, Mama Joe, slept in the next bed. We smoked thousands of hand-rolled cigarettes. I never had enough money for my own, so I traded things for his: my expired Phoenix Zoo membership, my Mesa library card, my food handler's card, an old ID from high school.  In the beginning I kept a list of the movies: La Jettee, Alice, Arizona Dream, all sorts of foreign and art house films; after about a dozen, I stopped keeping track.

Andrew and I spent over two years just being friends. Just best friends. Two years of art projects, movies, Easter egg hunts, chain-smoking, Cuba Libre drinking, wingman-ing.  At some point during this, I realized I like him, and I think he realized he liked me. But the bigger surprise was that I could finally sleep. I didn't sleep, because that would have limited our time together, but I could sleep!

When Andrew left school, I wasn't able to sleep anymore. I drank too much, and never passed out. I just didn't get back to sleep.  I went to visit him while he was housesitting. He made me watch Uncle Buck. I'd never seen it. It was cheesy and dumb and sweet; one of his favorites, he said. We watched the whole thing. Rapt.

Weeks later, I was flipping through the channels on TV and saw Uncle Buck was just starting. I stayed there; watched three quarters of it, then found myself awake at 5am. I had just gotten 8 hours of sleep. The first time in years.

Since then, I have watched Uncle Buck hundreds of times. It's put me to sleep hundreds of times. Because it's familiar, because it's safe, because it reminds me of a beautiful day with Andrew.  Since he's died, I can't bring myself to watch it. I'm afraid I won't have that comfort anymore.

So now, in bed, I watch House and Golden Girls and Voltron and She-Ra. This is so I can fall asleep without regret. I wear my old glasses so I can see the TV and not ruin my new glasses when they inevitably get squashed or warped in bed. I encourage my dog to sleep on the bed next to me. Because my life is so void of physical contact. I lay down on Andrew's side of the bed, but I never feel like I sleep. Zoltan (dog face) snores. Marlon Brando (cat face 1) visits every night, tries to put his nose on me. Spidercat (car face 2) visits a couple times a week, and crushes my ribs with his 27 pounds of pressure in one paw.

I also cry a lot in bed. But it scares dog face, so I try not to.

Here's a not as lovely photo I took of myself in my bed.