On and On.

"What a bunch of shit." - Jesse, former babysittee, bartender, and one of my oldest friends from Seattle.

That could have easily been the title for this entry, to be honest. It could well be the title for the next one if I decide to delve into the insanity that has become urban growth in Seattle currently (though, that being said, while I'm fond of many of the changes happening, it is in direct proportion to the destruction of Seattle's unique character that breaks my heart). Today though completes the first entire week of the post-Briggs/Agent86 world we now live in. I say that knowing that for the vast majority of people this is not an issue. For me though, it is a much bigger deal than I expected. Not only because it eliminates an ongoing feature in my strange excuse for a life, but it also removes a real-life talisman from the world at large. While I need to promise myself right now that I won't continue to count the days, there is grief, and if I know anything it is that the grief needs to be processed. Even if it is finally me growing the fuck up and out of my tortured memory of a life once lived. So a couple things that I also want to remind myself happened in the deluge of this nonsense. I watched my ex-husband launch himself into Mike's personal life online, and it was in equal measure excruciating, hilarious, and vindicating. The self-righteous nature in the guise of compassion and intelligence that so effectively pulled the rug out from under me TWICE led him to pontificate, and step in a big, stupid, slutty mess of shit. Which in turn allowed me to commiserate with my favorite DC drummer who immediately had reached out to me when he watched the shitshow unfold on the social media of choice. Beyond that, (as he often did with both Mike and I) he appropriated my words, specifically the remembrance I posted. Oh? You can't imagine a world without Mike? Really? Seems to me you can not only imagine a world without anyone you choose, you manifest it on a constant basis. Further, because I know he's a lurker: having the unbelievable nerve to message ME and ask if he's gone, and then fucking say "Sorry"? Oh, you're sorry for THAT? Let me be clear, jackass: you have a lot of things to say sorry to me for, but the loss of one of the most influential people in my life? Fuck right off. You don't know what you are talking about, even though I'm quite sure you THINK you do. The fact that you reached out was bad enough, but to try and equate MY loss to anything you might feel about Mike's passing? Flat out garbage. This constant and apparently ongoing appropriation of MY life experiences is very possibly the most regrettable part of ever sharing anything with him. Fucking bloodsucking ghoul. I will not make that mistake a third time. The good news is it was fodder for some belly laughs in telling the story to the some of the people I spoke with over the weekend (which has been really nice, even given the circumstances), and culminating yesterday speaking to the mother of Mike's kid. I never met her in person, though we had exchanged texts and spoken on the phone a couple times over the decade plus she was with him. Because the divorce situation with Mike had been bitter and the new "wife" was clearly some sort of vulture/attention whore, I did feel some compassion for her, a kinship to anyone who puts in that kind of time with Mike even after their relationship blew up like a bomb. I guess I always feel compassion for those that followed me into the Agent86 abyss (except for my ex-husband, because he manipulated me out of the band and then went back to claim it as his own. Horseshit of the highest order). The kid is 12, and that is a hell of an age to lose a parent, especially one who had been as sick as he was in the last couple of years. I had been sitting on a batch of photos from when he and I were in college, and in DC for a while, and so finally I sent a package Tuesday and it arrived on Thursday and the Mom called to thank me - and to be honest, I wasn't sure if I'd ever hear from either of them. But she was nice, and even mentioned the photos from our Jamaican trip - apparently, he had never mentioned that to her (I am surprised that he didn't to be honest, seems like bragging about going to Montego Bay would have been something he would have shared all the time) so even she learned something new about him, and saw sides she had never seen. It was a great chat, and while we won't ever be pals, it was really nice closure. I'm glad I put it together and sent it. I wish I had done it sooner so he could have told his daughter some of the stories behind the pictures himself, but at least she has something of her dad's earlier days. In more woo-woo sort of stuff, on Sunday night I had an experience I have only had one other time. My delightful, super-snuggly dog was on pins and needles all into the night. Nothing weird was going on in the neighborhood, or next door. But she would not relax, and when I finally climbed into bed, she sat, stock-still, at the foot of the bed, staring past the sliding doors into the hall, as if someone was standing there speaking to her. The last time this happened, was 25 years ago, the first night I moved into Mia's old room at the Hiawatha House. My heeler, Hopey, spent our first night staring into the closet where Mia had kept her bed, and it was that same look, the intense stare of a dog trying to understand what was being asked of it. I told KC, my current pup, that if the ghost was Mike, it was cool. He would definitely watch over us, and was probably just checking to see if I was shitfaced yet. Also, had a weird interaction with a guy in Occidental Park while walking the puggle - he was live FBing, something about "Do People from Seattle Even Like Grunge?" and he asked if he could talk to me. The pup was taking her time finding a spot to do business so I chatted with him, and he asked me "So, do you like grunge?" And I replied that I did, as a matter of fact. However, I told him I was a biased sample, as I had been an active musician at the time. He lit up like a Christmas tree and started peppering me with questions, and babbling about how I was "legendary". Dude, I am not joking when I say it was a lot of the stuff Mike used to say to me about how proud I should be of that time and what we did. The timing though - it was like Mike was standing right there, just giving me a shit-eating grin. Ultimately the guy wanted me to jam with him, so I had to break it to him that I didn't play anymore, and that I am a much better pastry chef than I was a bass player. But, for a hot minute, it was a trip, and I can't help but think it was a little pat on the head from Mike. I don't feel like I have a tangible tie to any of it - and yet I do. I talked to so many people who reached out and asked me if there would be services, about how sick he'd been, about who the crazy bitch who took over his page referring to herself as his "wife" was. They still came to me for info about him. He had made an impact on a lot of people, and interestingly, you can tell by the language they all used who really knew him, and when. The pseudo-anthropologist in me is loving this aspect of the whole experience, as I haven't had anyone in this sort of relation to me die before. Definitely learning a lot in just one week. All of it actually very good, and super useful.

