Being a grown-up sucks. I am convinced it is especially hard right now.

I remember when I was guaranteed a raise of 5% each year, or it was pretty much expected that I’d be moving on to another company. So it’s fair to say we are living in tough times financially.

I remember when there were no scanners at the doors of government buildings. Or security passes needed to get into work. So it’s fair to say we are living in more fearful times.

As I watched the memorial for the victims in Tucson, I was reminded of the shootings that took place in the Washington DC area in 2002. The nonsense of it all was confusing. The closeness of it was frightening. The way that so many of us found that “it could have been me” brought our communities together. I felt that same close fear again as I heard that Representative Giffords was married the same year I was.

Episodes like this really put daily hardships into perspective, don’t they?

Just because we are living in a more challenging world, there’s no reason we can’t focus on living the best life we can, where we are, with what we have. We have to cling to the up side of the bad news. When it seems like we don’t have any good news, we have to be happy for other people. It isn’t easy, but we must pull through the cloudy days.

On the positive side, I am glad for Tuscon that their violence has ended, and that many of the victims will survive. There are so many people praying for them, sending hope and love their way, including me. It is energizing to hear of the heroism that was revealed in regular people that day, and to hear of the wonderful people that were lost that day. Although they will be missed, they were a gift to those who knew them.

A friend recently lost their fish, a 4-year old beta, and as she struggles to break the news to her kids, I’m reminded of exactly why pets are good.

I have loved — and lost — a number of pets in my life, and although each one wasn’t a life’s companion, they taught me something as they came and went through our family story.

Nothing is free. My parents always spoke first about who was going to clean up after whatever pet we begged them for. Whether it was a fish, a hamster, a cat or dog, we quickly learned that pets equal chores. We never spent a lot of money on our pets, but it was clear that time would be spent taking care of the pets, and our allowance often counted on that.

We are needed. With fish, it was painfully clear that if we didn’t do our cleaning the bowl/feeding chores, the fish died. Of course my parents didn’t let that happen with our cats, but the message had been delivered.

Life is dirty, and sometimes painful. There are litter boxes and hairballs to deal with. Sometimes there is surgery. Sometimes there is a fight. We help the ones we love recuperate.

Death happens. This is probably the most important lesson. When a pet dies, this is tragic. As a young person who has helped a loved pet grow and survive turmoil, it is particularly tragic. We do not expect to lose anyone around us. But learning how to say goodbye is very useful. Grief will be necessary. Learning how to cry is important.

It breaks my heart when I hear people tell my friend to just replace the fish they’ve just lost, that ‘the kids won’t be able to tell the difference.’ First, I think they will be able to tell, and second, I think that a valuable opportunity could be lost. It is so much easier to learn how to grieve first about a fish, then it is about a cat, or a dog, then a grandmother or grandfather.

Pets are important family members for all of these reasons, besides the fact that many furry pets also will be able to tell when you’ve lost someone and need someone warm to sit in your lap.

I’m thankful for all the pets that have come and gone through my life, especially the cats I have right now, Eddie and Nacho (pictured). I recommend everyone who has the space and resources to add a pet in their life check out Petfinder.com and consider adopting a pet.

Death seems to happen in batches for me. But this batch has been much weirder than others. The more remarkable loss in this batch, oddly, was of the person I knew least.

For the first time I have lost a social media friend. Not an In Real Life (IRL) friend that I caught up with via Facebook or MySpace, but someone I met via social media and communicated with via social media and never really intended on meeting in real life.

Cory was working on a beta website that I am testing, Lunch.com, and lived in Culver City, California. He had given me some nice feedback on some reviews I’d written. We weren’t BFFs, we had just started our online relationship. But his sudden accidental death — a car accident — still raised a painful, though digital, void in my life.

Cory’s face, via his avatar, was one of the faces of Lunch.com to me, and when I got the notice that he’d passed away, I was surprised to feel a bit more emotional than weeks earlier, when I learned one of my coworkers passed away. My coworker was someone that I passed in the hall once a week or so, but didn’t work on a regular basis with. Still, I knew him PERSONALLY.

