I Am The Angel's Blog

Forget About That Rain On Your Wedding Day Crap

2012-01-12T19:47:00.000-08:00

"A funny thing happened on the way to the 7-11. Not 'haha' funny, interesting funny. I saw a blind man trying to cross the street, and this woman came over and asked if he needed help, and she walked him over to the other side."

"Why were you going to a 7-11?" asked Suzanne. "If you wanna giant soda you can just snap your fingers."

"I can do that," I admitted, "but I miss the real places, you know? Especially the ones that brought me comfort. You wouldn't believe the healing power of sixty-four ounces of coke and deluxe size beef jerky."

"Fair enough. So, what was so weird about the woman helping the blind guy? It was probably just another angel."

"That's what the funny part was. I was wondering just that; was it just another angel? Then I realized, I didn't want to find out. I didn't want to know. When I found out that a lot of the good samaritans in New York City were angels, it kind of made me angry. I hated people so much, and the idea that the few times I saw them actually show a shred of humanity, that they only were because they weren't even human, it felt like I'd been lied to. I thought all the things I hated about people had be reinforced. But now that I'm not as angry, I find myself wanting to believe in them."

Suzanne's face lit up with her trademark unfiltered enthusiasm, "You realize what you're saying, right? It's, like, there different types of faith. You and me, 'cause we're angels, we're what these people are praying for. But now, you're praying for them. You're holding on to the belief that people are better than you thought they were. Now that you in Heaven, you're divine. But you still have your own version of what faith is."

She was onto something, which would have shocked me not to long ago. I used to pray for her to shut up, now I genuinely wanted to see where she was going. "Which is what?"

"Your faith is to see the best in the living. 'Cause that's what you work for, letting them be their best. It's kind of ironic. The better we do, the less they need us. We're dreaming of a day where we become obsolete."

I shook my head. "That's never gonna happen."

She gave me a half-defeated, half-agreement nod. "Of course not. But deep down, you still wish it. If you didn't, you wouldn't have the heart to be angel."

I had to ask, "So, being an angel, you want it, and at the same time, you don't want it?"

"Not exactly. I still feel I have my life to make up for. But deep down inside, kinda. Don't you?"

I thought for a second, then I smiled. "Let's go to Steak 'N Shake. It's on me."

That's $6.50, Come Pick Up Your Joy When The Buzzer Vibrates

2011-10-12T20:15:00.000-07:00

Sashial took another spoonful of her Concrete Jungle. "This makes you feel better?" I nodded my head. "Are you fucking kidding me?" She turned to Marley, "This really makes him feel better?"

Marley gave me a quick look and said to Sashial, "It really does."

"Why?" asked Sashial. "And honestly, what the fuck does that thing up there have to do with it?"

Sashial and I set our Shake Shack Concrete Jungles down on the table as we gazed up at the Flatiron Building. "Human pleasure often comes from stimulation of the senses," I said. "These are flavors I really love. Anything with peanut butter and chocolate. You throw in vanilla and banana and it's just a flavor overload. It's practically intoxicating. And the building is very nice to look at. Humans enjoy looking at things, whether it's to appreciate the visual aesthetics or to connect to its history on a personal level."

Judging by the look on Sashial's face, the response I felt coming wasn't going to reflect the sense of calm I was hoping to achieve in her. "Well don't take this the wrong way," she began, "but I honestly don't give a fuck about the history of that building or what it fucking looks like." She grabbed her cup. "And this concrete whatever the fuck you call it, I don't know 'cause I forget things I don't give a shit about, it's, well it's actually very nice, I'll give you that. But I'm not human. The flavor of food doesn't alleviate my frustration in any way. How could the Yankees get bounced in the first round like that? I just can't fucking believe it."

I felt a little disappointed, especially since it'd been a few weeks already. "Well, I didn't know if it was going to work, I was just hoping, since you've developed an attachment for certain human passions, you know, like sports and what not, I was hoping I could bring you a new one. You know, one that could always be counted on picking you up, since sports can disappoint as much as enthrall."

She smiled. "And I appreciate that. You know, I've existed for thousands of years and not that many things captured me the way baseball did. I think it's that it feeds into my visceral reactions. That's the thing I was created for, Lira and I, we were both given a harsh intensity. The game gives me an outlet for my explosive dynamic. That's where the connection is. You know, I really wasn't created to experience pleasure. That's not what my purpose was intended to be. That's part of why I love saving people, it brings me joy. So does baseball. When it takes that joy away, it's really fucking hard for me to accept."

"You're not mad I introduced you do this, are you?" I had to ask.

Sashial smiled. "Of course not, sweetie. And that's not exactly how it happened anyway."

"There there anything I can do?"

"Actually, yes," she said. "Just finish that concrete thing. I enjoy seeing you happy."

God Damn, That's A Pretty Fuckin' Good Milk Shake. I Don't Know If It's Worth Dying But It's Pretty Fuckin' Good.

2011-09-06T18:50:00.000-07:00

"So I woke up in a strange bed still drunk, and when I looked at the person next to me . . ."

"Suzanne," I said, cutting her off as quickly as I could, "why are you telling me this?" I really loved Suzanne, but I can honestly say without fear of guilt that she can be a bit much at times. Usually, Marley was there to be the buffer when she started to push the limits of my patience, but this time, it was just the two of us.

But the thing that truly had me in disbelief is that this whole thing was my idea. I'd always regretted being so dismissive to her when we were in Angel training, plus since she and Marley had become such close friends, getting to know Suzanne better just seemed like the right thing to do. And that's how we ended up in Shake Shack, since she wanted to know about my interests too, plus they don't have them in Chicago yet.

"I'm just trying to explain," she continued, "that there are thing in my past that I'm not too proud of. I look back at my high school and college years, and I feel ashamed of some of the things I did. And the way I treated people."

My supportive angel instinct kicked in. "Everyone does things like that when they're young. Hell, you're practically supposed to things you regret later. It's part of becoming an adult."

"That's the thing. I never really grew up. My Lupus symptoms started just a couple years after college. It was like my life was taken away. First I was sad. Then it was hard to function, then it was just a lot of pain and hospital stays. I never really had the chance to be me as a grown up."

"And that's why being an angel is so important to you," I said.

"Yep. But it's not just about, like, making up for stuff I've done. It's like, I never had the chance to turn my life around. But I can help other people do it, I can, like, exist through them."

I smiled. "When'd you become so deep?"

She giggled. "When I died."

A minute earlier, I was horrified. Now I felt like she deserved something. I handed her my cup. "Here, you've got to try this. It's the Concrete Jungle. It's vanilla custard with hot fudge, peanut butter and bits of banana. You'll think you've died and gone to Heaven again."

She tried it and her jaw dropped. "Oh my God. Now I really wish they had these in Chicago."

"You're in Heaven," I reminded her. "If you want to pimp out your version of Chicago to have a Shake Shack, just do it."

She laughed. "You just want everywhere to be like New York City."

I threw my hands up. "And . . . ?"

What's In Satan's MP3 Player

2011-08-23T19:44:00.000-07:00

"'You know how I know you're gay? You like the movie Maid In Manhattan.'"

I chuckled. "Yeah, that was a good line. What do you want to know about it?"

Sashial shook her head. "What the fuck is Maid In Manhattan?"

"It's a movie with Jennifer Lopez," I said, "I thought you Archangels knew everything."

"Only stuff we care about. You think I give a fuck about a Jennifer Lopez movie?" she answered.

That had me scratching my head. "I thought you have love for all of mankind."

"I do," said Sashial, "I still love her as I love all humans. But that doesn't mean her movies aren't all crap. What was that fuckin' thing you were bitching about the other day when we were watching the Yankee game? Some song they were playing over the sound system?"

I cringed at the memory. "Oh yeah. Your Love by The Outfield. I hate that fuckin' song."

"Right. So, do you think the guys who made that song belong in Hell?"

"Pretty much."

That earned me a smack in the head. "Will you fucking get serious for a minute?" said Sashial. "I'm talking about the true nature of good verses evil, I'm serious about this shit!"

Something about the subject of morality always set her off, so I figured it was best to just strip away any wisecracks and speak in unadulterated truth. "No, they're not evil. I'm sure they're good people."

"Good boy," she said. "You have to separate the creation from the creator. Humans engage in many things you might find objectionable. Maybe even offensive. But a human's behavior and ethic principles aren't always the same. One might have an influence on the other, but you need to look closely at how they work. A person could have goodness in his heart and never bear deliberate malice toward another person, yet still be a complete asshole."

I thought of Pete Roberts and immediately got the point. "Or a serial killer might still be good to his mother," I added.

She smiled. "Now you're starting to learn. Good fucking thing. I wouldn't want you denying someone their divine intervention because you don't like the shit in their iPod, or whatever the fuck goes on down there."

I shook my head. "Oh, I'd never do that."

"I know you wouldn't, sweetie. Now, you want to explain why that line is supposed to be funny?"

I'd nearly forgotten how we got on the subject. "Oh. 'Cause, like, that movie's a chick flick."

"And how does that relate to a man placing his penis in another man's rectum?" she asked, with her usual mix of humorous foolery and serious indigance.

"Look, it's just a line from a movie. You're the one who asked about it. You want to learn about comedy or not?"

"Not anymore. We've got lives to save."

Time to go to work.

The Unexpected Challenge Of The Unchallenging

2011-08-08T19:23:00.000-07:00

"I did feel bad about killing my mother, but . . ."

I cut her off right there. "Marley, we've been through this, you know it wasn't your fault."

"I know, I know," she assured me, "I'm just saying, when I thought I was responsible for what my dad did, it was something that shaped who I was. People talk about how they carry a burden and it affects who they are, but it's more than that. How can you react positively to anything when you're enveloped in negativity? It's not always something that's ingrained.

"I think this is worse. I think if a traumatic experience shapes who you are, and it's something you might not remember, but you're sad by nature, it's different than knowing you might be able to respond in a good way to something, but you don't, because something you remember makes you feel unworthy."

"Which is worse?" I asked. Before she answered, I clarified the question. "Which is easier for an Angel to treat, do you think?"

"I don't know. If it's a memory, they need to accept the past. If it's ingrained, they need to accept themselves. It's a challenge either way."

Which brought us back to our prime example. "The first time you talked to your mother after she died, how did you approach it? Did you say you were sorry?"

"No," Marley said. "I knew it wasn't my fault at that point, you showed me that. It was just like a big reunion. Really big, like, a few decades and across dimensions is a lot to reunite from. But that's the thing, that's the challenge. It's not like everyone has a problem that can be fixed by dying and seeing a dead relative. We're supposed to help people when they're still alive."

"Why are you asking? Are you in the middle of a tough case right now?"

She shook her head. "No, but they've all been easy so far. I always worry about the really hard case that might come along and what I'd do if I couldn't help somebody?"

"Marley, did it ever occur to you that the reason all your cases seem easy is because you're really really good at this?"

She though for a second. "I guess that never occurred to me. Maybe I shouldn't worry so much."

I nodded. "True that."

She smiled. "Did you just say, 'True that?'"

"I did. I must have picked it up from Tony. You pick anything up from Suzanne?"

She thought for a second and said, "Well, she says 'sammich' a lot, I think that's a Chicago thing. I don't like that though."

"What does that even mean?"

"It's how they say 'sandwich.'"

Thank god for Marley's better judgment.

Happiness, I Will Look For You. I Will Find You. And I Will Keep You.

2011-07-19T20:33:00.000-07:00

God once told me that Earth is paradise and not Heaven, because the challenge of creating happiness for yourself is what brings you the most gratification. I didn't learn this until I died, in fact, the lack of gratification I found when I was alive would have made this an entirely abstract concept. I don't even know how often people realize how special the joy they create for themselves is. What we normally realize as humans is when things go wrong. The average living person is, in all likelihood, bound to exclaim that they're in a living hell at some point than that they're in Heaven. So, as an angel, part of the reason I'm so busy is because people in paradise think they're in Hell. We call that a paradox.

This is leading up to something that Sashial said to me the other day. "You've never been in the actual Hell, but I know when you were alive, you felt like you were."

"Let's say, I was in hell with a lower case 'h,'" I said.

She gave me a typical condescending yet concessionary shrug. "Whatever the fuck you want to call it, you were there. And now you're here. Have you ever thought about how it would feel if suddenly you were taken from Heaven?"

I was taken aback by that. "No! Why, should I? Is that possible?"

"No, of course not. Not for you. But in terms of human suffering, as an angel, you have to realize that people go through that. Happiness doesn't always put an end to insecurity. Some humans can live in the moment. Some can't. This may be hard to realize because you never felt you had something that might be taken, but sometimes recognizing human suffering is more complicated than looking for a frown or a tear."

"So, I have to recognize that people who are happy are going to become unhappy?"

"No," she said, "you have to prepare yourself for the idea that losing your paradise can be just as bad as being in your "hell with a lower-case h," or whatever the fuck you want to call it."

"Why are you telling me this?" I asked.

"Because this is the part where it gets tricky. Your experience as an angel is growing. When you first started, you weren't ready to accept the idea that having happiness or complacency and losing it can be just as bad as existing in misery, but I think you're improving. You might not be so fucking useless after all."

I said, "Everyone has a right to their own pain."

"Pretty smart."

"Well, Marley's the one who actually said that."

"I know she did," said Sashial. "Do you fucking think I would use the word 'smart' in reference to you?"

I thought about it for a second, and said, "No. In fact not only would I be surprised, in way, I think I'd be oddly hurt."

She smiled. "Good boy."

She Better Steer Clear Of The Shops On Bleecker Street

2011-07-06T20:23:00.000-07:00

I was hanging out with Lira the other day, and she told me about this t-shirt she saw. "It said, 'I wish my grass was Emo, then it would cut itself.'" I started laughing, and she gave me one of her trademark frosty stares. "That's funny?"

"Well, yeah."

"And why is that funny?"

I actually struggled to come up with an explanation, and I wasn't sure if it was because sometimes it's difficult to sum up human behavior in way that Lira can understand, or if, when I thought about it, it actually wasn't funny at all. I tried telling her about some of the things I'd read about cutters, like how it's used to distract from emotional pain.

"Do you even remember what emotional pain is like?" she asked. "You haven't been dead that long, I know that void where your brain should be isn't much for retaining anything, but considuring what a mental whiner you were, I'd hoped you'd hold on to enough to see that there's no humor in someone dragging a razor across their arm. You really expect to be an angel without that?"

"Ok, let's back up for a second," I said. "Do you know what schadenfreude is?"

She put her hand on my head and gave me a gentle shake. "Did you actually find a way to kill brain cells that are already dead? I knew if someone could find a way, it would be you. I'm an archangel, you idiot, of course I know what that means. It's the malicious enjoyment of others' misfortune."

"And you also know how much I hated people, and for how long. Well, it's like, people either sympathize with the pain of others, or they take a certain satisfaction in it, as dispicable as that is. I'd always thought it was because people are such vile beings, but you also have to understand that it helps people deal with their own pain if they know that other people feel it too. When they're upset, and they walk around and see joy everywhere, it only angers them, because they feel more alone. Even if it's phony, because how can they tell? Knowing that others are screwed up makes people remember that other people are just like them, or at least it's a reminder that there's nothing really inherently wrong with them because pain is actually common."

"And that makes that stupid t-shirt funny?"

"Partly. But also there's a perception that that some overindulge in their own troubles for attention. Sometimes it's hard to tell the difference, but it's gotten easier the longer I've been an angel."

Lira looked at me and smiled. "Sweetheart, I'm going to let you in on a little secret. I knew all that. Like I said, I'm an archangel. I just wanted to see if you knew." She gave me a stern look as a way of saying she was serious and not just comedicaly saving face, but after the first time I spoke to her face to face, I never doubted her truthfulness anyway. "Your a good angel."

"Thanks," I said. "Sashial and I are going to the ball game tonight. You coming?" Her head dropped and I started to laugh. "Just kidding."

I'm Going To Be Honest . . . With You. I . . . HATE This Place

2011-06-27T19:04:00.000-07:00

"What was it like when Shannon left?" asked Marley.

The question confused me. "Why would you ask me that? She's in past, I was over that a long time ago, you know that."

