the paper doll

Blackbird Singing in the Dead of Night

Dear Internet,

I saw two birds today.  Two birds together against an other wise clear blue sky. 

Since my mother's death birds have been very auspicious for me.

They were there chirping away the day she died.  The only noise on an otherwise cold silent morning.  A hawk guided me out of the cemetery once.  And there have been other countless bird occasions.  They seem to always be near when I'm thinking of her.

Today is her birthday.  55th.

And when I smiled and looked to the sky thinking of her there they were.  Two birds flying together and nothing else, not even a cloud.

Maybe it's just a coincidence.  Maybe I think to much of it. 

But I like these small moments.  And I'm glad they're with birds.  Sure would suck if she had picked snakes.

-The Paper Doll is very happy today

Ghosts of Christmases Past

It's Christmas time.  What does that even mean anymore?  Trees, lights, sweets, presents.  Presents you love.  Presents you want to return.

I feel like it's not as magical as it use to be.  I'm not wide-eyed and wondering.  I'm pulling my hair out and fretting about money.

My pay check got cut.  I have to take 10 days off without pay.  The numbers don't add up.  Especially with doctors' bills and mortgages.

It's one thing after another without much thought in between.

I want to be a kid again.  To sit in my mom's lap.  To help her stir cookie dough.  To giggle and stay up too late.

Instead I listen to Bon Iver and wash dishes from the party we had.  I pull down the recipes and cook alone with the Christmas tree lights on. 

I remember and wish for magic.

-The Paper Doll doesn't have the Christmas spirit yet but she's working on it

Moved

Holy crap, Internet, this touches me in so many ways.

What a freaking incredible thing.  I wish they would have been around when my mom was diagnosed.  I'm so inspired by this.  I want to start one in my own town.  What a great way to combine art and love and memory.  As a child who lost her mother there are so many things you take for granted.  So many things you count on her telling you.  Or asking her over the phone.

Shortly after my mom died my dad and I were so vexed because we couldn't find one of her recipes.  And I didn't know what her favorite song was.  And don't even get me started about getting married and having babies without her.  It gives me hives just thinking about it.

But if we had called Let There Be Mom there would be records for us.  Things written for me.  Preserved.

A little bit of her left for me when I needed it.

For No Other Reason but that I Want to Remember

Dear Internet,

There are moments when I feel like my mother is talking to me.  Directly to me do not pass go.  It happens through books, movies, the television, friends.  Moments when the perfect thing drops out of someone's mouth.  The perfect thing my mom would have said to me in that moment.

Last nite it was Ugly Betty (most of the time I write it down but I was much too lazy last nite so this is a paraphrase).  Betty and that phone girl are talking and the phone girl asks Betty how she ever got over her mother dying and Betty says, "I didn't.  It was six years ago you'd think it would have gotten better but I think of her everyday."

And then when me and A were watching some movie we thought was a chick flick one of the main characters up and got breast cancer and lo the words that were coming through the TV then.  They were all things my mom said to me.  Things I needed to hear again.  About how the teenage daughter needed to stop being so angry and how the mom was just going to keep on loving her and it would all work out.

And she's right.  I will all work out.  So long as I contiune to hear my mom through imaginary lines and fictitious characters.

-The Paper Doll believe in magic and make believe

Queen of DeNile*

Internet,

Here's a list of things I've been avoiding:

• Laundry
• The laundry room
• The dirty clothes hamper
• The crap in my car including the dirty clothes
• The dishes
• The trash
• The target bag looped over the kitchen cabinet knob that acts as a second trash can
• The target bag looped over the kitchen cabinet knob that acts as a third trash can
• The rotting pumpkin on my front porch
• The other rotting pumpkin on my front porch
• Dust
• Dog hair
• Living like anything other than a slob

So Internet when I've resorted to wearing my underwear inside out because I really don't have a clean pair.  Not even that old pair.  Not even that old pair at the back that's for when I'm on my period and I don't have another clean pair.  When I don't even have that pair.  I know I'm avoiding something.

Something bigger than laundry and dirty dishes and comet sized balls of dog hair.

I'm avoiding dealing with something.  Favoring to watch TV, drink wine, and eat a whole plate of spinach dip for dinner (followed by a carton of ice cream) instead.

God if I were just a more rational woman maybe I wouldn't be 30 pounds over weight.

Seriously?  Who eats this stuff then instead of throwing away the waste leaves it to rot in a bowl or ooze out of a Target bag looped over the freaking silverware drawer.

I need help. 

Help and a maid.

