1.30.2011

the problem




"So, what you're saying is that you have a problem that is totally your problem, but you'd like to find a way to make that problem my problem. But here's the problem, Newbie: it's not my problem."


-scrubs

1.23.2011

wish you were here


Oh wait, I will be there. In twelve days. I'm even going to upgrade my flight so I can drink free champagne to excess 35,000 feet above the desert. And then, you know....glitter. And neon. And all sorts of delightfulness that I'll neither confirm nor deny takes place because the internets keep no secrets. This is why I wake up most Sunday mornings and fight with travel agencies on behalf of other people. Those lights. Right there.

Speaking of places I'm about to be:


See those buildings with the red roofs? Starting next month, I live in one. Fo' serious. If I can't motivate myself to run with all of that out my back door someone just needs to throw me off the bridge because I'd be a damn lost cause.

Of course this officially ends my time in Neverland, because as of this weekend I'm back to paying rent and champagne over the desert will become fewer and far between, but that's okay. Give and take as always. Plus I think writing that monthly check won't hurt so bad when I realize it's paying for a dream come true.

Speaking of dreams, it's night-night time. And a good week to all.

-J

by any other name

Tonight there's an empty recliner. There's a bowling team with an incomplete roster, and a husband of 55 years with an incomplete life. A family without a mother, so on and so forth, you can list the absences for days but Rose isn't coming back to take her rightful place.

Last night was not any more or less special than usual. I worked, I drank, I danced. I took a muscle relaxer and listened to my boss describe a conversation she had with her dead husband through a clairvoyant. I don't remember falling asleep, and am not entirely sure we were alone on the floor of her shabby studio apartment.

It's weird how when you really love someone, you know even in one word when something is wrong. My mom left me a voicemail at 8:30am, and I rolled over to my boss with her dead husband maybe in the room, and said:

someone died last night.

Rose was not my grandmother. She was a loud Italian woman with a fondness for Indian casinos and a living room full of Frank Sinatra paraphernalia.

What she is now, is gone. For me, processing death is like speaking a foreign language - I do my best, but when all is said and done I'm certain I've missed the point.

She was not robbed of a full life, but that doesn't make it any easier. She was simply eating ice cream and then, she wasn't. I find myself wondering about her last words.

Rose didn't know my middle name, nor I hers. She was one of many people that made a cameo appearance in my life, but in her passing I find peace and turbulence, sadness at the loss but joy in the life. Mostly I find myself wondering.

Rest peacefully, Rose Carvelli. I hope you find Frank and say hello and he's everything you imagined. You were his biggest fan.

And you will be missed.

1.19.2011

the sign of a good friend

They're always thinking of you:

"Gaggles of high school wrestling teams at SJC. I think I died and went to your version of heaven."


-text from AK

1.06.2011

horoscope


Although you may think that you are concentrating on your work, you're probably having a hard time preventing your thoughts from being carried away by the crazy schemes of your friends or coworkers. In fact, your attraction to the most outrageous ideas could actually be a reflection of your current boredom. Don't pretend that everything's fine if it isn't. Seek constructive ways to shake up your routine before you feel really stuck.



I've worked 14 hour days all week, and this comes up in my iGoogle. Woof.