This Just IN: Just Say No

I've thought a lot about this since the election.  I think I'm going to just say no to news for a while.  No more TV news, no more websites like CNN.com, no more political discussion forums, no more newspapers, no more National Public Radio, for at least the next several weeks.  Please stop the bus so I can step off.

Michael Bolton?

"Tell me, how am I supposed to live without you?  Now that I've been loving you so long..."

Oh, sorry.  I was singing a Michael Bolton song to my house.  I can barely believe we've been here for more than six years now, not even counting the time between when we signed the construction papers and when we got to move in.  This is by far the longest I've lived anyplace except the house where I grew up; I lived in that one for about 22 years.  But as for the others (not counting dorm rooms or other college lodging)...

• House where I was born: less than 2 years
  
• Fairview Street in Loogootee: 2 years and 4 months
• Bellgrade in Loogootee: 2 years
• Post Horn Court in Columbus: 3 years and 6 months
• Windsor Road in Gerrards Cross, UK: 16 months
• Bray Road in Maidenhead, UK: 19 months
• Iroquois Trail in Columbus: 12 months
• Apartment on Coronado Street, Chandler AZ: 10 months 

No wonder I've grown accustomed to this place, accustomed to its face.  It's like home, even though I despise Arizona and the horse it rode in on.

"Obama Biden Palin" - We can almost use those letters to spell "Osama bin Laden".  We are missing one "s", and we have a few letters left over: b, p, and i.  "S" is the 19th letter of the alphabet; b is the 2nd, p is 16th, and i is the 9th.  If we add up our leftover numbers, we have 2+16+9=27, and if we subtract our missing "s", we have 27-19=8.  Eight equals 2 to the 3rd power, and what is 2x3?  Exactly: it is 6.  Just like 666, the number of the beast.  You see?  You see now?  Is it clear what path you must take?   Good.  Go forth, and bring me back the prime factorization of John McCain, on a silver platter.

Dog Days of Summer

I haven't written anything in a while, and I'm not sure why.  I think maybe I've just been too busy being deeply homesick.  At this point in the summer, I'm just tired, all the way through, and ready for it to be over.  And I guess there's also the knowledge that soon it will be that part of the year when I miss Indiana the most, when the leaves turn colors and the bite of cold is in the air.  I don't ever feel that chill in the air here until February, and by then I know that what's coming isn't snow, but 90-degree days much too soon.

This has been an odd summer and fall.  Every since RUME4 class ended in May, I've felt... disconnected.  From everyone and everything.  I didn't realize the role that course sequence was playing in holding me together with my colleagues, but I guess it was.  We said at the time that "one of these days we will really miss this exchange of ideas", but I certainly never thought it would be quite this soon.  Absent that, it's hard to focus.  I know this is the point at which a lot of PhD students flame out, but that knowledge doesn't make it much easier to fight the urge.

One Year

Today (or yesterday, since now it's after midnight) was the one year anniversary of my old high school friend Shannon's death at the age of 40, just a few weeks shy of turning 41.  It was cancer, which she battled for the last several years of her life.  I don't know if her two daughters ever knew her as "not sick".

Sure, I hadn't seen her in AGES, since the early 1990s, but it was nice to know she was out there being a wonderful wife and mother.  For one year now, the world has been a little emptier without her spark in it.  I'm sad for her husband and her two kids, none of whom I've ever met.  How has the year been for them, I wonder.  My own mother was taken at about that same age, but it was sudden, in the blink of an eye.  Would I have wanted her to hang on, miserably fighting a battle that she could not win, just so I could see her more?  I don't know.  I feel for Emma and Lauren, and for Scott, who had to be devastated to see his beloved wife fight so hard for so long.

And most of all, I remember my old friend Shannon, and hope she is at peace, free of pain at last, and able to somehow see her daughters as they grow.

With all the ways I've abused myself over the last 25 years, how can I be outliving so many beautiful people?!?  It makes no sense at all.

Valley of the Shadow of Death

George Carlin has died.  Less than 8 hours ago as I write this.  I know he was 71, which is somewhere between young and old, but he somehow seemed timeless.  Who among us could picture him dying?

It's sobering, and at 1AM in a quiet house it would be easy to succumb to the black despair of The Approaching End.  I've done it a few times, I know.  As far back as when I was just 8 or 10 years old, I remember lying in bed terrified of death.  Probably it was the result of losing my mom so unexpectedly and tragically, but who knows.