I also need to quite wigging the fuck out about what I'm doing with my life.

I also need to get over myself and clean before DHEC declares my house a biohazard.

I also need to exercise and stop eating ice cream.

And then I see the huge list of things I need to be doing.  Should be doing instead of watching Gilmore Girls all day and I reach for another carton of ice cream.  Bake another pizza.  And hang another Target bag over the cabinet door.

It's just easier-being lazy.

Because if I actually did all those things what would be on my list then?

Deal with life.

Make decisions.

Study for LSAT.

Admit you really miss your mom.

I'd much rather it read-Pass the chips and turn on House.

Denial is a powerful thing. 

If only it could mask the odor coming from my kitchen.

(sigh)

-The Paper Doll is suffering from a little depression she just doesn't want to admit it

*I have a coworker who reads trashy girl novels...this was seriously the title of a book.  A book someone was reading.  Reading because they wanted to no less.  

Tar Baby

Dear Internet,

I was a painfully shy kid.  So much so that the only people I'd talk to regularly were my parents and even they didn't get much outta me.  My silence was so great I'm sure some people wondered if I could even talk at all.  And little old ladies at the grocery store got quite vexed when I responded to their coddling with tears and tightly shut lips. 

My next door neighbor, try as he might, couldn't get me to utter one word to him even though I was at his house most every day and chatted quite frequently with his wife.  My peculiar behavior earned me the nickname, Tar Baby, cuz the Tar Baby don't say a word.

Because of my great fear of strangers and talking I didn't much fancy Halloween.  What could be scarier than adults pawing you and trying to make small talk?  Adults who are very often dressed up.  And nothing's worse than an adult in a bad polyester costume.

I'd hold out my bag refusing to utter the standard, "Trick or Treat," hoping they'd just toss the candy in without my begging.  And if things got hairy my mom was always there to do the talking because I wouldn't go up to any door without clinging to her hand.

Needless to say, as soon as I was out of elementary school and dressing up was no longer required and trick-or-treating was forbidden I shunned the whole holiday.  Even more so when I went to college and discovered Halloween was just an excuse for girls to wear incredibly revealing clothing for a day.

Until now I never understood all my friends' gusto for the wretched day.

But now that I have a house of my own and a small family cobbled together from friends, The Musician, and the Mongrel Pup Stella I've fallen in love with this strange ode to the dead.

Not the dressing up.  I still have long seeded issues with that (but that's a post for another day).  But everything else the holiday brings is fabulous. 

An excuse to eat a whole bag of candy (inherited straight from my mother who always bought two, one for the kids, one for her), carving pumpkins and toasting their seeds, putting mums on the front porch.

All the things that don't require any talking or a witch costume with cleavage.

It's made me think about family and traditions.

And how sometimes the best way to remember someone is to say nothing at all while kneading pumpkin bread and eating mini-Snickers.

Who needs words when you have a whole pan of orange cookies?

Not the Tar Baby for sure. 

-The Paper Doll wants to know what you are doing for Halloween

traditions

dear internet,

in the fall my mom planted mums.  big yellow ones in planters outside our house.

she changed the wreath on the front door to match the seasons.  hearts and streamers in february.  golden rod and pumpkins in autumn.  handmade cedar and fruit for christmas.  pastel eggs and bunnies for easter.

in summer she cut fresh corn off the cob and made sweet creamed corn.  she dumped fresh blueberries and peaches into a pyrex dish and poured sugar, and butter, and flour over them.

she bought herself her own birthday cake from the grocery store.  one with lots of icing and her name spelled in blue.  she ate the whole thing herself.

she always cooked sunday dinner and insisted on using china and crystal and us sitting down properly after church.

she was never without a cocktail napkin.

she had blue handled scissors she used to clip flowers from the garden that she arranged into neat bundles throughout the house.

guest towels were always fresh and changed to reflect the holiday.

she had a large ceramic chicken that sat guard in the kitchen.  and she put cooking utensils in a large blue pitcher.

plates were hung on the wall and called art.

she called coke-co-cola.

when she laughed she really laughed.  you could see it in her eyes.

she wore fourth of july socks because she thought it was funny.

she befriend her best friend's granddaughter and helped babysit.  she let her jump on the beds and bought her all her favorite foods.  she even let her swim in the jacuzzi and didn't mind wet feet tracked all over the house.

she made cheese bread and took the extra loaf to the old woman across the street.

she walked four miles everyday and often played tennis and swam.

she once wrote george steinbrenner a letter.  he wrote her back personally and promised two home-plate seats next time she was in new york.

she kept a trunk filled with letters and papers and reread them when she was feeling down.

she had extraordinary amounts of hope, faith, and love.  that she used to touch most everyone in our town.

she has a spirit you never forget.

