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8th December, 2011. 7:50 am. Monsters

So my nephew Jake's band, The Wild, just released its first song: "Monsters". It's really good! I take it to be an indie folk anthem to OWS, but I dunno. All I know is that the empire falls to its knees and says, "Please! Help us out!" Download it! Pass it around!

http://thewild.bandcamp.com/

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9th November, 2011. 6:38 pm. Mara

I'm really sorry to tell my fellow panixians, old and new, but my friend Mara has been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. She has the news here: http://cobrawoman.livejournal.com/3032.html

She's a wonderful person.

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2nd November, 2010. 6:05 pm. The *Real* Gospel of Prosperity

When a loved one dies and you submit a mail forwarding order to the Post Office to have the mail of your dead loved one ("DLO") delivered to your address, after a couple of months you will begin to receive exciting offers in the mail addressed directly to your DLO. Not addressed to them and forwarded to you... no, the mail is addressed directly to them as if they were living with you at your house. This happened with my father and it is now starting to happen with my sister.

The frightening thing is that even if I hadn't known both my father and my sister pretty well in life, I would come to know them pretty well in death in spite their being, you know, dead. How? Well, clearly the corporate data that is collected on us while we live... er, I mean, while we can still buy stuff... does not die when we die. No, my father and my sister live on in their purchasing preferences. I can tell who they were by the solicitations I now receive in the mail addressed directly to them, automatically generated by that great purchasing preferences database in the... sky, I guess... I don't know exactly where they keep it. Maybe nobody really knows.

It's dispiriting. It isn't that hard, after all, for the maintainers of databases to discover someone has actually died and is therefore not very likely to renew her subscription to a magazine in spite of the increasingly generous terms on offer for said subscription renewal. I mean, come on... they are able to discover this person is now "living" in my apartment in spite of the fact that she is dead. The Social Security Administration maintains a publicly available database of Americans who have died: the Social Security Death Index. I just checked for my sister's name in there, and sure enough, she's dead all right. You'd think if they could track down her new "residence" and update their databases with that information, they could also discover she's dead and drop her name from their subscription list.

But, of course, cross-referencing your subscription database with the Social Security Death Index would be an onerous burden on businesses. It would cost jobs through extra overhead. The shareholders might see a dip in the stock price of publicly held corporations. I mean, what the hell, whiner, your loved one is dead. Suck it up. Think of the economy. Think of somebody else besides your own pitiful self for a change.

If I ever need a reminder that we only rate in this society for as long we maintain the ability to consume, I will simply check my mailbox for new and exciting offers addressed to my sister. Or, I guess if I wanted to look at the dimly bright side of things, I could concede that the obverse is true: we *continue* to rate exciting new offers in the mail for as long as our corporate owners think they might be able to sell us something, even if we are dead.

So consume on, dying dudes. Buying shit is your ticket to a very special kind of mailbox immortality. Matter of fact, I'm going to start this very day spiffing up my eternity by spending my money on a much pricier class of crap.

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16th September, 2010. 6:44 pm. I Could See Saying Something, If You Were Nailed To A Cross

I'm about fed up having to listen to the Pope, the richest and most powerful religionist in the long history of rich and powerful religionists, whining on about "secularists" picking on religion.

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10th July, 2010. 7:41 am. Bday

Today is my 58th birthday. In three days it will be exactly one year since my little sister was diagnosed with an extremely rare and appallingly aggressive form of cancer of the cervix. At the time, the doctors gave her 10 months. They overestimated the time she had left by two weeks. She died a miserable death which I was there to witness on Sunday, April 25, 2010, at exactly 11:02 a.m. Pacific Time.

Inasmuch as the nine and a half months between July 13, 2009 and April 25, 2010 were taken up by terror, hope, despair, a couple of laughs, shuttling back and forth between New York and San Francisco, uprooting my life and moving to California for the final two months, agony at watching the cancer cause her not just physical suffering but emotional, psychological and spiritual suffering as well, disgust with life itself for the grotesque way it treats our loved ones when it decides to slowly and disgracefully exit the bodily premises... inasmuch as all that and more... I'd have to say my 57th year was by far, without the slightest question in my mind, the worst year of my too-long-but-will-never-be-long-enough life.

Some years ago, by slow and inexplicable magic, I became a happier person than I had ever been before. I found myself letting go of many ambitions that I had come to realize never really belonged to me in the first place. The joy of my life evolved away from striving and toward simply treasuring each moment, no matter how big or small. There were so many roses to smell, and I seemed to have found a way to stop and attend nostrilly to each one.

