Not to cause whomever owns The Beattles library rights any grief, but they sure nailed it:

Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away…

Indeed, yesterday was a day of idle pursuits, a down day after a night of restlessness. I snapped a slump that was bothering me simply because it wasn’t bothering me.

I complained to a friend that training a new Sonos station is hard.

Seriously, that whole music genome project has some explaining to do. I set up an Aimee Mann station a few months back and it’s been an interesting journey.

I get that Fiona Apple is going to pop up on this station. But not more than Aimee’s music. Natalie Merchant and Joni Mitchell are welcome guests. Cranberries? Bring ’em on.

Still, it’s strange that more of these female artists are doing covers of music originally performed by male singers. It seems strange, anyway.

Then there are the actual male artists that pop in for too frequent visits. That’s where I’m really ruffled and thumbs-downing for all I’m worth. Until I’m tempted to switch the music to another station for a bit because I’ve reached my skip limit just trying to do right by Aimee.

But, I digress. Those were my big challenges yesterday:

New music and some boy nookie.

Oh, and trying to decide whether or not to eat dinner after The Fox and I went to Tanner Creek for a couple of beers and split an order of Bar Fries – seriously, why is that not a menu item in every tap house? It’s punny. And I had been complaining to our Birthday Boy-Bartender that they needed to put poutine on the menu, but Bar Fries would satisfy my desire for something savory atop my pile of French fried potatoes.

Anyway, on that last front, I decided not to make any food and then after watching three episodes of The Widow on Amazon TV, I was suddenly trying to find a Thai restaurant that was still open at 10 PM on a Friday night.

These were my challenges.

Frivolous.

Gluttonous.

Libidinous.

Flash forward to this morning while I’m laying in bed trying to convince myself at 6:30 that I can still fall back to sleep. Seriously, why is it that for the last two days, I’ve been sleeping past 10 AM and missing coffee but on the day that f&b opens at 9 instead of 7, I wake up at dawn?!?

Resigned and not realizing it, I pick up the phone and open up the Facebook.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

But I still “liked” all of the posts that I scrolled past, just to let my friends know that I appreciate their virtual presence in my life and that I saw them.

Then, a post about a friend dying suddenly last week.

Well, shit-fuck-damn.

The friend’s post that clued me in to this sad fact said that he’d had a lengthy illness, and suddenly his move from our beloved adopted city of Long Beach, California to his home in Iowa a couple years back made some sense. Or, my brain was rushing to fill in the vacuum of facts with my most rational leaps of logic.

Naturally, I dug in a little to his FaceBook page and was amazed at the amount of shared memories from friends. One of his closest, it seems, had stated that she hadn’t heard from him for a couple of days and went by his house to check on him, but found him dead instead.

Because: <poof>. one day you just wake up dead. Surprise.

Don’t start checking on me every 36 hours, mom.

But he was ~6 months younger than me.

That similarity in ages hit me pretty hard, but when I thought about it, it wasn’t what hit me hardest. He’s a friend – one of many – that came along with my first good boyfriend. It was when I was still trying to figure out myself as a newly minted gay, and there was comfort there with these other young men going through the same growth and identity experiences.

We learned about relationships together. How to balance being fabulous and responsible; ie: balancing bar hopping five nights a week and working full-time and going to school. And taking advantage of the beach as often as possible.

Oh, and flying off to Mardi Gras on a whim for five years straight. How it ended up being a whim every damn year is still a mystery to me, but my foggy memory suggests that each year ended with “I’m never doing that again!” But it turned out to be nothing that 11 months of recovery couldn’t cure.

Those years in Long Beach were a fantastic time in my life. My core group from the LBC has been fractured by deaths in the decades since and scattered to the far corners of the country by life, but every time I’m lucky enough to get to talk or “talk” with one of those friends, it’s a reward of instant comfort and quality catching up. Except for one guy from back then who was always a little snotty and better-than for no real reason. But I did see him chime in first on the thread with “What was the cause of death?” because that’s appropriate.

He got really fat, though. I enjoyed seeing that. Then I walked by my mirror. Oh, yeah…

But this morning? As of 7 AM, I’ve had enough of real life for the day. And the FaceBook is taking the blame.