Rather than despair, maybe it's best to use the Cold Hand of Death as motivation.  I think this is true whether one is a religious person or not.  Whether you believe in an afterlife or not, it's good to remind yourself from time to time that this is your chance to do something marvelous with life.  Laugh, cry, live, love, make a difference.

I remember lying in bed as a child, thinking about the year 2000, which at that time was in the distant future.  I remember thinking about how I would turn 33 years old in 2000, one foot in the grave (33 is pretty old when you're 10).  Well, 33 has come and gone long ago, and now I'm 41.  Now this is the part where I could whine that I haven't accomplished anything, haven't done anything memorable.  Ah, but that would be a lie.  I've done a hundred or more things that are very important to my soul, and to other souls around me.  I've shared 10 years with a son who is an amazing person, partly because of me.  I've spent 17 years with a woman who... I don't even know how to finish that sentence.  I hope to be lucky enough to spend 60 more years with her.  I have the kind of bond with my Dad that few children are ever lucky enough to experience.

I've loved a best friend who ended up as my polar opposite in almost every way after our paths diverged.  I've loved another best friend who took his own life; that was one of the most traumatic events of my life, but I was privileged to know Thomas for 10 years before that.  I've made music with my sax and my voice, and I've hit all the notes in Bridge Over Troubled Water.  I've heard the thud of tennis balls against the grass courts of Wimbledon.  I've had my picture taken with two senators (including one who was later Vice-President of the US) and one porn star, and I've had the Queen of England walk within five feet of me.  

I can close my eyes and smell fresh-cut grass or burning leaves.  I have cried at sad movies, and at happy movies, and at action flicks.  I'm sensitive, and I'd like to stay that way.

No, my 41 years have been far from a waste.  Still, dear Cold Hand of Death, I'm not nearly done.  I have so much left to do, so much left to feel.  "Your life is now", according to John Mellencamp, and I believe him.  I can and do spend time thinking about the past, planning for the future, and fearing the inevitable, but none of those are my life.  My life is now.  Now is the only moment available to me, and I am making Now extraordinary.  I encourage you to do the same.

A Comprehensive Post

This morning I turned in my "Comprehensive Exam" for my PhD, 42 minutes before it was due.  For anyone who doesn't know but for some bizarre reason cares, the comprehensive exam is like the last "big hurdle" before embarking on one's dissertation proposal.  In fact, it kind of lays the groundwork for the proposal, although in my case it remains to be seen how well that will work... my comprehensive exam questions were so astoundingly broad that a person could write 20 different dissertations based on it.  But hey, that's better than ZERO.  Anyway, as far as I recall, I wrote about existing research, AND put forth my own ideas, on all of the following (showing just how broad the questions were):

• Quantity
• Quantification
• Variable
• Covariation
• Functions
• Function Composition
• Related Rates Problems
• Model-Eliciting Activities
• The "Models and Modeling Perspective"
• Reflection Tools
• Affect
• Motivation
• "Flow" (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990)
• Problem-Solving
• Reflection (in the cognitive sense, not the mirror sense)
• Teaching Experiments
• Data Collection
• Open Coding
• Conceptual Analysis

I wrote 62 single-spaced pages, and given the time, I could have written ten times that much and felt like I still only scratched the surface.  It was a good experience for me, although I look forward to getting my hands on those people who described their comprehensive exams as "fun", or "a transformative experience".  Those people need to be beaten severely.  I hated every minute of it, except the part at 7:18AM when I emailed my responses to my committee and knew it was done.  THAT moment was indeed both fun and transformative!

I did learn some important things.  Most important was the need for a reviewer, at the very least a trusted friend who can serve as a "sounding board".  Even with 20 days to do my comprehensive exam, I felt that what I wrote was disconnected, flowed badly, had gaps, and BADLY needed a reviewer's eye.  That was against the rules, though... but maybe that was good, since it taught me (or reinforced the idea) never to publish anything without running it by a few trustworthy radical constructivists first.  Sadly, from what I can tell, there are less than a dozen such people in existence.  People who really "get" what radical constructivism (in my opinion) is all about.  Maybe I can help keep the flame burning for another generation.  Me and K-Mo.

The other important thing I learned from my comp exam was how to pronounce "Csikszentmihalyi".