But then my sister's cancer discovered how to work its grotesque ways on me as well, the way it does on the friends and family members of its victims. For a time after she died, I looked back on all the small moments we had together while she was dying and I saw them as wasted opportunities, as desperate attempts to not deal with what was happening to her, as pathetic and now hateful stretches of emptiness, devoid of any sort of importance or meaning.

I used to love just hanging out with her on her bed and watching the Nat Geo channel. We loved the Meerkats. We watched the hell out of the Meerkats. After she died, if I had inexplicably encountered a Meerkat on the streets of New York City, I would have kicked it into the gutter, would have knocked it on the head with a cobblestone, would have thrown its tiny battered body onto the tracks of an oncoming subway train.

Yeah, not so much any more. Something inside is starting to take better care of me. It's leading me back to my old ways of finding the joy in the small, so-called meaningless moments of my life. But it's different this time...

For a while, I had some doubts that maybe this way of living was just a coward's strategy to avoid thinking about the really difficult and terrifying aspects of life... for example, having your body turn against you in the most appalling way, transforming you into a monstrosity you can't even bear to look at in the mirror. I wondered: rather than embracing each moment of my life, am I simply too afraid to actually look at what life is? Am I just blinding myself to it by looking only at what is right in front of my face?

And so, yeah, you know what? I've realized that's *exactly* what it is, and I think I'm getting to the point of being pretty good with that. Short of going through, myself, what my sister went through, I've pretty much seen the worst life has on offer for us. I don't need to see that again until I absolutely have to. I've sampled most or all of the items on that menu and I don't think I need to visit that restaurant again (for as long as I have any choice about it, anyway).

It's the small things. For example, I couldn't bear to watch Nat Geo for a while after she died. I think you know how I felt about Meerkats. Now, miraculously, I can watch Nat Geo again. And when I do, I *do* notice a sharp pain, but it is a very distant one... like in a dream when you know you have to do something but you can't quite remember what. I can feel that pain receding further and further away, for which I am extremely grateful. Because, see, I really do, in my deepest heart of hearts, think Meerkats are totally hot, and I'm so happy I can enjoy them again.

And so today, on my 58th birthday, I tell myself: "Go forth and enjoy the hell out of your 58th year. You deserve it. And after all, it's not as if you have an unlimited supply of these year things left to you."

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14th December, 2009. 7:04 am. Merry Holiday Cheer (I need a drink)

As I mentioned in here quite a while ago, my sister is now struggling with a rare and aggressive cancer. She has health insurance, thank gawd... did you know that *one* IV drip bag of chemo costs $10,000?? I certainly didn't know that... if you don't have health insurance, you better find a way to get some, just in case... but anyway, she's got expenses that aren't covered and she is unable to work right now and so... bills are piling up.

Her friends and family are starting a fund-raising effort. Most of you don't actually know me, and those that do are more friendly acquaintances than Life-Long Friends or anything, so I don't actually expect any great leaping into the breach or anything, but just in case any of you are interested, you can read more about it here:

http://giveitupforloni.com

There's a letter from her there talking about her experience with this whole mess, plus ways you can donate if you are so inclined, a link to a Facebook page where she is updating people on her condition, etc.

Thanks for listening and may your Holiday Season be, well... you know... cancer-free. Haha.

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29th September, 2009. 4:38 pm. On the Eve of An Even More Brutal Round of Treatments

Choose Joy:
So I was telling someone this morning that having to stand by and watch you go through this whole mess is a bit like having a loved one in one of Saddam Hussein's torture prisons. All that the rest of us can do, really, is stand outside the walls of your prison and just keep hoping The Prisoner keeps finding a way to get through each day of torture.

How *do* they do that? How do they survive the torment, and the despair, and the not-knowing what the future holds, and all the rest of it?

I can only think they must keep telling themselves that there is a purpose to finding a way to survive each day. How the hell else could they do it? They have to keep telling themselves, someday this will be over, someday they will be free of this absurd and (seemingly) pointless suffering. They have to keep thinking to themselves... "I will survive today so that someday I can experience joy again."

They have to get through it by remembering all the moments of joy they've felt in their lives. They have to keep telling themselves, yeah, that's why being alive is good. Those moments of pure joy. This suffering will pass. This absurd torment. I will get through it because on the other side of it is the promise of experiencing joy again.

