He dropped dead in the front yard of Steve Martin's house, where he arrived, uninvited, some months ago.

He wouldn't do a thing to help himself other than have his hand out, constantly asking for money.

I can't really say I'm upset about this, he was an arrogant bugger, and we've lost too many good folks to lament a greedy layabout.

I've heard word of people's accounts being marked as access shut down by the user. Anyone else seeing this?

Sitting in the ER at 230 am after a chiropractic visit damaged my ribcage on Wednesday.
I'm awaiting another IV before a catscan to determine how damaged my ribcage is.
Was in awful pain and unable to inhale fully. Already had xrays and a hand iv.
They want an arm iv to help prevent a blowout.
Drugged up and tired as hell after 9 and a half hours at work. I'd really like to go home and try to sleep.

I started a new job!

It's a field I know very well. With an international company that does very well, even during garbage economies like what we've been suffering through.
Great pay? Yep.
Copious benefits? Sure!
Medical, dental, optical, 401K, life insurance, monthly performance bonuses based on store performance AND personal performance.
I really like my crew, they are all fun and diverse in that good way. We have fun together.
I'm finally getting paid for the knowledge I've built up over my nearly 6 decades of life. I've also changed my diet for the better, I figured the twain hath met, so why not?
I'm hoping I can excell and make my crew happy I joined up.
I'm not mentioning the company because there be trolls that watch me.

I started a new job!

It's a field I know very well. With an international company that does very well, even during garbage economies like what we've been suffering through.
Great pay? Yep.
Copious benefits? Sure!
Medical, dental, optical, 401K, life insurance, monthly performance bonuses based on store performance AND personal performance.
I really like my crew, they are all fun and diverse in that good way. We have fun together.
I'm finally getting paid for the knowledge I've built up over my nearly 6 decades of life. I've also changed my diet for the better, I figured the twain hath met, so why not?
I'm hoping I can excell and make my crew happy I joined up.
I'm not mentioning the company because there be trolls that watch me.

Rest in Peace, Dragoneer. I didn't know you but I appreciate your efforts.

If things devolve and everything turns to crap and you'd like to keep in touch with me, shoot me a note and I'll get you my contact info.

Until then, take care of yourselves.

None of us know the expiration date stamped on our backs, so to quote the immortal Bill and Ted, Be excellent to each other.

Tell those you love that they matter. There's little worse than living with the knowledge that dear ones will pass without ever hearing that you valued them. Friends are the family we get to choose, after all.

I was just made aware the Scott Ruggles passed away.

Scott was fixture at many west coast cons, he was an excellent illustrator and artist and had been quite active in WW2 reenacting.

I knew Scott had had some rather dire health issues but had not heard any news of recent issues.

Scott was larger-than-life, he had a big personality and a booming voice when he wanted to, but was always cool in my book.

Rest In Peace, Scott. You'll be missed.

Its been a bit since Mitch died.
My grief had subsided just a tiny bit when news of Mark Merlino's passing came around for a second gut-punch.

If the main benefit of aging is wisdom (if one is astute enough to gain wisdom)
Then it is tempered by loss.

I've held forth on grief in past journals. I'm not going to blather on about it for much longer.

I've managed to avoid destructive self-medication. I don't use weed or anything other than what can be found in a well stocked liquor outlet. I decided to give my liver a break this time around.

I've been binge watching space/moon rocket launches. I grew up with those so I'm thrilled to see new rockets being flown. They are helping.

I'm also back to standing in my front yard staring at the night sky. I'm sure the neighbors see me. Don't care. I don't really trust anyone who can't stop and marvel at the stars.

Today I sat down with the funeral providers I chose to handle Mitch's remains. Since he died at 275 pounds, the funeral director hit us with a $295.00 up charge for a heavier cardboard box and extra retort fuel, and because they can.

I've been floored by the inflow of funds from caring folks who want to help with Mitch's final wish for cremation.

I think Edd Vick has been contacted to produce a memorial art album, also as directed by Mitch. The final plans are taking shape.

But it still feels like a gut punch.

It's still going to take time.

There are days I want to toss the rope over that sturdy beam and take that step where I'll piss, not whistle. I'll see the rocks at my feet.

Those days come more frequently now. So I strangle them down and stuff them into an iron box I keep in my mind. Leave some rocks on the lid.

Pink Floyd said "The rusty wire that holds the cork that keeps the anger in, gives way and suddenly, it's day again". My wire wore thin long ago.

I'll feel so low sitting there on my throne of self-loathing stone. There's no light here. The jester waves his little stick at me, "you're just wallowing in your sorrows you simp, Pick up another rock."

If you keep picking up those stones and putting them in the bag you wear around your neck, eventually you'll sink.

Or you can pick up the larger stones. Setting them in place. Building up a bridge so that your feet don't get so wet. So that maybe people behind you can cross too.

It can't be THAT bad. It can't stay bad THIS long. It'll be LESS bad tomorrow. But I'm bent down looking at the rocks in the dark.

