I am not sure I know when mourning is successful, or when one has fully mourned another human being. I'm certain, though, that it does not mean that one has forggoten the person, or that something else comes along to take his or her place. I don't think it works that way. I think instead that one mourns when one accepts the fact that the loss one undergoes will be one that changes you, changes you possibly forever, and that mourning has to do with agreeing to undergo a transformation the full result of which you cannot know in advance. So there is losing, and there is the transformative effect of loss, and this latter cannot be charted or planned. I don't think, for instance, you can invoke a Protestant ethic when it comes to loss. You can't say, "Oh, I'll go through loss this way, and that will be the result, and I'll apply myself to the task, and I'll endeavor to acheive the resulotion of grief that is before me." I think one is hit by waves, and that one starts out the day with an aim, a project, a plan, and one finds oneself foiled. One finds oneself fallen. One is exhausted but does not know why. Something is larger than one's own deliberate plan or project, larger than one's own knowing. Something takes hold, but is this something coming from the self, from the outside, or from some region where the difference between the two is indeterminable? What is it that claims us at such moments, such that we are not the masters of ourselves? To what are we tied? And by what are we seized?

It may seem that one is undergoing something temporary, but it could be that in this experience something about who we are is revealed, something that delineates the ties we have to others, that shows us that those ties constitute a sense of self, compose who we are, and that when we lose them, we lose our composure in some fundamental sense: we do not know who we are or what to do. Many people think that grief is privatizing, that it returns us to a solitary situation, but I think it exposes the constitutive sociality of the self, a basis for thinking a political community of a complex order.

Judith Butler, writing in Undoing Gender

Where the fuck have you been, guy?  It's a fair question.  The short answer would be:  Working .  Since returning to DC, I've been scrambling to take on as much work as possible, in order to regain my financial footing (which has proved a more daunting project than I'd have anticipated).  It very well could take all summer.

The long answer:  Nesting, learning the genius of the Neti Pot , gardening, morning meditation, drinking coffee, getting good and shaggy while waiting for Harjit to play his Scrabble move, and watching my social world shift in new ways.  And grieving, maybe?  It's not clear, but that's my housemate's theory.  Maybe I'll write more about that, at another juncture.  Whatever that process happens to be, managing it has required quantities of my psychic energy such that when the dust settles each day, I'm generally more inclined to drink tea in the backyard, or read, or call the west coast, or meet Gene for dinner, or try to lure Andrea out of the Al-Jazeera HQ, or watch The Green Wing .  Pretty much anything but wind up alone with my inner monologue, given how much it tends to occupy my workday. 

Which of course means that I'm not doing jack shit, here; a shame, given that I have a good deal I could be documenting, or teasing out in print.  The energy for follow-through just hasn't been there, alas.  I still haven't even knocked out editing my May Day footage from Mexico City, which is downright absurd and pathetic.  Perhaps I'll get on that, this afternoon.  And on that note, I'm going to go stuff my cakehole before braving the case of District Swamp-Ass I'll most assuredly be dealt by my workday.  I'll leave you with my listening recommendations for riding (fixed) from 13th and Kenyon NW to 3rd and F NE:

1] Owen - "I Do Perceive"
2] Pinback - "Blue Screen Life"
3] The Notwist - "Neon Gold"
4] American Football - s/t
5] Cave In - "Until Your Heart Stops"

This is my fourth fractured rib; the second this year.  The last three (in this order) were suffered in the course of:  1] Having sex, 2] Being beaten with a metal crutch, and 3] Sneezing.  If you have spare painkillers from recent surgery or the like, please let me know.  I'll be damned if I'm going to a doctor, just to have them bill me for an X-Ray and then tell me there's dick they can do about it.

The good news is I won a sweet bike repair book at the prom raffle.

Last night, anarchist folk singer Utah Phillips passed away in his sleep.  Some of you may not have heard of him, aside from perhaps his two albums with Ani Difranco, but he was an extraordinary human being.

In early 2000, I was involved with the local branch of the IWW , and got word he was performing at Wolf Trap , a performing arts center just outside the District.  I figured it was sold out, but thought I'd try my hand at getting the green light to set up a table for the union, at the very least.  The union secretary surprised me, by asking if I wanted his number.  I was downright shocked to hear his (rather distinctive) voice answer, when I actually got the nerve to call.  "DC Wobblies?  Far out!"  I had to hold the phone away, to muffle my laughter.

Not only did he let us table, he put us all on his guest list, insisted on doing a brunch for the "fellow workers" at our apartment the following morning, and spent the night with us.  Duffy and I were beside ourselves, and while encounters with such figures are often disillusioning in the realization that, at the end of the day, these are human beings like the rest of us, Utah really failed to disappoint.  He was hands-down one of the warmest, kindest, most optimistic folks I've ever met.  And the 24hrs I spent with him rank -- easily -- among the most inspiring moments of my life.

Even at that time he was not well; travelling only once a month to perform, on doctor's orders, and I'd been listening to his podcast the last few months, keeping up on his condition.  I sort of knew this news was coming, but I didn't expect to feel so moved by it.  There really aren't many like him left.  There's an impulse to battle the inertia that sees even one more leaving our midst.  Goodnight, friend.

An obituary has been posted at his site

I met Ace Mcarleton in 2002, while enrolled in several summer programs at the (sadly, now defunct) Institute for Social Ecology.  It was a period of extraordinary healing and recovery for me (the prior year being probably best characterized by my multiple and determined attempts to physically disappear, by one means or another), and in hindsight, I'm not entirely clear on why he paid me any attention whatsoever.  There were certainly brighter lights in our midst.  But for whatever reasons, we've evolved a relationship that is such a diamond in the rough, and I'm absolutely glowing over the manner in which he's begun to cross paths with other folks in my life, particularly in DC.  The combinations there are so rich with potential, and the possibilities so exciting.

Ace lives in Montpelier, VT where he is one half of the self-managed, natural building collective New Frameworks, and helps manage the all volunteer (and alltogether outstanding) Black Sheep Books .  Additionally, he's taught at the aforementioned Institute, presented at conferences such as Renewing the Anarchist Tradition, the National Conference on Organized Resistance, and most recently, Visions in Feminism.  He also lives with the most badass cat in central Vermont.