Up late again..is it just me or is anyone else embarassed about what comes on the airwaves during late night? Other countries, cultures, nations must see us as a very self-absorbed and petty society when viewed through the hail of infomercial content.

A discussion I had with Leah tonight brings up another point about people. Is it better to not be able to be alone, or to make it alone and choose not to be alone? I suppose it's kind of like asking if staying in a difficult relationship shows strength, or weakness; or if turning over control of a relationship to another person is a product of self-confidence (and confidence in that person), or an apathetic or non-commital attitude. In both cases, I've found, it can be both...it all depends on where you're seeing from and from where it stems. There are times when, to keep my own sanity, I have to fight *against* optimism; does that make me too trusting..too naive..too, I dunno, sadly clueless about the world in general. I wonder..

So I’m driving into work this morning completely oblivious to the fact that I’m an hour late because of daylight savings time and perhaps feeling a bit more responsible than usual because I actually thought I left 30 min earlier because of this RAIN! I think the correct Texas term is ‘like a cow pissing on a flat rock’, but it was coming down. I hear on the radio that some stupid woman is filing a law suit against Burger King because they fry that veggie burger on the same grill as the rest of the meat. WHAT!?

Reasons she needs to have her tubes tied:

1. I’m a vegetarian and I go to Burger King…evidently the health-food-hangout of the new century.

2. I order a veggie-burger at a fast food restaurant…to me this is like making an appointment with your dentist to have your cataracts removed.

3. When the restaurant agrees to offer to *microwave* said tofu/soy hunk for me the ever-valued but still shallow-pocketed customer, that’s not enough. ‘Vegetarians have the right to blah, blah’

*[mentally thumbing through the Constitution] no they don’t you waste of oxygen.

4. I’m not a real vegetarian because all the REAL vegetarians are actually, oh I dunno, what’s the word I’m looking for…how about a phrase like…know what the hell they are doing and if they are really that serious about it they’ll make their own damn meals thank-you-very-much or show up at a salad bar. I think a few REAL Vegans need to put a burlap sack over my head, drag me out into the alley and beat the crap out of me with a tire iron for embarrassing the family.

5. I desperately need to be sued for embarrassing the human race in general, and if I DO have any offspring, the aliens passing through our solar system may just think this is the last straw (on top of the Jerry Springer trailer park pedophiles, the lose weight, look younger, cook faster, live better infomercials, Holy War live broadcasts) and stroll out to the asteroid belt and send a Vermont-sized asteroid our way just to remind us how petty we really are just before we are all vaporized.

Feel free to add your own..mine seem to be getting longer with each entry…

It’s been almost a year and a half now; the earth is still spinning, stocks, tides, and foreign relations still rise and fall. The future is still just as uncertain, the past still as poignant and painful, and the present still as mundane and bewildering at times as it ever was. Almost like she’s not gone…almost. I thank God/ Buddha/ Allah/ Bill Gates every day that I can still hear her say…in my head…clear as day…’Hello Dahl’in’ when I’d come over for breakfast. I can still feel her eyes on me when I’m pontificating something particularly ridiculous that really needs that look of ‘you are SO full of shit’ cast upon it in order to distill any useful information, if there *is* any. Unfortunately, I can still hear, clear as day…’..I think your mother has passed away..’ in voice so full of pain and disbelief…uncertainty and panic that surely that couldn’t have been MY father on the other end of the phone…and the feel of her forehead under my hand; growing cold no matter how all-consuming my will to not let it be so grew. 

And the phone calls…oh my God the phone calls. I hope, dear reader, that you never have to tell your brother or sister that your mother…or father…is dead. “Hey little brother…I know it’s 2am, and I’m sorry to wake you. But I’m calling to ruin your life….to tell you that your children will never get to know Gradma…that last Christmas, just 15 days ago really, was the VERY last time we’d ever see our three stockings filled with that useless and delightfully unexpected stuff that mom always put in them or that ANY of the Christmas decorations will get used or…that right now I want you to drive 3 hours over here and take a post-hole digger to my chest because it would HAVE to feel better than this!”  I wanted to crawl to the center of the earth and let her  compact me to the size of a pin head…dark, self-contained, small, alone, and utterly beaten. But I still had to call my youngest brother…and then her sister…and then I want…REALLY want to close a wall safe door on my head again and again to force that silence out of my head…fill than empty space…to shut myself up…to get on with my day. Like now.