It’s been too long since I ventured back onto the web in all my text and glory, and I’d say it’s time I got back to it.

The main reason I’ve been so absent is not a lack of personal time, no, but more a notable lack of a person. A good friend of mine passed away quite unexpectedly a few weeks ago, and I’ve been reserving my “next post since then” for her. But it’s hard. You can really only do it once, they say, and I wanted to get it right. I don’t want to make light of it, but I also don’t want to weigh everyone down with sap and pretense.

Because the fact of the matter, as I have come to realize, is that writing a post about someone who’s passed away for the sake of that person is bullshit. It’s never for their sake, it’s always for the writer’s sake; for one thing, the person who has passed away – well – has passed away. For another, it’s therapeutic or soothing to the writer to express feelings; and honestly, when I go to someone else’s blog, I don’t really care how they were feeling when they posted a paragraph.

The next great hope, then, is that people who knew Kim will read it and be in some way comforted. At least, that’s the desired effect, that those who knew her will be comforted and will in turn comfort me by saying something like, “oh, that’s a really nice thing you said, you’re such a good person, so strong and yet so sensitive,” and so on. Any way you slice it, it’s a selfish maneuver.

After realizing this, I was stricken with guilt about writing anything at all. So I thought maybe I’d wait awhile and then just start up again with some completely random topic. Like honeybees. Did you know they make honey? It’s true. But that didn’t feel right either. I didn’t want to just ignore the subject.

So I’m a selfish bastard if I write about Kim because I only want to make myself feel better, and I’m an asshole if I don’t say anything at all. All around, I’m a horrible person. But I can’t not write anything.

I finally said to myself that this wasn’t working out, so here I am. It’s not the middle of the night or anything. I’m just going to say something about Kim, not for Kim’s sake, not for the sake of her friends and family, but for my sake. I don’t care anymore.

Here I go.

Kim Forbes was one of the smallest people I ever knew, but her laugh was as big as an elephant’s. (This statement is grounded in the belief that elephants laugh loudly and heartily when no one is around.) People talk about the size of her spirit, which was also quite big, but what I remember more than that is her laugh. She laughed hard and she laughed a lot. If you really got her going, you could even call it a guffaw. It was magnificent.

Kim was instrumental in our move to Chicago; it was her that planted the seed in our brains to come here from Boston, and when we came here, we had met David but Kim was the only person that we really knew. We moved in literally across the street from them. We have since moved away from Albany Park, mainly because our landlord at the time decided to turn our building into condos.

I once let Kim read a copy of “This American Wife,” a play which I wrote sometime last year which mocks the famous NPR show “This American Life.” Kim was a fan of the show, and I knew she would get a lot of the jokes, so I let her read it. She read it while over at my apartment here in Lincoln Square, and I’ll tell you all this much: she laughed so much louder so much harder at some of the jokes than I ever thought anyone would, so much that I can honestly credit her with tipping me over the fence towards the decision to try and produce it. It will be the first play that I wrote that will be actually produced with full cast and designers and rehearsal time and all that jazz (24-hour theatre festivals don’t count). We’ll have programs for the show, and I will be sure to mention Kim.

I guess what I’m saying is that Kim was an inspiration in the truest sense, and I’ll miss her.

And now for something not-so-selfish: please, please, please, if you have money to burn, please consider making a donation to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. It’s important.

The next post will showcase my return to full-blown self-indulgence, I promise. It will be titled “My Wife Is My Stylist” and will most likely contain the tale where I say:

“Dude, don’t be jealous of my big fuzzy blue balls.”

Filed by Bil at 10:00 pm under Love