Big Money for Nerding

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, a kid from Indiana won the National Spelling Bee tonight... and its $35,000 cash prize.  When I was in the finals in 1980 and 1981, the winner took home $1000.  Those of us in the middle of the pack took home checks for $50.  We also weren't televised, because people back then had enough sense not to put pitiful nerds on national TV.  Like everything else, now it's big business, complete with mini-features to tell the contestants' "back stories".  My back story?  "F*** off, I'm a lonely geek.  I study spelling words at lunch because I'm afraid of people yet crave their approval. My best time for solving my Rubik's cube is 1:06.  My hobbies include getting angry at basketball games.  Is that enough background for you?"   Ah, the good old days...

All Gone Bye-Bye

Hmm.

When I moved back from the UK to the US in January 2001, I brought three mostly-full bottles of good single malt scotch with me.  The years went by and I drank very little of them.  The levels went down, but almost imperceptibly.

Then suddenly, about a year ago, things started to change.  First to be emptied were the non-Islays - the Glenkinchie and the Oban - because I always save the best for last (I eat the same way - all the peas, then all the broiled fish, then lastly all the mac and cheese).  It took me most of the last year to finish those two.

Then late last year I added a bottle of Bowmore to the cabinet (which at that point had only Lagavulin).  In late February, I also added a bottle of Ardbeg and a bottle of Laphroaig.  And suddenly, over the last two months, I've drained all four remaining bottles - the Lagavulin from 2001, the Bowmore, the Ardbeg, and lastly the Laphroaig.  Then I bought a bottle of 18yo Talisker, and emptied it, too.  Should I be worried?  Is this a problem?

Hello... hello... hello... is there anybody in there?  Just nod if you can hear me.  Is there anybody home?

Another semester is gone.

I visited a nearby high school a few weeks ago, sat in on some chemistry classes.  Not math classes, and I'm a math education person, but it was still interesting.  Two of the classes couldn't POSSIBLY have better illustrated the range of approaches to "teaching" that are out there.  It makes me realize the enormity of what we are trying to achieve.  Especially since most colleges of education, and indeed most teachers, don't see their teaching as an "object of inquiry", or problematic in any way.

I know MY teaching stinks... so does that make me part of the problem, or part of the solution?  Or maybe both, for now?

It's both daunting and exciting.  The state of the onion is so screwed up that there is plenty of exciting work to be done... but at the same time it's so screwed up that it can seem hopeless.  But I know it's not.  One teacher at a time, one class at a time, one student at a time.

Passed Past

Before the day leaves, I want to write something.

First off, I'm so darned proud of my friend April, who defended her PhD dissertation today.  She set standards for academic rigor, professionalism, and grace under pressure that will be difficult to follow.  It was ABSOLUTELY, without a doubt, the best day of this semester for me, even though it wasn't my dissertation.

OK, I'm sitting here with a rather large glass of scotch (probably $7 worth of Laphroaig), thinking about realities that no longer exist.  Yeah, I know, that makes me no different than any other aging blogger.  "Get over it, dumbass."  Ah, but I don't have to, at least not right this moment.  It's MY blog, and you can't make me.  Supposedly Piaget wrote for himself, to sort out his thinking, and I'll bet once in a while that writing included stuff that had very little to do with child cognitive development, and more to do with scotch-driven musings.

Recently something brought back the memory of me and my friend Mark playing a sax duet (a Bach transcription, Two-Part Invention in F Major) on a rural Indiana bridge late one night, bathed in the glow from the headlights of a 1980 Ford Pinto.  Mark, to his credit, is not dead, though I daresay it's been 20 years since he touched a saxophone.  As for me, I have rehearsal every Wednesday night...  I'm looking forward to tomorrow's music-making...

The first two guys in my class to hit puberty were me and a kid named Ted.  As a result, we found ourselves singing in the high school chorus while in 7th Grade, because Junior High chorus had no part for guys who sang bass.  Well, Ted died about 5 years ago, of widespread cancer, at maybe age 35.

Through high school, especially the later years, I spent a lot of time with fellow Pinto-driver Bob.  We planned to go to college together, but it just didn't work out for him.  And then he had the misfortune of dying in a car wreck in 1991, at age 24.  I was away on a religious retreat at the time.

