People Who Need People Just Might Be the Luckiest People in the World

Last week I read

 I Married a Misanthrope

 on Salon and the sad part was I recognized myself in the woman's description of her husband.  It's not that I don't like people, it's that people used to make me feel very, very afraid.  Which brings me to today's post.  There's no death.  It just feels like that sometimes.

Okay, so this morning I put on my clingy spandex clothes and drove over to the local gym for a workout. I'm not a fitness fanatic or anything. I just want to keep the middle age spread, caused by sitting at a desk and typing (okay, internet surfing with bursts of writing), at bay. It's not just a body thing, it's an "I can't afford five new pairs of pants" thing.  

Thursday's boot camp teacher is young, tattooed, peppy and very limber. Her class is always packed because of her magical ability to get us to do crazy amounts of wall walks or frog jumps.  For some reason, we don't mind the twenty-fifth burpee or weighted squat too much. Her chipper demeanor helps.

This is a wall walk.  The orange bucket is for when you need to vomit.  I'm kidding.

But today was a different story. I wanted to walk out of class before it even began.  Why?  Because our happy-go-lucky leader decided that we might get more out of the workout if we paired up with a partner.

For most people, getting paired up with a partner is not a big deal.  For me, well, I'll just say, "I'm a loner, Dottie.  A rebel."  (A cookie for you if you get the movie reference.)  I've got Social Anxiety.  Thankfully, I went through Cognitive Behavioral Therapy a few years ago and I now know how to do battle with it, but today was a struggle. For one, we had to pair up with someone near our height.  So, that meant I had to pair up with a dude.  A dude that I didn't know.  And I had to be in close proximity to him and sweat all over him because my body is really good at cooling off.  My knee began to ache.  I could have easily just bailed and blamed my knee.  But I knew it was a lie.

Social Anxiety will make you an expert at blaming everything in your environment for the discomfort.  The cure is to just rush forth and do the junk that freaks you out, while asking yourself, "What's the worst thing that could happen?"  I can usually think of lots of things, but now I rush forth anyway.

So, Brian and I planked and twisted and box jumped and I didn't die.  And now next week, I will see Brian and I can say, "Hi Brian. Man, last week kicked my butt."  We'll smile and nod and next time we get paired up again it won't be so weird.

So, what freaks you out?

What the heck, it's Wednesday

Did you know that today, August 14, is

National Creamsicle Day

?  No?  Well, you're probably not alone. But don't worry, it's still early enough in the day that you can rush right out to your local grocery store or chase down an ice cream truck and grab one.

Hallmark

may even make a card to commemorate this momentous occasion, but don't quote me on that.

Yesterday, it was Left Hander's Day.  It was also my daughter's birthday.  She isn't a lefty, but we celebrated her anyway. She got to eat sushi for lunch and Chinese food for dinner.  Her little brother was not amused as we're both Teriyaki ordering peeps when it comes to sushi joints.  She had a lot of fun and I think she is now sufficiently outfitted for school, which begins in two weeks.  Hurrah!  (For the starting of school, not the fashionable teenage stuff.)

So, where's the death in this National Celebration Day thing?  Well, there is a very cool event called

Death Over Dinner

and it's going to happen on August 24.  Basically, you gather some people, you serve them food and you talk about death.  It's right up my alley.  I don't think I'm going to have it at my house, but at a restaurant, preferably one that doesn't serve sushi.

My birthday is coming up here in a few days.  It's also National Thriftshop day.  I like that, as I'm a big fan of buying other people's junk at a heavily discounted rate.  Here's my latest estate sale find.  I call him Chip. My cats do not like Chip.

So, do you think you might like to celebrate Death over Dinner day?  If so, tell me what you're making and who you're inviting.  I want to know.

I'm going to leave you with a song to celebrate my special day.

Monday Mourning: The Death of a Father

Wow!  It has been awhile since I've posted a Monday Mourning blog, but I'm excited to get back into the swing of things.  If you'd like to be featured on the blog, let me know at thedeathwriter @ gmail . com

Today I am pleased to introduce you to

Michelle Auerbach

.  She is an author, speaker and storytelling consultant.  Her novel,

The Third Kind of Horse

is available

here

.  

DW:  Who was the person that died?

MA:  My father. Douglas Matthew Auerbach.

DW: How old were you at the time?

MA:  Sixteen years old. It was the day I got my driver's license. So, the date was on that license for a long time. I looked at it every day.

DW:  How old was your Dad?

MA:  He was 41 years old.

DW:  Was it a sudden death or did you know it was going to happen?

MA:  It was very sudden. There are different family mythologies about how and why it happened, but he died of a heart attack that we assume was related to drug use. Was it an overdose? Was it just long term cocaine and valium addiction? Hard to know.

DW:  Had you experienced any other deaths in your personal life before the death of your father?

MA:  I had.  My grandmother died when I was little, but my mom chose to keep me away from the funeral so it never seemed real that she was gone. I still wonder if she is hiding in the kitchen in their old house, making inedible food.

DW:  Were people supportive of your grief or did they shy away when you were grieving?

MA:  People were shocked, scared, and supportive. I was the first person I knew to lose a parent. My friends were all amazing about it, coming to the shiva, sending food and flowers, hanging out with me. Providing me with substances that might make me feel it less (if my kids are reading this I absolutely did NOT inhale). But they also saw their own parents mortality in my father's death, and that was more than most kids knew what to do with.

DW:  Is there anything you wish you'd done differently with your Dad?

MA:  I wish we had been closer. We were trying. He had a tough life, and a lot of pain and turmoil internally. He was always half-way checked out because of it. I wish we had been closer so that I could have mourned what was instead of what could have been.

DW:  Was he buried or cremated?

MA:  He was cremated. Big mistake, but his wife did not know you don't do that if you are Jewish. It was a disaster. And then we had to get the ashes back to Cleveland, where he is buried and we lived, from Florida, where he died. I took him as carry on luggage. In what is now a very hip airline bag. But I was horrified, putting it though the security scanner. This was 1984, so security was easier. When asked what was in the bag, my Aunt told the security guy, "My brother is in the bag." Somehow they let us through.

DW:  Did you learn anything about the grieving process that you'd like to share?

MA:  I did. It last a very very long time, and each grief that happens after that compounds the original one. So that they are connected with tendrils of feeling, forming a lattice, or a net, or lace, or a web. It is at once beautiful, quiet, and horrifyingly loud inside. I went thought a tremendous amount of death and grief in my early 20's because I was living in New York during the AIDS crisis, engaging in activism, and living the club/college/demonstration lifestyle. So many people I cared about died that I felt as though my consciousness was resting on that mesh of grief. It took twenty years to work through it.

DW:  Last but not least, were any songs played at the memorial that were important to your Dad?

MA:  Strangely, I have this memory of being jolted awake early in the morning on the day of the funeral by one of my dad's friends playing "Start me up" by the Rolling Stones on my dad's stereo. It just washed over me like sonic waves of displacement. But stuck with me all these years.