NaBloPoMo post 10: Dearly Departed
Three days left. It's closing in on me again. How has another year elapsed already?
On November 16, 2011, my friend Kurt died. Except he wasn't Kurt to me, he was InsanityPersonified. Everyone else shortened that to IP but I called him Eye Pee. We were like each others' pesky younger siblings, constantly teasing each other. His standard greeting was to defenestrate me, shove me out of a window very high above the ground.
My standard answer: "WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"
Perhaps it makes a little more sense to back up and say this was a friend I'd made on Immortal Vigilance. Most of our interaction was through text boxes on our very far apart computers, like the one I'm typing in right now.
I met him just once, but had a fabulous day stomping through rainy London with him and Peter and another IV friend.
He left us at age 26 I think. Stomach cancer took him so fast. He tried to say goodbye to me, but-
Look. I can't write about him yet. Maybe in a few more years. For now, all you need to know is that at his death, and for each anniversary afterwards, I've thought about writing a letter to him and posting it on the IV forums. The thought of people thinking I'm crazycakes has stopped me. This NaBloPoMo experiment is all about being brave and saying the things I'm scared to say. I don't know if it'll make it to the IV forums, but I can at least write a draft here.
Dear Eye Pee,
I have so much I want to ask you. Is death anything like being an Ancestor-spirit, or a Wraith, or an Orphean? Did White Wolf get anything right, or fuck it all up as usual? I like to think that you're a Wraith, because you left too much undone to go off to Heaven. I hope IV is one of your Fetters, so you can still see us, even if we can't see you.
We miss you so much. I know I do, and Ella does, Michelle does, and Peter totally does. He goes quiet and grunty when I mention you, that's how Scandinavians do sad.
I listened to Aspects of Love today, and within the first song I realized that this new-ish lover in my life, this guy who's a gun nut and conservative and is proud of killing skunks, he's not my opposite. He's my Alex! It all makes sense now.
I almost logged in to tell you.
Three years, and I still can't get it into my thick skull that you're dead?
But for all the gay men I know, for all the musical-lovers I know, you're the one who knows so many of my favorites, and vice versa. You're the one to burble to, and I can hear you groaning.
"I still can't believe you like that bloody awful show. Shouldn't you be looking for your Phantom or Raoul, anyways? Or if not them, someone decent like Marius or Che or bloody Skimbleshanks?!?"
We'd argue for hours, in Skype's IM window or the comfortable little yellow private message windows on IV itself. But we had the best arguments, I'll trade twenty banal conversations about movies with other IVers to get one more argument with you.
For months after you died, I couldn't log on in the mornings. Mornings, especially my 5-8am or so after staying up all night, that was your time to put my sleep-deprived self into hysterical laughter. There are Europeans on in the mornings, of course, but they're not you. And shut up, England is so part of Europe, it says so in the almanac.
We're a smaller chat. Maybe competing chats are bigger, or maybe we're just losing people to the real life demands of jobs and families. They're all turning into Grumps and Forgetting! I think you'd still be around, though. You'd be balancing playing on IV with the demands of professional theatre life and your supersmart, superhot girlfriend, but you'd still be here.
We have fewer STs to go with our fewer players, and even some venues shut down. No Orpheus, no Hunter. They closed all the Vampire venues and opened V20, the 20th anniversary Vampire game. Oh man, I wish you could see the 20th anniversary stuff! I'm only partly through Werewolf 20, but I'm liking it. But they're doing ALL of them, Eye Pee! Yes, Mage is next, but then comes Changeling, and MOTHERFUCKING WRAITH!!!!!
If I end up in the same afterlife as you, we're playing Wraith 20. No excuses, we're just fucking doing it. Even if we have to settle for whatever the dead version of TT-over-Skype would be.
Can you believe, I still haven't played Wraith? Not since that one-shot, in 1997. My one and only time. I need to get a TT-over-Skype group together, but that's a hard thought. You're supposed to be in it, man. Fuck, you were supposed to ST it! Remember? Remember?
There's a saying about how the dead aren't gone until the last person who remembers them dies. Am I tying you to the Earth? Is Ella? Is Michelle? Is Peter? Are your many, many other friends?
There was a really sweet forum thread when you died, all your friends pouring out their hearts about how awesome you were. I tried to look for it on the first anniversary of your death, but lots of stuff got deleted to save space on the server. I wish I'd screencapped it.
I wonder if your family knows how deeply you were loved, by so many. How you had friends all over the world. I hope they do.
I'd like to visit your grave someday, if I can work up the nerve to ask Michelle your last name, and the name of the town you lived in. She might not even know. But if I do manage to visit, I'm going to bring my luckiest 10-sided dice, so that whatever games you're running or playing in your afterlife, you can have the very best dice to play them with.