"I know," she said, "I'm not asking because of you, it's for my latest assignment. It's a guy who went through a breakup. I've never had my heart broken, I think it might help to know what it's like."

"Like you even need any help," I answered. Nervously, I continued, "And . . . forgive me if it, you know, offends you, but . . . I know you've been hurt."

With a calm detachment, she said, "Oh sure, but I was abused. Not heartbroken. It's not the same."

I took that in, and said, "Well, misery kind of defines you. As positive or upbeat as you try to be, it doesn't change the place you're in, and as long as you're there, no escape can ever completely take you out of there. Smile all you want, people can tell, because when you're stuck in that place, you're a different person. It was like, I wished so badly to be out of there, because I knew it was ruining my life, and I didn't want to be that person. But I was trapped. And still, I kept thinking, 'This is where I'm supposed to be right now, I guess 'cause I figured you belong there after a breakup. Looking back, I can't believe I tried to justify things like that."

"I remember," she said. "I recognized your turmoil when I first saw you."

"You recognize everyone's everything."

"This was different. Even though you were being so nice to me, I could tell that you weren't quite you. Yeah, I just knew you were sad about something, but there was something else. You were friendly but you didn't smile. Something didn't add up. You know, you can have the best intentions of turning things around and still fail, and it's not your fault. Even though people might tell you it's a matter of personal strength, it's usually not. They might say 'get over it,' like there's a switch you just won't bother to flip. But even if there was, if you're stuck in the bad place, it's like, the switch isn't there, it's somewhere else. How do you get there?"

"An angel takes you," I said.

"Sometimes. Hopefully."

"Was I helpful?"

"Yes," she said, "even though, in a way, I wish you weren't."

On Death: Splung For Me

2011-06-15T20:52:00.000-07:00

Words cannot begin to express how much happier a person I am. My life was filled with so much misery that I don’t think it was a very good person to be around. I feel like I’m a little more uplifting, which is good, considering I’m an Angel, that tends to be a good quality in those meant to inspire the living. Are there really unhappy Angels? I know that I used to be, at least when I was a trainee. I suppose I could have just as easily been an unhappy person and continue being an angel. I mean, after all, I was miserable when I passed my final exam. I know that I was good at my job so I think that’s what the difference was. Then again, I would have been a soul in Heaven who hated his job, if you’re going to have that kind of existence in heaven what would the fucking be point anyway?

I think I’m beginning to veer off topic. The thing that I was really wondering, was about how this epiphany, or attitude adjustment, or, I don’t know, just general exhilaration, only came with death. Sometimes I wonder, is it ironic or pathetic, that in order to achieve this mental turnaround I had to die? I had a look at the last phase of my existence, when I was in a state of misery, and the fact that it ended when my life ended, or at least a little bit after, it seems kind of unfair, both to me, and people who were alive. First of all, why wasn’t I allowed to have a good life? I think that’s part of the reason I had such issues with becoming an angel in the first place. I also think it's kind of offensive to the living, the idea that life should be defined by such misery, at least by me. And my way out was by ending it. I mean, that’s not what I intended to do, but it’s what happened. Does the fact that I finally achieved fulfillment in existence with the end of my life lived condone the idea that life is only a temporary existence and that the afterlife is what you really need to strive for?

Then I remember what God said to me, that the true reward is the challenge of creating the positive existence for yourself without everything being handed to you. I felt like my life was terrible because nothing was handed to me. And sometimes that makes me wonder, does being given nothing actually mean you’re being given everything to achieve happiness?, And maybe I wasn’t up for it?

Sometimes I think “My life so much better now.” And then I remember, oh wait, I’m fuckin’ dead. Don’t get me wrong, I really love being an angel, and sometimes I can look at it like I just got a new job and changed locations. I found a career I love. And what’s wrong with that? I asked Marley about this the other day, and she said “Death was my drug rehab,” and she seems okay with that. Maybe I’m just over thinking this, and that’s what really got me in trouble down there in the first place.

I also asked Sashial about this too. She said “You’re such a fucking idiot.”

Naturally, I answered, “I love you too.”

Oh, Are We Fighting? Sorry, Didn't Notice

2011-04-26T20:54:00.000-07:00

The White Sox are in town, so Suzanne came in and she, Marley and I went out to dinner the other day.

"The thing I love about New York," Suzanne said, "is how everyone has such an attitude."

That confused me. "You love that about New York?"

"Oh yeah! It's a swagger. Like confidence. You think you're all so superior."

Still not getting it. "Again, this is the thing you like?"

"Totally! There's no hatred! Everyone has this idea about New York, like you look down on everyone."

"Well, we kinda do," I had to admit.

"Yes," she said, "but not in a bad way. Everyone else has this us against them mentality. They see New York as the enemy. Like, people in Chicago, we have this attitude that we're the best of both worlds, because we're a major city in the mid-west. We combine the pure, old-fashioned, rootsy heartland American ideals with modern, industrialized city life. But we have this bitterness that we don't get credit for that because we're still not as big and recognized as New York City. Chicagoans pretty much hate New York. But let me ask you this, what's you're opinion of Chicago?"

"Well, I like you."

She laughed. "Oh, you are SO sweet! But seriously, not what you think of me, what you think of the city of Chicago."

I though for a second and said, "It's alright, I guess. I don't know, I don't really think about it."

"Exactly! This rivalry, this hatred, it doesn't really exist on your end, it's not something that matters to you. It's a much bigger deal to us, we're the ones who are, like, all negative. You know, there's a lot of hatred in this world. So much of it comes from people being just, like, insecure. If more people had faith in themselves, maybe there'd be less pain everywhere."

Then Marley said, "And that's where the angels come in. Partly, anyway."

Suzanne nodded. "Yeah. I just hope I can help enough people see that."

"You can see it's a problem," said Marley. "That's what makes you a good angel, that's why you'll help plenty of people."

Suzanne smiled and looked like she was gonna cry for a second. But collectedly, she looked at me and said, "I love this girl."

Who wouldn't?

Angels In The ISI

2011-04-12T20:18:00.000-07:00

Inspiration comes from many forms and sources. There's positive ones, like simple joy: maybe things are going well, you feel refreshed and energetic. You're at your best, most productive, and whatever line you're in, your work is not a chore because you're bringing a positive energy to what you do. The less you feel like you're actually laboring, the easier it is to labor. In some ways, it seems a little unfair, because you're not really conscious of how effective you're being. That's why it's better to just let it happen, look back later, and who knows, you might end up surprising yourself with what you've done.

Or, and some would argue this is the more likely scenario, you're in a negative place and your labor is your escape. Now, I'm not just talking about art; many will assume this falls into the whole "true art comes from pain" bullshit that leads to pseudo-intellectual self-aggrandizing critical ramblings and rationals to engage in over-indulgence. But how often do you also hear about people throwing themselves into their jobs because their personal lives are in shambles? In some respects, artistic creativity and corporate business diligence are not all that different. People from all walks of life need a distraction, whether it's a work or at home.

This begs the question, why does everyone need to be distracted? If a human's natural state is the very thing they need to escape from, what does that say about the purpose of human existence? If someone is having a good life, we often say they're "living the dream." And there's the problem. Maybe happiness shouldn't be the dream, maybe it should be the standard.

The issue there is, without a goal, with nothing to strive for, humans are never truly happy. I've talked about this before, it's aiding in the journey towards joy and self-fulfillment that drives the angels' existence. So are we actually positive or negative? We're like emotional medication, but, are we the curing indication found within or unfortunate side-effects listed on the label?

Either way, doing it makes me happy, god knows my job on Earth didn't make me feel this way, or anything for that matter. I was going to ask Marley what she thought, but pontificating on a drug metaphor is probably not what you want to ask of a former heroin addict. I asked Lira, and she said, "Do you honestly believe if there was a concrete answer, I would tell you?"

"No, you'd tell me to figure it out for myself or I'd never learn anything."

"Good boy. Keep it going, I have faith that your IQ will hit the century mark someday."

I coughed a sarcastic laugh, "Thanks for believing in me."

"No problem. Take eternity if you have to. And you probably will."

You've got to love her.

That's Not Quite How Michael Kay Would Phrase It

2011-04-04T20:39:00.000-07:00

"Burnett's a question mark," said Sashial. "He's a fucking mental case. The Yankees need him to live up to his talent, he's never gonna do that if he doesn't learn to grow the fuck up and stop being a emotional little bitch."

I said, "That's funny, I heard one of the sportswriters from the New York Times say the same thing on ESPN." She laughed. "Get the fuck out of here, you wiseass!"

"You know, you're sounding more human every day."

She didn't seem to like that. "What the fuck are you talking about? I'm a fucking archangel."

"Yes, but when I met you, you seemed pretty down on the whole human race."

"Bullshit," she answered, "I always had love for you, you know that."

"Oh, nobody knows that better than me," I said, "but you still had a sincere contempt for what we did, it was like you were trying to rescue us from ourselves. I couldn't tell if we did a single thing you found worthy of your attention other than reveal our shortcomings. Look at you now. You love baseball. I know it started because you love heckling from the stands, but you're even talking statistics now, in your own way of course. You've taken enough interest in a human recreational activity to absorb a level of expertise. You would have never done that a year or two ago."

"How the fuck do you know that? Remember, Lira and I were in your head, not the other way around. You've gotten to know us really well over the past couple years, but there's a complexity to us you still couldn't imagine."

"So I'm wrong?" I asked.

She exhaled and tilted her head. "Not exactly. We were created for a specific purpose like the archangels, but we were also fitted to be adaptable. We can develop feelings and interests. Humans are constantly adapting too, I'm sure you know that. Their interests come and go with the generations, much shorter even. These things you think of as fads, we're not immune to them. We've seen so many things come and go, you saw dozens in your lifetime, imagine how many we've seen? It's a constant reminder that the human lifespan is so fleeting, these things define your era. To me, it's like they're gone in a heartbeat. Kind of like humans."

"What does it matter?" I asked. "When their life ends, they end up here."

"Oh FUCK, sometimes I really think you'll never fucking get it. Our goal is to enhance the living existence, to aid the challenge of that, and it goes by so quickly that if you blink and miss it, someone has a miserable life. Overcoming sorrow and desperation in your lifetime is the true reward, not playing video games and eating peanut fucking butter and chocolate cookies for eternity."

"Don't be hattin' on my Tagalongs," I said. "And I do get it. Well, I'm getting it."

She smiled. "I know you are, sweetie. Remember, angels go on for hundreds, maybe thousands of years. You've only been one for a few years. You've got plenty of time to learn."

"You're right. So, you think the Red Sox are really the favorites to win the division?"

She chortled and shook her head. "Fuck them."

How Does He Know? Is He Dead? If He Was, He Wouldn't Be Here

2011-03-14T21:32:00.001-07:00

This Glen Beck guy kind of makes me glad I'm dead. I listen to him and think that I wouldn't want to live in a world with that guy, much less one that's raised him to the level of celebrity. I also think that people take him seriously and realize how many people need to be saved.

Then again, it's not my job to save them from what isn't my idea of sensible ideology. Angels are not politicians, personal philosophy is something you have to figure out on your own. Intervening via divine intervention is actually against what we stand for, just like what Michael said to us in angel training class when he was talking about the "events" of the Bible.

But when a guy like that points to a horribly tragic natural disaster and says it may be a message from God, that's just wrong. First of all, he's never met God. Second of all, I have. He's a creator, he doesn't like to intervene, and when he does, he doesn't do it like that.

My own theory is that Glen Beck's entire existence is a message from Satan. He's saying "I exist. How else could you explain this crying buffoon?"

That Hole In The Wall Could Have Been Your Face

2011-01-31T19:46:00.000-08:00

It's hard sometimes. You know, when I first became an angel, I think I considered the campaign against sorrow to be my mission. Anyone whose heard what I've been saying for a while knows that I've discovered anger to be an equally prevalent force in the destruction of man's complacency. I think when I died I didn't realize how much a rival to sorrow anger was in the basics of the angel's job because I never realized how angry I was, I only knew I was sad. I don't think my anger prevented me from working my sorrow out, but there was something more subconscious about it that just ate away at me without me knowing it. I think I was just in denial. When you consider yourself sad, you feel more like a victim than if you're angry, something about the visceral force of anger that makes you feel more like an aggressor. You feel less worthy of receiving help, and if you feel that way, chances are you won't get it.

A recent subject, Hershel, recently got into a confrontation with someone he knows, someone he didn't know very long but got along quite well with and considered a friend. "I just keep picturing him in my face, ranting and raving like some kind of fucking insane lunatic. Only he's not insane, he was just hurtful. Fucking ruined Christmas time for me. Every time I picture it I just want to break something, punch a wall, I don't know, shoot a pillow like De Niro did in that movie. And you know what sucks? You know why I hardly spoke back? Because I didn't want to cause a fucking scene."

And there you go again with the rewards of virtue. The high road is lined with the bodies of the malcontents, people who proved they were better and got paid in abuse in return for their honor. What the fuck is wrong with this planet that people do this to each other?

At first, this is why I didn't think I could be an angel, and later, why I knew I had to be. If I'm not around to feed my subject the basic, "Imagine how petty, tiny and insecure that person must be to treat other people like that, how sad their life must be," stock line, then who else will show the kind hearted yet angry, that they're lamb and not the lion? Or that the pathetic belligerent one is not the one who stews in rage but the one who releases it towards the unfair target because they're too pathetic and ugly to know what's right and what's wrong?

Well, Herschel seemed to feel better. God knows I do.

Never Give Up, Never Surrender!

2010-12-06T19:38:00.000-08:00

Lira said something to me the other day that really made me think. "How can you stand it?"

"What?" I asked.

"These people and their problems," she said. "So many people never get any better. Even if you help them through a crisis, there might be another one coming soon. Did you ever think that you're doing this all for nothing?"

"Do you?"

"Hey, pay attention, we're not talking about me. I'm asking you a question, I'll put it in writing if it'll help you figure out what your own thoughts mean."

"OK, OK, ease up," I said. "Well, this one guy, he's got a bit of a confidence problem, it makes it hard for him to act. Just about every few weeks he's moaning over something he didn't do, a chance he may have missed."

Lira sneered. "Life's full of regrets."

"Yeah, but it's easier to regret something you did than something you didn't do. He feels like he can't change his life until he changes who he is. Change like that doesn't come easy. You can't just flip a switch and suddenly have the confidence to act, talk to a stranger, take a chance with something, especially when there's no guarantee the outcome will be any different."

"So again, why do it?"

"Because if he abandons hope, I have to have hope for him. Even if he gives up. If I never give up, he'll still have a chance to find happiness, no matter how much he believes it won't happen."

Lira smiled. "That's a good answer. You know, if I'd asked you that a year ago, you probably wouldn't have known. You were more about saving people from the hurt you felt when you were alive. Now you're starting to develop the wisdom of how divine intervention works."

I wasn't leaving that alone. "I'm sorry, did you just say I had wisdom?"

"Don't let it get to your head, you idiot. You can answer one question out of fifty and you still fail the test miserably."

"Glad to see you're not going soft on me," I said. "Now tell me this. How do you deal with people who won't get better?"

"I'm not human."

"Neither am I."

"Yes, but you were, dunce" she said. "I never was, I don't have to deal with issues like that. I am as I am."

True. She's not human. Sometimes I forget that.

Sorrow Vs Anger, Rounds Seven Through Twelve

2010-11-15T20:20:00.000-08:00

Now take what happened to Tom a few weeks later. He's divorced for quite some time, but he married young and never really got the hang of meeting people and dating. "I saw this girl on the subway, right? She's cute, I even took a seat across from her just to get a good look. And during the ride, I notice a bunch of times that she's looking at me. At one point, I even looked up and down a bunch of times in a row and she was looking at me every time. And I did nothing. I'm not a forward guy, I'm not Mr Pickup Artist, hookin' up with girls on the subway. But dude, she was fuckin' checkin' me out! It wouldn't have taken much to just give myself a chance. Just say 'Hi.' Hell, just wave! Hell, just fucking smile! Fuckin' do something! Maybe you won't fucking die alone, 'cause if I keep doing nothing, that's what it feels like is going to happen."

