1.

i woke up to the sound of myself dying. i knew i'd just had surgery, and i knew i was hearing everything you hear when someone is about to die on tv. except... i was being yelled at.

"breathe! you've gotta breathe! you aren't breathing," she said, with volume, but about the same attitude as a teacher at 3:25pm who doesn't really give two shits anymore. her voice seemed to echo from multiple places at once.

i could see the heart monitor now, and the number looked scarily high, but i knew it wasn't mine because i could feel my chest and it was calm and steady. it must have been hooked up to someone else. the teacher/nurse -- not mad, just disappointed -- was right, though. i wasn't breathing. it felt like i was dying.

it was very peaceful, and though i most definitely couldn't move a muscle, i felt like i was more in control of my body than i had ever been. i was watching from behind my eyes, i was in my brain, and i had a choice. i could either breathe... or not breathe.

i took my time with the decision. i weighed the pros and cons. jordan's dead, so maybe it isn't that bad. but being alive has its charms too. at some point as i mulled it all over, i started breathing.

my dead friend jordan, i'm told, was alive for a time after jumping off the bridge.* over the last two years, that's bothered me more than i want to admit. wondering what he would have thought about, what he must have felt. the notion that he might have regretted his decision terrifies me.

*i have no idea if it was actually a bridge, or where exactly it even happened. i guess i never want to know.

after my surgery, in some strange way, i was given a gift. (i goddamn deserved one, too.) the burden of wondering over jordan's last moments was relieved. he was okay. he probably didn't get the choice i got (he always did have things harder than me), but our brain takes care of us. it doesn't let it get too bad. in that last moment, eternal dark doesn't seem so scary.

2.

we now live in the world comedian patton oswalt calls ETEWAF (everything that ever was, available forever), but i'm sure anyone reading this remembers how treasured your first albums was. or maybe it's your first book or comic, your first video game. my copy of the first season of THE SOPRANOS was one of those treasured items. it was probably my first dvd box set (back when even that concept was new) and it probably cost a fortune (it was a "holiday" gift). i didn't just watch the dvds. no, it was so much more than that. i would unfold the box. look at the pictures. feel the texture of it. like countless novels and album sleeves* over the years, i literally wore it out.

okay, i grew up in the CD era, but "album sleeves" sound cooler than CD booklets.

time passed. dvds are found on the $3 rack at 7-11. who needs them? we have streaming. HD. ultra HD. ETEWAF. even the last remaining nostalgics and romantics know that there's no charm left to be had in plastic discs -- they skipped right back to vinyl. those once treasured collections of CDs or dvds couldn't be more meaningless now.

a few of them still hold a place in my heart, though. i spent far too much time hunting down nine inch nails rarities and smashing pumpkins imports to ever part with those collections. the same is true of my original box sets of THE X-FILES or the ALIEN movies or my NEWSRADIO and HOMICIDE LIFE ON THE STREET dvds. as a television nerd who would meticulously record shows (commercial-free!) on hand-labelled VHS tapes back when such measures were necessary if you wanted to rewatch an episode, they mean too much to me to ever let them go.

though i can still picture it vividly and imagine the feel of it in my hands (i even remember the menu screens), i no longer have that first SOPRANOS box set -- or the six that followed in the decade afterwards.

in 2010, jordan visited california. we hadn't yet arrived in ETEWAF, and he hadn't yet seen the final season of THE SOPRANOS. a decade previous, when i still lived in canada, ctv was airing the uncensored first season (THE SOPRANOS on basic cable! ...though commercially interrupted and a year late) and jordan started watching one episode before i did. my memory is that i was vaguely disinterested, and he pushed me into vague intrigue.

he must have started with DENIAL, ANGER, ACCEPTANCE, and i must have followed with MEADOWLANDS. the next episode, my second, was COLLEGE -- the episode when i (and the rest of canada, and america the year previous) realized that this show was unlike anything we'd ever seen on television. how little we knew, right?

with the inevitable blu-ray collection already three years overdue, i told jordan to take my SOPRANOS box sets home with him. i'd seen the series enough times to hold me over until the HD upgrade (or so i thought), and it was about damn time he saw the final season.

he got home, watched the series from beginning to end, and we talked.

the once treasured box sets? no idea. when jordan disappeared, so did they.

3.

one of the many reasons THE SOPRANOS plays such a monumental part in my life is that for the better part of a decade, it felt like i was growing up with the two soprano children. though i was closer in age to meadow and i adore her story, she was looking at colleges in her junior year of high school and i just made it to college at age 30. we don't have a lot in common.

anthony jr on the other hand... well, as tony put it, "he could just be a fucking idiot. historically, that's been the case." and there was that time he walked through the plate-glass door.

goddamn do i relate to that kid, though. in all the conversations about this show i've had with friends, both as it aired and in retrospect, that's something i've always been alone on. i would nod as i listened to complaints about how annoying he was, wondering why nobody found him as brilliant, hilarious, and kind-hearted as i did.

when he finished the series, jordan understood. anthony jr's story hit him with the same intensity it hit me. it was one of the many things we discussed in what felt like a lifelong conversation about this series.

it's impossible not to have regrets now that jordan's gone. for one thing, i should have gone to our local public high school. if i had, jordan would have too, and we would have spent that time together. (added bonus: far less oppressive catholic school misery for me.) i should have visited toronto more, and i should have pushed him to visit california more. i did push for him to move here, but i should have pushed harder. we should've written together, created something, created many things. these regrets will never, ever go away. we missed our chance. the child is grown, the dream is gone.

our conversation about THE SOPRANOS is still happening, though. that overdue blu-ray set finally came out -- all it took for HBO to get off their butts was the death of the star of their flagship series. i'm three seasons deep, and every time i notice something new, i tell jordan. i hear him respond. we still argue about it, too -- we could never agree on which moments were meant to be funny and which ones weren't.

...and we both still see ourselves in that kid. the shy little boy. the nihilistic teen. the young adult who was just smart enough to see how fucked up the world is but too dumb to do anything about it. AJ throws himself into a barely functional relationship, defining himself through it. been there. he's terrified to leave his comfort zone, even though he knows he'll never accomplish anything while inside of it. been there. he's torn between the words that come out of his father's mouth and the actions that contradict every single one of them. fucking been there.

"AJ tries to commit suicide in a comical yet tragic way," was the story beat describing the scene that terrence winter ultimately wrote in the episode THE SECOND COMING. ("comical yet tragic" may as well be the title of the series. or existence.) when AJ tried to kill himself, he had tony to save him, to give him another chance. most of us aren't so lucky. as the series ends, tony even finds a direction for his son -- the film industry. art! (sure, the production company makes porn, but they're branching out... cleaver!) it's a rather sweet place to end his story, and i think jordan and i both found comfort in that. who knows what the fuck is gonna happen to us, but that kid we grew up with? that kid we could both relate to so fucking hard? he's okay.

"in the midst of death, we are in life. or is it the other way around?"

2014.12.08