So maybe that's how you get through the next few weeks? Just keep telling yourself, as each moment of suffering comes and goes, "There is a purpose to surviving this. This hell is worth surviving."

You know me. I am not a great one for believing in Cosmic Purpose. I don't think you got cancer For A Purpose. I think you got cancer because you got cancer. The End. I do not in any sense whatsoever believe that the Purpose of Your Suffering is to make you a Stronger Person. That, to me, is unmitigated bullshit, though I certainly acknowledge the right of other people to think that.

However, like those prisoners who survived Saddam Hussein's houses of horrors, I *do* think it is possible to survive the agony and torment by constantly reminding yourself, "There *is* a purpose... not so much to this suffering, but to the surviving of it." It has to be lived through because it has to be lived through, but not just for the sake of living through it.

Remember your moments of joy. Long for more of them. Long for as many more of them as you can get. I've seen you take joy in the little sweetnesses of Stretch and the little self-important sillinesses of Raymond. There is, at least in my opinion, no great over-arching Meaning of Life. The meaning of life, in my view, is the slow but steady accumulation of moments of joy, big and small, moments of the life-changing variety or just the mood changing sort. They all amount to something worthwhile. They all are worth living for.

Maybe make a list of your best moments of joy? Maybe add to it a list of things that feel like they might give you joy in the future? In the midst of your suffering, think about those moments. Think: this is not purposeless suffering. This is suffering so I can live to have or re-have this-or-that moment of joy.

When you get through this, I think I can guarantee you that your definition of joy will have changed. I don't know how. I can't say in what way the concept of joy will have changed for you, but I feel certain it will have. I also think that when you get through this, you will experience a kind of freedom you may never have felt before in your life. You will experience the contentment that comes with a fundamental liberation from all things petty and unimportant.

By surviving all this suffering, not only will you have proven that you are, as we say here in New York, One Tough Broad, you will have transformed yourself into a person the likes of which you might not even be able to imagine quite yet. Who knows what kind of person waits for you on the other side of all this?

Look forward with curiosity and anticipation and maybe even some awe at who that person will be. We can make guesses and estimates and have theories about how that person might turn out, but we won't really know until she shows up on the far side of all this. There are some futures that cannot be accurately imagined. They can only be arrived at on the other side of whatever it is we have to go through to get to them.

Moment by moment, try not to dwell on the terrible suffering. Try to dwell on the purpose in you doing what you need to do to survive it. Take your mind, by acts of pure will if you must, to the moments of joy you have had in your life, and to the moments of joy that still await you.

I know you can do it. All of us standing forlornly outside your prison's walls know you can. An entirely new L*n* B** W*h*lt awaits you on the other side of this... one where you can not only pick and choose what parts of the old L*n* you want to keep, but also welcome with open arms new and wondrous things about yourself you can't even imagine right now.

One of these days, you will be let out of this hell. One of these days, you will walk out through the gates of this terrible prison and will walk into an entirely new life.

There is a purpose to surviving every tiny moment of this hell. Defeat every tiny moment of suffering by remembering, or imagining, a slightly bigger moment of joy.

You can do it.

Love you so much,

/Mike

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10th September, 2009. 11:45 am. Honey, We Shrunk the Tumor!!

http://www.myyoungersisterhasit.com/2009/09/honey-we-shrunk-the-tumor.html

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8th September, 2009. 6:49 pm. Oh, Excellent! Another Cancer Blog!

I mentioned a while ago my younger sister has cancer of the cervix. Turns out it's a very rare and aggressive type. This has not been fun.

Anyway, I started a blog to keep my friends updated. Gawd knows I hate these things and would probably never read one, myself, unless I felt the burning need for some reason.

Nevertheless, anyone who is interested is welcome to follow along, especially if wacky, cancer-related hi-jinks are your thing.

It's called "My Younger Sister Has IT", which naturally resolves to M.Y.S.H.IT. You can get on my M.Y.S.H.IT List. Welcome to M.Y.S.H.IT. HaHa.

If you want to start reading the story from the beginning, start here:

http://www.myyoungersisterhasit.com/table-of-posts-oldest-to-newest.html

After you have caught up, you can read the blog in traditional blog fashion by going here:

http://www.myyoungersisterhasit.com/

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20th July, 2009. 9:30 am. Furst Wurds

I think if it had been me, I would have said something like: "Houston, please tell the good people of Earth one of their own is standing on the Moon."

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