Jeremiah

Jeremiah Eliot Moody Crompton
6/12/1990-5/29/2016
Jeremiah Crompton, son of Joseph and Carole (Moody) Crompton of Brattleboro, ended his own life early Sunday morning. His death followed years of frustration, sorrow, rage, fear, boredom, delusion and pain interspersed with times of brilliance and amazing humor.
Jeremiah attended Morningsong School in Putney, Canal/Oak Grove School, Neighborhood Schoolhouse, BAMS and BUHS. His gifts were musical and literary and he was also a sensitive visual artist. His unique voice was always evident in everything he created. He wrote good songs from the age of 9 and enjoyed busking for money in his tween years. School friends remember him as a witty class clown.
Diagnosed in 3rd grade with NonVerbal Learning Disorder, he was, nevertheless, found ineligible for special education services. In high school he was again tested and found to have Asperger’s Syndrome or High Functioning Autism. Jeremiah never accepted this diagnosis and consistently refused medical, therapeutic, social and vocational assistance for the challenges he faced.
In withdrawal from prescribed opiates after a boating accident in 2005, Jeremiah soon became addicted to heroin. He struggled with the effects of this and other dangerous drugs for the rest of his life.

His memory will be cherished by his parents, his sisters Phoebe Crompton-Tidd of Brattleboro and Willow Broaddus of Rochester, VT and his cousins, Ahdi Pillar, Frances and Alex Elliot, Justin Thompson and Bryan, Rachel and Katy Lane and his beloved niece and nephews: Lila Tadlock, Roclin Harris and Parker Tidd. He also leaves many aunts and uncles: Nancy Crompton of Brattleboro, Trisha Lane of Chula Vista, CA, Carrie Crompton and George Elliott of Andover, CT, Cate Crompton and Jim Beers of Newburyport, MA, and Sam Crompton and Charlotte Tabakin of Hadley, MA.

The family extends deepest thanks to all who helped Jeremiah, deepest apologies to any he hurt, and deepest sympathy to all who will miss him.
A Celebration of Jeremiah’s life will be held at the Guilford Community Church on Bee Barn Road in Guilford, at 11 am on Thursday, June 2, 2016.

Donations in Jeremiah’s memory may be made to Families First, which tried to help him manage his final days, and to the Neighborhood Schoolhouse where Jeremiah spent his happiest years.
Let Jeremiah’s life remind us that the “safety net” for those who suffer from mental illness, especially those with a dual diagnosis needs substantial weaving and mending.
- Joe Crompton, his father

The 3rd and Worst

They say, and it's been my experience, that death comes in 3s. For the 3rd Saturday in a row, and now hoping the last, the Reaper came.

This is by far the saddest. My friends, the Muffinpants family, have lost their son Jeremiah. He had been suffering with schizophrenia for many years, and ended his life on Saturday. He was found, hanged on Harris Hill, Sunday, by hikers. He was 27, I believe. About 2 years ago I saw him downtown, and he looked terrible. He was a brilliant, talented guy, had written and produced a CD of music when he was in grade school. He was a watchful, silent child. Some 11 years ago he was in a horrible boating accident that left him close to death, but he came thru. That's where his love of opioids came in, and his downhill spiral followed. It's just hard to believe he's gone.



I hope he's at peace now.

Accepting No Substitutes

For years, I've avoided painkillers. Some may remember the great cold turkey of the Winter of 2011. Opiates are a prison, like love/sex magick. It seems so good, but like all insanities, comes to an ugly end of slavery.

There is now a huge Heroin issue in my area. Surprising to me, because opiates were out of vogue for so many years. As a kid in the 60s, junkies nodded out on stoops or in doorways in Brooklyn. We poked fun at them, made up songs and stood there singing them while they dozed and nodded in front of us. Some were only a couple years older than us, too young to go to Vietnam, and some were just home from Vietnam. Heroin was the drug of the day. Coke followed in the late 70s and early 80s. The age of coke is over now; these things go in cycles as the government allows. We're away from making war in South America where the coke is cheap, and in the East, where opium is cheap.
 
