ACCOZZAGLIA

maybe i needed to really sleep on it. i dinna.

i think the long night’s sleep was a catalyst. where yesterday i felt shock and horrendous grief, today there’s an empty feeling of, “yeah, he’s gone.”

i won’t be running into him anymore. i won’t get to see his endearing, trademark limp that i had always associated as an artifact from his wrestling days. no more goatees. no more feeling like a tower over him cos, well, he is no longer.

in five years, he imbued in me a sense of direction and purpose, which in turn, pressed me to be as resilient as i had to be under those four years of unusual circumstances.

until i knew who he was (cos, after all, does anyone really know their representatives in the first year of living in a new state?), i wasn’t sure if what i was doing was the right thing. it seemed like no one, in their infinite passive-aggressive “niceness”, thought i was in any way being wise, prudent or sane in holding my ground.

they’d constantly say, “if you feel like it’s the right thing to do …”

no wonder i still hate that ethos, even after five years.

around the end of my year one, around october 1998, i really got to hear for the first time just who he was. and what i heard him say was curious, cos it was such a different tone from what others had been saying:

“hold your own. stand firm, even if it’s the unpopular thing to do. never waver from your convictions, and while the short term may yield nothing pleasant, people will come to respect your ability to stick things out to the end. that respect is priceless.”

sure, homeboy voted for DOMA. i wasn’t pleased when i heard about that, some two years ex post facto. i wasn’t paying much attention to that period of legislation, since i wasn’t really interested in politics then. were the timing later, i would have gotten in touch with him and had a few words to share from my own experience — which really wasn’t affected by it then, being single as i was.

and sure, he “reneged” on his promise to not seek a third term. but, ummm, to everyone who disparaged him for that: don’t you fucking read the politics section on a regular basis to see how just bloody often all the other politicos waffle their principles, promises and convictions in the light of keeping them there poll percentages tip-top?

of course you don’t.

and whyyyyy are we gonna dis one guy about running again? cos we need something crystal and concrete to bitch about, cos the shit the other elected folk do in their infinite lack of integrity is so arcane that no one would understand you at the water cooler?

is water naturally crystal-clear?

then again, people gravitate to the nit-picky negative shit, even if it’s minor, huh? i’d like to know just how many of those folk actually did their gummit homework in high skool, and of those, how many actually got an “A”?

pfffft.

so, yesterday, when i filled out my absentee ballot in the presence of the notary public — and my last time to vote in that state — i went with the green party’s ray tricomo. it wasn’t because i disliked paul’s character. or his many policy positions. or his track record. or even his style of legislating.

no.

i picked the individual who best represented the panoply of ideals and principles that are most important to me, even if voting for such means a certain loss for my choice.

i wouldn’t have been crestfallen if tricomo lost and paul won. in fact, that’d've been okay with me. but before paul, i might have chosen the “least-worst option that had a legitimate chance of winning”, instead of “choosing the best option for me.”

[thanks for teaching me that, paul. seeing your name on the ballot yesterday was a difficult thing for me. i know you'd understand why the black oval wasn't next to your name.]

sticking through four years of litigation until the fateful end wouldn’t have happened without getting to know him and who he was. i simply wouldn’t have made it.

so, this morning, i woke up to a cloudy day. it was a bookend to a night of very strange, sometimes disturbing, dreams. and as with those past events that irrevocably shifted the universe, the next morning is always the bummer.

it’s when the sobering reality sets in.

“oh my gwad. my grandmother really *is* gone.”

“**moan** ohhhhh, those buildings really aren’t there anymore.”

“**eyes opening, groaning** i’m on the radio. i really did lose.”

and this morning?

“**rolling over to put an arm on her, realising** when i go back, he won’t be there anymore, and it won’t be like it was when i left. state fairs won’t be the same. event gatherings won’t be the same. the green signs won’t be there at every turn like they were when i left. and even though i once went to a funeral with him, i cannot attend his.

“oh. this sucks.”