MATTHEW LARSEN

Sometimes I think it’d be fun to try and plan a tour around where all of the affiliate offices for Advance Internet are, so I would be able to work in the offices during the day, then play shows within a reasonable drive of whatever office in the evening, and not have to take too much time off from work. I wonder if it’s doable. Maybe Ethan would do a tour with me. That’d be fun.

Of course, I’d still have to pay for gas… and lodging. That would suck. And I’d miss Kristen and the cats like crazy. Still, I think it’d be an enjoyable experience.

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It’s hard to really put words to the myriad of emotions I felt when I learned of Andrea Coller’s passing this past week. Mostly, I was angry as hell. She of all people should have been able to beat this.

In so many ways, to so many people, it’s really hard to appreciate the anger and sadness that comes with having such a terrible illness and continual health issues. You live in a world where everyone you know will never fully understand. It’s not their fault or anything. It’s just that, no matter what, they won’t get that you’ll always feel bitter and angry towards the fact that a large chunk of your life was taken away from you for no apparent reason. The reality is, having cancer will never make sense… you’ll never know why you got it, you’ll never know if the treatment is going to work, and you’ll never know if it’s gone for good. The only thing that you can do is ignore that cynicism as much as possible, and live your life.

Living your life gets difficult, though, when you’re faced with constant reminders that cancer as a disease is never going away. You will know other people with cancer; your loved ones, your friends. You’ll watch the news and someone famous will be diagnosed. You’ll be asked to join a support group, donate, walk, etc. You’ll be asked how you’re feeling, and people will judge what you’ve been doing with your life “since your illness”.

It can be a real drag and can make you isolate yourself a bit.

For me, the only person I think I ever really reached out for any kind of cancer-kinship kind of support was Andrea Coller. And it was only because we both were aware that each other existed, really. I talked with her only a few times about it. I think mostly for me, knowing that she was dealing with all of this stuff too, and with a sense of humor and sarcasm about it, was helpful. Her recent essay article in Glamour magazine really exemplifies her spirit while she’s dealing with some pretty brutal experiences. Anyway, it was the way she didn’t want to really do the things that I also didn’t want to do that made me feel at ease, like the touchy-feely support group kind of stuff. Here’s an excerpt from some email correspondence awhile back:

Hi Matt,

Yes, I’ve also heard that we both are in the big-time at PACE _and_ at Dr. Bowers’ office… How ’bout those stem cell transplants, eh? But thankfully, it seems that so far we both have made it out of that particular hell as all right as anyone could…

…Yeah, sometimes I think it would be fun to sit around and trade war stories with other survivors. But most of the time, I practice the fine art of repression. It works out OK, for the most part.

Andrea

For me, just knowing what another survivor is up to, how they are living life, how they, too, just want everything to be ‘normal’ is enough. I don’t need to recall all the details of treatment, hospitals, medical procedures, and how it felt during treament. I try as hard as possible to not ever think about that stuff. And the further out I get, the more the days just melt into each other, and I’m blissfully not as aware that I am a ‘cancer survivor’.

I’m truly devastated to learn of Andrea Coller’s passing. It’s just a very difficult thing to deal with. At the core of all this is the first-hand knowledge of the hospitals and doctors and many of the ugly things that go along with people trying you fix you. But especially, I just know how much of an imprint Andrea’s life made on my life– and I wasn’t very close to her. To lose someone to similar health issues that I have, so far, survived doesn’t seem fair somehow.

When she was playing open mic nights at Fire and Water back when me and Steve Biegner were playing there too as Smokejumpers, she would light up the crowd. Years later, her performances at P.A.C.E. and her open mic night hosting duties made a different crowd adore her.

These are the types of things that trump everything else. She was just a great kind person living her life, who just happened to be dealing with cancer. And I know is that I will truly miss the calm of knowing that she was ‘around’. What it means in my own life, I haven’t quite figured out yet. We’re a compartmentalized group, just like a lot of groups… ‘people who’ve dealt with cancer’, ‘cancer survivors’. But no-one should ever pretend that we all have the same shit to deal with.