Foundations are laid when you decide you're not going to carry your sorrows around like sacks of gravel, anymore. You can build some stairs. You just need a little light to see what you're doing.

Those people around you, they are that light. And they're waiting for you to get your ass off that throne and drop that ballast.

Mitch Beiro passed today February 15 at 10:45 am.

He was heavily sedated as per his wishes.

In the last several days he was called and visited by many of his close friends. He appreciated this very much.

Mitch was very regretful of the past events that led to his incarceration. He wished to thank all of his friends, past and present, for their friendship and understanding.

He will be missed.

Though you have left and gone ahead
To fields endless no living soul has tread

To absent family and friends
Till merrily we meet again.

Love you, Bojo.

So your presence is requested, death-bed stuff. So you screw up your courage and fix your smile and hope you can keep it together long enough not to crack and fight to keep your eyes dry.

You talk and laugh about the past. You play the memory game and the mask slips a little and a tear makes it out but you play it off, you were laughing pretty hard there.

Then they tell you how frightened they feel. You know. We all feel that way, but they are in the tunnel and they see the train and you don't know what to say. You just don't know what to say.

But they grab you. They apologize that they are going to be going first. They aren't gonna be there for this, or that. Or something else.

So you grab them back. Oh, crap. I'm doing this again. Another lifelong friend is dying. I'm not sure how long I can keep doing this.

But you stay, just for a while, till their tears dry a little. And you promise to come see them again.

The drive home is quiet.

But you put that mask on once more and you screw up your courage and you go be with them.

You go be with them.

And then it's quiet again.

There's no way to sugar-coat it.

Mitch's cancer is too far progressed and too aggressive for chemo to do anything other than make Mitch feel worse.

His doctors have ordered his chemotherapy stopped.

Mitch is on 24 hour dialysis and will be moved from the awful overcrowded filthy and bedbug ridden halfway house he's been in, to hospice care. At least he won't have to die there at the house.

A group of his local friends will be meeting with his doctor and care staff this afternoon.

Many may hold Mitch's past transgressions against him, but he served his time and I don't think there are many who deserve his particular fate.

Mitch had a manic, goofy and unhinged brilliance to his art and storytelling. He was sometimes misunderstood when it came to his antics but he never tried to hurt anyone so far as I can recall.

Prayers for his slipping as painlessly from this life as possible, are requested.

And welcome 2024.
I wish you all a happy new year. A fresh year to learn and grow, seek happiness and move forward.

No matter how you celebrate the holidays, I wish you all peace and happiness and a fine prosperous upcoming new year.

I got my road trip in for the year.
A bit later in the year than normal.
Tucson to Vegas, Vegas to Reno. Then back after three nights in Reno.
With my usual side trips, nearly 2k miles in my van with five other riders.
We stopped in Vegas for the first night staying on Fremont Street within walking distance of the big neon diversion. Tried White Castle Sliders (not impressed) and goofed off with the throngs Fremont Street Experience is known for.
Next day we stopped in Goldfield Nevada to see a roadside antique seller that remembered my name, then at the well-known Clown Motel in Tonopah.
Reno was cooler, much cooler. I reveled in the low Temps while everyone else shivered and bitched. I like it cold and wet, but I'll take cold.
Reno was a chance to see some old and new sights plus meet up with an old friend from the original Fandom days. The con, BLFC itself while well-run was mostly forgettable for me. No panels I wanted to see, loads of folks I didn't know but a fun diversion before daily jaunts around Reno.
End of part one.

Sometimes you just feel like chucking it all in.
Giving up.
Just lay there and cease to exist.
Apathy will slice your soul to ribbons if you let it in.
I've been in that headspace frequently of late. It's been easy to become enmired in that swamp. I'm so sick of so much. Its so easy to just give up and let those darknesses sing to you their song of hopelessness. I miss my best friend. I miss my dogs. I miss my youth and spending days without pain.
I'm angry, enraged actually, about the absolutely needless mental and physical abuse that was heaped on me for most of my youth. There's a pit of rage inside me. I'm so sick of everything.
But anger is my motivation. That rage is pushing me out of my depression long enough that I'm seeing some rather mundane things in a different light.
Gaping at the night sky is cheap therapy for me.
Rediscovering music I enjoyed in the past is pretty good for a shot of dopamine. Its no cocaine high, but I don't need that. I need enough to restore my peace of mind. A little piece of mind. A little mindfulness and some good music is enough to kick my rage down to a simmer.
I'm pretty sure there's still some good times ahead. I'm going to reach for those for awhile.
I'm pretty sure there are a few people left who will reach out if I go under again.

Happy birthday Shep. Wish you were here.

I'm not going to say anything here that folks my age, or older, don't already know.
I will say them for the sake of memory or to ask you to consider something.

Time is wierd. We hardly notice it as we travel through it. We don't really see it until we are forced to. For instance, watching your wristwatch tick while you wait for some appointment.

But time is there. Ever moving. The great clock of time always ticking. Silently. Unobtrusive until you've piddled too much away on something small and you look up to realize you've missed lunch.