-the paper doll hopes she can be half the woman her mother was

coming to terms

dear internet,

i started this site because of my mom.  yet, i write about her the least.  so in an effort to get things back on track around here and use this space to the best of my advantage i'm going to start mom mondays.

i need to write about her.  about us.  about everything that happened.  before it's too late and i don't remember.

it was janice's night.  my mom had been in the hospital so long we no longer counted days by name but by who's turn it was to stay with her.  janice, kim, dad, me, elaine.  we'd settled into a routine. 

when it was janice's night, like most other nights, i'd stop by on my way home from work.  it gave janice a chance to smoke a cigarette and get dinner before turning in for the night.  we all had some superstition about leaving my mom alone and no one dared step out of the room until backup got there.

usually, i sat and watched tv-reruns of law and order.  reprogrammed iv machines.  mopped vomit from lips.  or if it was a good day i talked to her.  told her about my day. 

but that night was different.  she asked me to sit on her bed.  not an easy thing for two grown woman to do with its inflating and deflating to prevent bedsores.  it was what i imagined a canoe to be like in the ocean.

she wanted to talk to me.  to really talk.  i could tell by the way she looked at me.  by her dismissal of beeping machines.  and her careful smoothing of her hospital gown. 

i sat facing the wall.  my head down.  i fingered the seam of my pants. 

she said she was sorry.  that the thing she was having the hardest time with was me.  she was ok with dying.  but she was so sorry she was going to leave me motherless at such a young age.

i shook my head and bit my lip.  i hated her for saying it.  it was going to get better.  she was getting better.  she had had several good days in a row they were talking about sending her home.  she wasn't dying. 

she stopped talking when i started sobbing and pulled me close to her.  i curled up into what was left of her.  i sunk into her soft body careful of the ivs and tubes.  and for the first time since she had been diagnosed i felt like the child again.

i now know she was trying to make peace with me that night.  trying to prepare me for when she died.  i regret that i couldn't hear her.  couldn't listen to everything she wanted to say because i was so determined she was going to live. 

we laid like that until janice got back.  she stroking my hair.  me watching as my tears gathered on the frayed sheets of her bed.

then it was over.  the moment gone and it became every other night. 

janice sat eating her salad.  i left so i could tend to the rest of my life. 

and three days later i had to leave work early because i couldn't stop thinking about what she had said.

it was the last time i got to hug her.  to really hug her.  and one of the few nights i remember in great detail.

-the paper doll feels better already

to be (someone else) or not to be

dear internet,

when i'm not worrying i'm lusting over the life i don't have.

clotilde's, dooce's, the made up one of ana pascal.

my mother always told me to do what makes my heart happy and the money will come.  i always believed her while i was on my parents pay roll because a check was just one phone call away should the money decide not to come.

i now have a mortgage.  car insurance.  utilities. 

agencies run by people who will not accept, i'm waiting for the money to come, as a valid form of payment.

so i do what most unhappy americans do, i suck it up and work 9 to 5.  pay my bills.  and rhapsodize about that great day i shall finally throw off my shackles and proclaim thou shalt take this job and shove it.

the great secret is that day will never come unless i make it.

i may keep a notebook full of ideas about how to run my bed and breakfast.  the color and brand of bed linens.  the recipe for wisteria muffins.  the silver pattern.

but those items are not going to leap off the page, start a revolt, and drag me into fighting for their side.

they will simple lay there and collect dust like they have for the past year.

if i got paid for having good ideas i'd be a rich girl.

i own pages of recipes for a new life.  shop owner.  art teacher.  lawyer.  baker. 

i've done all the research.

i just haven't taken the next step.

because when so many things make your heart happy how do you know which one the money will follow?

