scott-free

so i met the first scott when he was in the 2nd grade. i was helping run a summer class for students with learning disabilities. he was a student. he was rather chubby and hapless. but i'm not sure he was aware that he was. he just kind of bounced around.

i met the other scott through chatting. he just appeared one day. i sincerely with all my heart wish that he never had. still.

the first scott, i never saw or thought about again until he was a grown adult and i was an older grown up adult after having been dumped unceremoniously (no, not unceremoniously, i think the word i want here is- cruelly) by the 2nd scott. over a misunderstanding of sorts. life is unfair and mean like that, you know.

so at the time i remet the first scott, i was barely breathing. because of the 2nd scott. and the first scott annoyed the ever-loving hell out of me as an adult. i dreaded having to interact with him at work. he was loud. he was flamboyant, gayly so, although he wasn't gay. he was young and idealistic and opinionated at a time when i wanted to be part of the wallpaper. he never called me by my first name, always my first and last together.

"xxxxx xxxxxxx! what do you think about this? xxxxx xxxxxxx?" pausing only briefly before launching ahead and telling me what he thought i ought to think. or what he hoped i'd think. as i said, he annoyed me. he was irrepressibly annoying. about history, about politics, about pop culture. about stupid stupid apple products. he seemed to never shut up. but. on the other hand, he also treated me with such respect and almost awe, i guess for being someone he respected in life, that it was hard not to like him at the same time. i guess you could say i was conflicted. he was the kind of person who not only wanted to pull you and everyone else out of their shells, but also didn't even seem to notice that there were these hard scaly surfaces surrounding some people for a reason, at the time in my life when i least felt like coming out from under cover.

people get hurt when they are out there without cover, you know.

but what ya gonna do when someone persistently insists?

so first Scott was great friends with other friends who have become great friends of mine. to this day. and together, whether they knew it or know it or not, they restored me. they propped me up. they filled me full of thoughts that they would miss me if i went. and that while they might laugh at me, occasionally, they would never desert me. that i could never do anything or say anything so wrong, so stupid or so bad, that they would toss me out on my ear. if i needed someone to talk to, to vent to, to cry in my beer with, they were there. first scott. and the others. mostly they just made me start to learn to laugh again. and care again.

2nd scott, i thought. that he was my prince charming. i thought he'd dropped into my life to rescue me. from bad times gone by. and he played the part so very very well. right up until he didn't and he refused to understand or listen and called me vile. and then he skipped off and married a woman who is so perfect and vegan, she makes my skin crawl just thinking about her.

and what i'm trying to say is that it's been a long road back from barely breathing with a sucking chest wound to now. where i am happy to breathe. delighted to breathe. get up in the morning happy to be alive to breathe. i never thought i'd feel that way. again. especially while on my own. as it seems i'm fated to be.

and then on sunday, the breath got knocked right out of me. first scott was killed. while sailing through an intersection on his bike while he was out on a sunday morning ride. the driver of the car never saw him. nobody's fault. but he was just knocked out of existence.

i was out and came home to quite a many messages saying, "omg, xxxxx, did you hear about scott?" and i sucked for air thinking it was second scott until i realized that no friend of mine ever even mentions 2nd scott to me anymore or ever again. and i realized they must be talking about 1st scott. and it bothered me, bothers me that my brain still went to second scott. wth?

especially because now i realize that the loss of the 1st scott is more air-sucking than the death of the 2nd scott from this world will ever be. because he is already dead to me. and has been for quite some time. and largely because of the 1st scott and all our friends. and oh.

oh. oh. i will miss this guy. more than i ever realized that i might. it's just wrong. wrong. wrong.

he leaves behind an adorable fiance, a first grader and a middle-schooler. he leaves behind so many friends, of whom i was just one, who probably never told him (as i never did) or even knew how much they appreciated him. he leaves behind a score of students who learned to think because he was irrepressible in teaching them to think for themselves.

and i am sad. so, so, so sad. for this world to be scott-free.

things i'll never do

so here is a list of things that i'm certain i'll never do. they say you should never say never. but all the same, i'm never gonna....

own or fire a gun.
skydive.
be a vegan.
be a vegetarian.
go to paris.
eat turtle soup.
work in a coal mine.
scuba dive
join a fundamentalist church. or really any church again, but i'm hotly against the fundies.
shoot heroin
eat a dog. although, for entirely different reasoning than for not eating turtle soup.
support the privatization of public education.
support donald trump, ted cruz, or john kasich.
run a marathon- for both of these reasons- one, because i can't, and two, i think they are a brutal abuse of a body and why?
subscribe to cable tv or own a dish.
own an amphibian or reptile ever again.
join a cult.
talk down to a child.
own an expensive car ever again. even if i win or am offered one.
spend more than 60 minutes with someone i don't like unless i have to for work.
believe that i'm nobody or that my opinions and feelings don't matter or aren't worth your consideration. ever again.
turn down a great meal, unless i'm not hungry or i don't like you.
go to a heavy metal concert. or a yanni concert.
not listen to someone who politely asks me to listen. doesn't mean i'll do what you want or agree with you, but i'll at least give you a fair listen. because if i don't, i'm really no better than people i don't like.
dress like i'm 35 or really even 40. sorry, if you're sporting short skirts, long hair, or 'show your cleavage' blouses at my age, i just find you look unseemly and i don't want to be like you. sorry.
eat an octopus. and not for either of the reasons that i won't eat a turtle or a dog.
believe in fairy tales again. not that i wouldn't like to, but i've just found that they never come true. so why bother?
not going to give someone a chance to explain and at least try to listen. because i know how damaging and hurtful and heartbreaking it is to be treated that way.
say i love you unless i really mean it. and i mean really mean it- unconditionally. because i know what it's like to have it said to me and it not be meant in the end.
climb a mountain. ok, i will climb small hills and partially up the side of a mountain, but only until i panic from the height and my heart starts pounding in my ears, and then i'll stop and go back down. you go on though. i'll be real proud of you.
ride in a submarine. i do not like being enclosed. and i especially would hate being enclosed in something submerged. i've only later in years come to peace with being encapsulated in airplanes, but i'm never going to get in a submarine.
swim the English channel or across any large, cold, piece of water.
live in the arctic. ok, maybe Denmark. i would live in Denmark. and so would you, if you'd ever been there.
live on a farm. unless i loved a farmer, of course. and then i wouldn't care where we lived.
walk away from a difficult situation, unless i'm leading myself or others to safety.
park in a handicapped zone. unless of course, i've become handicapped or am escorting a handicapped child who could not be dropped off at the door alone.
wear a bright yellow dress. although, i look ok in light yellow- bright yellow makes me look like i'm sick.
go to work when i'm ill. ever again.
eat green beans or watermelon. i just do not like them. at all. ok, maybe if i was starving. but only if.
own a car with a spoiler on the back. seriously, who drives these? dumbest things ever.
hunt. i will fish though.
join an army.
steal from someone.
cheat on my taxes.
ride on a huge ferris wheel again.
go to a cage fight.
drive a motorcycle. or even ride on one again.
turn my back on a child.
not stand up to a bully. ever again.
finish this list, it seems. but i will stop for now.