He was born on this day, February 14th, in 1956 and died August 17th, in 2009. He was my father, and neither of us ever knew very much about each other. We weren't truly estranged for most of that time, and when I was younger I saw him most weekends, that being one of the terms of the divorce my parents went through.

I know very little of his general biography. I never felt inclined to ask him about it, and my mother generally tried to avoid speaking about him to us because she didn't want to be seen as "poisoning us" against him. Around his family, he was given broad social control, or at least held it in the presence of his generally cowed relatives that we saw interacting with him. Stories of his past were not brought up very often, and when they were they were met with his criticism for their inaccuracies or the failings of the other actors in the story to be any better than himself. So there wasn't an atmosphere conducive to learning about him, and I rarely found myself wondering about how the things that were came about as they were. The requisite allegations of sexual abuse (perhaps I am kidding myself when I say that they, allegations or otherwise, are common in most families?) that I heard mentioned at times were of course incredibly tabboo subjects, and the prevailing attitude of "let's not talk about why certain members of the family are only around during large family gatherings and never seen otherwise" may have contributed to a general cultural unwillingness to delve into the past.

What I do know about him I will now try to put down in writing, as a first step toward fulfilling my promise to myself at the time of his death. I will try to be factual, but all I have are snatches of anecdotes I heard and remember hearing and other glimpses. His surviving family members or his widow could presumably help to fill in many of the gaps in my knowledge, but as yet I am not so motivated that I will break my general silence to his family in order to get it. One of the problems with my little project is the dislike I hold toward both him and his (my) family, if not outright contempt.

As such, my objectivity is limited, and this will largely sound, I predict, less like a eulogy than an excoriation. The promise I made was focused on a more fair treatment than that, and years down the line I aim to mold, edit, and continue to write on the subject until I am satisfied that I have arrived at, if not a paean to a man who did some things well and others poorly and died relatively young, then a portrait that shows him as the human being I suspect was present all along beneath the layers of self-doubt, fear, and unwillingness to listen that characterized the majority of his behavior. I owe him that much, to try to understand him and to tell of him to others after his death, and hopefully to arrive at a better understanding of myself along the way. In this way, I will bring us closer together. After spending most of my life pushing him away, going so far as to stop speaking him entirely in what turned out to be the final years of his life, even when I had strong suspicions he wasn't going to last much longer, this is the only option I have to attempt any kind of reconciliation.

All that said, short of the narrative of his death, I am a bit short on material at present. That's what I get for going off on this project half-cocked. I'll rattle off what facts I can recall outside of that, since that will be it's own post. Stylistically, I wonder if I should have lead with that.

He grew up in southern Oregon, in the general neighborhood of Medford. I don't know the names of any schools he attended there. He played trombone then, and still had the instrument years later. I do know that he wanted to play football, but his parents, my enigmatic (and also early to die at age 56) grandfather and now-nearly dead grandmother, refused to allow him to play because it was too dangerous. According to my mother, he resented them for that decision well into adulthood. He took a lot more interest in me during the two years of high school that I was on the football team. Instead of football, in high school he ran cross country, played basketball, and may have played tennis in the spring. Or he did track. I know he and his sister both would take me, my sister, and two cousins to play tennis at times, and he seemed to know enough about it and have enough equipment for it then that I presume he played in high school or else picked it up early on in his life afterward.

His parents were church-goers, and thus so was he. One anecdote that filtered down to me, I forget where from, is that once at church he was caught using the ventilation ducts to spy on the women's restroom. I don't know exactly how old he was then. He was also a regular participant in "youth group" activities organized by local churches, and through these he met my mother. Famously, a car ride that resulted in her seated on his lap for the trip lead to their romantic entanglement. He met his widow in a singles group at his megachurch in southern Oregon, after talking his way into the goup meant for people in their 30s, though he was past 50 at that point. He was a regular churchgoer throughout his life, going so far as to listen to taped sermons from his church when driving on Sundays and unable to attend personally. The churches he preferred had "Assembly of God" written on them, and as far as I know these can be called "Pentecostal" churches. He was profoundly opposed to homosexuality based on his religious indoctrination, which made my sister being a lesbian a significant strain on their relationship.