Now, I'd originally thought that this is where sorrow trumps anger, because this is what Tom has to live with. It's not a burst of emotion, he's walking around with the knowledge that he failed to act and it may have cost him something. Whether it really did or not is not really the issue. That's the point; he doesn't know what trying to connect with this girl would have led to, and he never will. Better to try and be rejected than always wonder how your life might have turned out if only you'd captured the moment.

This kind of sorrow eats away at you. Anger's got nothing on that. But then I thought about Tom's tone when he told the story. He was indignant, almost spitting the worlds out. At who? At the girl? No, of course not, she didn't do anything wrong. Tom's anger is directed towards himself. That's not the revelation, that much is pretty obvious. But how is sorrow defined? If you think in terms of Tom, sorrow is really an inverted form of anger. If someone stole something precious from you, you'd resent them for it. Tom resents himself, and people who do generally have two reactions: acting out or acting in. Instead of taking things out on those around him, he turns it inward and responds by not allowing himself to be happy, sinking his emotional state to a low ebb that seems hard to escape.

So that's sorrow, and that's anger. So what the hell was up with that guy in the supermarket? Maybe in that case I'm mistaking anger for rage. Fuck, negative emotions are definitely not concrete. You didn't think being an angel was easy, did you? Well, maybe for Marley it is, but for reformed misanthropes like myself, there is a bit of labor involved.

Sorrow Vs Anger, Rounds One Through Six

2010-11-09T19:28:00.000-08:00

God, it's been crazy lately. Approaching our "on" season. It always gets busier in winter, you know, seasonal affective disorder and all. And now baseball season is over, and as you can imagine, Sashial and I were pretty unhappy about what happened to the Yankees. Lira's response was pretty much in character. "Maybe you two will actually stop worrying about a bunch of euphoric millionaires and get back to actually helping people who need it."

"At least I'm fucking passionate about something," said Sashial.

I chimed in with, "And you know I've been working my ass off, once the weather broke the depression was overwhelming."

Lira smiled, "Baby, it's been well over a year now, the fact that you still can't tell when I'm not serious is so sweet in its imbecility."

"Oh I know when you're kidding," I said, "and I'd laugh it off but I know sharing belligerence is what you live for."

Sashial grabbed my neck and shook me. "I fucking love this guy."

Speaking of belligerence, this kind of leads to a question I've been wondering lately: which is worse, living with anger or sorrow? My first thought was sorrow because that's been my experience, but when I thought deeper I wasn't so sure. Then I tried to think of what was typical. One recent job I had was this guy who was seething with rage, all because some douchebag in the supermarket cut in front of him when they opened up a new lane and then claimed he was letting him go first and got all self-righteous about it, starting in with, "Oh, Jeeeeesus, I mean GOD!"

"Real fucking condescending crybaby shit," my subject told me. We'll call him Tom. "Yeah, he was letting me in, that's why he ran in front of me and got to the line first, that fucking liar, god, when I think about it I just want to find the guy and punch his fucking face in." And Tom's not a violent guy, the guy's attitude just really got under his skin. This kind of crap is pretty easy, you just give them a stock line about how sad the other guy's life must be to pull stupid crap like that, they calm down and by the next they've practically forgotten all about it.

That's the thing about most forms of anger, it's usually an emotional reflex, a short term visceral reaction that's often bigger in your head than it is in real life. The sudden onslaught is like an emotional assault you perpetrate on yourself, that's why the way you see it can be skewed. Especially in this case, because who knows if that guy in the supermarket's intent was malicious or not? It could just be Tom's perception. Why is that? I later had another run in with Tom that shed some light on things. Or so I thought, 'cause it also made me think my theories were a little off. But more on that tomorrow (hopefully).

A Close Brush With . . . Well, Nothing, But Still . . .

2010-09-29T20:34:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I had lunch with Tony and Lira in Manhattan. Not the Heaven version, the actual one, because Lira loves the real anger so much. Afterwards, I showed them around the neighborhood, as we were close to a place I used to live. In full-on visible mode, we were crossing the street when a car coming from the cross street sped up to beat the changing light as it was making a left-hand turn in our direction. Headed straight for us, he swerved to avoid Lira and nearly ran right into me, finally stopping short just inches from me. I instinctively moved away and the fuckin' guy, without a shred of fucking decency, just drove away.

Lira was unfazed, since, after thousands of years, this sort of apathy is what she's come to expect from the human race. Plus, since she was never human, she doesn't know what it's like to be fearful for your life. Technically speaking, she was never alive. No harm, no foul.

But I freaked the fuck out. I stood there, frozen, until Lira took my arm and walked me to the sidewalk, upon which she gave a few reassuring pats on the back. Tony didn't understand what the big deal was. "S'ok, you fine. Ain't like you gonna die again."

This annoyed Lira WAY more than the car did, since she knew exactly what was up. But she forgave the mental oversight and just calmly explained to him, "He was killed by a speeding car."

There were two reasons I was really upset. The first is that, while being an angel in Heaven with the freedom to go wherever and do whatever you want, sometimes it feels like you're just some kind of magical entity. You can forget what you truly are, which is dead. Call me reminded.

The second and even bigger thing is that, when I was killed, I was struck without warning and died instantly. I didn't even know I was dead until Archangel Michael showed me my body. This, I saw coming. It was like experiencing the terror of having your life about to come to an end that I never felt when it actually ended. It was scary, and I didn't like it. I hated that feeling of vulnerability. It's been over a year since I died and the first time I felt that way since then. It made me think about the physical and emotional fragility of humans. If the trauma's big enough, even the toughest person can fall apart just like that.

"You ok?" asked Lira.

I nodded. "I'll be fine."

"You wanna go back to Heaven?"

"No," I said, "I want to go back to work."

The Humidity's A Hair Over 40%, But What The Hell?

2010-09-20T20:25:00.000-07:00

I went out to lunch with Tony and Suzanne the other day. We went to one of my favorite places down on Earth. I though I'd go with Earth instead of the Heaven counter part that day because the weather was particularly nice. We could have the same conditions up in Heaven of course, even better if we chose to. But sometimes, there's something about nice, genuine Earth weather that seems a little sweeter. It's the same as with anything on Earth: the things you earn are better than the things you're given. Maybe the weather is not your own accomplishment, but it seems all the more special.

It was the first time the three of us had hung out together in a while and it couldn't have come at a better time. In the past week, I'd dealt with a widower, a drug addict doing some serious jonesing and a rape victim (female angels usually handle those, but they were all booked up). It was an emotional draining week, I really needed some extra joy. I can't tell you how rewarding this job is, but there are times when sharing so much despair can get you down. Even dead, it's still good to have friends.

When I found out I'd made a mistake by shutting my friends out after my fiancee left, I was understandably despondent (especially the way I found out). Who knows, maybe I wouldn't be dead right now. But I am, I've learned from my mistakes, and the afterlife is going well (having what you want doesn't guarantee joy after all).

I feel ashamed of a lot of the things I said about Suzanne in the beginning. Thank god angels are forgiving.

The Only Thing I'm Sort Of Good At, Is Referrals

2010-08-23T19:38:00.001-07:00

We all know about the dangers of alcohol, but when they show you those movies and afterschool specials where a few beers destroy entire families (anyone remember The Last Prom?), you never see the subtleties, the minor issues that can blow up when a touch of alcohol boosts the emotional potency of a given situation. It may not destroy a life, but it can make tough to live with it.

Take Marshall here. Marshall is single and lonely, like many of my subjects are. "I'm out with some friends and I meet this girl," he said. "Friend of a friend. We seem to be hitting it off, but then she starts talking about this other girl, talking her up like she wants to set me up with her. I don't like blind set-ups, so I'm waiting for her to finish so I can politely talk my way out of it, and she finishes with, 'and she just moved here and she's looking to meet someone and you seem like a nice guy who's fun and into a lot of interesting things, so, do you know anyone who might be interested?'"

"Seriously? Maybe that was her way of implying that person was you."

"No, you should have seen the sincerity in her face. And I was just dumbfounded, so she breaks the silence with, 'I mean, can you think of anyone?' And I just didn't know how to respond, and she says, 'I'm sorry, are you insulted?' And I said, 'Little bit, yeah.' And she genuinely had no idea why. I mean, it was one of the most humiliating moments of my entire life and she just has no clue why I might find that degrading. So I just say, 'Well how do you know I wouldn't want to meet her?'"

"What did she say?" I asked.

"Well, during the whole pitch she did mention that the girl was Asian, and she just assumed I wouldn't be interested in dating an Asian girl. She said she didn't know if I was open-minded like that."

"Well, there's your answer, dude. She didn't mean anything by it, she wasn't implying you were unworthy or anything, she just didn't know."

"Well, I guess I can see that now." he said. "At the time it didn't seem like the strongest explanation. I was just so mortified."

"So what happened with her?" I asked.

"The conversation pretty much ended there. After that whole thing it was like, I felt so small I couldn't even talk to her. I think maybe I overreacted. I can get emotional when I drink."

How do you tell someone to prepare for something like this in the future? There's pretty much no way, except to tell them not to drink. I doubt this incident is going to make Marshall give up alcohol, but what do you say? Give them a card that says, "Your judgement is impaired, this situation may not be what you think it is," and say, "Read this when you're drunk and upset?" Doubt that works. All I can do is give a reassuring, "Doesn't matter. You're obviously meeting people. You'll meet others."

Will he? I don't know. It's not my job to know. It's my job to convince him he will, because if he doesn't think it, he probably won't. Holy fuck, dating. Glad that's over.

Drop That Lobster Roll And Pass Me A Bagel!

2010-08-09T20:06:00.000-07:00

Went to another Yankee game with Sashial yesterday. Thus was a big one, cause it was against Boston. She felt the raised excitement and tension level, and so I had to explain the history of the rivalry. "So it gets pretty heated?" she asked.

"Sometimes," I said. " depends on the person. This one girl from Boston I know, after they Yanks won the series one year, she congratulated me. Then this other one, really nice girl, very cool, but when I told her I liked the city of Boston, she wouldn't believe me. She said I couldn't because I'm a Yankee fan."

"What's one thing got to do with another?"

"That's what I asked. She said the city and the team are connected. I was like, 'Well I was there and I felt joy, I don't know what to tell you.' Then I told this to another girl from Boston, and she said she didn't buy that, because she's a Boston fan and she likes new York City. So I told the first girl this and she said it's not the same because Boston's smaller."

Sashial looked confused and annoyed. "Smaller? Are you fucking kidding me? Like the team is a bigger part of the city because there's less of it?"

"I guess."

"What bullshit. You realize what she's actually saying, right? She's saying she forbids you to like Boston, because as a Yankee fan she feels you're unworthy of liking her fucking town. Is this someone you worked with?"

"Yeah."

"So she worked in New York city. Did she live here too?"

"Yep. Still does as far as I know."

"So she owes her fucking home and livelihood to your city. Basically, she's allowed to like your city but you're not allowed to like hers. That's pretty fucking convenient for her. You know, some people might tell her how hypocritical that is, and say, "Doesn't work that way, this isn't a one way street. If this is the way you feel about teams and geography you should be true to yourself and get the fuck out of my city."

I smirked as I shook my head. "I'm too nice to say something like that."

"I know you are, baby."

"How do you help someone like that?" I asked.

"Same as you do everyone else. It's not you job to help her fucking grow up. Just to be there if she needs you."

My Maid's On Vacation, Don't Step On The Needles

2010-08-02T09:56:00.000-07:00

Marley's ability isn't quite as omniscient as telekinesis but sometimes it might as well be. This guy I'm working on, his depression over his breakup is getting pretty bad (he was with the girl for five years, after all). He was putting on a pretty brave face while he was at work, although he's not as upbeat as I understand he used to be, and he couldn't help sounding down on monday when people asked him how his weekend was. He tried to be lighthearted about it, often answering the question with, "Well, Cathy and I were going to see Inception but we broke up instead." As an angel, you see this a lot; the subject makes sure he doesn't become a downer to his friends, but his pain always comes through nonetheless. It's rough, you do your best to keep from alienating people, and at the same time you isolate yourself. Makes recovery tough.

Basic procedure is to observe the subject at home and look for signs of the true severity when their barriers are down. Sometimes it's really hard because they're not interacting with anyone, but the minute I saw his apartment, I knew this was bad. They broke up on a friday, and I started the job the following monday. In the space of just a weekend, the place turned into a disaster. Laundry was all over the floor and couch, plates and silverware with remnants of food were piled up and festering in the sink, and he was even taking garbage and tossing it on the floor rather than walk the necessary ten feet to the garbage can.

I was telling Marley about this, and she said, "And what did you think?"

"What did I think? I though he's just given up."

"No, there's something else, something you're afraid to tell me, like it'll hurt my feelings."

"Well, um," I mumbled, "I just, I saw this movie once where this, ah, drug addict was, like, all strung out and staying in this room that had, like, garbage and shit everywhere. And I thought, 'Fuck, it looks like a junkie lives here.'"

She nodded. "It's ok, I'm not offended. I actually kept my place pretty clean. I know you saw what it looked like when we saw my body, but that's because of what my boyfriend did."

"Well, like you said, I didn't want to hurt your feelings."

She smiled. "And that's why you do what you do."

Margaret O'Flannery Ruined My LIfe

2010-07-21T20:03:00.000-07:00

I've been an angel for about a year now, and over that time I've noticed some patterns emerge. I've talked about a few of them already, like the spike in depression over Valentine's Day and the sorrow drowning excuse that St Patrick's day provides. Now I've got some categories, and one that's especially prevalent in New York City is men age forty. It sounds like a demographic but what it really is is a trigger. Lots of men who hit forty feel like their god damn lives are over, like anything they haven't achieved to that point will never happen. This happens with both professional and personal goals. When I noticed this, I said to Archangel Michael, "We should form divisions, like have a Job Frustration Department and a Turning Forty Department."

"Oh, We tried that about 400 years ago. It was too structured, the angels didn't like visiting the same issues over and over again."

Makes sense. Nevertheless, my latest job can go in the Men Age Forty file. Ron, we'll call him, is forty, single, and lamenting a lost love. "I hadn't thought about her in years," he said, "then this guy at work asked me who I'd rather be with, a girl who's smart and ugly or hot and stupid. Right away I said, 'hot and stupid.' Then that reminded me of a girl I dated a few years after college. She was blond and beautiful, but she was also a summa cum laude at Columbia University."

"Brains and beauty," I said.

"Exactly. Great girl. She was perfect. But she was actually still in school at the time. She got a B on a paper and acted like it was my fault, like it was because she was spending too much time with me. Then I lost my job. It was a horrible job and it turned out to be a blessing, but at the time, I don't know. I was unemployed when I met her and she didn't care. But after a few months . . . I don't know, maybe she thought if her work was suffering, then it wasn't worth it to be with some unemployed shlub.

"You broke up?"

"Yeah, she dumped me. It was years ago, but I don't know. I'm still single, what if I was like, meant to be with her, and it got screwed up somehow, so now there's no one for me. You know what I mean?"

"That's an interesting theory," I said. "Don't think I buy it though. If there really was fate and destiny, we wouldn't have control over our futures. Look at it this way, if you had a destiny, it would have to come from somewhere, like from God, or some kind of supreme being. Do you think God would be so cruel as to condemn you to a life of misery because of some bad luck that happened fifteen years ago?"

"I guess not." He took a long pause and said, "If there is a God."

So his current state still left him with doubts about both himself and universe. Life can be hard on faith. But at least what I told him gave him hope that his soul mate was still out there somewhere. Michael told me there was no fate, so I felt good that my words were true. Then again, his problem made me feel relieved that I had someone to go home to. Is that ok?

Forget Tony Danza, He's The Boss. And Fuck Bruce Springsteen Too

2010-07-14T09:21:00.000-07:00

When I was a kid growing up in New York, local TV station WPIX channel 11 was know for five things: local news, old movies, reruns, after school cartoons, and of course, Yankee games. I would come home after after school, watch cartoons and see the ads for the games, and before long I started watching. That's how I became a Yankee fan. Mom and dad were Met fans and I later became the black sheep of the family. But it was their fault. They didn't watch baseball when I was was kid. They had their chance and they blew it. It was a great move on their part though; for all the things I had in my life to be miserable about, their indifference saved me from the sorrow of becoming a Met fan. Thanks mom and dad!