Oh, and in other news: I am still rehoming my LP collection and last month saw me say goodbye to two gems: the vinyl versions of both Juno albums, and they fetched HUGE prices. I still adore the music, but I have toted them around far too long, and they should be being played by some cool girls with banging stereos, and that is exactly where they went. I could not be prouder to be able to enable some more Juno enjoyment. I still have the cds, and since those are primarily how I listened to the music anyway, it will be fine going forward.

The Era to End All Eras.

It has been five days since Mike died, and I have been in direct touch with four of our drummers, the mother of his child, and his last and current psychotic wife. There hasn't been anything to prepare me for Mike's departure from Life, at all. It's only in the last couple days that I can admit it's a bigger deal than it probably should be for me, and that is my own damn fault. There are people who told me to just cut him off years ago. I couldn't do it. To me he was always that amazing guy who just careening downhill, at sometimes breakneck speed. Yet, in many ways, to many people, he didn't. The outpouring of emotion online (for whatever that's worth, and we probably won't know until I'm long past dead how little the internet and social media will actually mean when all is said and done) has been interesting to me. The perception of him as a social justice fighter, of being true hardcore punk, is really something to behold. I've got plenty of skeletons in my closet, and he was really the only one that lived a life that I would view from afar and think "Wow, I'm glad I don't have to deal with that anymore" but then inside my heart wonder would it be different if I had stayed the course, could I have fixed it? Now, I'm well aware, that is my damage, my "bag of rocks" as Chris mentioned last night on the phone. It's hard though not to think of all the crazy fucked up shit that we did, all the love we had for each other, all the fights we had, and just the plain truth that we stayed in touch. I continued to help when I could and when I felt like it wouldn't damage me or would, in fact, be in my interest (when I would retrieve shit from storage spaces for him - Chris reminded me that I did that for him, too. I don't remember that, but it also doesn't surprise me. My daddy issues are clear now, and my need to be the person my mom was is also apparent). Recently, as more people keep dying, and others I know have kids that are getting older, and my not having children brings into focus that I have a ton of keepsakes that will mean nothing to anyone but me when I'm gone. I've started to try and get photos to people, to give them bits of memories that I have been sitting on like a fucking broody hen for well over 20 years now. Creating a package for Mike's daughter was way more disappointing than I thought it would be. I thought I had more stuff. She's only 12, so there are still things I can't give her until she asks for them (because...well...her mom might not appreciate it). I still wish I could talk to my father's first wife, or people he was in the police force with, or people he worked with at IBM in the late 60's with, just to get a sense of who he was, because I never knew much about what made my dad tick except on the most superficial level. I wonder if Mike's daughter will wonder about what Young Mike was about. Additionally, trying to decide which photos I wanted to keep has been something I've been avoiding for more than a couple years now. I have for years had this series I took while I was deep in photojournalism mode, all in b&w, of young, vital Mike when I first fell for him. They are now on their way to his daughter - and I am faced with not having that touchstone for the rest of (spoiler: I suspect I am going to be part of the Orgill curse, so if I make it past 57, huzzah. I honestly don't think I will) my life. It's good though right? I mean, as much adventure and fun that we had: he hurt me a lot. He was tough to live with, a lot. I was the peacekeeper in the band A LOT. He couldn't/wouldn't climb out of his bong after 1993, and he was so fixated on the band and his legacy that it became almost comical (then tragic, as it does in Shakespeare). It became an ongoing thing like the swallows coming back to Capistrano: when would I get the call to re-join Agent86 again because he'd found a new drummer and had some shows booked. The Saturday I found out he'd died, via Facebook, not only was I bummed that his run was over, but it hit me that probably the only way I would know is because there is a Facebook to tell me. He had divorced the mother of the child and it wasn't amicable, so she wasn't around when it happened, and he had a new girlfriend that had clearly signed on as a vulture, who I didn't know. If there were no social media, neither of them would have called me, surely. Would they have even have had a number to call? I could have gone for years not knowing he was dead. Instead, I knew almost immediately. People were very kind, especially those who knew him when we were together, and not ever after. I'm still grasping at how to feel though. All I know is: this is now a world where I will never, ever get a call, text, message, postcard, letter, anything from Mike Briggs ever again. And, after almost 35 years, that is crazy to imagine. I have fallen hard for a few other people since him, but never in the way I did when I was 19 and everything was possible. He made me a better consumer of media, a better defender of opinion, a better lover, a better person even when he showed me what I didn't want to be. When I left him in Eugene in 1993, I remember feeling so unhappy, so deeply sad that the relationship and the band just hadn't become what I'd hoped it would. It pushed me to venture out on my own. Until then I hadn't lived alone before. It was a battle to establish my personality outside the construct of Being in The Band with Mike. I did it but slid back a few times. Even when my marriage caved in years later, I bounced back and set new goals for myself much easier than I ever would have if I hadn't had to grow so much after leaving Mike and then being able to remain friends with him and play in the band for another almost ten years, plus go on to stay in contact when I jettisoned music altogether and moved into cooking professionally. This week has had me feeling the same weird waves of "who am I?" that I had then, in an oddly similar way I felt after putting my dog Hopey down and suddenly was faced after sixteen years with the question: who am I if I am not Hopey's person anymore? This is all to say that I am still struggling. Struggling with who I am, what I want. I recognize that we all have choices to make, and that the choices I made led here. Here, five days out from Mike's death, realizing that the band is finally done. He can rest now, and maybe now so can I. "