My best friend through much of high school was Marty.  After high school, Marty joined the USMC, and went to Iraq in the FIRST Gulf War.  No, he didn't die.  Marty is alive and well, and the former PFC has risen to Major (a beneficiary of the bloodthirsty neocon-driven Government's approach to creating "peace" through militarily-achieved implementation of structural democracy).  However, we've corresponded a little over the years, and one thing is clear: our paths have been so radically divergent that there is now no common ground between us.  Our former reality is gone just a completely as if one or the other of us had died.

Of course there's Thomas, as written about several days ago.  Today is the one-year anniversary of his suicide.  That reality ended abruptly and shockingly.

My huge crush through most of high school was a girl named Shannon, who constantly left me tongue-tied and intimidated (without ever trying).  She died of cancer last June 29th, another good person cut down in her prime.

A couple of weeks ago my wife's uncle died after falling from a ladder, dead in his mid 50s.  Too early, too young.  Yet he was already a widower himself, because he lost his wife, the dear Aunt Karen, to cancer three years earlier, at age 51.

About six weeks ago my cousin died, I think from a diabetic "episode", at age 50-ish.  That means her parents, my aunt and uncle, have now buried two of their three children.

I hear older people (like my 79 year old Dad) say that it seems like they are at the funeral home ALL THE TIME.  But I'm only 41... that seems awfully young to start ramping up the funeral frequency.

Perhaps the writing has been on the wall ever since Mom's death in a bomb blast nearly 36 years ago.  A bizarre and tragic foreshadowing of things to come.

So, on a mildly less morbid note, what realities are gone but not as a result of death and dismemberment...

Geez, I dunno.  At the risk of sounding like "Uncle Rico", the 1980s were really amazing.  I'm proud that I can truly call myself a child of the Eighties:  I entered my teens on the second day of the 1980s, and was thus not quite 23 when they ended.  All my most intense formative experiences were in that decade, so I feel like the soundtrack of my life features people like John Mellencamp, The Police, The Cars, Journey, late Chicago, The Bangles, Pat Benatar, Van Halen... an incredible time.  Back when MTV played music videos, featuring MUSIC and VIDEO, nearly 24 hours a day (interrupted only by Kurt Loder's occasional attempts at serious MTV News breaks).  Having a mild crush on Martha Quinn, one of the original MTV Veejays... wanting to be a Bangles groupie (OK, a Susanna Hoffs groupie)...  Anyway, that's a reality that is gone now.  Or is it?  If I'm a radical constructivist, I believe I create my own reality, and if I close my eyes and concentrate, I can almost be in 1984 again... ah, but not quite.  No matter how much I decenter, I can never quite experience the reality of 1984 Stacey.  I can no more step outside my currently-constructed reality to experience my 1984 reality than I can step outside of my current reality to experience someone else's current reality.  But I can damned well try.

And what were those formative experiences?   Let's see... plays (The Glass Menagerie, Up the Down Staircase, Cheaper by the Dozen), musicals (The Music Man, Anything Goes, The King and I, Shenandoah, Damn Yankees, The Sound of Music), varsity tennis (1st Doubles), playing the sax constantly (district solo contest, state solo contest, ISU band camp - "there was this one time, at band camp..." - never mind, wrong movie), Dave Kavanaugh's math classes (7th grade math, 9th grade algebra, 12th grade trigonometry and analytic geometry), intramural soccer at RHIT (for those who think I am nonviolent, I can give you a list of people to talk to), driving laps in Loogootee singing along with the radio, my "first time", the National Spelling Bee at the start of the decade (1980 and 1981), first job, first car... and of course HIGH SCHOOL BASKETBALL.  In my town of 2700 people, the high school gymnasium seats about 4000 - that should tell you something.  Our coach stayed at LHS for about 47 years, and in that time had TWO losing seasons.  He holds the record for most victories by an Indiana HS coach, with a roughly 75% winning percentage, and an average of almost 18 wins per year (and a season consisted of 20 games plus a single-elimination state tourney).  Did you know that of the 20 largest high school gymnasiums in the USA, 19 are in Indiana?  My Dad and I used to go to all 20 games a year, including the ones that required a 90-minute drive each way.  On those drives we built a bond that endures - the part of the 1980s that didn't die on 12/31/89.

Due to an unfortunate interaction between scotch and prescription medications, this post must now end.  Til next time...

Just Pretend

Out into the cool of the evening

strolls the pretender.

He knows that all his hopes and dreams

begin and end there.

Are you there?