And so it saddens me to learn of George Steinbrenner's passing. I'm hoping I'll get the chance to meet him soon, though I'm sure there's millions of people waiting for their chance, so better let it wait.

"You're an angel," said Sashial. "You ought to go first."

"Doesn't make me better than any other fan," I said. "It wouldn't be fair."

She patted my cheek. "You're such a sweetheart."

Some might say he's actually going to Hell, but trust me, he's here. As tough as he was on people, his drive to win truly brought joy to millions of people. I'm not saying a little colateral damage is ok, but life is balance and you can never please anyone. How many people have you pissed off over your lifetime? I'm betting the ratio holds pretty close.

His drive and guidance brought seven championships. I didn't see all of them, in fact I waited most of lifetime to that point until I saw one, but in a lifetime of misery and dissapointment, to be responsible for one thing gone right that brought emotional euphoria to my life (or five things if you want to look at it that way), I will be eternally grateful. And don't tell me the 90's championships were set up when he was banned from baseball; those were the seeds, and he came back in 1993 and put the final pieces in place.

The Yankees announcer Bob Sheppard died this week too. "You think he announced George's arrival?" I asked Marley. "'Now dying . . . The Boss . . . George . . . Steinbrenner.'"

She gave me an amused smirk with a hint of surprise. "That's kind of morbid."

"Well I am dead," I said. "And you know I already had a morbid sense of humor.'"

She said, "I'm dead too, I don't mind. And I know this saddens you. I think the humor helps."

She always knows.

Goin' Back To Cali, I Know So

2010-07-11T14:49:00.000-07:00

Sashial wanted me to thank everyone who voted for Nick Swisher. As you can imagine, she's absolutely thrilled that he won the vote to become an All-Star.

"So where are we watching the game?" she asked.

"Let's go to Anaheim," I said. "It's an American League town, I think it'll nice to actually be cheering with crowd this time."

"Fuckin' A, let's rock that place! And I'm impressed with you too, wanting to embrace instead of hate."

"You think there might be hope for me after all?"

"I always knew there was hope for you, and you made the team. But now you're turning into an All-Star." She had kind of a proud glow when she said that.

"You goin' soft on me?" I asked.

"Shut the fuck up and get to work. There's a guy who just found out his crush is getting married."

"On it." Gotta run.

Swishalicious IS A Word. Because She Said So, That's Why.

2010-07-06T19:35:00.000-07:00

"Sometimes it fucking sucks to be good." Not a surprising sentence coming from Sashial, but it still begged an explanation.

"You're not thinking of doing something bad, are you?" I asked, with confidence but caution.

She smirked and shook her head. "Don't be stupid, of course not. It just makes me mad. You know who my favorite Yankee is, don't you?"

Without taking a beat, I said, "Nick Swisher."

"Good boy. Now that he's in this final vote to make the All-Star team, it started me thinking. You can vote as many times as you want. If I wanted to, I could just create a computer and ring up a jillion votes. I could do it with a thought."

"And you're worried about the temptation?" I asked.

"Are you even fucking listening to me? No! The very idea of that is sickening. To bend the limits of fairness, how fucking greedy do you have to be? And some people live their lives that way. I just hate to think about it, you know?"

I know. Please vote for Nick Swisher. This is Sashial in a good mood. You don't want to see her angry.

VOTE NOW

TIM, SHUT THE FUCK UP!!!

2010-06-28T08:42:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I found Marley staring at the big LCD TV in my living room with a worried look on her face. "Do you like TV more that people?" she asked.

That I did not expect. "What?"

"I mean, is a TV, like, a substitute for a person, or human contact? I've never had my own one."

I saw where she was going with this. "It can be. But not by choice, at least for me it wasn't. When you're lonely it can be a good distraction, or an escape. And sometimes, I don't know, when things are at their worst, the people on tv might be the only ones you see or hear."

She frowned. "That's really sad. Then again, when I think about all that time I spent in that tiny room . . . I mean, I don't want to think about that. Maybe it would have been good to have something to focus on."

"What about your drawings?" I asked.

"That's about all I did," she answered. "But I didn't always have the stuff to do it with."

I tried not to reflect on that too long, so I just asked, "Is this about that guy Suzanne's working on?"

"Yeah. He got the big screen TV last week, now he hardly does anything but watch it and go to work. And of course he'll never meet anyone if that's all he does. She's afraid he's trapping himself."

"Well, I wouldn't panic yet," I assured her. "He just got it, it's brand new, he's gonna go through a period of initial amazement. Tell her to wait it out for a week or two, it should be easier for him to tear himself away from it by then."

"OK. I just he's not too far gone by then."

"He'll be fine. No one can replace human contact with a TV forever. Seeing and hearing people on a screen never is enough. If he starts talking to them, that's when I'd get worried."

"What about when you yell at the announcers when you're watching a game?" she asked.

"Um, that's different."

"How?"

"Just humor me, please?"

Grab Me A Moosehead Between Innings, Eh?

2010-06-09T20:34:00.000-07:00

Last weekend, Sashial asked me, "Don't you ever get tired of seeing the Yankees in New York?"

"Not really."

"Oh yeah, Mr. Ethno-fucking-centric. I think we should branch out."

"We did that," I reminded her. "In Anaheim. It was sickening."

"That was the fucking playoffs," she snapped back. "That was tense. For fuck's sake, let's just go to a fucking game!"

As much as I maintain my New York City arrogance and prefer not to leave, I do enjoy traveling every once in a while, especially to places I've never been. "They've got a series against the Blue Jays."

"Then let's go to Toronto!"

Unfortunately, the Yankees lost the game we went to on an extra-inning walk-off base hit. Sure, it's not the playoffs, but I tend to intensify everything emotionally. On the one hand, that's what makes me a good angel. On the other, for things like this which should be insignificant can seem like the end of the world. Every time the Yankees lose, I think it's the beginning of a downward spiral that will lead to complete and total failure. I must have thought that forty times last year and they won the damn World Series. It's no wonder I spent my lifetime in misery.

But at that moment, it was hard to see my overreacting anxiety from the outside. "Listen to them cheering," I said with a healthy dose of venom. Then I lightened up and added, "I mean come on, what do they really have to get excited about? They're still just Canadians."

It'd been a while since I'd seen Sashial that mad. "HOW the fuck could you say something like that? That's ignorant, prejudice bullshit! Can you really be that fucking vain to degrade an entire country?"

I defended myself with the calm that comes from familiarity. "Sashial, it's just a joke. Canada's kind of like our little brother to the north. We Americans may take a jab at them every now and then, but it's only because, on sort of a global scale, they're kind of like family." One such Canadian who overheard that gave me a little smile and nod before walking off.

Sashial put her hand on my my neck. "Yeah, I figured it was something like that, honey. I know you well enough to know you don't have ignorant hatred like that." Then she held my head in her hands, gave me a gentle shake, and with a smirk, said, "Just don't ever fuckin' do it again," and still smiling, gave me a light but firm upward slap on the side of the face.

I said, "See? I'm like your Canada."

She thought for a second, grinned and said, "Fuck. You always have to be right, don't you?"

Well, Since Your Life Sucked . . .

2010-06-01T20:33:00.000-07:00

Much to my surprise, I got a call from Suzanne the other day, saying she wanted to pick my brain about something. She asked me to meet her at this place called the Prairie Grass Cafe in Chicago. "I know you love burgers," she said, "I'm telling you, BEST in the state!" Not that I needed much prodding to help a friend, but it was clear she knew how to guarantee my participation.

"So this guy I'm working on," she said, "I'm having trouble helping him, because he doesn't seem to want it. It's like he doesn't care, like he's given up."

"What's his problem?" I asked.

"Well, he's in his early forties and he's, like, you know, single. And he's all, 'I'm past the point of no return, I missed my chance, how can I find anyone, how's it gonna happen, I'm gonna live alone for the rest of my life.' He even bought this huge hi def big screen tv he can barely afford. I asked him why, and he's like, 'Well if I'm not gonna get pleasure from anything else in life I might as well have a great tv, I'm here all alone watching tv most of the time anyway, might as well make it the best experience I can.' It's so sad. It's like he's too bitter to even try anymore."

I knew where she was going with this. "So you need the advice of someone else who was just as bitter."

She seemed ashamed of the truth, but relieved she didn't have to come out and say it. "What would you say?"

"Well, he's not gonna respond to basic words of encouragement, like, 'Oh, I'm sure there's someone out there,' or, 'It'll be there when you least expect it.' It's gonna sound like an empty promise, or since he's like forty already, he'll think if that was true, it would have happened by now. You're better off doing this anecdotally, stories of people it worked out for. That'll make him more likely to think that it's actually possible. It's worth a shot."

She smiled. "I'll give that a try. It's a start at least. Oh, THANKS! How's the burger?"

I shook my head with delight. "Outstanding."

I Don't Think I Want To Work At Douchebags 'R Us Anyway

2010-05-25T20:27:00.000-07:00

Had a really simple job today; just a guy who had a job interview that didn't go well. We'll call him Ken. So Ken ends up in a bar, drowning the sorrows, or at least holding their heads down in the water long enough to scare the fuck out of them. I think that sounds like a more appropriate metaphor anyway. You can never kill your sorrow completely, just contain it, hold it off or drive it away. Think of every beer as one head dunk, like in the war movie torture scenes. And be reasonable, because if you do it too often, you'll become a monster.

Anyway, that's a nice segway, because he described the interview like it was torture. No questions about his experience or skill, just a lot of figurative stress questions, scenarios he had trouble speaking to because they didn't really relate to his his experience. "Give an example of how you handled a project going awry because of an internal mistake."

"He wasn't being very specific," said Ken, who writes for a travel magazine. "And every time I would try to answer, like, 'Well, one time a tourism company wouldn't approve the fact check on a coverage article by press time-"

"No, I mean something internally."

"We just don't have issues like that. We sit and write. And every time I tried to think of something, he'd go, 'No, that's not the sort of thing I mean.'"

"Look at it this way," I said, "Would you want to work for someone like that?"

"Actually, no. I'm just really unhappy where I am."

"Yeah, that happens. But that doesn't mean everywhere else you go, it's gonna be better. You're better off holding out for a better opportunity then working for that fucktard."

"Yeah, I guess so," he said, not a hundred percent sure, but at least in a better place than when I found him. I still felt bad for the guy. Not everyone can have a dream job like I do.

Enemies: A Functioning Mutual Respect Story

2010-05-02T16:09:00.000-07:00

Sashial and I went to see the bombers today for the first time this year. It was against Chicago, so Suzanne came with us too. I made sure to sit between them because I was afraid Suzanne would agitate Sashial. Sashial doesn't really hate anyone per se, but I think Suzanne's bubbly demeanor is the sort of thing she'd avoid if given the choice. When Suzanne showed up wearing a Chicago shirt, Sashial looked a little annoyed. "Isn't it insulting for her to walk into our house with that on?"

She was still learning ballgame etiquette. "Not if it's for the guys we're playing. If you're just supporting your team it's ok. Wearing rival colors for no reason is out of line."

Later on, Sashial kind of turned the tables on me when they made the safety announcement. At the beginning of every game, they give a warning that sections close to the field may susceptible to balls and various equipment flying into the stands, so stay alert. I said to Sashial, "If I made that announcement, it would say, 'If you have enough money to be sitting in a section close enough to be hit with a ball, then screw you, you probably deserve to get plunked in the fucking head every once in a while you rich motherfucker.'"

She wasn't laughing. "That's a fucking horrible thing to say. Having money or a better seat doesn't make you any more or less worthy of existing without misfortune, you know that." I told her she was right and apologised, and just then Chicago made a strong defensive play that got a cheer out of Suzanne. Sashial leaned in and asked, "Is she gonna fucking do that the whole time?"

"Well, she is from Chicago," I said, "it's her prerogative."

She shook her head. "Fuckin' 'ell."

Turned out it wasn't much of an issue because the bombers went on to destroy Chicago in a big time blowout. The big surprise was at the end, when Sashial, buzzing from the victory, said to Suzanne, "You should come with us next time!" When I gave her a confused look, she said, "What? She brought us luck!" Well, Suzanne is an angel, after all.

Regulars

2010-04-27T19:41:00.000-07:00

I've talked before about cycles, or loops or traps or whatever you want to call them. I'm talking about situations that beget an emotional attitude, specifically sorrow, because , obviously, that's my business. Going further, sorrow often has the outward effect of the dour personality. Now, if someone is depressed, he might become a depressing person. And here's the kick: people may not want to be around him, because he's fucking depressing. But he obviously doesn't want to be, but he can't get happy because nobody wants to be around him. See the trap?

A fellow, we'll call him Gerald, got a new job. Now, he's a person who's generally well liked in his office. But when they threw a send off for him, he grew a little despondent because of the low turnout. One of his coworkers had to going around "reminding," or to be more honest, guilting people, to go swing by. I was there in spirit mode, and even I could read the look on his face. It was mix of sorrow and bewilderment, as if he thinking "I don't know why people hate me so much," but had given in to the idea that they did, to the point where he expected it.

Any number of incidents like that can lead people like Gerald to walk around believing no one wants to be around them, to the point where their mood begins to prove them right. They say if you act like a loser, people tend to treat you like a loser. They also say, you wanna be a winner, be a winner, you wanna be a loser, be a loser. A friend of mine in college once said the secret to poularity is to always be in a good mood. Tell that to the guy who never does anything wrong then gets condemned to a life of solitary confinement. He wants to smile. He'd love to. But he can't, like the world won't let him. How you break out of that?

I don't know if you can, or at least I haven't figured it out. All I can do is be around case by case, offering enough assurance to keep them persevering to the next experience. Hope yours is a positive one, Gerald.

Take The Wheel. Seriously, Take It.

2010-04-12T19:12:00.000-07:00

Holy fuck, has it really been this long? Nearly a month since the last update, what can I say? So fucking busy. There's sorrow everywhere. I'm still relativley new to this, so I'm still trying to put the human condition in the proper context. There's a lot of miserable fucks out there; I know, I used to be one of them. There's also a lot of cruel and/or heartless people out there, I think there's no arguement with that. The question is, what begets what? Well maybe not that, more like, does malicious apathy create sadness or exacerbate it? Who has a responsibility to who? Maybe someone's not treating you well. But why is your happiness up to them? Who are you to thrust that role upon them? We think it might come down to simple decency, but the term is way to subjective. One person may just want a simple smile, another may need an open invitation to marry one of your daughters. The point is, you can't really rely on or burden someone else with your own happiness. It's unrealistic and unfair.

But when faced with someone who's approaching despair because of what he perceives to be apathy, I can't just say, "Get over yourself." First off, and we've been through this, everyone has a right to their own pain, and if appreciation is what they value, then we've got to be sensitive to the pain they're in. But how does one alleviate that? You could lie, like your parents may have when you were a kid (they were laughing with you, the girl's probably just mean because she likes you, etc.), but I've found that doesn't really help. It's like ignoring your problems, going to bed and hoping everything'll be gone when you wake up. So in a recent instance of this, I just dealt in truth.

"You know, life isn't about being the most beloved or popular person. That's not what makes us good people. What matters is that you know who you are. When you do, you don't need someone else's validation. You only need yours. Now, that doesn't mean you'll always have it, but if you don't, still remember that you're the one in control. You can affect you. You can always fix it. Those other people are on their own, you can't change them. And if they're not what you need for your happiness, well screw them."

Is it effective? Well don't expect miracles overnight. I can't cure everyone. But I can give them hope. And for most, that's enough.

Inside The Neighbor's Studio (And Not Her Apartment)

2010-03-17T20:45:00.000-07:00

The mind can be your worst enemy, trust me, I know. Little things that one person would never notice can speak volumes to another. Even the person doing whatever it is may never know the significance of what they're doing. Why? Because they're not actually doing anything. The human mind has the cursed gift of bending and transforming a harmless and innocent action into an agonizing attack of malicious intent. That's the torment of creativity, maybe that's why artists are fucking crazy.

Which leads me to St. Patrick's Day (the real one this time). I went to New York on Earth to join in and brought Tony with me. Marley wouldn't go; first of all, she doesn't like crowds, second, the idea being immersed in an environment where everyone is engaged in a destructive vice is a rather unsettling thought for a former heroin addict (we invited Suzanne, but she had her own plans in Chicago).