-the paper doll spends a lot of her time dreaming

the southern rule

dear internet,

i just made a list that said:

things that are currently bothering me

*the weather

*the waistband of my pants

*life

i know writing is the very thing that will pull me out of this funk, however, the haze prevents me from hammering out a post least it deteriorate into whiny self hating dribble.  and really-who wants to read about that?

but wait.  isn't this a blog internet?  can't i write about whatever i damn well please?

no. 

i am southern.  i must put out sweet tea and crackers and properly entertain you.  all while smiling and wearing a perfectly matched outfit.

but i don't wanna my inner child screams.

and that's why us southerns take a shot of bourbon in our afternoon tea.

as a woman i'm constantly battling the "because that's the right thing to do" and the "but i don't want to."  throw in the accompanied guilt and you've got yourself a regular cocktail party.  wanna come it's fun.  wallowing self pity.  a shot of anger.  a dose of sugar to help it go down.  anyone?

my desire to please is why i smile at the musician's parents' house instead of politely riping his head off.  why i keep my mouth shut when abortion or gay rights comes up.  why i go along when my aunt suggests a dress i find hideous would look good on me.

it's just much easier to be the silently suffering one and you can always take it back if you keep the receipt.

i'm assertive when i need to be.  but mostly i stew over why i have to be the one.  why my parents taught me to just grin and let it go.

sometimes i want the world to revolve around me.  to be the one to have the last cracker and word.  what would it hurt?

with the musician i am simply because it's only in the comfort of your own home that you can drop the pretense.

fake smiles are reserved only for the neighbor and the couple you invite over for dinner.  agreement is only necessary with the checkout girl in public.

claws come out when you're alone with the one you love.

i've always thought that particular southern way to be some what odd.

be nice to the people you hate but mean to those you love.  charming and dashing in public but hell at home.

a funny perversion of the golden rule.

and one i'm very good at.

i get it from my mother i know.  who got it from her mother i'm sure.

i've watched at holiday parties as my mother poured on the charm just to sit tight lipped and arms crossed when we got home.

i blame it on my red hair.  my fiery disposition.  but i can't help but wonder if after all that faking if you just run out of gas?

if you use up your allotment of niceness where it really doesn't count?

why does it matter if the waitress likes me?  if the lady at church finds me funny?

if the one i love has had it with me?

i don't know.

which is why i'll just pour myself another vodka tonic and try my best to fake it until i make it all while hoping for the best.

cheers.

-the paper doll says it's hard to teach an old dog new tricks

suspending belief

dear internet,

my mother always believed in the power of make-believe.  she often chanted, if you don't believe then you don't receive, when i voiced my doubts about santa claus, the tooth fairy, or the easter bunny.

she once even paid (i suspect) a neighborhood boy to dress as the tooth fairy and lay a quarter under my pillow to prove the truth of the myth (the exact details i don't know because she always swore who i saw was the fairy herself when asked).

even when my mother was sick and forbidden to leave the hospital (and i much too old to believe in such things) she conjured magic up.

when i walked into her room easter morning she instructed me to go away, or close my eyes, or turn around.  she wasn't ready yet. 

reaching under her hospital bed she pulled out a bag saying, the easter bunny had a hard time finding you this year so he just left this with me.  she set it on her rolling table among her meds and throw up pan and instructed me to open my eyes and turn around.

enclosed in the bag (with matching ribbon and tissue paper of course) was my favorite movie and the two pounds of required candy.

it was the attached note that made me cry.

happy easter love the e.b. carefully spelled out in all caps.

for as long as i can remember easter was synonymous with a trip to the beach for my mom, my aunt, my cousins, and me.

i imagine the e.b. was the product of a long night spent with several bottles of wine.

i like to imagine her and her sister giggling and staying up watching late nite tv.  remembering to put the easter baskets out right before they fell into bed.

forgetting cards the only paper was a stack of post it notes.  much to small to fit the easter bunny written out.

i remember my cousin rubbing his eyes and saying but who is the e.b. ?  which sent my mother and aunt into hysterics and launched a family tradition.

never would it be the easter bunny.  and forever would we run around and chant-E.B.! E.B.! E.B.!

later we would laugh at ourselves and our naivete.  how did we not recognize our own mother's handwriting?

the curve of her e the line of her b?

it's the magic i miss most about her.

the surprises.  the creativity.

the fullness that overflowed and splashed on to you from the way she lived her life.

you couldn't help but get swallowed up.

this week will be the first easter trip i've made to the beach since she got sick.

my father's taking me this time and his expertise is not such things.

so until i have my own bottle of wine and easter baskets to put out i'm afraid the e.b. has gone m.i.a.

and the magic of make-believe put out.

