Processing revisited

I'm backing far, far up from this search. Last night it hit a level of wierdness beyond my comprehension, I mean super-uber-ultra beyond my comprehension, and that when my comprehension had already been baffled beyond its limits. I spent an hour sitting on the couch, watching the F-word shopping for a new harmonica on German websites, with my mouth hanging open, just trying to process. I haven't gone into that mode in years. In justice to myself I was really high at the time. But still. There's nothing I can do besides pick up his mail, hold everybody else's hand, and wait.

I will say this though: I've got more hope now than I've had in more than a week. In my head, the two likeliest things that could have happened to him were accident or running away, and I always dismissed running away because I couldn't imagine what he'd be running away from, and now I can.

In other news, reading Brideshead Revisited and getting an interesting sense of how the other half lived and thought. That it was didn't get obvious until Charles Ryder went back to England from France when he thought he was being morally called upon to beat up the proletariat. Smashing book so far.

Know when to fold them

Yesterday I did the only thing I could think of to do; I dumped the problem I was having with his family on four other people who loved my missing colleague more than I did. Three of them agreed with me and are taking over where I folded. One flipped out, got really offensive, and, well, I won't have to worry about choosing out Christmas presents for her anymore. What the fuck is wrong with Americans, anyways? She's the same person who calmy explained to me once why it was right Hillary Clinton didn't dump her husband when he stuck that cigar up the intern (because she's a politician, and she knew that people would never elect a divorced person to be president, because divorcées couldn't possibly keep the country in order if they couldn't keep their own marriage in order, and yes, Mistress La Spliffe, that makes perfect sense.) I keep discovering new and unsettling veins of weirdness and conventionality in those people.

Last word on this aspect of the subject:

Bigotry isn't just things you yell at wops, krauts, insert derogatory ethnicity/sexuality/visible denomination here, etc, on the street when you're fucking insane. It can also mean not informing the investigating authorities of someone's woppitude, krautdom, insert derogatory ethnicity/sexuality/visible denomination here etc. when they go missing in Central America on vacation, you suspect foul play, he hasn't been robbed, his woppitude, krautdom, insert derogatory ethnicity/sexuality/visible denomination here, etc., may have left him vulnerable to foul play, and, erm, he hasn't yet told his parents about the woppitude, krautdom, insert derogatory ethnicity/sexuality/visible denomination here, etc.

It can mean prioritizing the sensibilities of family or friends as concerns the woppitude, krautdom, insert derogatory ethnicity/sexuality/visible denomination here, etc. over exhausting every possible (indeed, in the circumstances, reasonably probable) avenue of inquiry as to the fate of said wop/kraut, insert derogatory ethnicity/sexuality/visible denomination here, etc.

I haven't stopped feeling like being sick. But at least I've made it other peoples' problem now to decide about going over the family's head, instead of mine - dumped it on the consciences of consciousnesses more wrapped up in this than I am. And in the process, I also feel like I flushed a bitch out of the closet, although probably in a few weeks or months or years I'll calm down and start missing her salty company. That's fucking DELEGATION, baby, it's awesome. No wonder U2 wrote a song about it. At least I think that's what those micks were yowling about.

But fuck, I miss him so.

Must actually get around to watching that 1996 Mike Leigh film with the great title

Oh readers, my heart is breaking. You know how pissy I get every time something I think is stupid is said or done, which makes me pretty pissy most of the time. But this is the first time I've had to watch stupid erase all my hope that someone I love is still alive.

I know it looks like fun, kids, but stupid KILLS.

I don't know how I get over this or move past this or anything. This is a grief I can't see the other side of. When people who I love died in the past, there were so many differences. I was prepared for it in a sense, but more importantly so were they. In at least two instances they waited patiently for their family's permission to let go and die. And we could all celebrate their lives and reflect on the great good they'd given us together, and we could all say "there was no stone left unturned in our love for them, we all did everything we could and loved them as well as we could."

But now . . . no. Not only the pain of the manner of his death - which is still a matter of some speculation - but of feeling that no, not everything was done. That some things that don't matter a good goddamn in Mistress La Spliffe Land mattered more than this man's life in the Land of His Family. And the horrible, wormy thought that I don't believe myself but which is nonetheless damaging my own conscience like fucking termites: what if he is alive and is waiting for help in the circumstances that I fear?

No, I don't see the other side of this. I don't see any lessons coming out of it. I don't see a single fucking speck of good or celebration or anything that isn't pure fucking never-ending suck, and I'm so sad and I miss him so much that I don't even have the energy to find refuge in pissiness anymore.

Some of you Blogrollers have families that seem like more of a curse than a blessing, and I've read and I've sympathized but I haven't understood for shit. What sort of sheltered existence have I led that this is the first time I've looked at a man's family and understood that concept as a reality? Is this a lack of emotional understanding on my part? Is it the case that many families are like this - just ticking along with all their secrets and lies, and then choking on those secrets and lies in a crisis?

Maybe that's the only good that can come out of this as far as I'm concerned - I always thought secrets and lies should be kept to the bare minimum but perhaps this was the practical demonstration I needed to make sure to stick to that once I start pumping out the kiddies. I guess we'll never fucking know.

Angry grief - Griefgry? Quite griefgry today

The search for my missing colleague is getting dumber and dumber. Really terrific media exposure now . . . I guess that's what happens when you're a missing journalist. And that's great. But . . . gah. I wish the family would try being completely forthcoming with the police before thinking about bringing in a psychic, let me put it like that.

The emotions are rather dreadful - sort of cyclical around the central theme of "I Miss Him" - because this was a man who managed not to annoy me once in two and a half years, and I get fucking annoyed by everything, and he was sweet, funny, warm, seemingly soft but he could stand up for himself, and us, in a professional context, and I miss him, he was such good company. And then swirling around that is "We're All Going to Be Fucked Getting Our Magazine Out", "His Family Is Doing It Wrong", "Why Is Everybody Treating the Locals Like Incompetent Spics When They're the Ones Doing It Wrong", "I Hope It Happened So Fast He Didn't Even Notice", "I Must Try to Hope He's Alive Or It's Bad Luck Somehow", ad nauseum, ad nauseum.

What I have found, bizarrely, is that it really helps to laugh, so much so that I'm starting to think the tragic history of the Jews, on my mind at the moment after knocking off Daniel Deronda, is part of what makes them so fucking funny, which they weren't in Daniel Deronda but oh well. You'd think Poles would be a bit more of a laugh riot in that case, though - maybe they are and the problem is just that I don't speak Polish. Anyways. Here's something that helped.

The driest argument has its hallucinations

My colleague is still missing in Central America. His family has taken an us vs. them mentality with the police that has become factually obstructive. I think he's probably dead but if he isn't, I can't think of anything much less useful than that. But you know what, he's my colleague, not my brother, and if they want to be assholes about it, there's not much I can do besides fucking weep and flag to the authorities that I'll be forthcoming as I can if they question friends and extended family. They probably won't. I hope they don't. I know what I think is right but at the same time I don't like the image of myself colluding with a Central American police force against a grieving family, which is how it will be perceived by said family and by that part of my brain which is all "fuck the po-po".

Part of what is distressing in these situations, I've discovered, beyond the horrible grief and the gnawing worry and the absolute lack of control and other people, is one's own brain.

Other than that, I'm on the home stretch with Daniel Deronda. Still ripping and not a single disappointment so far, beyond the let-down of Mordecai's big life-vision that he needed to share and bequeath to Daniel being Zionism. That was probably more earth-shaking at the time that Eliot was writing but I felt a bit let down. I was hoping for unicorns, or some magical mystery truth of some sort. Oh well.