St. Patrick's isn't an anxiety inducing holiday like Valentine's Day, but it does have its own mystique, in that it's a national excuse to drown your sorrows. I saw a dude by the bar with the textbook signs of hurt on his face, and started a conversation about the game he was watching (lonely people in bars have nothing else to do but watch sports). I turned the conversation in the angel direction, and thanks to the sudsy truth serum, it didn't take much prodding to get his problem out of him (so much easier, St Patrick should be the patron saint of angels).

"There's this girl in my building," he said. "We used to always stop and chat whenever we ran into each other, now she hates me."

"Why?"

"I don't know. But she doesn't really talk to me anymore."

Waited for him to elaborate, but he just drank his beer. "And?"

"And what?"

"That's it? That's hatred?"

"Well wouldn't she want to talk more if she didn't have a problem with me?"

"Who knows?" I said. "There's any number of reasons for something like that. There's only so much you can say by the mailboxes in the lobby, maybe now that you've gotten through the usual, "What's your name, where you from, what do you do?" conversations, it's more complicated to keep the small talk going. What, you like this girl?"

"She's cute, yeah, but I'm not devastated or anything."

"So whats the problem?"

He said, "It would just be nice to be appreciated, you know?"

What do you do with a guy like that? Girl doesn't stop for Twenty Questions and he loses his fucking mind. My talk gave his head some healthier (and more reasonable) explanations that should help him in the here and now, but this sort of thing is likely to recur if he doesn't learn to recognize his anxiety. Gotta tell my old classmates about this bar. Looks like I've found a hot spot.

Happy St. Patrick's Day.

If You Ain't Shit Don't Force It

2010-03-10T19:20:00.001-08:00

So Lee ran into Anna-Nicole again. I'd been following him, so I basically crashed the party they were at and bore witness to the whole thing. He noticed her from across the room, she's easy to spot, with that body and her odd haircut, which has an asymmetrical buzz on one side and chin length on the other. Their paths crossed, and when he tried to issue a greeting, she coldly answered with the same, "I told you not to talk to me." Then she turned to a friend and said, "I hate it when I tell people not to talk to me and they do."

"Well I don't know what I did, but whatever it was I'm sure I can make up for it," he said, doing his best to maintain peaceful diplomacy.

"Just leave me alone."

And that was it, detente was over, now all Lee had was anger. And he said, "Well screw you then. You know, you try so hard to project this indie, anti-mainstream image with with that 1983 haircut, but really you're more stuck up than any uptown yuppie bitch."

She just said, "Asshole," and walked off.

Lee muttered, "Fuckin' bitch," under his breath. I scooted over and said, "Hey dude, never mind her," and offered my instant analysis, "she's just got problems, that's all."

"What kind of problems?"

"I don't know," I said, "but that whole image thing you mentioned, you know how it just reeks of effort? She's obviously insecure about something, so she goes out of her way to seem different so that people can't see who she really is. She's probably got low-self esteem. That things she does where she acts like certain people aren't worthy of her attention is probably just a way of making herself feel superior so that she'll feel better about herself."

Lee said, "Makes sense. Kinda sad." I nodded and moved on, projecting out when I found a blind corner. I could tell Lee's anger was alleviated. Even if all I may have done was found a way to make her look pitiful so he'd feel like the superior one, the means wasn't really that important. I don't need confirmation on it. Mission's done. Next, please.

Where The Beer Flows Like The Hudson (But Less Polluted)

2010-03-09T11:59:00.001-08:00

So, big doin’s this weekend. First of all, it was Hoboken New Jersey’s St. Patrick’s Day. For those not in the know, rather than compete with the St. Patrick’s Day celebration of a real city, like, say, the one across the river (that would be New York City), Hoboken has their parade and de facto holiday about two weeks earlier on the first Saturday of March. I think the idea is kind of sad personally, but Marley really wanted to go, so she went with Suzanne. Suzanne’s from Chicago, which probably has the biggest St. Patrick’s Day after New York and Boston, so she thought the idea was pretty silly too. But unlike me, she doesn’t judge.

Suzanne could find something fun about a sandstorm, so she kind of felt in her element. Every now and then, they would come across people who in the small dose of a passerby seemed kind of shallow. She sank a little, feeling traces of her former life. But that would end when she looked at Marley, who said, “Oh my god, they’re euphoric! So many of them! It’s like an assault of joy.”

They wandered around some more, and Suzanne said, “You know, when I was in school, I used to party like this. After school for a while too. But when I got sick, it was like, you know, all of a sudden I was like fifty, like the happy youth was done. No more fun.”

“I never really had fun like this when I was alive,” said Marley.

“Well what did you do when you wanted to, like, escape it all?”

“Heroin.”

Suzanne stood apologetically for a second, then a small crowd let out a loud cheer for a when they saw two guys walking down the street with a keg fridge and Marley started giggling and they went on with their day. “Awesome day!” she told me later. “You should come next year!”

“I’ll get back to you on that.”

Ah, to be young and alive.

You Wish You Were Special, You're So Fucking Special

2010-03-02T19:21:00.000-08:00

Arrogant fucking people really get up my nose. Not as much as they used to, because, you know, I'm fuckin' dead, and I've learned there's more to this world to worry about than unjustified narcissism. But still, when it gets in the way of someone else's complacency, that's when I get involved. Not mad, not even, just involved. Why? 'Cause that's my job.

Ok, so here's Lee. Lee has this thing with a girl named . . . oh, I forget what the fuck her name is. She doesn't matter, so who gives a fuck. Well, Lee gives a fuck, so let's be sensitive to him. For the sake of storytelling, we'll call her Anna-Nicole. Lee met Anna-Nicole at a party. She's not beautiful, but she has a decent face and a statuesque figure, which is enough to qualify at least for crush status in many a guy's heart (even with my lust left back with my rotting corpse I could tell you that). So Lee meets this girl and they exchange names and yada yada yada. She was about as warm as iced down fish in the markets of Chinatown, so that didn't really didn't go anywhere.

Moving on, they know a few of the same people, so their paths cross again at another party, and Lee, who's just bad with names, asks her name again. Now, she takes great offense to this, as if to say, "How could you forget my name with this body?! How dare you!" Sensing the second meeting had gone worse than the first, Lee moved on. He runs into her again later on and just tried to make some small talk, and she responds with, "I told you never to talk to me again."

First of all, Lee doesn't recall her giving him any such order. Second, he's not saddened by this, he's just angry. Mostly because he doesn't deserve to be treated this way, and who the fuck is she to do so in the first place? Sashial told me, "Don't worry about him, he's better off. Fuck that cunt."

I said, "No, he's probably gonna run into her again and he's just gonna get mad. Gotta make sure his happiness isn't messed with."

"Fine, baby," she said, "you do what you have to." She stood there looking at me, then finally said, "What the fuck are you waiting for?"

"The next party."

She smiled and nodded. "Good boy."

I'll let you know what happens.

The Outcast Becomes The Teacher

2010-02-24T10:37:00.001-08:00

Well, it's pretty much over now, the heavy season that revolves around Valentine's day has come and gone. This was my first as an angel and even the expectations and warnings from Archangel Michael didn't really prepare me for what I was in for. It was essentially a constant state of work; after every word of inspiration, there was another subject to run to. Lonliness is not the most challenging problem a person can have, but the steady, unending flow of projects without respite gets a little draining after a while.

Suzanne said something kind of funny, she said, "Well maybe the weekends won't be so bad, cause, like, all the lonely people will siting home by themselves because they have nothing to do."

She's so sweet. Living the kind of life she did, she really has no idea what it's like to be a lonely person. But the great thing is that she so badly wants to learn. So this was actually the first time Suzanne and I teamed up. We went to this bar, and I motioned to where five people were sitting. "What do you see?"

"Four guys and a girl," she said.

I said, "look closer. There's one couple. See those two guys talking? They're friends. Look at the guy in the middle."

She took a look. "The one watching the tv?"

"Yes. By himself. That's the lonely guy"

"OH! Oh."

It felt good to mentor someone in the ways of loneliness, like my years of training had finally become useful. Then, with powers of perception in hand, we went to work.

More to come.

Another Way To Salvation

2010-02-22T18:34:00.000-08:00

I'm so not even ready to talk about work, as I'm still recovering from Valentine's Day. So let's talk about a revelation of a different kind. I've always held a disdain for all things safe and conventional. Ordinary is boring, and let's face it, usually the mark of a lack of creativity or originality. Ordinary fuckin' culture. I hate it.

That's why it was so great to stumble across this novella called The Salvation Of Billy Wayne Carter by an author named M. David Hornbuckle. On the surface it's about a musician who rises to legendary status, but it's really about so much more. It's an analysis on the human condition painted with a surreal palette as it jumps through a web of time and characters. Original, sometime challenging (without the self-impressed condescension that comes with forced literary eccentricity) and most definitely not conventional.

Anyway, if you want to read more about it or just plain get your hands on it, you can check it out at:

http://billywaynecarter.com/

You're welcome.

Nothing's Certain But Death And Valentines

2010-02-08T19:49:00.000-08:00

I used to wonder if there really was anything to the idea of reincarnation. Not so much because of the idea of extending the soul's tenure in the physical world, more because of the concept of collected karma. The idea that the sum of your actions determining your state of being in the next life always resonated with me, especially my states were especially low. The idea is not so much the state you're born into, but the one that follows you over the course of your life; poor actions translate into poor consequences in the next life. The barbaric run of bad luck I had when I was alive often made me wonder, if this notion is real, exactly how fucking evil was I in my last life to earn the life that I was given? Given the relative privilege of my family background, I think I wasn't a murderer or dictator, but at the very least, I must have been a REAL asshole.

Turns out I'm not alone in that sentiment. See, the angels are in our busy season right now. Valentine's Day is approaching. Think of it like with accountants and Tax day: to us, February 14 is our April 15. Marley is getting signals of despair everywhere she goes. "People wonder what they did to deserve the loneliness they're feeling," she said the other day. "Some of them think about that karma thing too. It's so sad. It's like they're blaming themselves."

I never thought about it like that, but as emotionally dark as I already know New York City to be, the depression booster shot it gets in the high season pushes it beyond anything you'll ever know. A friend of mine once called NYC "loner capital of the world." I didn't know about that, whenever I was alone, I always saw couples paired up and groups of carousers celebrating the invention of the pint glass. That's the immensity, when you're an angel, you realize the loners are EVERYWHERE, milling about being given very little from which to glean joy out of life

As you may have guessed, the constant flood of inspiring reassurance during the high season has been a little emotionally taxing, and my underlying cynicism creeps up from time to time. Just one more week to go. Then maybe I'll go to Ireland for a little while.

The Diametric Employment Rates Of Heaven And Earth

2010-01-26T20:20:00.000-08:00

Heaven is about comfort, not spectacle, most people don't know that until they get here. One of the earthbound concerns alleviated by the heavenly existence is the need for money. As an angel, you need to keep that in perspective so you don't forget how important financial health is. They say it's not everything, and it doesn't buy happiness, but the truth is, unless you're living off the land somewhere, it's a necessity. Money is a major source of pain in the vast majority of the world. Few things cause as much individual anxiety and group infighting as money does. You know, musician David Byrne of the Talking Heads once said "I was never in it for the money." Hate to break this to you , you arrogant douchebag, but yes you are. Because it's your job. If you're not in it for the money, fine, give it all back and live destitute on the street. That's exactly the kind of loss of perspective that, as an angel, you need to avoid.

And that's one of the reason's you can't forget what you're doing. It's a shame to say, but in the current state of the economy, the angel business is one of the few industries that's booming. That's probably why I became an angel in the first place; high demand. With so much economic misery, the divine army had to be understaffed. I imagine that if I'd died during the peace and prosperity of 1990's I probably would have never become an angel in the first place. But I didn't, so I did. So in a way, the failed trickle down politics of the Republicans might be the very reason I got the halo. It's a divine miracle; someone not in the upper three percent actually benefited from them. Hallelujah. Much rejoicing.

I know I normally don't get political because that's not the point I'm trying to make. Then again, in these trying times, I see a lot of people losing the hope they've been clinging to. So I'm not here to tell people who to vote for, I just want them to see the big picture. Change takes time. I know that sounds like a cop out cover story that's meant to hide the truth, but this time, it is the truth. Don't believe me? Go back and take a look at the state of the country back in January of 1994. Right, not a very good one. Take a look at what happened soon thereafter. Ok, convinced? Maybe, maybe not. But you have hope now, right? Be honest. Deep down, I think you do.

Burning The Midnight Bridges

2010-01-18T15:18:00.000-08:00

One of the many reasons behind my disdain of humanity is the destruction of faith caused when you trust people to know what they're doing instead if intervening, and then find out the hard way they don't. There's a fine line in angeldom; there's a certain degree to which you leave people to find the answers on their own, otherwise they'll never grow as a result of the experience. So at what point do you decide when they're ready to have their epiphany and when they need the push in that direction? Normally it's not an issue because our typical assignments are people at crisis points. But you never know. And if you hesitate, you run the risk of your subject hurting the people around them.

Case in point, there's a man trying to provide for his family, let's call him Reggie. So Reggie works in an office, so it's not an issue of earning overtime for the extra money. What he's doing is putting in extra work in an attempt to get ahead. His hope is to pay dividends down the road by earning promotions and extra money. But in the present, he's missing out on his family. His wife and children miss him and feel his work ethic is only hurting them. But this isn't the reason I had to go to him. The problem is he feels the same way. He's miserable without the people he loves, but feels he needs to reach his goal. When I was first handed the job, I spent some time observing, hoping he'd wise up. Eventually his ten year old daughter came hope with a test score she was proud of, but there was no daddy to share the good news with. When he finally did come home early enough to see her, tired and cranky, he coldly brushed her off, telling her, "Just show me later, ok?" When she started tearing up, I knew it was time to go to work.

I went to his office posing as a freelance temp one night when he was still working at 2 in the morning. With his inhibitions lowered from fatigue, confessed his dilemma. I told him, "You know, a lot of people are so goal oriented that they never stop to think about what they have."

"But you gotta see the big picture," he said. "You don't think about things down the road, you'll never accomplish anything."

"You'll never be happy either," I said. "There's always gonna be another goal: if you're a supervisor, you wanna be a senior supervisor. Then an executive, then a vice-president or whatever, then the next rung and the next. Life just becomes a series of steps, and no matter where you are, you always feel you're in a state of inferiority. But you have a family. Lots of people don't. You don't have to be company president to take joy from that."

He said, "Maybe,"and I pretended to go back to work. I wasn't sure if I got through to him, but the next night, he left at seven o'clock. It's a start.

Hope Is The New Forty

2010-01-05T18:43:00.001-08:00

It's disturbing to think about it this way, but death is a way of achieving immortality. Existence on the physical plain is short compared to that on the ethereal plain. It's not just a sad notion, it's an exploited one. Most religions are built on a foundation of this belief, it's their way of controlling minds by playing into the fears of aging and death: follow our ways and and you'll exist forever. But it's sad, using this as a guiding belief simply misses the point. The whole purpose of life is challenge and the rewards you reap when they're faced. Death is just comfort; it's not the reward that comes at the end of life, it's the consolation.

Unfortunately, life compresses a wealth of pressures into its short span and comes prepackaged with a set of goals. This is why the fear of aging is so pronounced. It wouldn't be an issue if so many people didn't see time passage as an obstacle. Take this job I had the other day. The new year is only a few days old, and this guy, we'll call him Stan, acted like his life was over as soon as that ball in Times Square landed. After I got to know him and asked why, he said, "I'm gonna be forty this year."

"When?" I asked.

"April."

"Hey, forty's no big deal! And if it were, you still have a few months."

"Yeah," he said, "but whenever the new year starts, I already feel the age that I'm gonna turn that year."

"Oh. Well, I know, it's like, you reach a certain age and you're disappointed you haven't accomplished what you wanted to."

"Well, kind of. It's more like, well you know, all those statistics they have, that say if you haven't gotten those things by a certain age, you never will."

That kind of threw me a little. As bitter as I was about my life, I never had to deal with that. Forty was about a decade away when I died. When Shannon left, I was focused on life without her, not the possibility of life without anyone.