Yes, I've had Heroin. When you first do it, it's like falling in love or great sex that first time with someone. It's beyond intoxicating, it's bliss. It's beyond all care,  total peace. That's why I was so cautious with it and never did it much. But then came prescription opiates when my body broke down in my 40s. I was in pain and told I could keep working while I took them. It became a need, then a norm, then a nightmare. There was no bliss, just demanding need, and not even much pain relief, but you're too fucked up to know.

It was 8th grade, I think, when I saw that Heroin poster about "loving it more than any mere human", in my Guidance Counselor's office. I spent a good part of 7th and 8th grade in that office. And in all my years that's the sharpest description of heroin I know. But calling that need "love" is part of the problem. It's something that can fit comfortably into the life of someone who doesn't know what love is. It can make life ok when all you feel is pain of some kind. It can make everything go away. or not matter, and be just fine again. It's not love. I think that's why it's made a comeback. We live in a time of almost no love anywhere, or exacting love where you must meet requirements or are deemed not worthy. Which is poison... and the whole point is lost. We've forgotten how to love without agenda.

Maybe I should refine that. People don't know how to love because they haven't gotten any. Or haven't fallen in love with anyone who's not abusive. There are so many ways we're taught to not love. We're taught to be conditional in giving love. We're taught to reserve love for our own "self worth" or "self image" or "self" whatever. If you put "self" in there, you've lost love. If you live in conditional love, you won't know love.

And that's where we are. A world of scariness and despair, or trying to not be scared and despaired. And that's why there's so much drug addiction, acting out, violence, cowardice, cutting of ties, depression, anger. We've lost love.


Oh life is one stupidity or conundrum after another.
Enjoy your Memorial Day weekend. Don't forget what it's about.
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Farewell, Mare

Mrs. MaryEllen Brace, mother, wife, sister, good friend, RN, Deadhead, 1958- 2016.

May. Be.

The rolling shitstorm that is this year keeps on going. Mostly bad shit, too. I won't even go into the news. I'm not even sure I know what's going on, the media is so corrupt.

The C word entered my own life and body for the first time after the endoscopy & colonoscopy festival. The doc says he got it all, but wants me back next year. There is no source found for the pain in my side. It's not from my guts. And you know the thing people say, that the prep is terrible? They're right. 

Billy was here for it and the week afterward, bless his annoying ass. We're close enough again to get on each other's nerves. But then, it was stressful. Trying to have him here in this shoebox for a week, and all that entails, is enough. He's a grumpy old man now. I call him Goldilocks. And there's a weirdness for ya- not only is his hair growing back, it's turning red again. He's not taking anything to make this happen. My hair is going black & white, he's getting red hair back. Strange days.

We're on the death watch for Mare. She's stopped eating and drinking, and nonverbal. I hope it's peaceful. Can't believe it's actually happening.

My old bitty neighbor gave up the ghost 2 weeks ago. She died in her bed, on her terms. Not a bad way to go. I saw her about a month ago, she couldn't hear anything I said, and was that classic brown-yellow of kidney failure. It's very quiet around here now. Her niece has been cleaning things out a little at a time.

And still, with all that, there is great news. We're moving right along on the Herman bio movie. I've arranged the first interview locale, in NOLA, on 6/6. I have to come up with questions, as Andy's in tech hell with what to buy/use. There won't be second chances. This is a Best Shot/Only Shot deal. We're looking for other films the Childe was featured in as well. Today I fast forwarded thru "Vampire's Kiss" to see if the bit shot in the Magickal Childe was worth fussing over. It's not. However, we have a couple other documentaries that may require terms, and here's where $$$ starts leaking. We may have to go for a GoFundMe after all. Between the traveling Andy's going to have to do- having to fly whenever someone says they're available so not getting cheap seats, staying in motels, car rentals, taking people to lunch, it's all adding up to a sizeable budget needed. I'm trying to find the best deals possible, but damn things are expensive, even in the middle of nowhere.

And here is the first paste-up of the movie poster.

Andy will do a painting of the photo for the actual poster.
Tomorrow I'll be poring over Michael Lloyd's Bull of Heaven

To glean questions for the 6/6 interviewees- Lady Rhea (now the Witch Queen of NYC)  and Bennie, two old-timers. This project is taking up just enough space and time in my life. I'm very happy being a film producer.

