June 16: Friendless and Despised, Charles Dickens, Imperfections

With  regard to the whereabouts of Kilgore Trout:  he actually lived in Ilium, Billy's hometown, friendless and despised.  Billy would meet him by and by.

Kilgore Trout lives in Billy's home town.  He's not quite a celebrity, despite that fact that he has written a lot of books.  A lot.  And Vonnegut promises that Trout will show up later in Billy's story.

There have been a lot of people I would like to meet in my life.  Stephen King and John Irving, for instance.  Billy Collins.  I've met a few of my idols, as well.  I was twice in the same room as Maya Angelou.  I actually shook Kurt Vonnegut's hand once.  I've talked about poetry with Sharon Olds.  I had a picture taken with Alec Baldwin.

There are also people that I would have liked to meet, but never had the opportunity.  Katherine Hepburn.  Robin Williams.  As a teenager, I always thought that I was going to be friends eventually with River Phoenix.  He was going to read something that I wrote, and he would just call me up or show up at my front door.

There is something about certain public figures that just draw me in.  I have read a thousand-page biography of Charles Dickens not once, not twice, not three times.  I've read it five or six times.  Most of the time, the people who I find the most fascinating--the ones with whom I want to be friends--are really flawed.  People who have a lot of light and dark in them.  I feel a kinship with individuals like this.

I like the idea that people, despite their incredible limitations, can do really great things.  Robin Williams had mental health and addiction issues.  Charles Dickens was most certainly bipolar.  River Phoenix was a heroin addict and alcoholic.  Yet, look at the great things these artists did in their respective fields.

All this gives me hope.  I am not perfect.  I gravitate toward darkness.  Some of my acquaintances may be surprised by this admission.  For the most part, I'm fairly gregarious in public.  I like making people smile and laugh.  Just today, a coworker told me, "You're the most positive person I know."  I appreciate that observation.

Charles Dickens loved throwing lavish parties for his friends, but his temperament was quicksilver.  After he was done writing at night, he would sometimes go for a 20-mile walk.  River Phoenix would sneak up on his friends from behind and engulf them in bear hugs, but he would go on drug-binges for weeks at a time.

Nobody is perfect.  I think that my greatest creative achievements come from my greatest faults.  And, in a way, that's a gift.

Tonight, Saint Marty is thankful for his imperfections.

July 17: Forfeits, Friends, Happiness

Scrooge's niece was not one of the blind-man's buff party, but was made comfortable with a large chair and a footstool, in a snug corner, where the Ghost and Scrooge were close behind her.  But she joined in the forfeits, and loved her love to admiration with all the letters of the alphabet.  Likewise at the game How, When, and Where, she was very great, and to the secret joy of Scrooge's nephew, beat her sisters hollow:  though they were sharp girls too, as Topper could have told you.  There might have been twenty people there, young and old, but they all played, and so did Scrooge; for, wholly forgetting in the interest he had in what was going on, that his voice made no sound in their ears, he sometimes came out with his guess quite loud, and very often guessed quite right, too; for the sharpest needle, best Whitechapel, warranted not to cut in the eye, was not sharper than Scrooge:  blunt as he took it in his head to be.

This is one of the best scenes in the novel:  Scrooge losing himself in the festivities of his nephew's Christmas party, playing the games, yelling out answers, dancing and singing.  It's the comic relief, showing the gaiety and frivolity of the holiday, and demonstrating Scrooge's fun-loving side, which has been trapped inside him for decades.  It's also one of the first scenes where Scrooge becomes fully human and empathetic.

I love the scenes with Scrooge's nephew, Fred, and his wife.  I love reading about Fred's friends laughing and enjoying themselves.  I like the goodwill exhibited by everyone.  It's obvious that everyone has true love and affection for Fred and each other.

This evening, I'm meeting up with one of my best friends ("K") who's visiting from Washington state with her two daughters.  We're going to go to a playground and then swimming in Lake Superior, weather permitting.  K is, literally, one of the best people I know.  She's patient, kind, and giving.  She has a special needs child, and watching K deal with her daughter's meltdowns and outbursts is pretty amazing.  K can connect with a little girl who seems disconnected from the world.  That is the miracle of K.

So, I'm really looking forward to being with her and her family.  It's going to be a good night, the kind of night Scrooge and the Ghost of Christmas Present would have enjoyed.  It's all about selfless and unconditional love.  K makes me a better person, teaches me what real friendship is all about, accepts all of my small (and large) imperfections.

I can almost hear K right now:  "You don't have imperfections.  Not you.  You are the most perfect person I know."

That's why Saint Marty loves K so much.

Love's all about selflessness, until it effects you in some way