In high school he earned the nickname "Crash Crane" for himself, due to his incredible ability to total cars he was driving. Reportedly, after the third car, he was not allowed to drive for a period of time, because the insurance companies would not cover him. These incidents were never his fault, something he and others acknowledged, though in this case others said so sarcastically whereas he seemed to believe that the circumstances were more to blame. I believe one totalling had him driving a car into a river, either when a bridge was literally out and he failed to stop, or when a bridge broke underneath the vehicle. Another involved a bee or other yellow and black flying stinging insect (there are many varieties in southern Oregon, none of which endear that awful place to me) in the car. The third, if three they were, I think somehow involved pulling out of a parking lot and getting sideswiped. I was never present for any collisions of his that I can recall, but the man was an avid and consistent speeder. He routinely drove roughly 20 MPH over the speed limit. Later on in his life he took a job with some kind of car racing outfit that didn't turn out very well, as I understand it. He subscribed to several car related magazines, and according to his widow enjoyed reading consumer reports, especially when they concerned cars.

He did not spend money well. I always found this a bit odd, considering that his professional trade in life was accounting. Come to think of it, he rarely spent anything well, time or money. He rarely seemed to be in good financial order. Perhaps part of that was his obligation to pay child support to my mother, but I don't think that amount alone would have been sufficient to utterly overturn one's finances in their own right. Paying for the divorce probably didn't help. It's a bit of a mystery. Large purchases especially seemed to have been his downfall. For all his love of consumer reports (perhaps born of these fiascoes), the cars he bought never seemed to work out well for him. The tiny white sports car he bought just before the divorce, according to my mother, was the result of his going to the dealership "just to look around". He was "forced" to buy the car because he "lowballed" the salesman, who agreed to the price. It wasn't long before he sold it, I forget exactly why. He would buy another Mazda later in life, a Miata that he bought while I was in high school and that passed to my sister. She was forced to sell it almost immediately due to mechanical problems that were more widothan the car. He bought an RV to live out of while working for the racing company, which I heard was in sorry shape and seemingly unsellable. The last house he bought with his widow was an ugly and poorly designed monstrosity. I stayed in it for a few days after he died. His widow is now losing it to foreclosure, I believe. After he died I had no involvement in the settling of his financial affairs, but I believe the house was put up for sale not long after he died. A historically bad housing market probably didn't help things in that regard.

I never once saw him touch alcohol. This occurred to me today, actually. I'm a bit surprised that I never realized it until now, but I also wasn't interacting with him much at all by the time I had it readily available and it became normal to see it and talk about it with other people. I had very little idea that it existed for a large portion of my life. My mother bought beer a few times over the course of years after the divorce (which furnished as bait for snail traps in the garden she maintained, as she put it, "I don't like killing them, but at least I know they die happy"). Not that she was drinking constantly, it was just that my father didn't allow it in the house when they were together. How my mother acquired a taste for beer in spite of that (she married my father when she was 17) I will have to ask her. The day after he died, his widow lobbied for the purchase of "adult beverages" to which my sister and I tried very hard not to assent to too strongly. I never asked him about it, but as with most of his seemingly Puritanical behaviors or views, I suspect the influence of religious motivations. Noah gets drunk in the Bible, and it is bad that he did so, therefore, you can never drink alcohol. Such sound reasoning surely deserves our respect!

He washed out of the Air Force Academy at some point. I think he got a degree in accounting from the University of Oregon, or else I don't know he came by his love for their football team other than by living in Eugene for a few years. He enrolled in Washington State University's MBA program, and failed to complete the requirements necessary to be awarded the degree. According to my mother, he blamed her for failing to support him (read: write his dissertation for him). He seemed to specialize in accounting for food companies, doing stints with Borden and another food company that either bought or was bought by Borden, a chemical company called Kanto (Japanese, I think), Harry & David for several years, and then the car racing thing was his last line of work, so far as I know. At one point we very nearly moved to Nebraska because of a job offer out there that fell through only after we had sold our house.

He had two children. We were born large, healthy, and with the accepted numbers of limbs and digits. The oldest, a daughter, lives in Long Beach, California with her partner (or maybe they haven't moved in together, I forget). She has worked in a variety of special education oriented schools or done other kinds of childcare (in-house nanny?) mostly. She has, I think gotten a bachelor's in education and is working on other accredtations, potentially a master's. She "came out" around the age of 17 or 18, and tried hard to demand acceptance from her father and his family, to at best mixed results. She converted to Catholicism around the same age, but not long before coming out, which was met with only slightly less enthusiasm. His younger child, a son, was much more well-behaved by comparison, neither converting to outlandish relgions nor seeming inclined to live an alternative lifestyle. His son played a variety of sports growing up, including football, and was very successful academically, receiving top grades in high school and attending a prestigious private liberal arts college. Reportedly, he was proud of his son's well-rounded intellectual attainment, saying that while he was only good at math, his son was good at math in addition to being gifted in other areas. After his son graduated from college, he received no further communications from him. He died not knowing, indeed wondering, why his son didn't want to talk to him.