"They can play with statistics all they want," I said. "But your fate isn't based on some kind of sabermetrics book, life isn't a formula. You want to life life by odds, fine. But you know, odds don't control you, you do. Don't let some statistic tell you what you can or can't have. If you just gave in to that, then what's the point of life anyway?"

"Good point," he said.

So, I didn't solve his problem; the guy's still gonna turn forty. But I could tell I gave him hope. And we're not problem solvers, we're angels.

We'll Take A Cup Of Kindness Yet For Lives Gone By

2009-12-30T19:06:00.000-08:00

It's almost New Year's Eve. New Year's doesn't really mean much to me anymore, least not the way it used to. When I was young, New Year's always meant new beginnings. The older I got, the more it came to define the passage of time, the concrete indicator that there was less sand in the hourglass and the chance of eking out a shred of happiness and create an actual meaning to my life was getting slimmer and slimmer.

This is no longer an issue now that I'm dead and becoming an angel has given me the opportunity to make something of myself. So what should this new year mean to me? Well, it's the first year I'll start off dead and the first full one in the kingdom of Heaven. And this new year won't be the usual reminder that the end is coming 'cause my end already came. Then again, it's just the end as I used to define it, because I found out the hard way this year that death was only the beginning. I guess that's what this year is: the ultimate new beginning, the first year that never knew me as anything less than an angel.

But the other important thing is that this is also a new decade. When I went back and looked at all the events leading up to my death; all the abandonment, breakups and misery that lead me to all the bitterness I entered Heaven with, I realized that the vast majority of it happened over this last decade. Boy, what a fucking horrorshow that was. Getting hit by that car seems like the least of my troubles compared to all that crap.

So, instead of being sad that a whole decade has gone by, I'm just happy to see it go. Does that mean I'm glad I'm dead? That's a really tough question. I'm much happier that I was when I was alive; at least right before I died. I mean, you're supposed to be happy, you're in fucking Heaven for fuck's sake. But it's not just all the superficial joy stuff here, like the apartment, the Tagalong cookies and Disney World, it's people in my existence now that make it all really worth it. If I could have had that on Earth without getting a piece of my head ripped off, I think that's the route I'd have rather gone. But I didn't, and I'm fucking dead, so there we are. At least it all worked out in a way I can live with (so to speak).

Goodbye 00s, fuck you very much, and thanks for everything.

Happy New Year everyone.

'Tis The Season To Be Moody (Fa La La La La, La La, La, FUCK)

2009-12-21T20:47:00.000-08:00

Well, Chanukah's over and Christmas is almost here. Believe it or not, this is our busy season. A lot of people don't realize that depression runs rampant around the holidays. It's a time for family and loved ones; as a result, lonely people feel lonelier. The shorter days don't help either; people get depressed without sunlight. Most people associate the holidays with joy, which does indeed exist, but the suicide rate is higher in December than any other month. A Disease Of The Week screenwriter couldn't script it better; the worst emotional trauma is never without a crushing blow of irony. Looking back, if I had to die, I'm glad it was in autumn. If I'd made it to December without Shannon, who knows, maybe I'd have sent myself here. Then I wouldn't be an angel.

Anyway, it's been pretty damn busy lately. Not quite as bad as the first two weeks in February (Valentine's Day is to an angel what April 15th is to an accountant), but pretty intense nonetheless. One of the problems is too many people feel guilt for their depression. Since it's particularly strong this time of year, it has a greater impact on the victim's life and thus can feel relatively new. Some people are compelled to compare it to the major strife around the world and feel their emotional well being is not worthy of healing. I've felt this way in the past about things in my life, at least until the night Marley told me that everyone has a right to their own pain.

So if you're sad or disappointed, don't add guilt to the mix. Even if it's just over the fucking DVD you didn't get for Christmas, just know that something has take away your joy, and that's not fair. You deserve to be happy.

Happy Holidays.

She's Not The Human Race

2009-12-09T19:50:00.000-08:00

So I've been shadowing Randall for a little while, popping up every now and then as he went to his local places. Marley found out from following his fiance that the wedding was actually a few months off, so we had time. You can't take too much time; you want to set your inspiration in before his doubt gets too great, otherwise you risk letting them go beyond help. It started with a conversation over the football game that was on. He's a Giant fan, like me, and we've both been a little frustrated for a lot of the season. Good thing he's not a Dallas fan; it was hard enough accepting the idea of helping people, I don't think I'm ready to extend it to someone who actually likes the Cowboys. So, I tried to steer the conversation towards girls and relationships, but he was a little more guarded than most, even with a few drinks in him. This was gonna take some time.

Anyway, after that, I'd see him from time to time, and usually I'd just swing by and say hello while he was rapping with his friends. Then one night, when I saw him by himself, I appeared and struck up talks. Finally, he told me he was engaged.

"Wow! That's awesome dude!"

"Yeah," he said. "It's not easy though. It's a big step."

"But you're ready, right?"

"I guess so."

"You guess so?"

"Yeah. I mean, you always wonder, right? It's like, I'm thirty-two. I've never been engaged before, but you know, years ago, like, just a couple years out of college, I met a girl I thought I was gonna marry. Man, I was so in love with her. Then, I had this job, I was a writer at a travel magazine, and we got downsized after 9/11. A few weeks after that, she dumped me."

"Because you were unemployed?" I asked.

"I don't know, at the time I didn't think she was shallow like that, but the timing was pretty suspicious."

At this point, once you've figured out what the problem is, it's often better to say it before they do. It makes them feel like you really understand. So I said, "And you're worried that if you get married, what if your wife flakes on you when there's trouble."

"Exactly, man! It's like, how can you trust anyone?"

"Well, you know, ask yourself, have you ever dated anyone who didn't bail when things got rough?"

"Well, nothing that bad ever really happened before."

"Anything though. Even a minor crisis can say a lot about how people respond."

He said, "OK, then, yeah, sure."

"Well that's what you should base things on. Not to cling to hope based on the slightest glimmer, just to know that not all people respond with such negativity." Then I went in for the kicker. "If you base your life on your worst experience, you're never gonna find any satisfaction for yourself. You might as well give up now. Go hole up in your room and try to forget how alone you are by playing video games. I've been there, done that, bought the t-shirt, and I'm telling you, if there's a risk, it's NOTHING compared to the chance of letting that happen."

He smiled, and asked, "You got a girl?" I grinned too and said yes. "How long you been together?"

"A few months now."

"Going well?"

I smiled again. "It's forever."

I looked up and Marley was there in spirit mode. She looked at Randall and gave me the thumbs up sign. I finished my beer and left.

You're Supposed To Have A Ph. D. For This

2009-12-06T17:04:00.000-08:00

Been spending a lot of time lately in this one assignment, and it's been a pleasant reminder of how great it is to not have the burden of an energy level to maintain. It's a guy who has cold feet before his wedding. Sounds simple enough, but you can't underestimate the level of fear before a major life change. Fear changes us, and this fellow, we'll call him Randall, is depressed, acting distant to his friends and family and slightly beligerant to his fiancé. We're spendinga lot of time on this one, mostly late nights at bars posing as friendly patrons. One of the reasons this works is because some subjects will be more honest with a stranger, since the opinion of someone you'll probably never see again doesn't feel as important. Now, the reason I said "we" is because I had to pull some people on this one. First, I took Marley with me to find out if he really wanted to get married, because for all I knew, he could have be pressured or pushed into something he didn't want. "No, he wants to marry her," Marley said. "the idea of committing for the rest of his life has him terrified."

I took a look at him and figured, "Probably worried about there being hotter girls his could bang."

She took another look and said, "Hmmm, no, that's not it. There's something in his past that's left him afraid of commitment."

So there's something of a mystery to unravel. Stay tuned.

A Three Drumstick Turkey? Sure! It's Heaven!

2009-11-27T14:10:00.000-08:00

So yesterday was my first Thanksgiving away from home, and I thought it would be nice to have a Thanksgiving dinner with my new friends. I invited everyone from the Angel Training class, but as I figured, most of them were having dinner with their dead relatives. So it was me, Marley, her mother and my grandparents. I invited Sashial and Lira too, of course. When I told them we were gathering around 4pm, Lira asked, "You forget how to tell time? That's a little early for dinner."

"Well, first we're gonna hang out, relax, watch some football," I said.

"You fucking kiddin' me?" asked Sashial. "You really think we want to go up to Heaven for any amount of time just to socialize?"

"Kind of sounds silly, when you say it out loud like that," I conceded. "Dinner's around six."

"For you, sweetie, we'll be there," said Lira.

"Just one thing," said Sashial, "and I mean no disrespect, but make sure your grandparents don't try to give us any more fucking candy."

"Fair enough."

After that, I had an idea: I invited the guys from class over for a Thanksgiving lunch at 1pm during the the first football game. Roy and Patty still couldn't make it, but Tony and Suzanne stopped in. I thought it was a nice thing to do, Suzanne on the other hand, acted like I'd written a Health Care bill that everyone agreed on. "Oh my god, this was such a great idea!"

"Thanks," I said, "but it's just lunch."

"It's not just lunch though. Holidays should be spent with the people you care about. That's my family. But you guys are my new family. This way, I get to spend time with you too!"

I know it sounds cheesy, but it seemed kind of cool that we had a holiday tv special moment like that. Even after she and Tony went back to their families for dinner, with that memory in mind, the holiday seemed that much better. And that's on top of it being reunited families once separated by death. Just imagine what December's going to be like.

Feel The Burnout

2009-11-17T21:04:00.001-08:00

A big time disappointment can lead you to what I call a depression attack, a fit of sorrow that plunges your mood in a matter of minutes. A lot of these fade, because it's basically a shock to the emotional system, like jumping into a cold (or sad) pool; you adjust/get over it.

Smalltime chronic depression is more of an issue of longterm damage. Nothing hits like that initial mood punch, but if a mild discomfort NEVER goes away, it eventually starts to eat away at your overall mood and your average temperament slides farther and farther down the hole.

Which brings me back to this fellow who was working late. I went back a few nights later and there he was again. I didn't say anything, but the next day I went back and brought Marley. He was there again, and Marley said, "He's not good." I brought her back a week later, and there he was. Knowing what I was gonna ask, she looked at him and said. "He's getting worse."

I came back in janitor role. "Evening," I said. "'Nother late night I see."

"Yeah, had quite a few of those lately," he said.

"Must be hard. All those hours. Gotta tire you out."

"Yeah, it sucks. It's a bummer. The other night, I was looking at my sleeping pill bottle, and I was like, 'All I have to do is down that whole thing.’”

“Oh, jeez dude!”

“Ha, I’m just kidding.”

I’m sure he was, but the fact that his mind went there was a sign the work was taking its toll. I said, “You know, when you’re working really hard, a lot of people will say, ‘At least you’re working,’ or ‘if that’s what it takes to get the job done . . .’ and stuff. But you’re allowed to want something better. Not a better life per se, but, just know, if work gets you down, you don’t deserve it.”

He said thanks and I left. Maybe I helped, maybe not, all I know is, that guy needs to take a step back; a day off, a long lunch, hell, a simple five o’clock day, whatever it takes to pull the mood level up. It’s his choice, but if I nudged him in the right direction, my work here is done. For now.

My Office Job

2009-11-13T10:06:00.000-08:00

Everyone has a right to their own pain. Marley taught me that, and I've tried to impart that to both other angels and some of my assignment subjects, because acknowledging your need for help is important, and feeling worthy of it is also a first step. Case in point, an employee who's working late. May not seem like much of a big deal, but it is to them. People who are overworked can become depressed, and depression doesn't care how great or how little it affects the world.

So last night, I posed as a janitor and went to an office at midnight. There were a few people there; some of them were merely disappointing to be there, that's not as bad. They were waiting for work to come their way and killing time by watching tv shows on their computers. My real target was the guy they were waiting for, the one whose work they needed to check. It was taking hours longer than he expected, and he was frustrated with himself, felt guilty about the people he was holding up, and overall tired and sad.

When people are working late, they're grateful to see anyone, so just appearing creates a calming presence. Chatter is particularly helpful here: people in general at this point just want to be left alone, so you need to be short and to the point.

"You know, late nights are tough, but you wouldn't be here if you didn't have the skill for what you're doing. Lots of people couldn't hack it. But you've made it this far, and you know what you're doing, you know what you need to do. Not everyone does. You've got to be in the home stretch by now, and even if you're not, I admire your dedication"

I get a smile and move on. Back to Heaven, now MY job is done. Another good day.

YANKEES WIN! THEEEEEEEEEE YANKEES . . . WIN!

2009-11-08T14:34:00.000-08:00

So I'm sure you know. Everybody knows, of course, it's big news that the Yankees have won the World Series and again are champions of baseball. But if you're here, then you're no doubt wondering where I was that night, as the culmination of nine years of frustrated passion was finally realized.

For game five, I went to Mickey Mantle's Restaurant (heaven version) with Marley, Tony, Suzanne, Sashial and Lira. Playing in the road stadium against the Phillies' best pitcher, I wasn't too confident about the game, so a dinner out with the gang with the possibility of a victory was all I was expecting (plus promise of a meal was the only way to get Lira there). When the Yankees came up short, it was disappointing, but no big deal.

The night of game six, on the other hand, an hour before the game, I had an odd queasiness about me, like I knew that was it, that that was the night a decade of hoping and wishing was going to be realized. I told Sashial I didn't want any parallelism. I wanted everything to be one-hundred percent earth, one-hundred percent real. She said, "Well fuckin' A! Let's go down to the stadium then! We'll just go down invisible in spirit mode and sit on the dugout. Best seats in the fucking house!"

I said, "I don't want to be hiding when it happens, I want to be out there, among the fans, with the people. Let's go to that bar in my neighborhood."

"The one where we had the celebration for you?"

"Yes," I said, "but not the Heaven one, the real one. The neighborhood is seven subway stops from Yankee Stadium, it's a big time Yankee bar, it'll be packed wall to wall with Yankee fans."

"You know I fucking hate crowds," said Sashial.

"You can still go to the stadium," I said, "Just swing by after."

She looked disappointed, which was very odd to see, because I'd never seen that expression on her before. "But it won't be as much fun watching them win without you there." When she said that, I thought back to when we met, and how dumbfounded I would have been back then to see her like that.

"Just come to the bar," I said. "Yes, it'll be crowed, but trust me, it'll be crowded with instant best friends." Sashial agreed, threw on a Nick Swisher t-shirt (her favorite player) and we shot down to the bar to watch the game. And of course, not only was she instantly surrounded by dozens of friendly allies, her trash talking soon endured her to the crowd even more. In one of the early innings, Phillies outfielder Shane Victorino misjudged a fly ball and it short hopped his catch, resulting in a base hit instead of a fly ball out. Above the whole crowd, Sashial yelled, "Nice fuckin' hustle, douchebag!" which made her an instant favorite among the cheering throng.

When the Yankees won the game and thus, the series, Sashial and I were ecstatic. Maybe her a little more, because she'd never experienced it before, plus after some of the humans I've saved, even the thrilling of sports events falls a little short of the personal gratification. But nonetheless, after years of frustration, to have things finally work out was a special kind of joy. Specially because, this time I didn't have to create it. Originally, when I first became an angel, it was just the opposite, but now, experiencing a cathartic pleasure without ever having the responsibility of it looming over me was both jubilant and liberating. I hadn't seen Sashial this happy since the last time we celebrated at that bar. This wasn't as big an occasion, but least there wasn't an unpleasant reality we'd have to succumb to facing this time.

"Where's Marley?" Sashial asked. "I know she's not exactly a baseball fan, but I thought she'd at least want to celebrate with you."

"She will," I said. "She's at the stadium right now."

"What's she doing there?"

"You'll see."

About twenty minutes later, Marley showed up at the bar, getting a big hug from Sashial before gripping me so tight, it was like she was trying to keep my soul from being dragged away. "So how was it?" I asked.

"Oh my god," she said. "Such intense joy from nearly 50,000 people. It was like waves and waves of it washing over me. It was so beautiful. I just hope that collectively, they're not as equally sad down where the the other team is from."

"What, in Philadelphia?" Sashial asked. "FUCK them."

And that's them being them. God is good.

