Remembering - The alcohol makes me forget I've been drinking alcohol.

What I mean is, if I drink early enough and fast enough then I forget I am supposed to be hurting. I mean there are plenty of little reasons to be hurting, and then there is the big one, but if I forget, then there is just the drinking, which is pleasant enough, at first.

Somehow it has come to this - me forgetting, and the drinking to help.

We walked through the blizzard of hoppers to the creek; the water was warm in the late summer sun. It was a strange place, the bottom of the creek volcanic black, almost invisible - I never could judge the depth. The grasses and wildflowers grew right up to the edge of the creek, nodding hello, the otters pissed off that we had disturbed their domain. We just wanted to float downstream and forget our cares. Foreclosure, Unemployment and leaving in disgrace, we pretended it didn't matter while we drifted with the creek and the wind towards the ocean.

We'd bought a house on the very edge of Shasta County; across the street Modoc County began - the neighbors an eccentric mix of cancer survivors and crazy bastards. The first time I heard the gunfire late at night I knew - some guy yelling at his wife, “See what you make me do!” and then semi auto weapon fire and I knew.

I had such great plans for being the perfect grandfather. I wanted to spend my days showing my grandchildren how to tie a fisherman's knot and what a bowline was for, but it was not to be. Instead I continue to write relevant code for strangers and know that no one is stranger than my children. Go figure.

When my father was dying of Lymphoma - I didn't yet have the patience to deal with the reality of the disease. It was only later, after many nights of New Dimensions and Father Beade, Stephen Gaskin and Robert Bly that I came to understand that I was only like everyone else. Young, stupid and in pain - I thought I was alone, in fact, I had just joined the human race.

I wonder how I forgot that.