No, no, no! No, it's gotta be warm and fuzzy. Some like, um, "Love Day", but not so lame.

I sit in my room with a bottle of Jack Daniel's. Tonight I drink in the honor of a woman. The ever-revolving door they seem to have in my life took an interesting turn today, and here I am. Jack is for her. In a way he is her, a Proustian sort of way. I can't see it but I think of a summer even further back than the one where we last saw each other; we would split bottles of it and talk into the night. She was always a summer apparition. Vibrant and explosive, lingering to tantalize all through the other seasons of longing for summer's return, her return. Life was in the way all those other times, but during the slow monolithic march of monotony that is summer's oppression, we would find each other again to catch up and be lonely together.

I respect her more than I've ever managed to tell her, though I tried. I think she's one of the most beautiful women I've seen, but she never accepted my praise. She managed the extraordinary feat of being tough, independent, resourceful and indefeatable while still being compassionate, level-headed, humble and vulnerable. She would disappear for months at a time if not years before resurfacing, but always with stories of triumph: learning new things and coming out in one piece at the end. At times I wondered if she was not an Indiana Jones but a pathological liar. I discovered that in the absence of any way to say for sure, I was willing to accept her stories as true. She didn't embellish about the things I knew, and yes, I preferred that she be more interesting rather than I be too credulous. At the end of Inception, Leonardo DiCaprio didn't wait to see whether the spinning top ever fell over. I feel as if my being deluded on this point is no worse.

She disappeared again after we got a little closer than we ever had before. I made a rather stupendous blunder right at the cusp of attainment rather largely because of years of frustrated waiting. I beat myself up over it now. A matter of hours! I just had to keep myself collected and calm for the space of mere ticks on the clock, and instead I blew up and with it blew up the hope of many years of waiting. My pride wasn't so important that, though wounded (in error), I needed to defend it so idiotically.

That undertone in Jack Daniel's reminds me of bananas, did you ever notice that flavor as you drank it? It helps to let some ice melt into it for a bit (perhaps while you type lines of regret of your own).

I spent a night sleeping under the stars in misery, realizing almost immediately afterward how stupid I had been. Too late, baby, too late, as the song goes.

It wasn't long after that that she stopped answering when I called, stopped returning my calls or responding to texts. So she disappeared. She has done it before and resurfaced again, but never quite like this. I called every now and again, left voicemails hoping that she wouldn't be gone as long this time and that she would know that I wanted to talk to her regardless of whether she were mine or not. My life was better, is better, when she is around.

She finally resurfaced, on the other side of the country and engaged to some guy whose name sounds kind of familiar. It isn't the first time she's been engaged or moved somewhere far away. It is the first time I found out about both at the same time, and both via Facebook, some few months after holding her in my arms and thinking that maybe this time she and I might work something out and take a step into a more involved interaction than in the past.

Which leads me to what I guess my point is. I don't know how I feel about how I feel about her. I never want to be the kind of creepy reprobate that haunts strip clubs or makes women fear for their lives being ended by a man claiming that he "loves" her. At the same time, I have met women of whom I have thought, "If we were romantically involved, I would be very much in love with you." It worries me. I can't very well say to a woman I've known for years, "Hey, I think I might be in love with you, even though we have never been on a date and there are lots of things I don't know about you and you are seeing someone else and don't find me attractive enough to act in such a way that I can tell you find me attractive." It works in the romcoms, but consider how someone reacts in real life. They smile politely and try to get away as quickly as possible to search for "restraining order" online. And that is sensible! Anyone declaring love in that manner is very likely crazy, or at least much too into you to be mentally stable. Even if they were, how could you know? Any sane person would no longer feel comfortable around such a person.

She isn't even the only one. I have met many women of whom I have had this thought. It turns out there are a great many women (and maybe even men) in this world who are very much worthy of being loved by me in my eyes, and I think all of them have not been told as much by me because I can't think of a way to express it to them without coming across as insurmountably creepy. I think some have guessed, though I hope most have not if only because I dread the thought of being so transparent. We live in a world where love is an old-fashioned word, to quote one of my favorite songs. Oddly enough, for as old a word as it is, we (I) seem to be still very uncomfortable with it.

