This is a depart from most of the stuff that you will find on this blog, but I have no care as 1) I don't think many people read this blog and 2) at this point I REALLY don't care.

I am deep in the middle of trying to put up a show in NYC with a group of friends for the Fringe Festival. I finished rehearsal this last Saturday at 6pm and decided to go get a pint at a pub with my friend Nick, whom I have shared many a drink in my last few years. It was good, I needed it and so did Nick, we had been working hard and it was nice to just talk about bullshit and enjoy a stiff IPA. Then my phone rang.

I won't say exactly what was said next, it is private and shall remain that way. I will only say that my wife had phoned me to say that a friend had died of an apparent suicide.

I didn't understand her at first. I assumed she was referring to a television personality that I could not understand why she would be concerned about. Then it hit me.

Bullshit.

Hell, even writing the words "apparent suicide" makes me feel torn between two feelings about the matter. One tells me to speak the truth, it is what it is. The other tells me to save judgment for the one person that can actually give it.

I still have trouble accepting what had happened and its 3 days later.

I have called, texted and emailed more people than I care to count to inform them of what had happened and I still feel like it is all some kind of fucked up dream.

The thing is, I have been through this before; again, more times than I care to count, just know its been enough. I found myself saying things that I have heard time and time again and always scoffed at.

"No on is to blame."

"You have every right to be angry."

"Its a selfish act. If anyone could see 24 hours into the future they would never do such a thing."

Every time I said those things, every time I thought them, I still found myself scoffing at them the same way I have every time I have heard them from a councilor/priest/friend. All excuses. All bullshit. Words used to comfort the ones that remain with nothing but questions. No matter what anyone says, the act has still been committed. There are still tons of people without a son, brother, cousin, nephew, friend.

I talked with a friend whom I have spent a lot of time with. Someone who, no matter how much you ask either of us, neither would ever admit to knowing a damn thing about the other. We talked and cried and laughed and sobbed like children. We voiced our anger and confusion and hurt. In the end, all we could come up with - and God help me if there is anything else to take from all of this - is that when the phone rings in the middle of the night and you have no idea why someone is calling, answering is the easiest thing you could ever do. I don't know if a call was made, but knowing that a comforting voice is out there has to be something that softens the hardest of hearts, the most broken of souls.

I don't mean to write any of this in any form of judgment. God knows I've been down dark roads before myself, and there will be many more in the future. I just can't come to any conclusion other than the ones I have and that hurts a little.

In the end, I'm still angry. I still hate the fact that I am angry.

I'm not just angry with what was done, but with what I and many others have had to do in the aftermath. The phone calls, the emails, the texts. It won't end for some time and I find myself hating the fact that I have to deal with this all right now. I know that's natural and that it is currently my way of dealing with it. It doesn't make it right. It never will. In the end, it feels like I have taken a selfish act and in turn have become selfish in my responsibility toward the outcome of the act itself. That hurts, but its honest.

Fuck.