Been quite a while. Lost friend Ragavarhao to sudden heart attack. Hindu funeral was mixed with generations of his doctoral students ... "He was my Father" ... profound connections. Then, a few days ago one of M's friends died after long bout with Cancer and I've been on new meds that seem to be regulating my wayward arrhythmic heart. Freddie Mercury said: Pain is so close to pleasure. Lacan's notion of jouissance says the same ... Freud and the poets before him. The visitors who come to my office seem to not pay attention to this factoid ... that life has Sadness and Glee ... Pain and Pleasue. If nothing good is left to stand (title of new book by Leon Wurmser and Jarass), then we're left and bereft with only depression (not sadness) and Pain. Ragavarao's death was painfully sad ... to my friends Miltie and Ruth even more powerfully so and now as their one of their 4 cats is dangerously ill ... and, yet, what a celebration of the goodness of his life. Not his 8 books or the 9th that was on the way but noting the love with which those near and dear to him felt towards and from him. Ill folk get stuck on the dark side but, moreso, when goodness comes they find a way to abbreviate its effects with their realistic expectation of the bad that will come. Many people have come telling me that they are afraid something bad will happen ... illness, loss, ... I tell them that they're confused: somethings bad are assured to happen, just wait. Alas, if I could direct peoiple to embrace the good ... we call it gratitude ... Kinda like the feeling on the street in Montreal when Spring comes and people come out of their winter underground tunnels and fill the street cafes with a sufficiency of love and intimacy. So, nothing new, here. Did have a sad day, last Sunday. Arose to a memory of walking home from school when I was 4 or 5 because classmates had stolen my wax whistles. In the early 1950's in Brooklyn, wax whistles were something to celebrate. Then, I began subtracting. How many ffff(ine)years ago was that. Playing in the Last Quarter, it's easy to get lost in subtraction. Told M and then told people in a subgroup at a workshop meeting. Nancy, a maternal or grandmaternal looking woman about my age, patted me on shoulder and said: we can cheer'ya up. They did,