Say a prayer

for the pretender.

Started out so young and strong,

only to surrender.

Anyone over the age of 35-40 knows I didn't write those lines... they're from Jackson Browne.  Been listening to him (his album, The Pretender) a lot lately, so unknown reasons.

There is no point to this post, really.  Just exorcising the song from my brain radio.  Hey, it could be worse - I could be quoting Toni Basil.  Ha!  Now THAT stupid song will be stuck in YOUR head, if you know who she is. 

Pickup

Gotta pick myself up.  Gotta pick myself up.  Gotta pick myself up.  I'm letting myself fall apart lately, and I don't like it.  Big as a whale, slow as a snail.

This is looking like a fairly positive week, really.  My group interview for my class project was a glorious failure - failure in the sense that the students failed to construct the mathematics that I hoped they would, but glorious in the sense that I have a lot of rich data to analyze, data that might shed some light on what was happening and why they were failing.  I feel like most of my goals for the activity were met, but there was a clear and well-defined place where they simply could NOT make the leap they needed to make.  Maybe these kinds of activities are good for creating knowledge in the sense of creating new connections between existing cognitive structures, but not so good for building radically new structures from scratch.  Hard to say, but the analysis will be much more fun than if they had simply "gotten it right".

OK, after a break, I'm back with a double (or triple) scotch on the rocks (Ardbeg 10yo).  I also uploaded more pics on Facebook, for no apparent reason.  About 10 days ago I lost an uncle-in-law, so my Facebook upload started with a quest to find and upload a pic of Gary.  Good man, hard to beat as an uncle-in-law.  He now joins his beloved wife Karen, who lost her third or fourth battle with cancer a few years ago at age 51.

I think I'll go add some captions.

Blowin'

It's really windy outside right now.  I like it whenever there is ANY sign of weather in this godforsaken desert.  Last night my wife and I were trying to cheer ourselves up by looking at quaint little houses on the net, and any time I saw one that showed a snowy yard in the pics, it just depressed me.  Or leaves to be raked, or the green green grass of home.  Anything seasonal.

On the positive side, it looks like the real estate meltdown has hit everywhere, so we should still be able to buy a house when we get back to some small town in the Midwest.

I was surprised how depressing it was to look at houses.  I realized that I am putting a lot of pressure on myself to finish this PhD degree in the next two years, and all the parts that are left are the parts that scare me - the comprehensive exam, the dissertation proposal, the dissertation, the dissertation defense...

I so lack the mental energy for all of this.  Sometimes I think I didn't want a PhD so much as I wanted a "book circle", someplace where I can study stuff and discuss it with likeminded people.  But now I'm in it up to my ears, and I suppose the only way out of it is "forward".

I know this is all in my head, but if I've learned anything in the last two years, it's that the reality "in our heads" is the reality in which we must live.  So the only way I can change this is to "change ME" (me, Stacey, not M.E., Molly Erdman).

The wind has stopped blowing, and so shall I.

For Thomas, 2008

Tom,

I know it's not quite a year yet, but this sleepless night seems a good time to write to you.  I'm toasting your memory with Lagavulin 16yo on the rocks, not quite the Distiller's Edition you introduced me to, but still one of the best.  I can scarcely believe April 15th has nearly arrived.

We all leave our footprints on this world in different ways.  I hope that somewhere, somehow, you can see the void you've left in our hearts, and know the difference you made in our lives.  I cannot fully understand the demons you fought every day for almost 35 years, but I wish you knew what every one of those days meant to those of us you left behind.  I think perhaps even WE didn't understand your impact, until you were gone.

When I see a commercial for Arriba Mexican Grill, I think of you.  I know we only dined there maybe four times, but I will forever remember the night we sat there for hours, having a few beers and talking through our crises.  I only wish yours could have been resolved differently.

I doubt that I'll get to drive to Tortilla Flat on the 15th, but I hope to make the drive in your memory soon.  I am still haunted by the thought of you on that long drive, trying for at least an hour to talk yourself out of it, as you no doubt had done so often before.  There are so many "if onlys"...

I cheered alongside you at all of the Colts games this year - did you know that?  I'm so happy you got to see them win a Super Bowl last year.  Did I tell you Eli Manning got a matching ring of his own this season?  Did you get to watch?  Is the Super Bowl televised where you are now?