But so much collaboration within my office building is electronic that I might as well have been working for the same company as Cory as with this other person. I had about the same amount of interaction with the two men, and I actually know a bit more about Cory because of the nature of social media. So I feel a bit closer to Cory than I do to my coworker.

Social media has such potential to bring people together across the miles, to build friendships and restore relationships. Death is a natural part of life, but a part that most of us are not well-prepared for, and most social media operations don’t seem to have a built-in death notice apparatus. (Or am I missing something?) We don’t plan on most of our friends having tragic accidents.

One site that does have a death preparation built-in is Caring Bridge, which is designed for people with long-term critical illnesses such as cancer or premature births. It has an element of hope to it, allowing the patient or caregiver to provide daily journal entries, but it also allows for conversion to a tribute site if the patient doesn’t survive treatment.

As social media relationships mature, I am regrettably certain we will see more of this. I’m interested to see how the social media giants make space for ALL parts of life.

UPDATE: Articles I’ve found on how social media is dealing with death, and how people are reacting to it.

• New York Times: Parents of Dead Student Use Facebook to Reconnect
• Consumerist: Facebook Agrees to Take Down Dead Relative’s Page
• Linked In: Policy answer

We’ve lost Lux Interior of The Cramps. It’s a sad day for psychobilly, rockabilly, surf rock, punk — all of these genres could call Lux one of their own, one of their forefathers. I was lucky to see Lux perform a couple of times, and let me tell you, to The Cramps, horror pop was not a joke.

They came from a time when you committed to your band with all you had: blood, sweat, tears, name. Lux Interior was married to the bass guitarist, Poison Ivy. Those names belie only a fraction of the sensation you could expect from a Cramps show.

You don’t see as many musicians changing their names, outside of the DJ set, anymore. Especially not to such colorful names. Like Siouxsie Sioux or Adam Ant, Johnny Rotten or Meatloaf or Sting or The Edge.

(He goes by The Edge. When you think about it, that’s even more pretentious than Prince! His name is a title, it’s crazy. But I never think about it like that, because it’s just his name to me, and he plays awesome guitar.)

Anyway, losing these committed musicians, people like Lux Interior and the Ramones, saddens me. I hope you’ll take a moment — a moment of noise or music, not silence — in honor of Lux. Consider his dedication to his art. One band since 1976. With the lovely Poison Ivy by his side. My condolences, Ms. Ivy.

Lux Interior: 10.21.46-2.4.09

A year ago this week my life was a mess. Christmas was in shambles. My boyfriend had been hit by a car, his right elbow was broken, he was in horrible pain and couldn’t do much of anything. Our trips to visit family were cancelled; we had a quiet present-opening at home, instead. He insisted I make the solo trip to see my parents, but it was bittersweet, and my mind was only half there.

To top it all off, we had tickets to see James Brown and Chuck Brown (DC’s godfather of go-go) at the 9:30 Club for later that week.

I was torn. But the tickets weren’t cheap, and this legendary combination isn’t one to miss, and I am not much of a Florence Nightingale type. (I needed the break.)

So when the concert night came around, I took my boyfriend’s insistence that I go on without him at face value and off I went with my girlfriends to the show. I never was able to sell his ticket, but I can say today that I got every penny’s worth. That was James Brown’s last show in DC, and although he was showing his age, and I was feeling my drinks, we enjoyed our time together, and I am glad I was there.

James Brown lies in rest at the Apollo Theater

Ford’s state funeral begins Friday

It’s the last week of Fishnet Music, a record store I opened 3 years ago with my friend Lisa and her mother Terry in Ocean City, MD.
Our doors will close Friday, March 31 after lots of blood, sweat and tears – mine has been mostly remote, e-mailing ads and website updates from DC, after the first summer of driving back and forth every weekend.
If you live down there, please stop by and get some great deals on CDs and records at our close-out sale. If not, think of us this week. It’s hard to say goodbye. We met some wonderful bands that played in-store performances for us, and really enjoyed giving people an alternative place to look for and learn about music.
www.fishnetmusic.com