To quote her, I guess “…sometimes I think it would be fun to sit around and trade war stories with other survivors. But most of the time, I practice the fine art of repression. It works out OK, for the most part.”

Everyone will miss what you brought to the world, Andrea.

Ethan loops things.

On February 29th and March 1st, I’m playing at P.A.C.E. for the 5th Anniversary Celebration Taste of P.A.C.E. I’ll be performing 2 songs each night. It should be a fun show– basically a ‘review’ of all the music, theater, dance, comedy, etc. that’s been on the P.A.C.E. stage for the past 5 years.

I remember walking around the Easthampton Fall Festival with my cousin Steve Biegner and meeting Sonia for the first time. She suggested that we stop in and soon after we booked ourselves a Smokejumpers show. In the very early days of P.A.C.E., the rooms weren’t separated and there were folding chairs only. There were three risers and that was about it. I think we played a few shows with me on piano, Steve Biegner on guitar, and Adam Bach on bass. We each had our own little 4′x5′ riser. It was fun times. We used to document these things in our livejournal, but I haven’t read that in years.

Between Smokejumpers shows, Northernly shows, Steve Biegner shows, and my own performances at P.A.C.E., I really feel like I’ve made a little dent in the P.A.C.E. stage. I’ve seen some really wonderful shows there too– Haunt, Stephen Brodsky, Mark Schwaber, The Low Anthem, David Berkeley, Swing Caravan. So I’m psyched that I’ve been asked to play this event, because I get in for free to see everyone else playing and performing on those nights.

Also, Steve Biegner and Julia Suriano are the leads in the upcoming production of West Side Story, so some sort of tidbit of that will be happening I imagine.

This week I headed down to the Advance Internet offices, which are in Journal Square in Jersey City, NJ. It was quite nice to meet people who I generally only talk to over IM or on the phone, since I’m sort of a satellite employee working from the MassLive office in Springfield. Jersey City is interesting, because it’s just across the river from NYC. It has its nice areas and its not so nice areas. Journal Square seems like it’s right in the middle of the two. My hotel wasn’t in an awesome area, but I eventually found it on Tuesday after driving around forever.

There were limited food options, but I wound up going to GoldenKrust, which is a very small chain of “Caribbean Bakery and Grill”s. Most of them are in NYC, Queens, Long Island, etc. It’s like a take-out joint. I had the jerk chicken. It was surprisingly delicious.

We wound up going Wednesday night into the city. It’s a pretty quick ride on the PATH train from Journal Square. Times Square is always nuts, and as a NYC tourist I’ve been there plenty of times, but it always seems to have its charm like anything else. We wound up going to Heartland Brewery. It was nice to share a meal with co-workers and get to know them more.

I was homesick of course, missing Kristen like nuts.

Every time I travel it’s bittersweet. I love exploring and seeing a whole different set of people and how they live. I love eating at different places and getting lost and stuff like that. But after about the second day from home I really yearn to be back in familiar surroundings. I never used to feel this way, but maybe it’s a reflection of realizing that I’m getting older. I may not be a spring chicken anymore, but I always strive to live in the moment and seize opportunities as they arise. I also realize that I can’t do everything, and it’s okay to just chill out once in awhile.

That said, I plan to relax a bit this weekend, and go see The Low Anthem and Steve Biegner at PACE on Saturday night probably.

I was looking at my site one day and began to realize how seemingly quickly things become out of date and never get updated. It happens to everyone, and I suppose I could tell you that it won’t happen here since I have a fancy new blog setup so it makes it easier for me to post things. I suppose I could pledge to keep this updated as frequently as possible, not acknowledging the inevitable slackage that will creep up from time to time.

Instead I’ll just post about how I’m kind of excited about the whole blog setup. Ever since I started working at MassLive, and since meeting my lovely fiancee Kristen, I’ve been keen to the idea of starting one, but just didn’t have the time to explore it. Finally, I did.

So here we are. As I get into the swing of things, I hope some of these posts aren’t total snoozers.