A living, some dreams and a death

Well, it's been two weeks since my interview at MCG and I've heard no word. In the interview itself, I was warned that it might take as long as two weeks for a decision; I'm assuming that decision has been made and that I can expect a politely-worded letter or email thanking me for my interview but informing me that a "more suitable" candidate has been accepted. Don't get me wrong, I'm going to follow up through the HR department just to force somebody to say that I didn't get the job. But it seems clear to me that this is a done deal.

And remember where I said in my last post that "I'm trying not to get too worked up about it"? Yeah, well, I did get worked up about it. The situation was so nice (a good job, with a good salary and excellent benefits, in an area I know well and where I have good friends and would still remain close to my family) that I just couldn't help but extrapolate on it. By the time last Monday rolled around I'd paid off my medical bills; was on top of all my student loan payments; was dating a pretty, divorced nursing student; and was putting in a bid for a small A-frame on a quiet Aiken cul-de-sac.

In reality, I was in such a frenzy of doubt that I emailed Kate to tell her that I didn't think I was getting the job. I also pretty much begged her to write me a return email reassuring me that I wasn't completely useless, which she kindly (and sincerely) did. That worked as a total mood reset and, by Monday night, I found myself drifting into my regularly scheduled fantasy. That, by the way, is the one where, somehow, I receive millions of dollars, move back to Milwaukee, buy the penthouse of the Blatz, convert one of the rooms into a "creative space" lined with Macs which allow me to scan and design and write and record music at will, then proceed to visit all my friends and family for a few weeks before taking off on a vacation to Australia, with a side-jaunt to Antarctica.

I'm not sure which fantasy is worse: the one so far removed from real life that there's no hope of it ever happening, or the one that's so close I can smell the pine trees from its back deck. Probably not best to dwell on it, honestly.

Tuesday and Wednesday were exceptionally weird days for me as well. On Tuesday I woke up with a fragment of dream so unusually clear in my mind that I couldn't stop thinking about it. In the dream there was a woman locked in a trunk. The trunk had a padded lid and was sarcophagus sized. She could breathe in the trunk, but she couldn't hear or see or smell or feel...total sensory deprivation. I had to find her and free her. My only companion in this task was a fanged mountain gorilla dressed as a priest. And I don't mean like Father Joe at the local Catholic school, either: this gorilla had the full, flowing, black cassock and a huge, dark-wood rosary in addition to his clerical collar. But he didn't walk around like a priest wearing a gorilla mask: he moved like a gorilla, in that hunched-over, knuckles-and-toes, loping-simian gait. And he was huge. And angry. And did I mention he had fangs?

Anyway, I found where the woman was being held and we managed to get the trunk open: the gorilla/priest busted the lock and shoved the padded lid off and on to the floor. Then, of course, I woke up before we could actually get the woman freed.

Now, look, I'm no fool: I don't put much stock in dreams and I know that a gorilla dressed like a priest is just a damn silly thing to dream about. But it's rare for me to remember my dreams at all. And the implications of a priest who is also a gorilla? Well, they're disturbing. Especially to think that it's running around in my head.

Then, on Wednesday afternoon, while I was catching up on all the blogs I hadn't read whilst wooing my imaginary nursing student, I found out that a guy I'd gone to college with had died.

DAVID LEE MCLAUGHLIN

Mr. David Lee McLaughlin, 37, of Aiken, died Tuesday, November 14, 2006.

A memorial service will be held at 2 p.m. Sunday in the Shellhouse Funeral Home Chapel, Hayne Ave. Reverend Phillip Lee will officiate. The family will receive friends following the service.

—The Aiken Standard Online, Friday, November 17, 2006

Now, I'm not going to make this into something it isn't: Dave wasn't a friend of mine. We knew each other well enough to say "Hi," ask how things were going and exchange pleasantries if we both had enough time and weren't due to be someplace else. He slipped me a few free beers on occasion, and I always tipped him the full cost of the beer in gratitude. You know the kind of relationship: accquaintances, people who share friends in common but aren't friends themselves. We weren't close enough that I could write him an elegy (something Clint did very well) and I wasn't having to grapple with his death the way Ombra was, but it's darkened the rest of my week.

Mainly, I find myself thinking about the people I know who were close to Dave, people I haven't seen for at least 5 years. Because I haven't seen these folks in so long, they're strangely frozen in my memory. It's like they're all in a room somewhere—a party, a bar, a classroom—and the power's gone out. The room's gone dark and the word starts going around about a tornado warning. They're shocked, and freaked out, and there's really not much comfort available until the storm passes.

But there's something wondrous here, too, in the way that one man's life can affect so many. In reality, of course, all those people aren't in one room: they're all over the place, living their own lives, when the word of this horrible and violent accident gets to them. All of them pause and remember. Some take a longer moment to think about death in way, of necessity, we rarely can; as sudden and terrifying and inevitable and final. Some go to where the death occurred, flowing bright and fresh to this raw spot on the world. No one who knew him is unchanged.

I don't know. In the end, I think we all die alone. At least those we leave bereaved don't have to mourn us alone. Maybe there's some comfort for all of us there.