-the paper doll misses her mommy

it's my party and i'll cry if i want to

dear internet,

this is the seventh time i've written this post.

eloquence eludes me. 

it's my birthday week.  i'll be 24 on the 26th.

much too young to be having a crisis i know but here we are.

i've gained weight.  i have no idea what i want to do with my life.  my girl friends are few and far between.  and up until this point my life has turned out not at all how i planned. 

birthdays are not only your day but one to be shared with your mother.  who BIRTHED you. 

and because i no longer have her it makes my day especially hard.

i shouldn't have to tell the people that love me this.  they should know i need them an extra amount right now.

but because people are often forgetful, or wrapped up in their own lives, or don't know what to say, or how to act-they do nothing.  pretending i'm just like everyone else.  when really i'm not.

walter was so good at letting me cry.  and he would know without me having to tell him the real reason why.

i like surprises.  and intuition and thought.

i like not having to say: could you just be there for me.  all me.  because this week is the hardest one out of the year.  i would do it for you and you wouldn't even have to ask.

which is why nothing smarts the most because it would never be something i'd consider.

-the paper doll says people rarely reciprocate the golden rule

tying a string around my finger

dear internet,

i was cleaning out my work in-box because lord jesus at the crap in there.  because some people don't ever bother to do this our system deletes emails every day that are three months old.  if you want to save your work crap then you have to archive it.  which seems like a good idea at the time but then you go in there months later and it turns out you never needed that stuff either.  and half of it refers to projects you can't even remember.

then there are the things you do remember, and they smack you in the face.

the mass email sent out when my mom died made it into my archive box and has been sitting just a click away.

i don't remember reading it the week i got back from bereavement leave.  but as i stared at its date the shock of time hit me.

two years.  this november it will be two years.  yet, as cliche as it is, it seems like yesterday.

i know november is still a distance away.  but my birthday's not and technically this will be the second one i've had since her death.

her death still seems strange to type.  like it hasn't fully sunk in.  and often when the spirit moves me i still shake and cry violently with grief.

i guess i say all this because as you get older time really does move faster.

and sometimes you need something to remind you how long it's really been.

so i'll never forget....

i graduated high school in 2001.

2001-2002 was my freshman year in college.  i don't remember much because this was the year of bands and dancing on bars.  the writer was in there somewhere too.

2002-2003 i was a sophomore.  part of the time i spent pinning over a failed relationship (see the writer) the other i got drunk (with my freshman girls because i somehow thought being an RA was a good idea).

2003-2004 junior year.  the year of walter and of france.

it was september 2004 when i got back in the country that my mother was diagnosed.

i was in what would be my last semester in college.

december 2004 i graduated early to spend the whole next year in hospital rooms.

november 6 2005 my mother died.

may 2006 walter and i broke up.

june 2006 i changed my life.

a few months later i met the musician.

-the paper doll is living in the past but just for a moment

joyeux noël

walter hated christmas.  yes internet it's true he was a scrooge.

no.  no. he wasn't a scrooge.  a scrooge i could have dealt with.  he was more of a pompous ass about christmas.

arguing and putting me down.  refusing to help me carry a tree up two flights of stairs.

he'd pull out his soap box of materialism of capitalism of what's wrong with the world today.  and i'd wish for nothing more than to jab glass shards of ornaments into my ear drums so i didn't have to hear his hot air.  but wait.  there were no ornaments.  because there were no trees.  there was also no eggnog, or carols, or christmas songs.

there was nothing festive or tacky or appliqued.

singing santas didn't wish you a merry christmas and rudolph's nose did not shine bright.

in fact, the three christmases we spent together there was nothing much at all.  no celebrating.  no warm fire.  no smell of cinnamon.  no new traditions.  no love wafting through the air.

and while i tried my best to forge an, "i know i completely understand martha stewart is so stupid.  you're right christmas is nothing but a materialistic holiday that shows exactly what's wrong with our world today.  down with capitalism.  i need no santa claus."

it was bad acting at best because christmas is truly my favorite time of year.

yes i don't like that it starts in november.  or that there are shops that sells its wares all year.  that cars put wreathes on their grills.

but i think december is a magical time of year.  and one i'll no longer pretend to hate because of the man in my life. 

it's in my blood internet.  my inheritance.  my southern housewife roots.  my mom?  she loved this time of year.  and always ensured our home happy and bright.

and while i know she's not in hanging ornaments on a tree and baking gingerbread men.  that's love to me.  dancing around the house.  cutting out gingerbread men.  kissing under the mistletoe.

silly traditions i know.  but that's what makes us family.  what separates us from the wild and untamed.

and i'm over the moon that the musician understands that.  that his eyes lit up when i suggested we get a tree.  that we have a party and decorate.  that we drink eggnog and spend time with those we love.  that we tinsel each other and laugh under candle light and fire.

because i'm tired of soap boxes and lectures.  of feeling put down for what makes my heart happy.

and if that makes me a capitalist then so be it. 

i'm just glad that this year the only box the musician will be pulling out will be one to wrap and put under OUR tree.