The rest of the world, like the Dude, abides.
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Shake It Off

The older I get the more time I spend thinking. This is both the joy and horror of being alone a lot and prone to thinking. It's addictive too.

I'm still involved with the Bernie campaign, monitoring and admin-ing a few FB pages, but approaching it from a different angle. It was affecting my health there, so it was either stop doing it or find a new way to do it. Since I want to do something useful for Bernie, and someone needs to do these things, I want to do it. And so now when I'm playing hall monitor I don't invest in the issue, just straighten the suckers out as to rules. (This is dangerously close to Policy Governance, which I abhor. But that's another whole story.)

You see, I enjoy arguing as much as I enjoy haggling, which is not at all. It raises the bile in my throat and makes me antsy. When I argue I get unpolite. Then things generally go downhill. So I reserve my own soapboxing for my own time and keep it separate from hall monitoring. These same arguments will be there tomorrow, or next week, or back around in a month.It gives one time to think and calm down, too. Which generally makes for smarter arguing. Smarter arguments end quickly, it's the stupid arguing that goes on til you could kill yourself.

Sometimes I feel like I've fallen into a grad level course in social media with no prior knowledge of the subject. This is a cool experiment in sociology and who knows where it will lead? World peace, as more people see that everyone wants the same damn things everywhere, it's not too much to ask, and why the hell aren't we getting it? Will this ultimately lead to a worldwide change? Will war die out due to unpopularity? Will we just make peace more profitable than war so everyone makes out?

See what I mean about thinking. It's like this.

World news is too awful to talk about. The election is embarrassing. We are still in the Shire and Summer is a coming in. It's been raining and paining.

Mare is slowing down and taking more and more drugs. She gave up doing the bills and checkbook, and Jeff carries her upstairs now. I think she's letting go. Death is a series of losses just like life.

Billy is getting the house done part by part, still healing his ankle, still making me nuts, and will be here Monday for a week. I'm finally getting the endoscopy/colonoscopy on Tuesday. This gut doesn't want to heal and I'm doing the more gentle way of cleaning out the system. I just want to get it over with. 48 hours of no food, just clear liquids and laxatives. Joy. At least Billy will be here.

Still, our issues are nothing compared to Mare and her family's plight. To think- there are 7 billion other stories just like ours going on on this planet.

Strider has all but disowned me entirely. Or maybe entirely but I haven't really accepted that yet. I've no idea what's up, she said nothing. But she's done this to others over the years, I guess it was just my turn. I don't understand people who go that passive/aggressive route. I have too much mouth. Such is life, people do what they do. What I do is not give second chances to people who do what she's just done. So it's sad.

The deaths of very talented people can stop any time now, thanks.

The management made me take in my Bernie lawn sign, some rat bastid looked up the obscure HUD regulation and complained. Mind you, I'd had the State Senator's (who has an office in this place's admin building) out there every time she's run for the past 5 years with no comment.

It always worries me when it rains for days now. I talked to an old friend and coworker tonight for the first time in 10 years and we revisited that awful year of 2011, the year of cold turkey, death, fire, murders, flood and homelessness. 5 years ago. He was there when the murder happened at our old workplace. The General Manager told him to get back to work, standing there with blood on his shirt. No, we're not over that year. Not yet anyway. And the forecast is rain all week. Yeah, that's Spring, it rains. That's what I keep telling myself.

Beest is finally well and back to being the psycho cat we know. She's fattening right back up. Her book is on the back burner until I get my confidence back. Meanwhile I have the biopic of Herman Slater to coordinate and produce. Right now I'm getting people on board, while the director is planning his traveling itinerary, and we both pull hair out over funding.

And to end this on a shallow note, I'm so happy to be watching Game of Thrones in the regular  broadcasting time. It took 6 years, but I'm finally seeing it when the world is raving. There's something communal in watching it when a couple million other folks do, and realize that in many other rooms, people are going "Oh!" at the same time you are. We lost some of that in the age of Netflix and owning and binging. Remember when everyone was watching "The Wizard of Oz" when it was broadcast? Like that. It'll be nice when cable is entirely a la carte, but having HBO is nice. And it doesn't suck like it used to suck, so there's that. And yes, heeeeere's Jonny!

Entertainment isn't all bad.

I hope your May is sweet and bright and full of flowers.
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