I will have to drink a glass of Squash right after. Maybe pour some out on the curb for you, my homie. I love you.
On November 16, 2011, my friend Kurt died. Except he wasn't Kurt to me, he was InsanityPersonified. Everyone else shortened that to IP but I called him Eye Pee. We were like each others' pesky younger siblings, constantly teasing each other. His standard greeting was to defenestrate me, shove me out of a window very high above the ground.
My standard answer: "WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"
Perhaps it makes a little more sense to back up and say this was a friend I'd made on Immortal Vigilance. Most of our interaction was through text boxes on our very far apart computers, like the one I'm typing in right now.
I met him just once, but had a fabulous day stomping through rainy London with him and Peter and another IV friend.
He left us at age 26 I think. Stomach cancer took him so fast. He tried to say goodbye to me, but-
Look. I can't write about him yet. Maybe in a few more years. For now, all you need to know is that at his death, and for each anniversary afterwards, I've thought about writing a letter to him and posting it on the IV forums. The thought of people thinking I'm crazycakes has stopped me. This NaBloPoMo experiment is all about being brave and saying the things I'm scared to say. I don't know if it'll make it to the IV forums, but I can at least write a draft here.
Dear Eye Pee,
I have so much I want to ask you. Is death anything like being an Ancestor-spirit, or a Wraith, or an Orphean? Did White Wolf get anything right, or fuck it all up as usual? I like to think that you're a Wraith, because you left too much undone to go off to Heaven. I hope IV is one of your Fetters, so you can still see us, even if we can't see you.
We miss you so much. I know I do, and Ella does, Michelle does, and Peter totally does. He goes quiet and grunty when I mention you, that's how Scandinavians do sad.
I listened to Aspects of Love today, and within the first song I realized that this new-ish lover in my life, this guy who's a gun nut and conservative and is proud of killing skunks, he's not my opposite. He's my Alex! It all makes sense now.
I almost logged in to tell you.
Three years, and I still can't get it into my thick skull that you're dead?
But for all the gay men I know, for all the musical-lovers I know, you're the one who knows so many of my favorites, and vice versa. You're the one to burble to, and I can hear you groaning.
"I still can't believe you like that bloody awful show. Shouldn't you be looking for your Phantom or Raoul, anyways? Or if not them, someone decent like Marius or Che or bloody Skimbleshanks?!?"
We'd argue for hours, in Skype's IM window or the comfortable little yellow private message windows on IV itself. But we had the best arguments, I'll trade twenty banal conversations about movies with other IVers to get one more argument with you.
For months after you died, I couldn't log on in the mornings. Mornings, especially my 5-8am or so after staying up all night, that was your time to put my sleep-deprived self into hysterical laughter. There are Europeans on in the mornings, of course, but they're not you. And shut up, England is so part of Europe, it says so in the almanac.
We're a smaller chat. Maybe competing chats are bigger, or maybe we're just losing people to the real life demands of jobs and families. They're all turning into Grumps and Forgetting! I think you'd still be around, though. You'd be balancing playing on IV with the demands of professional theatre life and your supersmart, superhot girlfriend, but you'd still be here.
We have fewer STs to go with our fewer players, and even some venues shut down. No Orpheus, no Hunter. They closed all the Vampire venues and opened V20, the 20th anniversary Vampire game. Oh man, I wish you could see the 20th anniversary stuff! I'm only partly through Werewolf 20, but I'm liking it. But they're doing ALL of them, Eye Pee! Yes, Mage is next, but then comes Changeling, and MOTHERFUCKING WRAITH!!!!!
If I end up in the same afterlife as you, we're playing Wraith 20. No excuses, we're just fucking doing it. Even if we have to settle for whatever the dead version of TT-over-Skype would be.
Can you believe, I still haven't played Wraith? Not since that one-shot, in 1997. My one and only time. I need to get a TT-over-Skype group together, but that's a hard thought. You're supposed to be in it, man. Fuck, you were supposed to ST it! Remember? Remember?
There's a saying about how the dead aren't gone until the last person who remembers them dies. Am I tying you to the Earth? Is Ella? Is Michelle? Is Peter? Are your many, many other friends?
There was a really sweet forum thread when you died, all your friends pouring out their hearts about how awesome you were. I tried to look for it on the first anniversary of your death, but lots of stuff got deleted to save space on the server. I wish I'd screencapped it.
I wonder if your family knows how deeply you were loved, by so many. How you had friends all over the world. I hope they do.
I'd like to visit your grave someday, if I can work up the nerve to ask Michelle your last name, and the name of the town you lived in. She might not even know. But if I do manage to visit, I'm going to bring my luckiest 10-sided dice, so that whatever games you're running or playing in your afterlife, you can have the very best dice to play them with.
I will have to drink a glass of Squash right after. Maybe pour some out on the curb for you, my homie. I love you.