Here's what I think, ten monthes later, about the day my grandma died ...

Everyday nothing happens. Everyday, at least once, I wish that I was someplace else. But what I know about that day is that I was exactly where I was supposed to be.

And, that now, even though this isn't how it really happened, I will remember those hours as me, lying on a cold, white floor, staring at a high, gray ceiling, thinking : thisislifethisislifethisislifeand ... death ...

This is death. This is death. That is death. You are living.

FYI

I want to feel my blood boil. It feels good to have some heat underneath your skin.

Excuse me,

You should know that anger doesn't have an expiration date.

Or,

if it does, you don't get to decide when I throw it away.

Sadly, these days, even an emotion as cheap as anger can't give me a thrill.

And yet ...

I'm keeping that shit way back in my 'fridgerator, behind some moldy strawberries, next to a big bottle of vodka.

Follow the jump to pg. A11

I'll tell you a story and it's not the most important story that I could ever tell, though, on that night it was and that's the point.

Because I remember me and I remember snow and I remember Lindah and I remember thinking "of course there should be snow and of course there should be Lindah and of course this should now" only it wasn't now, it was then and that, once again, is the point.

Do you get it?

fml

Down, lately. Not sure why. I think it's because the sun disappeared. Or maybe it's because I'm on vacation, only what that really means is I have too much time on my hands. To think. About bothersome things. Maybe it's because of the Yankees. It's funny, but no matter how far I think I've come, I'm still always sad about things that should make me happy. Really, it's the overwhelming sense of someone else's accomplishments. It weighes me down, makes me feel so tiny and insignificant. Yes, I would like a parade. I would like a key to the city.

I keep trying to write, because I have a lot of ideas, but the problem is I hate them all. The hold up is that if it's not perfect, if they are not going to change my life the second they hit a piece of paper (or a computer screen), the words don't mean anything.

Today, I spent eight hours playing Cafe World on Facebook. You run a fake computer restaurant. Why do I need to run a fake computer restaurant? Am I not content with the real one I run 351 days a year?

Guess I know the answer to that question already.

At your Ten-Year High School Reunion,

You are your first and your last name. Just like you were when it was typed in neat, blue font on a white plastic name tag ten years before.

You are Jeanine Skowronski. You are Caitlin Mara. Dana Marsh. Lillian Chu. You are Lauren Lofaro, who is not the same as Lauren Zaccardi, which is kind of the point. There is a Beth Sabrowski (but she isn't even there.)

In an instant, you have become more and than less of yourself; gained a proper noun, lost a decade. Some people (maybe not many) know of Jeanine Skowronski, but who really cares about Jeanine?

And so you become a List of Boring Facts. Single. Employed. Or Married, with Children. Toll Collector. Underwriter. Editor. Clinical Psychologist (fancy You!) Accountant. Lawyer. Restaurant Manager.

Or, you are General Observations, just as broad, but much more personal. You are Got Skinny. She is Got Fat. That one, next to Old Man Boyfriend, is Still a Bitch. All of you Got Old. Everyone is Pretending that They Didn't.

Because, see, suddenly, you are everyone. And consequently, you are no one at the exact same time. So what you are left with, sadly,a decade later, is exactly what you started with. Two names engraved on a piece of plastic, worn on a blue blazer, over your heart.

Duplicity

Let me tell you why I abhor liars.

It's not the actual lying that aggravates me. Because there could be very many meaningful and often perfectly earnest reasons to lie to someone. Maybe you think the truth will hurt someone feelings. Or maybe you think someone will be mad. Or maybe you don't want to be put in a uncomfortable situation so you selfishly avoid it by telling something that's less than true. Maybe you're lying when you tell a story because the lie makes it better and makes you know the truth. Maybe you lie, but you don't mean to, and it just comes out and then afterwards you regret it so you go and you take back the lie.

I mean, whatever. There are a million of excuses.

The problem I have with liars is that nine times out of ten I can tell that they are lying to me. This is a very painful thing for another set of various reasons, but what lingers after I rationalize, for them, their duplicity is the implication that I was stupid enough to believe whatever it is they are saying. Like the second someone looks at you and lies, what they are really saying, beyond the bullshit that is spouting from their lying mouth, is "I THINK YOU ARE A MORON!"

I'm a lot of things.

I'm not stupid.

And that is why I abhor liars.

Guarav gave me these fucking doors ...

two years ago. He came running with them from off da' streets, wanted to put them in the basement of my restaurant. They were old and rusted gates, big, ugly, probably broken and now they were mine. I tried to throw them away. Twice. But somehow, they never made it into a dumpster.

When I moved restaurants recently, I didn't think about these gates and how I had finally gotten rid of them, until I looked up. In the middle of this big, beautiful, new store, there they were, old and rusted, big, ugly, probably broken and, apparently, still mine.

Right now they are in the basement of my new restaurant.

The point isn't that I don't get rid of my old garbage. Really, it's that I can't figure out how I repeatedly end up with other people's.