Rest in power Brother Dan

[Drunk Monk]

Donning Dan

So I've been wearing LB's pendant. The latch is a little tricky because I can't see tiny things well and I take it off to bath or for Kung Fu.  It's been a mindful mortality meditation, as if I don't have enough of those already.  I haven't been wearing any jewelry for the past few years.  Both Stacy and I have stopped wearing our wedding rings because our fingers have changed shape and they are no longer comfortable, plus we both have to remove jewelry for our respective practices.  I've been meaning to get my band resized because I prefer to wear it.  It helps deflect unwanted advances.

I've stopped carrying the skeletool Dan gave me for being best man at his wedding, swapping it for the sheffield folder I got at Wobbleland (http://www.brotherhoodofdoom.com/doomFor...8#pid31448).  For a while, I felt that sheffield was cursed.  I got it on that turning point night when my mom called me home from that show because of her increasing back pain.  We didn't realize then how serious her injury was.  And being a 'found' blade, I didn't know the history and karma it might bear.  When I first carried it, I had some unlucky episodes.  I can get weirdly superstitious with blades.  Seems alright now tho.

But wearing the pendant and carrying the skeletool is way too much Dan to have on my person on a daily basis.  I love and miss the big guy, but there still must be boundaries.

[Drunk Monk]

I had a dream of Dan this morning. I was lying in bed, putting off getting up as has become my habit during the shelter-in-place.  Last night, Stacy had tried to convince me to join her for a hike, but I was determined to sleep in yet again for fear of rain, and despite my copious hours of sleep over the last two weeks, I was still drowsy enough to go for one more round of slumber.

I am entering the BGC, although it's not the BGC; it is set up like it has never been.  There are several long tables, and Dan is seated at the front one of them, facing me.  I know in the dream that Dan is gone, so I'm delighted to see him.  It's a young Dan, fresh faced and somewhat naive, unburdened with the baggage of life that would weigh us both down in the decades to come, like when I first met him.  He looks up somewhat blankly, as if he doesn't quite know where he is, and babbles at me as was his wont when he was high.  I get the sense that he either doesn't know he has passed or is in some reincarnative stage of reset, inbetween the living world and what lies beyond, a future incarnation hopefully as something less tortured. I reach down to touch his hand. It is materialized through the table, just the hand, with the rest of his forearm buried within another dimension so to be obscured by the hardwood tabletop in this mortal world.  His hand is warm, very palpably so.  I say through my tears how much I miss him and that he is welcome to visit me at any time.  I turn away for a moment, and he's gone.

I stopped wearing Dan's pendant a while ago. I was too heavy to carry so it sits in its box and I pass it to and fro on my way to bed. I'm carrying the skeletool again.  It's very useful, or at least, I've learned how to make use of it in spite of it's absurd design.  I've thought of Dan and his prepper obsession during the shelter-in-place, imagining him tallying his stock of supplies and cleaning his guns, hoping for zombies.

[Drunk Monk]

It's been a year since our youngest had fallen. 

The first DOOMer to move on.

Still can't accept that he's gone.

[Greg]

Nope.

[Greg]

FB just thew a up a memory of LB standing in front of the Kung Fu Panda with Mark Velazquez, from the Szechuan benefit. I was going to post it but then FB had a query error and wouldn't let me post the pic. Strange things are afoot.

[Drunk Monk]

Surely that's Dan mindfukkin you. He never gave that up. Even from beyond the grave.

I donned Dan again for a few days - the pendant I have with his ashes. I just took it off this morning. I don't wear jewerly much anymore and the Dan pendant has a necklace that's too tight to slip over my fat head with an annoying clasp that I can't see without my glasses and a mirror, so it's a pain in the ass to put on and take off. Again, Dan mindfukkin. That'll never end. 

I'll probably only don Dan for DOOM functions and this anniversary. Otherwise, he sits in his little velvet box atop one of my old portable stash boxes. 

When we rejoin Dan in Valhalla, he'll probably greet us with flagons of his homemade beer. And it'll be warm. And chunky.

[Drunk Monk]

Two years gone.

I remember Syl leaving me a message to call her back and I knew it was bad from her tone. When I called her back, I was ready for the worst. Which it was...

[Greg]

Uggh.

[Drunk Monk]

I donned Dan for a day - the remembrance pendant that contains some of his ashes. It’s an odd silver orb with a tree on one side and a heart, and in fine print ‘Legbone’. I don’t wear him that often now. I seldom wear jewelry anymore as I’ve mentioned before here. It’s just the sort of macabre adornment he loved and I can’t resist it sometimes.

It weighed heavy on me this year. Everything was going wrong while Dan was on me - random little things but they added up quickly until I found myself screaming in the car as I came off hwy17 because the delicious super taqueria burrito a treated myself to an hour earlier as a comfort food to sooth my stress was cutting through me sharply threatening to really make my day shitty if I didn’t get to a toilet asap (I did make it thankfully). 

Maybe Dan was annoyed that I haven’t taken him out more. I took him to Vegas. Maybe that spoiled him. 

Dammit Dan. Wtf!?!

---

I just reread this thread again. It was very therapeutic. I was thinking I should share it with Syl someday. She was just in town but we weren’t able to connect. Next time perhaps.

[Drunk Monk]

Syl sent me a vid of a small fireworks show that looked like something her Alaskan neighbors put together. There were a few big blasts. I wish I knew how to post it here. 

She texted the following:

We sent Dan up strapped and poured into a bunch of fireworks last night.

Happy New Year my friends

[Greg]

Good work, Syl.

[Drunk Monk]

So I didn’t put Dan on this year in honor of his passing. I usually only don the Lb pendant for special occasions because it’s psychically heavy.
Stacy & I went to a special quintet performance last night and I wore a jacket - in the pocket were some of Dan’s memorial laminates. Have I really not worn that jacket since 2019? The pandemic distorted time over the last few years. That and Dan is still pranking me from Valhalla…
Feliz Dia de los Muertos

[Dr. Ivor Yeti]

In my leather jacket that I keep at H’s nest, the Dan Laminate lives in one of the inside pockets. It impeded my sunglass case a few times on Sunday, necessitating that I pull out the laminate and regard Dan’s smirk. I did not mind at all.

[Drunk Monk]

I texted my post above to Syl

Here is her reply:

Thanks for the memorial. I am sure time is no longer a concept to Dan. He got buried out in the woods on a path on my property this year. Then I took my wedding ring of on this year’s death anniversary?. Letting go little by little I guess.

She sent me some pix of the memorial which I’d share here but the pix embedding function doesn’t work.

[Greg]

Email them to me.