Today I attended a friend’s funeral, it poured rain, and then I went to a political event. The only thing missing was a root canal.

That’s a semi-joke I put on my Facebook page.

The viewing and funeral were obviously no fun — although I did meet a very interesting man with one fascinating story after another from his family history. Each one of them makes for a strange combination of a Dickens novel and “Jonah Hex” comics, complete with orphans, shootouts, Indians, Mexicans, poverty, conniving small-town Mayors, and family reunions decades later.  I was glad to hear them because they kept me distracted, and by this point in the viewing I was cried out anyway. Even seeing my friend in the casket didn’t convince me he was dead. I still feel unconvinced.

After the viewing I went to the Mass and sat down next to a dear, longtime friend I was glad to see there. I told her that I assumed when the Mass started I would leave. As a Lutheran (lapsed), I have no idea how  Catholic Masses work, so I thought my absence would be required. It wasn’t. I just followed along — getting up, and sitting down, and getting up, and sitting down, on command — leaving out the religiously obedient parts. I was struck by how similar it was to a Lutheran service — and then realized, of course, given the origins of Lutheranism, that what I was raised in was the Catholic Mass without the showy bits. The Lutheran service is like that breakfast cereal made out of tree bark. The Catholic Mass has Crunch Berries.

After that, and the waving of some incense and the scattering of holy water from what looked like the little plastic bottles that Holiday Inns put shampoo into, we went outside for the funeral. This was when it started to pour. My friend, who was Air Force reserve, got a military service with folding of the flag and salute. The flag was presented to his husband, who was his partner of 21 years and is now his widower because for a brief window here in California it was legal for all consenting adults to get married, irrespective of long-held bigotry and prejudice. Then it was all over and we headed for our cars, making our way carefully on the slick stone.

I intended to go home to see my kids, because they’d been entertaining themselves all day while I was out grieving and my wife was sleeping. (She works nights.) But I called first and my wife was already up and had gotten hoodwinked yet again into taking our daughter to the art supply store for supplies allowing the creation of more art. So instead I went to my office and then I went to a house party for a political candidate. I had said I was going, so I went.

For the second time that day, I found myself in a small gathering meeting new people and hearing interesting new stories. Early in the event, another guest sat on and broke a Civil War-era hardback rocker. The guest was mortified, and the hostess said, “Oh, don’t worry. It’s old. It’s from 1865!” I said, “I don’t think you’re making her feel better.” The candidate came on and made his remarks and the very first note he struck resonated with me, just as my private dinner with him had three months ago, so I wrote him a check and signed the endorsement form.

When I got home after missing dinner, my son proudly recounted all his adventures in “Oblivion,” which we’re each playing on the Xbox, and I realized the worst had come to pass. “You’ve joined the Thieves Guild!” I said. He had, and he was excited about it. They had given him a secret ring that made him invisible and now he could go anywhere with aplomb. Moreover, he now has a redoubt stocked with mystic weapons, and I will never be able to find it because it’s hidden somewhere in the code of the game in a place that only members of the Thieves Guild can go. I looked at his glee and listened to how easily they’d lured him into their dark embrace and I thought, This is how it starts. And I told him that if my character ever ran into him in the game, I would bring him to justice.

Then I cooked a steak for myself and poured a glass of wine and got an orange and a Choco Liebniz and watched a movie on HBO because I just didn’t feel that I had any feelings to feel or judgments to make left for the day.

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 6th, 2010 at 11:56 pm and is filed under Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.