I climbed Camelback Mountain for you a little while after you left.  I am in very bad shape, and wouldn't have made it without you.  I also had the kind help of a girl half my age, who helped keep me from giving up in despair.  I don't know why she went, and helped, but I was glad she did.  Anyway, I forgot to take a picture of myself atop the peak, so I don't have any proof for you that I made it.  I guess I need to lose some weight and climb it again, to get the pic.

I wore my "Wimbledon 2000" tie pin to the band concert this week.  It didn't match the outfit, but I don't think anyone noticed.  Besides, I also had the blue and yellow www.afsp.org bracelet thing on my wrist, which I wear for you every day.  Someone finally asked me about it a couple of weeks ago, so I got to mention the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.  Maybe someone will be helped, if I keep wearing them.

That's a double dose of Wimbledon:  I saw Monica Seles on "Dancing with the Stars" this week.  Remember when we saw her play Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario?  That campout and day at Wimbledon was the best day of my 3 years in the UK, and I'm glad it was with you.  We saw some impressive stuff that day... remember how Anke Huber groaned every time she hit the ball?  Heh - the most erotic thing we'd ever heard on a tennis court!  She was having WAY too much fun out there... which was good, because Martina Hingis was beating the CRAP out of her.  And we got to see Agassi, too, remember?  And Lleyton Hewitt playing mixed doubles... boy, we thought he had SO much potential... just never got it together.

I remember the first time you and I ever met.  It was at Cummins' facility on State Street, when we were both getting ready for the move to the UK.  I was very uncomfortable, but I'm always uncomfortable when I meet people.  If I had known how you and Emma and I would bond, I wouldn't have been afraid.  Emma was so very devastated by your death, you know?  I called her in England as soon as I could get her number.  I miss her terribly, too.  She's just one of the most thoroughly amazing and beautiful people you'll ever meet, you know?  I wish she weren't so far away.  Will you visit her for me sometime?

Oh, when I was back in Indiana last summer, I took a day and went to Columbus.  Several of us got together to celebrate your life.  Brad DeCamp was there, and Rick Fox, and Greg Johnson, and of course Dave Everett.   Even my pal Dave Gerchak came, though I don't think you ever met him.

I can't walk to campus without thinking about you when I pass the place we last saw each other, where we shook hands outside the Cyprus Pita Grill.  We never used to shake hands... how bizarre that we would on that day.  I thought things seemed so normal.  You were asking about my iPod case, because you wanted to get one like it.  We talked about the Colts' offseason personnel changes, and how the team would cope.  It didn't seem to be one of your bad days, although I could tell you didn't like being apart from Kelly.  I don't blame you - you made a wonderful choice.  I never dreamed in less than 3 weeks, you'd be gone.  Did you know I emailed you on the day you took your life?  I wrote to you about the old DVD player you helped me pick out in 2000.  How mundane is that?!?  You always think there's tomorrow.  I also wrote to you a few times after you died, but I doubt you got those emails.

I figure I have another 2 years left to serve in this desert wasteland.  I don't like this place, but I have some good friends at ASU now, and they tolerate my nonsense well.  None of them know the things about me that you know, and none of them will, but that's probably for the best.  I'm blessed to have had a friend who could be shown the best and the worst of me, the most noble parts and the blackest corners of my heart.  And that was you.  It's funny - for most of the years I knew you, you were my "project", the little brother-type who I was going to settle down at some point.  I hope I helped a little.  The funny thing, though, is that in the end I think you helped heal ME.  How did someone as messed-up as you help me find myself?!?

I know you loved to hear Sarah McLachlan.  Now of course when I hear her, especially "I Will Remember You" or "Angels", I think about you.  And even though you no doubt find both of the songs I'm about to mention really corny, sometimes I plug in the iPod and sing a couple of songs for you: "Bridge Over Troubled Water" (yes, Simon and Garfunkel) and "Sunshine on My Shoulders" (I know, I know, a JOHN DENVER song?!?).  And of course now I listen to all of the endless Dave Matthews Band CDs you gave me... they were the soundtrack of your adult life, it seemed.

My scotch has run empty.  Maybe that's my sign to wrap this up.  I'm gonna give Kelly a call in the next few days, and see how her life is going.  She seems to be doing really well, but she sure loved you, my friend.

I miss you, Tom.  Be well, be at peace, and please visit me if you can.  You're a good man and a good friend, and I still need you in my life.

Stacey