"What Dreams May Come"

I don't pretend to understand the metaphysics of why -- but sometimes things do seem to cluster. For example, maybe a bunch of people you know will get married or have babies within a small window of time. Or perhaps you and a bunch of your friends show up at the same party with the same Prince (or Curtis Mayfield or De La Soul) album AND the same brand of rum -- only no one usually drinks rum and it wasn't on sale. For the last several weeks there has been one of those syncretic clusters. There's been a whole lot of dying around here.

The sucky thing about people dying is that you don't get to see them for awhile and you miss them. (I personally believe -- and once again, I don't pretend to understand why -- that things are much more harmonious on the other side. Supposing that, when we do reunite with our people again once we cross over to the next place it will be joyful. And considering geographic time, a human life isn't such a long span of history -- so ultimately it's all good, etc.) Anyway...

As I said, lately there's been a very funereal bent to Sirenaland. I already mentioned Noreen who sent me the coyote and I went to another memorial service on Saturday. It was held at the zoo in the underground dolphin viewing area. The minister said that humans are the only animals aware of their mortality, but I don't really believe she has any evidence to back that statement up. Actually, I suspect the evidence supports the opposite. Aren't elephants supposed to know where to go when it's time to die? Doesn't the instinct to preserve one's life hint at an awareness of its impermanence? Anyway...

At the end of this memorial service (which was rather tranquil and lovely with the large tanks throwing off a turquoise ambiance) the minister started a closing prayer and 6 dolphins swam up to the glass, looking at the congregation until we filed out. In order to keep their place, they softly undulated their bodies and waved their fins as if to say goodbye.

Also, Bad, Bad Leroy Brown died on March 11. (Yes, the real Leroy Brown.) I met him in the summer of 2003 when I started working at the Mines. I served him many beers and Martels. He always ordered with his hand alongside his mouth -- like a pantomime of shouting -- but he held his hand up to the wrong side of his face, effectively muffling his raspy voice and blocking the lower half of his face from the person he was talking to -- so you couldn't read his lips. Thank goodness he always drank the same thing.

Leroy always looked snazzy. He wore crisp fedoras and alligator shoes. In the summer he wore linen pants and they never seemed to wrinkle. He liked to shoot pool and I lost a few games to him. He could be mean, although generally he was friendly enough to women -- especially women bartenders. Once he gave Christine and me a ride in his El Dorado and he always bought us a drink when he was managing Eddie Clearwater's (now defunct) Club. (This is a picture of Leroy with the wife of some amp manufacturer. I found it on their website.)


And to the 33 people slain at Virginia Tech yesterday, I wish you sweet dreams.