I do. I miss them terribly. I didn't enjoy the show when it first came out because I was living on the New Mexico/Texas border and too many of my husband's students looked and acted like Beavis and Butthead. But then one night I saw the show where Butthead is sitting in class, bouncing his pencil on his desk by dropping it eraser end first and catching it as it rebounds. Then he missed, and the pencil stuck in his eye and he just laughed and said "Cool. It really does happen."

I can't tell you why that struck me so funny, except that I have probably spent hours bouncing pencils off of desks during meetings and classes and what not.

But of all the pithy and profound things B&B ever said, the one thing that resonates more and more as I get older is this:

"Wow. This sucks in ways that things have never sucked before."

Like when my friend Gary died of colon cancer. Or when my friend's brother died. Or her other brother died. Or the Homeland Security Department was signed into law, with the evil Admiral Pointdexter in charge of legal wiretapping of all citizens. Or even the making of the president in the last "election". Yep, as the 21st century grinds along, things are starting to suck in ways that they have never sucked before.

I took communion on Saturday night with a few friends... few thousand friends. It was the High Holy Day of the Church of Rock & Roll, and we were there to see the Highest of the High Priests: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. My husband has endured our religious difference with amazing tolerance for the past 12 years, and allowed me to drag him to previous tours.

Bruce & the NOT the E Street Band
Him: That was a good show.
Me: No, it was a good rock and roll show, but it was a lousy Bruce show.

Bruce solo on the Ghost of Tom Joad Tour
Him: That was an OK show.
Me: That was a good Bruce solo accoustic show, but it wasn't a BRUCE show.

The Reunion Tour of 2000
Him (day 1 of 2 shows): How come everybody knows all the words to all the songs? How do they know when to put their hands in the air like that?
Me: (Screaming in unison with a few thousand others) IT AIN'T NO SIN TO BE GLAD YOU'RE ALIVE!!!

Him (day 2 of 2): OOOOOhhhh, I think I get it.
Me: OOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHmigod, they're playing Thunder Road.

The Rising Barnstorm Tour
Him (somewhere in the intro to the second song): BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN KICKS MAJOR ROCK AND ROLL ASS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Me: Well, duh. You finally got it.

And he does. He finally gets it. He'll never get it about BOB, but that's OK.

So here's the set list from Saturday night in Miami...

The Rising
Lonesome Day
Promised Land
The Fuse
Candy's Room
Empty Sky
You're Missing
Waiting on a Sunny Day
Out in the Street
Worlds Apart
Badlands
She's The One
Mary's Place (and yes, this is the barn burner live that I thought it would be when I heard the cd. Damn. Damn)
Then Bono (yes THAT Bono) and Dave Stewart (from the Eurythmics) came out and joined in on
Because The Night
For You (with Bruce solo on the piano)
Into the Fire

(First Encore)
So Young & In Love
Glory Days
If I Should Fall Behind (a duet with the great, great Dion -- Dion and the Belmonts, not Celine Dion)
Born To Run

(Second Encore)
My City in Ruins
Born in the USA (back to being something of a rocker, not the high lonesome sound of recent years, performed on a 12 string steel)
Land of Hopes and Dreams
Dancing in the Dark

and if the freaking Miami crowd had arrived on time, instead of late or 10 minutes to curtain, the show would have started on time and we could have had three encores, OK?

As it was, it was the cure I needed for these days of loathing and fear.

I've been reading my surrogate daughter's blog with scary regularity, ever since she started one (Bad Teenage Poetry). I am sooo proud of this girl/woman. Her writing is heart felt and crisp. She went off to college in August and has been feeling her way along, joining a wrestling club, feeding the hungry at the Krinsha Temple... But she all of a sudden hit the zone. She's quoting the beats and reading at poetry jams. Dancing mad at midnight to the Mighty Mighty Bosstones. Finding her new family. And I'm watching it all with my breath held, as the chrysalis thins and the magnificent wings start to show. What an unfurling this promises to be.

So my best friend's brother died in my hospital this morning. He had leukemia, had tried chemo in prep for bone marrow transplant, and instead of getting 10 good months extra, he crashed. Got about 10 good days. As if that doesn't just suck the big Lebowski, here's the part I really don't get. He had a DNR. He had a living will that said no machines, no drastic measures. For the past 10 days he's been in a coma: tubes, machines, pumps and drips. Because his wife couldn't accept it and wouldn't admit that Jimmy had made his choice about how to die.

Can you get any more selfish than this? I'm not ready, so I'm going to control your end. Promise me, when it comes to it, give me a major bolus of morphine and let me shuffle off this mortal coil. I am not so attached to life that I fear the next passage. I AM affraid of dragging it out.

When my grandmother died, she went at home. We all came around to say goodbye. I let her hold her diamond ring, one last time. Even put it on her tiny little bird-like finger. The weight spun it around. Then it wouldn't come off. "Ha Ha, Gramma, you can't take it with you. Dammit, give it back, you gave it to me!" And the nurse is looking at me like I'm nuts, but the ring would not BUDGE off her finger. Hey. The nurses here all tell stories about folks in comas can hear you. Tell stories about how the one guy woke up and said they remember hearing what the nurses were saying over their bodies.... more or less. So who's to say Gramma wasn't giving me the hose, one last time for old time's sake.

What's that old joke? When I die, I want to go like my grandfather, peacefully in my sleep, not screaming in terror like his passengers.

My fingers are numb from the cold. The truly sad thing is, I'm sitting in an office in Miami. It's the freaking air conditioner set to meat locker that has me in a sweater and polar fleece sox over my brogues. Red ones, for those of you who keep track of my shoes. With neon green sox.

Here's a rhetorical question: why do my coworkers insist on saying things to me like: "You need to tell your boss to do..." or "You need to make your boss do ..."

Hey! If he's my boss, then, by definition, I'm not the one doing the telling what to do. Get it? See, crap runs downhill. I'm downhill. From everyone it seems, some days.

Yep. Those are actually today's shoes. How come nobody seems to understand the concept of gridlock as it applies to traffic? If there's no room for your car, it isn't going to help matters to drive into the intersection and then block access for the next group of people. And since when did the law become 2X2 through a stop sign. Back in the dark ages, when I took driver's ed, it went like this: First person at the intersection goes first, and then everyone else goes through, one at a time, from the right to the left. Right of way, get it? Here in Miami, maybe because there are so many boaters, people seem to drive according to the laws of gross tonnage. The more tonnage you have, the more right of way you have. And since most people are in SUVs, pickup trucks and minivans, that leaves people like me in the dust. Literally and figuratively.