The Starter Needs A Reliever

2009-11-03T19:02:00.000-08:00

Sashial, Lira, Marley and I went to the parallel baseball game last night, hoping it would be the last and we'd be celebrating victory. Lira had finally relented and came to a game, given the promise of a celebration, but she only lasted a few innings. "Humans actually watch this? For real? Forty thousand humans have nothing better to do than watch a bunch of rich guys play in the grass?"

"Yes," I said, "I've been going to games for years."

"Why?"

"It's fun."

She gave me that "I feel sorry for you if you meant that" look she gets, and said, "If this was your escape, then no wonder you were depressed down there. I'm outta here."

She disappeared and the game continued. If you watched it, then you know it didn't go so well for us. Marley was never exactly enthralled by baseball; she went to games with me every once in a while because she likes sensing the joy in me when things go well. If they don't, and she feels my pain, it gets pretty tough to get her to come back for a while, which is why Sashial makes the better ballgame buddy.

But tonight was especially bad, and not just because of me. When our starting pitcher fell apart and was ousted in the early going, Marley started to cry. "It's ok," I said. "The game's not over."

"It is for him," she said, referring to the pitcher. "He's so sad. I can feel it so strong, and it's not even really him, it's the parallel him."

"What would you say to him?"

"Try to remind him we're on his side. He thinks we hate him because he's a failure, and so he's ashamed. You have to let him know that people understand. Not everyone of course, but those quick to land blame on him entirely don't have realistic ideas of how human beings are. They're in for more disappointment and unhappiness. Chances are we'll end up seeing them for one reason or another."

"That's a lot of people to see," I said.

She smiled and answered, "We have time."

Inspiration, Aisle Six

2009-10-29T21:05:00.000-07:00

I was on Earth in the Mall of America with Marley and Suzanne the other day, and after a hour of listening to Suzanne go on about all the new clothing lines and Marley nodding her head, we wandered into the FYE store at my behest. A U2 song came on, and Marley tapped me on the shoulder and pointed to guy over by the wall. "It's weird, the song is making that guy over there get really annoyed, but not in an angry way. It's like he's sad for himself."

My angel's instinct kicked in, and I wandered over in his direction, and eventually said, "Love this song."

The guy said, "Yeah, it's a great song." She was right, he sounded defeated when he said it.

"Doesn't sound like you like it."

"Oh, I like it, but it's like, you know, I just, I know this dude at work who's a big Alarm fan."

"I didn't know there were any."

"Oh yeah, this guy is like all, 'They're so much better than U2, U2 is so commercial. Their fans are so phony, they only like them because they're popular.'"

I said, "So?"

"Nothing, it's just like, yeah, they're really popular, so, like..."

"You're pissed because the guy basically called you a phony to your face."

"Yeah."

"And now, that's what you think of when you hear this, instead of, 'This is a great song.'"

He had a look on his face like he hadn't quite pieced that together before I said it, "Right! Yeah, right."

"Well, who the fuck is he? I guy who loves The Alarm? He knows their success is nothing compared to U2's, it's like he's so insecure about his own taste that he has to lash out for no reason. Sounds pretty pathetic. I mean, how sad is his life that he needs to feel superior by inventing a bullshit superiority over a fucking rock band?"

"I guess."

"I mean, do you like them because they're popular?" I asked.

"No, I've loved them ever since I was six." He looked about thirty, give or take, so that's about twenty-five years of devoted fandom. "I had an older bother who got me into them. We used to fight all the time, listening to U2 was the first cool thing we did together."

"So what the fuck do you care? He doesn't know you. And he only sounds more ignorant by spouting that kind of bullshit." And I started to wander off.

He nodded his head and said, "Yeah. Take it easy." I wandered back to Marley and Suzanne, and asked Marley, "So how's he feel?"

She smiled and said, "Better." Suzanne didn't say a word, she just motioned for us to leave the store. When we were out of the guy's view, her face lit up and she yelled, "HIGH FIVE!"

It's nice to have a job where you can get a high five for doing good work. God knows I didn't when I was alive in that damn office. Inspiring in music store, now that's living.

Angels Who Hate Halos

2009-10-24T12:11:00.000-07:00

There's an interesting concept in heaven that I like to call Parallelism. Not the literary device, I'm done with all that crap, school is completely done now. This is like live, in person simulcasts. See, I've been going to bomber games down on Earth all year. I get tickets the old fashioned way; buying them for real. I wasn't sure if I should do that at first, I don't have a paying Earthbound job, so money has to be created. Technically I guess that makes it counterfeit, but if I create it to be real, it's just as real as any currency. My only worry is the capital I introduce into the system, which they say lowers the value of the dollar, but I think a multi-billion dollar budget can survive the price I shell out for tickets to the fucking ballgame. The fuck am I, an economist?

So, I like to engage in the real deal, but it's different in October, when the games are sold out. I can't in good conscious take a seat away from a living human who needs it, so what I do instead is just have it replicated. I don't recreate the whole thing, I don't have enough power to do that, it's more like a live action simulcast: it happens down there, I happens up here. Maybe there's a slight delay, but that's what happens in tv too. So imagine it's like watching the game on a tv so large, it's all life size, and you're sitting in it, kind of like what the hi def tv ads say watching their sets is like, only for real.

Sashial and I went to the games in California this week, ironic team name and all. It was her idea, I personally find it sickening to wade through enemy territory. But she loves it, it must be her antagonistic nature. And she's unapologetic in her affiliation; I prefer to look neutral, but she comes in her full bomber regalia. Usually, nobody says anything, especially after they see what she looks like, and if course, god help them if they do. When I asked her why she would even bother with the live experience on the opposition's home territory, she just told me to wait. After the game on Tuesday, she said, "See? There's nothing like getting fourty thousand jerks to shut up."

"I thought you like mankind."

She said, "I do, sweetheart. But right now, they're the enemy. They're jerks, and I love each and every one of them."

Fair enough. Sashial continues to surprise me. I thought she'd be furious after the loss the other night. But when the game ended, she just smiled and nodded her head.

"You're not pissed?" I asked.

"Not really. We're going back to New York, where we can celebrate for real instead of tens of thousands of simulated whiners."

So wise, so wise.

Weather The Changes

2009-10-18T22:50:00.000-07:00

I wonder sometimes if we're missing out on the human experience in Heaven. I was thinking about this the other day when I was on assignment down on earth. The weather was lousy for several days straight. You know, there are certain things about the human existence that make you realize there's a problem with the concept of destiny, the weather, being one of them. People often don't like the idea of having a predetermined fate, because it means, on a certain level, they're not in control. But there's your future, on tv, right there on the weather report. The man in the suit without the meteorology degree is telling you what your day will be like on Saturday, quite possibly dictating your likelihood of having a good day or not. He's telling you rain. Damn. Who the fuck is he to have that power? Well, not absolute power, you can have a good day on the rain. It's like with the dreams; there are no fates, only paths.

No such problems up in Heaven, perfect weather whenever I damn well feel like it. Is it making us soft? Do we need to hold on to the belabored conveniences to keep identifying with our assignment subjects? But what are we really losing? That which makes us human? Our irritability? Maybe we should lose that, or we have to. We're not human, we're angels. This is probably why we can deal with the animosity that plagues our subjects and why we can help them instead of giving in to it.

Or maybe the bottom line is, I've earned good weather. I'm fuckin dead.

Overtime Under Heaven

2009-10-11T22:16:00.001-07:00

It's been a little while since I've posted, so here's whats been going on. Sashial, Lira, Marley and I have been working some real overtime lately. I don't know what it is, I think maybe it's the time of year. Summer is ending, the temperature is cooling and the daylight is getting shorter. Since autumn is my favorite time of year, this was always uplifting for me, but lots of people find the darkness and chill depressing. It's probably the same across the country, I can't even tell, I haven't seen Tony or Suzanne for a couple of weeks and Roy and Patty I don't even know about. All this disparity can be pretty grueling. Thank god for the heaven restaurants. The four of us have been getting together for late dinners, so much so that we've been branching out from the Upper East Side diner we usually go to, even though Lira loves the vanilla martinis there. Even though we don't get intoxicated, she says the mix of the sharp bit of the alcohol and the sweet vanilla appeals to her. My theory is the taste describes Lira herself, though I doubt she'd admit that. Sashial just says give her a beer at the stadium any day, I guess the drink of choice for fans who shout from the cheap seats is what speaks to her.

There was one person in particular who was pushing my limits. SO negative. Faced the slightest shred of adversity with such a sense of horror, like the slightest thing was so tragic. Trying to constantly put a positive spin on someone who brings you down at EVERY turn is really draining. I'm starting to wonder if I can help this person. Are there people you just can't reach? It hasn't happened to me so far, but you never know. Until then, I just didn't think it was possible, now I'm not so sure. Sounds like this person is pushing me to despair. Not good for an angel, but at least I have my support system. Marley reminded me, "Don't forget you're still human. Maybe not in body or spirit, but in mind. It's inspiration, not magic. But you have an underlying belief that you can help anyone. I can tell. Just remember that."

I do forget sometimes. The reminder always helps.

WOULD SOMEONE FUCKING HELP ME?!

2009-10-05T19:51:00.000-07:00

I can always lean on Marley. Sashial and Lira are great teammates to have. And Tony and Suzanne will always have my back. It's refreshing, and maybe this is just another aspect of heaven but nobody's let me down. It's different, because I'm sure not used to it. People abandoning you is one thing, but when someone's indifference makes your life more difficult, it's more fuel to the fire of misanthropy. When people who are supposed to help you don't, is it worse than those who treat you maliciously? I think maybe. You don't expect anything from your enemies. When an ally won't give you the help you're meant to have, it's like you've been teased and tormented by having your deserved complacency given then taken away. There's been many a night at work when I've wished eternal hell on people I still think the wold of. On Earth, I mean. In Heaven that never happens.

Then again, these are not people I'm working with, they're angels. Shouldn't angels be better coworkers? They're angels for fuck's sake. Maybe it's the generosity that comes with the job; apathy is essentially a manifestation of selfishness. Then again, don't we all get selfish at times? Maybe more when it's 10pm, you're into your thirteenth hour of work and the last think you want to do is even think about anything that's going to give you more fucking work, even if it won't be that night. Maybe that's the core to the angel's generosity: we're spirits. Not alive, we don't get tired, and we're not given to petty fucking self-interest and free to think about other people. I'd be more than happy to think about myself, but hey, someone needs to be helped, and that's why I'm here. Stop shirking you fucking slacker.

Hope Springs Internal

2009-10-01T10:34:00.000-07:00

Loss can be an unusual thing. Can you feel loss for something you never had? Say you were really hoping for a new job, and you were dying to work at, I don't know, say, Google. And you applied, but didn't get the job there. Then one day, you hear Google is closing its local office and shifting its entire work force to California. You'd feel pretty bummed, right? Why? You never worked there. What are you losing?

What you're losing is hope. As long as they were there, you always had a hope that things would change, that a situation would arrive where you'd get your chance. You know, when I was alive, and very unhappy, I used to say that I was a lot happier when I deluded myself into believing I could get what I want. That ended when I finally met Shannon, but we all know how that worked out. But hope is a very positive emotion and your positive outlook is just as much a thing to grieve for as anything else.

As an angel I try to explain this to people all the time, sometimes it helps and sometimes it doesn't. But at the very least, if it can't alleviate sadness it can help with the anger and resentment that can come with it. I should know, that's all I used to feel. Wish someone he told me that back in the day.

The War Of Keeping Peace

2009-09-30T08:53:00.000-07:00

So much of what we do amounts to playing the role of peacemaker. I know that we're not meant to intervene, but very often we get what we call "chronic interactive strife," which is exactly what it sounds life; people in a long term, continuous state of tension. We get a lot of families; children who can't find peace because they can't get along with their parents. I'm usually there for the children, but honestly, I don't know who I'm helping more. I suppose I like to think it's the younger generation because I'm biased, more likely to think that they're not the ones creating the problem.

But the more you play this role of moderator, the more it raises the debate about at what point intervention becomes interference. That incident up at the stadium could have gotten out if hand, but didn't. But that stabbing by the post office in Manhattan, that poor kid, he just bumped into somebody, now he's dead. If I was there, would I have been able to stop myself from stepping in? Lira told me, "Different rules apply if it means you can save a life. I know, baby, It's not easy to tell, bit you develop a sense for it. Just use your best judgment."

I asked Tony what he thought about that incident in Manhattan. After what happened to him, he said, "you do what you can. Sometimes it work out, sometimes it don't." I asked which he thought his incident was, he said, "Both."

How Did I Get Here? And I Don't Mean The Crosstown m21 (Or Do I?)

2009-09-24T21:28:00.000-07:00

I fucking hate people who sit sideways on the bus. You know what I mean, some idiot wants to feel like he's in his fucking living room, so he has to lounge around, and stupid you, if you want to sit in your chair normally like a civilized person, have to look at the guy's fucking face. Or else, stare intently out the window. Now, the window's not bad, but what if I don't want to look out there? What if I want to sit forward? Who are you to dictate what I do?

See, Heaven gives you the freedom to avoid all that. In many ways, the earth bus is a microcosm of the earth itself. This is especially true for angels, because most of the dead are done with the bus, angels deliberately get on,knowing there will be this frustration to deal with. So why get on the bus at all? The rewarding destination? Is there a fear of general malaise? Is the litmus test for angelhood simply being so masochistic that we define our existence as pain, and need to "escape" the divine euphoria by jumping into the emotional frying pans of the damaged living?

I don't know, I haven't been an angel long enough. But if this asshole in front of me can stir up existence pondering and not make me want to punch him in the fucking face, maybe I've come a long way already. But still, I beg you, GET OFF THE FUCKING BUS.

Swing For The Fences

2009-09-21T19:21:00.000-07:00

About ten years ago, I was driving my grandmother to the train station, listening to some oldies on the radio. An upbeat, big band Sinatra song came on, which made grandma a little nostalgic. I told her, "You know, swing music is very popular right now."

She asked, "You mean young people like it?"

"They love it."

She smiled and said probably the greatest thing I ever heard her say, "If I live to be a thousand, I'll see everything come back."

Grandma didn't live to be a thousand, in fact she died about five years later. Becoming reacquainted with has been a real joy. When you're a child, the age difference seems more drastic, yet the idea of losing them someday seem so foreign, it's simply not a possibility and certainly not part of your future. The older you get, the feeling that your relationship is on borrowed time increases, but this blind faith persists. It gets harder to hold onto, but it never disappears, and usually doesn't until the beeping turns into a steady buzz.

I reminded her about what she said the other day. She laughed, and I said, “How about in 990 years, I’ll take you to a Brian Setzer Orchestra concert? She said, “How about we get grandpa and go see Frank Sinatra and Count Basie right now?” I said sure. Great night.

Kanye You're The Devil, You're Leading Me Astray

2009-09-16T21:01:00.000-07:00

The other night, a few of us were gathering, and Sashial said, "Did you see what that motherfucker Kanye West did the other night at the MTV Awards?"

I said, "Who gives a fuck? It's the MTV Awards. It's not a critical touchstone, it's a big giant music industry wackoff."

Lira smiled and said, "I like how he breaks it down like that."

Tony said, "Hey, I love Kanye. But he went went over tha line."

"What did he do?"

Sashial turned on the tv and brought up the clip of his hijack and dis during Taylor Swift's acceptance. I've never heard her music, but you take one look at her and you can't imagine her deserving something like that. I said, "Yeah, that really sucks. But, you know, like I said, it's just the MTV Awards. Not like it's important."

But Marley was gazing at the screen, looking like she'd watched a dramatic silver screen death scene. Obviously, being Brian's Songed meant that she could see it a little deeper. "It doesn't have to be important to us," she said. "It's important to her. And he ruined it. Now she'll never get that moment back."

And that's how a scene from a pointless celebration of pretension epitomizes Marley. Not just her empathy, her perspective. I can only hope to be half the angel she is someday. Then again, she says I'm too hard on myself. All I know is, next to her, salutatorian is the best I'll ever do.