Old news! The unbridgeable gap between souls is well known, the critic says. Yes, I do feel these good feelings toward other people, and find myself unable to express them for fear of exposing myself to ridicule and my relations with those I love to damage, but so what? We're all there. Are you going to complain, you who wonder whether you even are human at times, that your way of trying to be human is hard and tends to enforce solitude upon you, when you drink bottles of Jack Daniel's just because a girl you fancy didn't want to kiss you? People starve to death or die in natural disasters in this world. You are good looking, though not as fit as you could be. You have a job you hardly deserve and a lifestyle richer than was even conceivable until very recently in the lives of all human beings prior to you.

Critic misses the point in that my concern is how to act given the reality of what is. I complain as well here, but my complaint is meant to serve as background for the question. How do I show my affection to those I cannot love physically? And how do I demonstrate love to someone in other ways when sex is an option? With a woman I am involved with, I tend to use sex as an expression of that feeling. That tendency, unfortunately, also means I don't use other forms of expression to make those feelings clear. Many are the relationships of mine ruined by my presumption that sex was enough to show I cared about someone. But other ways are so banal! I rage at the profound lack of emotional power of the other methods. But the problem lies in how entirely internal the experience of emotion can be. We use these tired forms because we have few ways of showing externally what we feel internally. There is little structure to our emotional communication. We don't change colors. We don't have brain tails to connect to someone else. All we have are our bodies and our words. Perhaps I should reconsider my disdain for the phrase "make love".

I just want love to mean something more than I think it usually is meant to mean. Something so important should never be treated so trivially. The relationships we have with others are the only things that give our lives any meaning at all. Thus, the most important of these most important things deserve yet more differentiation than they already get. I don't have the words to say these things well enough to the ones that deserve it most, and it makes me furious. Let me love you! Let me let myself love you! May we all find a way to make ourselves understood to those we wish to be understood by, and to forgive ourselves for failing to be able to put into words how strongly we feel about the people who matter to us.

"... forget regret / or life is yours to miss" - Rent, 'No Day But Today'

Long ago, I wrote that for one to be assured of their happiness, one must know that the way one has acted was the right action in that situation. What I didn't understand then, but have come to realize since, is that that is impossible, and a foolish notion. We don't always do what we know is right.

First, as a good friend pointed out immediately, my mistake was to confuse knowing with believing. What a person requires for the purposes of certainty was not knowledge, but belief in possession of knowledge. Knowledge is presumed by the believer, but not necessary for belief or for relief from regret.

Second, it is impossible for one to have that kind of belief in one's self at all times, if not ever. All exist in a state of perpetual self-doubt when acting consciously.

As a younger person, I was fond of the song I quote above, perhaps because I had no context from which to judge the musical that tells us that we all have AIDS, having never seen the thing itself or heard any other pieces from it. I enjoy musicals unironically; the broad sweeps of emotional upheaval, the melodrama, and best of all, being able to catch the lyrics or at least the jist of what they say (the last of which separates musical from opera in my mind, poor unilingual that I am).

What the song's pithy lyrics impart, forget regret, I once endorsed, but now I reject their obvious interpretation, settling instead on my arcane self-definition. What is important about regret is how it alters us. My error was to think that a person feels justification immediately as they act. But as the French say, we all are more clever after the fact ("the wit of the staircase"). It is only after our lizard brains have had time to do their tricks that we can see things as they were, ourselves victims and They cruel oppressors. Only then do we apply our rationalization engine to spiritus mundi and arrive at the consideration of our decision points, where we might have taken a fork in the path and seen a different end result than the now inescapable present. Who we are is the price we paid to get what we thought we wanted in the past.

The purpose of regret, in other words, is to give us reason to make better decisions at our next decision point. We should do anything BUT forget our regrets. Dorian Gray lamented, in the end, the lack of feedback for his sins. Only he could see the effects of his actions on himself, but not constantly. He did not act differently. He did forget regret for a time, until he could no longer hide from it. Our regret, origination of pain, inspires us to think harder on those following occasions. Maybe tomorrow, one will act with more gravitas, or will forgive more or stronger transgressions, or won't stifle the winged words wound up within.

My spin then is this: forget that your regret seems to be for what you might have avoided. It isn't. You regret the good that you might have wrought, the gains you might have won, not the woe you reaped in due time. Forget that you have regretted in the past, insomuchas it prevents you from escaping more regret later. Don't allow it to fester, compounding your sins beyond counting. You are alive. You must act. You will do awful things that you regret. Be mindful of your capacity for harm to yourself and to others (one coin, two sides, even for the socipaths who damage their toys). In that knowledge, act. Act to achieve greater joy which prevents regret, rather than abstaining to avoid regret, or life is yours to miss.