Everything Is Horrible and Wonderful

with sadness. In public, he was still everything that made him, him: gregarious, funny, charming, outgoing. But over the last year with the back pain and the pills and the on and off with the girlfriend, he’d become more detached and distant from us. His energy for conversation was either ephemeral or absent. When we were together as a family, we’d find ourselves firing off a zillion questions about the goings-on of his life but would get very little in return. Lots of “yes” or “no,” and virtually no reciprocal questions. It often felt like talking to a teenager, frustrating and even hurtful at times. I justified his behavior by reasoning that maybe he just needed to shut down and reboot when he came home. He felt comfortable enough to not have to be “Harris” around us. He had so much success in such a short time at such a young age—maybe it was just too much.

Rehab was the solution, the cure-all that would resurrect him from the living dead. Even my dad, the medical professional who wrote actual textbooks, was certain this would do the trick. The thirty days would conflict with Iris’s baby naming, which sucked, but we had to act fast on his willingness to go to treatment. Getting sober would make all sorts of future family events possible. It would keep him alive. We would just lie to everyone and say he had a work commitment. Easy.

I hugged him tightly before he headed back to LA. Although I was stranded in my own canyon of sadness, it had been comforting to look up and see my brother sitting there with me over the last few days. I was relieved he was finally willing to take action and confident it would work. Harris was a golden boy. He could do anything.

10 Three Months

I just want somebody to tell me what the fuck happened the night you died. I want some fucking answers. When did you decide to use? Did you plan it all day, like right before breakfast, or was it a last-minute moment of weakness? Did you have any second thoughts or did you just plunge right in? What happened right before you did it? Who did you talk to? Had you relapsed prior to leaving sober living or did it happen after you got out on Tuesday? This question plagues me the most.

I go to the storage unit to drop off some baby stuff. Baby stuff takes up so much room—it’s astounding. The last, and only other, time I was here was to open it up for the movers when they arrived from LA. The halls are still and quiet. I think: This would be an effective place to commit a murder. The motion lights click on as I turn each corner of the winding hallway. Row after row of boxes stuffed with people’s shit. I open the heavy, metal garage door, breathe in, and sob. Sometimes if I inhale too deeply, it pushes some internal button and tears come pouring out of my face when I exhale. It happens all the time. Having a conversation with the pediatrician. Checking out at the grocery store. Opening the big garage door to a storage unit. Looking at all your furniture and boxes full of hoodies and cool artwork crammed into a ten-by-ten-foot, climate-controlled box.

Lying in bed that night, binge-watching Parenthood and feeling sorry for myself that I’ll never have a big family like these fictional characters on this television show, I remember that your cell phone has been sitting in the drawer of my bedside table, untouched, since we unpacked from our trip to LA over two months ago. I plug it in, and it’s so dead that it takes several moments to wake up. Like coming out of a coma. The Apple logo flashes on the screen, followed by your favorite picture of Iris in her pink, animal-print footie pajamas sitting on her little pink chair with Iris embroidered on the back. She is looking directly at the camera with a look on her face that says Enough with the pictures already, lady. It feels like I’m powering up a portal to another dimension.

I open the Notes app and scroll through your brain, some complete—but mostly incomplete—set lists, thoughts, jokes, ideas. The set from your last show at Meltdown the night you died is at the top:

I tell ya, I walk around this city now and I don’t know what is and what isn’t a banksy. That’s exactly what banksy wants.

Vampires can’t die unless their heart is stopped. But like, same with humans? just havin some fun with thought experiments, iono

It always kinda bums me out when I see a band play a show and none of them have on a wedding ring.

If conservative idiots consider life to begin at conception, then why do they all celebrate their birthdays as the day they were born?

I’ll never not be surprised at how far back the vagina is.

Genuinely enjoy Keith and Harry Connick’s banter. Great guys with fun tudes.

When a car starts going a little before the light turns green, Im like “oh shit they’ve been to this intersection before.” I like that move.

I wonder what vibe I carry when I walk into a room. Lord I hope it’s chill.

2 legitimately 2 quitimately

I’ll never be at 69 followers again. Wait! UNLESS I say the n-word a bunch of times and LOSE enough followers!… but is it worth it…?

You hear about the fat guy who created a dramedy? He got an Emmy nom nom nom.

Serious question: If you could suck your own dick, would you cum in your mouth? I think I’d try to finish on my tits.

In trailers, I love when they cut right in the middle of someone saying “motherfucker.” Hell yea I’m gonna see it! Gotta see if they say it!

I had AIDS once

Aw man, when eye boogers turn sharp, forget about it

Instagram’s good for seein what people are up to.

Bummed I