The Power Of Positive No

2009-09-14T19:40:00.000-07:00

Being a "nice guy" is often a nicer way of saying you're "too nice" (Just don't mention that to Christian Bale. Yes, we still get entertainment news up here.). One of the major symptoms of being too nice is having trouble saying, "No." You're too focused on the other person's feelings to even remember you have feelings of your own. There's a lot of, "Sure, I'll do that," "Yes, that's ok," and the pathetically proactive, "You need a hand with that?" People who do that often get stuck with responsibility, and sometimes fancy themselves as the good Samaritan. It's a little more appropriate to use the term "martyr," because the reward for all good deeds is usually the labels of "sucker," "chump," and the inevitable, "loser."

If you think I'm being overly harsh, then just think about how I feel. This is my attitude, and I'm an angel. My feelings have lightened considerably since I died, but I feel more in the joy of saving than the inherent good. I save humans in part because I feel they need to be saved; if they were inherently good, they simply wouldn't need us as much. And the "nice" stigma is something I still have to deal with.

I think that's why I relish the opportunity to say "no" to people. I don't do it for the sake of it, it's when it comes at a time when it's beneficial, and I just leap at the chance. Sometimes people need to hear what they want to hear, sometimes they need to hear the truth. Learning when to do what has been a continuing education process. The other day, I was watching over a lawyer. He was sitting at a bar, depressed because he was prosecuting a man he felt was innocent, not so much to further his career but more for the sense of loyalty to his job. He didn't tell me this, I'd been watching him in court, but when I sat next to him at the bar and started to chat over the score of the baseball game on the tv, he asked, "Do you think you always have to do what you believe when you're not believing what you do?"

I said, "No." The man was later found innocent. Did the guy throw it? Don't know. But it looked like he felt better, and regardless, I moved on.

And In This Corner . . . Some Suburban Dildo

2009-09-11T21:30:00.000-07:00

I saw a fight nearly break out today. People are so fucking selfish. It's like you get cut down merely for showing respect. You know when you're walking at a sensible distance, but because more than an inch of space separating you from the person in front of you, some fucking whacked out asshole fuckwad insists on making it a walking space, because their time is just so much more fucking important than yours, and cuts in front of you? I was down there with Lira after an assignment, and we saw this guy have that done, not by one guy, but three. Older guy and two younger guys, his sons maybe. A whole family of collossal douchebags. So the guy cuts in front of them, the old guy shoves him, he shoves back, old guy shoves him again and they have a stand off where they're shouting "What the fuck!" over and over again. I think the old guy was drunk, because one of the young dudes patted him on the shoulder and said, "Let's just go." Then the guy who was the victim yelled, "Yeah go back fuckin' New Jersey," which the asshole family presumably did.

I asked Lira about what happens when things escalate like this nearly did. Are we supposed to intercede? Do we aid by cutting a situation off before it comes to blows and bodily harm is inflicted? She sneered at me, and said, "What's the matter with you? You know, after everything you've been through, sometimes it's like you haven't learned anything. You do possess memory, right? How 'bout a test, can you tell me your name?"

"Lira . . ."

"We're not peacekeepers, you got that? We're not living these peoples' lives for them, you have to let them choose their path or else they're just puppets; no emotion, no sadness, no joy. Then when they've gone to a place where they need guidance, then you step up. And if you haven't learned that by now . . ."

And I stopped her with, "Lira, you could have just said, 'No.'"

She smiled and said, "I know, baby. But you know that's not my style."

Can't argue with that.

St. Manners

2009-09-09T20:39:00.000-07:00

Cruelty is a fascinating concept. What is the genesis of evil? Insecurity? Anger? Frustration? You know, even in my worst throws of misanthropy, I was always courteous to strangers. They could be jerks, and being human, they probably are. But if you haven't actively shown any hostility then there's no reason for me to not be polite. My problem was always this idea of proactively coming to aid of the people I don't know, again, because of the same assumption I'm making about their character, simply on the basis that they walk the Earth. My point is, what the fuck happened to the concept of manners?

Marley and I went to a show in a little black box theater in the East Village. It's great, still being able to go down to Earth for entertainment on the slightest whim. You can replicate anything in Heaven, but if you're gonna work in the trenches, you might as well play there too. She was uneasy about going back there, she'd had some bad experiences there when she was homeless, but I assured her the area's changed a lot. First thing we see when we get there was a crowd of yuppies smoking in front of a bar, babbling about insipid crap no one with a brain should give a fuck about. "Which is worse?" I asked. "Then or now?"

She looked at me with her usual disapproving but nonjudgmental blank stare and said, "Then." Good thing, I needed to be kept grounded.

Anyway, this older guy in front of me was using the chair next to him like a leaning post, ignoring the fact that the crowded venue was growing short on seats. He kept leaning back and pushing the chair back into me knees. I endured it, but soon he gave the damn thing a shove and it banged into me. I finally told him to stop it, and he just stared at me. He did stop, but what the fuck is it with old guys and staring? Why can't they say a damn word when you confront them? What is the genesis of either their lack of consideration or obliviousness towards those around them. I'll try to break it down another day, right now I'm off to find something joyful.

It's Not You, It's The Douchebag

2009-09-07T20:03:00.000-07:00

Sometimes on days I have no assignments, I like to just hang out in the subway. Subway platforms are a great way to pick up unassigned jobs, 'cause there's never any shortage of human animosity or frustration. Today I saw something really blatant. On one side of the platform is the local train, the express on the other. This young guy had just gotten on to the express train when the local pulled in. Apparently he preferred the local, because he got up to run out when the door closed. Hoping the door would reopen before it closed for good, he waited by it on the left hand side, as there was another man standing in front of the doors on the right. The man looked rather innocuous, fifties, portly, glasses and overall relaxed demeanor. But when the doors did indeed open and the first guy jumped out to catch the local, the older man reached out with his arm bent and hit him with his forearm. Not hard, but since the kid was moving fast to catch the other train, it made a bit of an impact. He was fuming, but unable to retaliate without missing the local, which he furiously jumped on.

I'd seen the whole thing, and followed the guy onto the local. Sympathetically, I said, "Wow, I saw what that guy did." And he goes, "What the fuck? I mean, why the fuck would he do that? It's not like I'd ran into him or anything."

So I said, "You know, you have to wonder what's going on in that guy's life that he would feel compelled to do something like that." The kid goes, "Yeah," and I just continued, "He's probably really unhappy. Or just went through something frustrating. It's actually kind of sad. No normal person would do that. The guy's suffering somehow."

The kid smiled and said, "I hope so." So I said, "You know, it's not really important knowing why people act the way they do, it's just recognizing that they're the ones with the problem. I know that sounds like bullshit reassurance, but trust me, whatever he's going through is gonna take a lot more to fix than a shot to your arm." The kid looked intrigued and shrugged his shoulders and I just got off at the next stop. I think it eased his temper, I wished Marley'd been there so I could know for sure. When I told her about it later, she asked, "What would you have done if that'd happened to you when you were alive?"

I said, "Probably screamed 'What the fuck?!' and pounded on the door." She smiled and said, "Yeah, I know you would have." She loves seeing how I've changed, especially since she helped make it happen.

Coverage

2009-09-03T21:05:00.000-07:00

In baseball there is no clock. Kind of like being an angel. There's no stopping when the whistle blows or punching out at 5pm. Boy, there's an old term. Do young people even know what that means? They probably think it's just an expression, no need to think about the origins. Hundreds of years from now, I might be saying, "And when you were done for the day, you pushed the card into the machine, and it punched the time onto it so that they knew the time you left. Hence the expression, "punching out."

But I digress. Anyway, being an angel is not based on time, it's based on deeds, based on subjects. Usually, we meet our subjects, help an immediate crisis and leave, but every now and then you get someone who recurs. You do have to take breaks from time to time. You don't tire out, but fuck it, Heaven is still Heaven, you have to allow yourself time to enjoy paradise, even with the fulfillment being an angel brings.

So what do you do if you know someone might hit crisis but you want to, say, spend a few days at Disney World. I don't feel that comfortable having someone cover my subjects for me. Say Suzanne offers to help, which she always does, she'll jump at any chance to find a human to aid. But as confident as I am in her ability, I feel uneasy about relinquishing control. I worry about what happens, like I need to be in control, I have to know for certain that this person is being saved, and it's like the only way I can do that is doing it myself. Then I realized that there was once a time when I didn't want to help humans at all. Now look at me being overprotective. I guess paranoia is an unexpected sign of caring. And for me, a sign of growth. Never would have guessed that.

SIMPLIFY . . . simplify

2009-09-01T20:27:00.000-07:00

I was talking to one of the older angels today. I was telling him about the person I was helping, and this was a pretty common one, just a person with a drinking problem who was beginning to alienate his children. Not from abuse or anything, just from not being around, being unable to see the family relationship as the positive reinforcement to avoid the need for vice escape. Happens all the time, no big deal. But this older angel kept on going on about, "Well, first, I set up a chart. I cross section all the person's weaknesses with their strengths. Then their likes and dislikes to increase likelihood of response. Then, I set up another chart of "Guiding Statements," and I plot reactions. As the results get more positive, I set up a . . ."

And at that point I told him I was just going to talk to Archangel Michael and left before my head exploded. First of all, I wasn't asking for any input (got that?). Second, whatever happened to just talking to the fuckin' guy? When we were at angel training school, we were basically harnessing our abilities, not really acquiring skills to put into practice. Inspiring the living shouldn't be mired down in procedure like that, if you need to put that much thought into it, chances are, this is not something you're made for. Obviously this guy was made to be angel since they made him one, but I've said this before, you can't teach talent. I'm not trying to be vain, but if I didn't have a talent for this angel business I would have never started doing it in the first place. Helping people should come naturally.

Then again, maybe angels are meant to be as different from each other as the humans are. I'm just glad I wasn't made like this guy. If I had to do all that crap everyday like he does, I'd fucking kill myself. And that's saying a lot, coming from a guy whose already dead.

Reunion

2009-08-31T20:17:00.000-07:00

Roy, Patty, Tony, Suzanne, Marley and I went out tonight. It was the first time we've all been together since Angel graduation and it was good to see everyone again. Actually, I still hang with Tony and Marley hangs with Suzanne, so sometime the four of us chill together, but it was nice to see Roy and Patty. I didn't realize it would be like that until it happened. I couldn't stand Roy for such a long time that even though we started getting alone before angel training ended, I was surprised that I was happy to see him. I guess it's part of learning that you have to give people a chance and not make your mind up about them too quickly. That's part of what being an angel is all about.

Anyway, we were talking about some of our recent cases and it was interesting how everybody started coming up with suggestions of courses of action before each person revealed what the solution was. I like how we work as a group; maybe someday it'll be interesting to see if we can all work together, I don't know, like an angelic Justice League or something. Since we're spread out across the country on Earth, that's a little tough. Maybe we can start smaller. Chicago's about halfway between Los Angeles and New York, maybe if Marley and I meet up with Suzanne there, then Tony can come out from LA. It's just a matter of scheduling, I'm sure Suzanne would be up for that. She'll do anything if it means healing more humans.

Hail To The Senator

2009-08-27T11:17:00.001-07:00

Senator Ted Kennedy arrived up here the other day. A few people seemed pretty excited. I talked to grandma and grandpa and they seemed anxious to see him. The general impression is that one one wants to bother him for a while, they're respectfully waiting until he spends some time with his brothers and nephew. I asked gang what they thought; Marley didn't really know much about him but Tony seemed interested and Suzanne couldn't wait to meet him.

I had some mixed feelings about the whole thing. In Heaven, since you can go anywhere, I guess that means you can go to where ever any given person is if you want to meet them. Doesn't that get tiring for a celebrity? I mean, everyone's in the directory, they're all a phone call away. Maybe we're less disposed to actually use those numbers, and that's part of what heaven is about for the celebrities. I've only used the directory once so far, Suzanne asked me who I called, and when I told her, she smiled and said, "Aww, that's so you!" I figured it was a compliment and then Marley told me it was. I figured as much, I can't imagine Suzanne doing anything malicious, at least not since I've known her. I'm glad I didn't before she died, I could never stand people like the one she used to be. At least I didn't at the time. I wonder who's changed more, me, Marley or Suzanne? I don't know, but maybe evolution is why we all get along so well.

A Valiant Effort

2009-08-25T20:02:00.000-07:00

Sashial and I went to the bombers game tonight. They fucking lost, which was disappointing. Doubly bad was they made this huge comeback, scoring four runs in the ninth inning when they were down by five, blowing it on a popped up bunt and an unassisted double play. I was pretty bummed, but you should of seen Sashial. She just stood there and went, "Oh MOTHERFUCKER! MOTHERFUCKER THAT FUCKING MOTHERFUCKER!" I'm not sure if she was talking about the guy who hit the ball or the guy who caught it, but with her, you learn not to ask these things. The weird thing is I don't even know which she likes better, the bombers or the excuse to scream and curse. That's the reason she got into the game in the first place, and she only likes the bombers basically because I do. It's kind of amazing, to think baseball's been around for over a hundred years, but in all her travels and tribulations, nothing brought her to it until I did. Then again, it's not like she needs a reason to yell, she certainly doesn't care what anyone thinks of her, much less the humans on Earth.

She did something interesting before we left, though. After she calmed down, she looked at me with those puppy dog eyes she gets, and said, "I'm so sorry, honey." I told her I was kind of bummed, but it wasn't that big a deal, and when I tried to explain their healthy position in the standings, she shook her head and whispered, "I don't care." That is so her. Then she asked when we could go again. I asked if Lira might want to come next time, and Sashial said, "Don't have faith on it. See thinks watching people swing sticks a ball for three hours sounds like punishment in hell." That's so Lira. Those two are the best.

It Really Takes It Out Of You

2009-08-24T14:56:00.000-07:00

Being good is really fucking exhausting. I don't mean physically exhausting because we don't get tired or sleepy. Thank god, because being an angel is tougher than any kind of office job you can imagine, good thing it's more rewarding too. You know, when I was alive I never really slept much, especially not towards the end after Shannon left. Whenever someone would get on my case about it, I'd say, "I'll sleep when I'm dead." Now I'm dead, and I don't have to sleep, I only do it for the dreams, that and the sense of intimacy. Like the lady said, it's a free ride when you've already paid.

Anyway, being an angel is not your job. I know I once said it was but I was wrong about a lot of things back then. It's who we are; not what defines us, but more like our purpose, or our entire state of being. You can't shut it off like when you come home from the office, no matter how late you worked that day. And it's mentally taxing. People's problems don't go away when the whistle blows, so neither can we. And sometimes we're called upon to go above and beyond, which for residents of Heaven is really saying something.

So why do we do it? For Marley, it's just her nature, for Suzanne, it's more redemption. I've never quite nailed down what drives me. I think it's just my status as a nice guy. On Earth you get mocked or abused for that, which is what led to my misanthropy in the first place. Up here, it's like, I finally get the chance to use to achieve something. I've never experienced that before. So is my being an angel motivated by a selfish need for fulfillment? I hope not. I got into this originally for spite, I like to think my motives are more noble now. Hopefully time will tell. After all, I'm new at this.

Why Do They Test Me?

2009-08-23T15:53:00.000-07:00

I tried to assist someone today, and not only did he show resistance, he made things more difficult by lying to me about what his problems actually were. You know, sometimes I think I'll never understand, these people just don't get that I'm trying to help them. Lira once told me that humans will do anything they can to hold themselves back. I thought she was just doing her usual tough love motivation, but then again, I wasn't an angel back then. Now that I've logged in some angel time, I can see how right she was. This guy had grown children he said he couldn't connect with because they weren't around. I wasn't sure what to do; after all, you can't really bring people together when they're never in the same place. Marley's a little better with family issues than I am, so I brought her with me when I went back to see him. When she read what he was feeling, she pulled me aside and said, "He's not malicious, but he's not telling the truth." When I reminded him what he said, he goes, "Oh. I was kidding."

You know, when you're kidding about something, fucking say that, eventually. That's what makes it a joke and not a fucking lie that makes me look like a total fucking idiot. I was ready to just abandon him, but Marley said to not give up on him. Thank God she's around to keep me grounded. Can you say "keep me grounded" in Heaven? Maybe it should be "keep me clouded," but that's sort of the opposite of what I'm saying.

Anyway, I've said before that humans aren't worth helping, then admitted I was wrong. So I'm still gonna try and help this guy. Just hope it's worth it.