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And just so I'm all prepared to star as Hamlet when the Royal Shakespeare Company finally calls, Eleanor wrote me this morning that Bill died a week ago.
Damn!
Dropping like flies, they are. (Note careful avoidance of second person singular pronoun.)
Never particularly knew what to make of Bill. He was Eleanor's boyfriend, so presumably part of what it took to make Eleanor happy. I was happy that Eleanor was happy, and Bill was nice enough.
My main memory of Bill – ironic in context – is the time over dinner when Eleanor and I were talking about Mark, about how heartbroken we were about what was happening to Mark, about how we wished there was something we could do to help Mark –
"Are either of you going to volunteer to move to Portland so that you can act as Mark's nurse?" Bill interrupted pleasantly.
Eleanor and I exchanged chastened looks, and averred that no: That seemd an unlikely possibility.
"Well then, now that we've established Mother Theresa isn't sitting at this dinner table, let's have dessert!" Bill said heartily.
And now he's dead. Preceded in death by Mark, but only by three years.
I suppose what depresses me the most about growing old and dying is what a fucking cliché it is.
Bill's death really shouldn't upset me since I never really knew him that well. But it does.
There was a thunderstorm this morning. One particularly violent peal of thunder actually made me scream out loud. I've been as skittish as Rutger, jumping at random creaks in the settling foundations of this 60 year old house all day.