Not so long ago, or maybe it was thirty years, when we travelled this world as young adults there was all the time we needed for school. Jobs. Friendships. Travel.

Much time was pissed away on relationships that would leave us with nothing but painful memories. Pleasure was within reach but it never amounted to move than short diversions. In the meantime we drifted away from those good, close friends .

Those we thought we'd be around forever moved slowly from view. But unlike that lost lunch, they were not so easily chased down. The years might as well be miles for all the separation we experience.

Losing touch with close ones is the beginning of tragedy. Whether by distance, disagreement or insult, the results are often the same. Isolation.

Isolation can be as vast as a crevasse.

I use U.S. route 66 as an example. Once America's Mother Road, Route 66 was a highway that meandered across the nation connecting small towns and big cities. Farmland to great plains. Points of interest both natural and man-made. Well travelled and familiar.

The need became greater for faster travel. Huge highways soon cut across the nation, and while we got where we going faster those places along Route 66 withered and died like a limb, cut from the blood-supply and atrophied.

We'd look up from our travels on those super highways and glimpse the remains of Route 66. Isolation had killed the Mother Road for the sake of efficiency. Faster. Further. Then forgotten.

Like that friend that had meant so much, but now far away. We stop. Look around and wonder what had happened.

Time had happened. Then illness. Death. Time surely will take it's toll on us all.

But time need not steal away everything. We allow that to happen, ourselves.

Take some time to re-connect with those old friends. Reach out. Those disagreements that set us apart seem smaller when some years have passed.

And if we are rejected, we can take solace in the fact that we tried. More often, though, those old friends will be happy we reached out.

So reach out.

Before time steals away another lovely part of our lives.

Mitch met with his oncologist today. The cancer is pretty much everywhere. He needs a head MRI to determine if his brain has cancer or not.
Once they know, they will decide on how to deliver the chemo. Oral chemo, while more effective is far more toxic than IV chemo.
I need to look up the types of chemo agents they want to use. His prognosis is One year of life WITHOUT chemo, and possibly two years WITH chemo, but these are merely prognostications as he has so much cancer throughout his body. He may do better if he responds well to the chemo. They said they'd start off on easier chemo administration for the start

A buddy and i were present when the hospital worker delivered the diagnosis. The diagnosis is about as bad as it could be.
A whole bunch of clear cell carcinoma masses all through his abdomen. Duodenum, liver, lungs, stomach. He's full of them.
He will get a treatment plan from his team within a weeks time.

For the better part of a week now, Mitch has been in a local hospital.
When he visited the facility that performs his dialysis procedure, Mitch confided that he had been suffering some troubling symptoms. He was advised to go to an ER as soon as his procedure was completed.

Since his arrival at a local hospital, once known by many Tucsonans as "Killer Kino", Mitch was subjected to a number of tests, including X Rays, MRI and CAT scans.

Thus far it was established that Mitch has a masses in his stomach, lungs, intestines and liver.

Mitch suffered kidney cancer while he was incarcerated, losing one kidney and left with one kidney operating at 40%.

Mitch is in decent spirits. He knows there is a high likelihood of these masses being cancerous but as no complete review of his images and biopsies have yet been presented to him, remains mostly numb to the news.

Radiation, Chemo and surgery are likely ahead for him. Mitch uses a walker and wheelchair to get around. His previous and ongoing maladies leave him very easily winded and incapable of walking more than a few dozen feet. He is reliant upon public transportation for his daily life activities outside of home, so adding a slew of treatments and doctor visits leave him feeling rather helpless and tired.

Should you wish to have a message relayed to Mitch, please direct message me and I will pass them along.

Two years ago on this date my closest friend passed away. So much has happened since then. Shep has been gone two years.
We tend to mark time in different ways. Events. Gains. Losses. All tick marks inscribed on our memories. Sometimes we pause. Stopping to look at nothing, like small breeze passing. Here and gone again. The whisper of a memory.
I noted when McMoo (Michael-Scot McMurry) died that he, like many, mark milestones or victories in our lives.
We are better for have known them. We are improved for they having existed.
Remember Shep a little today. Be glad we got to know him.

Wind, wind, rain, and SNOW.
Snow is pretty rare in Tucson. The last time we got some, Shep and my dogs were alive.
I wish they were here to see this.

Well now

Despite the mostly foul variety show that was 2022, it seems it has finally come down to old #365.

I've done enough grieving to last me a while, so I'm somewhat hopeful that 2023 is not going to be the horrorshow we've just stepped out of.

So my wishes for you, and pretty much everyone else, is that you have a peaceful prosperous new year.

Bury your hatchets and hold your dear ones close, hug your pets and give them a scritch for me for good measure.

There's too much sorrow in our world. Try to diminish it if you can.

"Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof" is one of my favorite aphorisms. Translated, it means there's plenty of crap already, try not to add more.

Thanks for all the burfday wishes, and be blessed.

I'm 55 today.

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and a joyous, restful new year among your favorite people and especially pets.