-the paper doll is becoming more and more like her mother

raising a glass instead of a hankie

oh dear internet,

i can't tell you how much this blog post encouraged me.  i always felt like i've done a different kind of grieving.

the kind that comes in with songs and smells and tastes.  that wrenches the tears from my eyes when i carve pumpkins or sit by the beach. 

when i do those things that are infused with her.

it seems more authentic.  more cleansing when i let the tears pour from my eyes instead of planning them out.

dictating that i be sad today just because of its date.  when really i feel nothing but joy.  overwhelming joy.  for the life i have and the thanks to be given.  for the mother i got to know for a brief time.  for the boyfriend i just found.  for the women in my life.

my mother gave me so much.  the world so much.  laughing until her last day.

touching the world with her grace and confidence.  why celebrate that with sadness?  why fondle the bad times with a frown?

she wouldn't have wanted it that way.  and neither do i.

because yoga teaches you to live in the moment.  and this moment right now it is bursting forth with possibilities and goodness.  with remembrance and a buoyant heart.

that's what i'll honor today.  what i'll celebrate with a toast to her name. 

because she would have wanted it that way.

-the paper doll says the best way to conjure somebody up is to let their spirit live through all that you do

memento mori

it's not so much that you get over someone being gone but that you learn how to live around their absence.

it's what i've been doing this past year.  learning how to step around the big gapping hole.

some days it's easy.  lightly bounding through the hours.

others.  it's like trying to breathe air through water.

there's no real comfort.  no easing.  just a constant throbbing ache you begin not to notice.

i wish i had a cure.  a fix it.  wisdom for those sharing my shoes.

but i don't.

they lie when they say it gets easier.  it doesn't really.  it just gets different.  older.

i imagine it's like losing a limb.  you learn how to compensate but you always miss the appendage.  are aware how much life would be easier if it were still there.

but you survive.  because it's what we're made to do.

even through our own fragility and mortality.  we survive.  we put one foot in front of the other.  we stitch together the wound.

and we remember.

because it's all we can do.

-the paper doll misses her mommy

sliding doors

timing.  is of the essence.  time flies.  the best of times.  the worst of times.  find time.  make time.  kill time.  time out.  time delay. 

timing.

the one thing besides death and taxes we can't stop.

it marches on.  it turns.  it runs.  we never have enough of it.  and we always notice when it's been bad.

when the alarm goes off too late.  when the coffee takes too long.  when you just miss the one you love.

timing.

it puts you in the right place at the right time.  or in the wrong place at the wrong time.  or in the right place at the wrong time.  or in the wrong place at the right time.

it's who we blame and who we curse.  who we praise and who we thank.

timing.

the universe wields it as she sees fit and yet another year passes and you don't even know where the time went.

the anniversary of my mother's death is on monday  sandwiched right between halloween.  all souls day.  remembrance day.  veteran's day.

i can't help but notice the timing of it.

when the days are getting shorter.  when the earth is becoming dormant.  when we stop to remember.

an auspicious time i didn't notice when it happened a year ago.  but one i realize to be special this year. 

a fitting time to honor her.

to have lost her.

if such a thing could exist.

because the whole world seems to be echoing my loss as the trees drop their leaves and bow their branches in remembrance.

as the grass dries and turns to dirt.

as the sun pulls the clouds over her face.

as the world dies a little.

like i do.  like i will each year time goes by without her.

but that's the thing about time.  it moves.  it marches.  it passes.

and soon the leaves will be green.  the air warm.  the flowers pushing their faces out of the dirt to see the sun. 

and time will have once again worked its magic.

-the paper doll bows her head in sadness, honor, and respect

full spectrum

dear internet,

i know i'm about to piss half the world's population off with this rant BUT...

every damn week i tune into grey's anatomy.  every week i think there will be some sort of conclusion.  a wrapping up of ends.  but no.  there's not.  never.  then they hook you with some preview of next week's events getting your hopes up that for the love of god meredith will finally end her existential crisis. 

but that's not what this post is about.

this post is about breast cancer.  a feature of last nite's show.

seriously.

i know it effects thousands of women (and some men) and their loved ones each year.  but you know.  i get it.  feel yourself up each month and get a mammogram.

i also get that if you catch it early enough thanks to great medical advances you'll be saved.

i know cancer is a evil thing.  I KNOW INTERNET.  i'm one of the loved ones it's affected.

but women we don't only have breasts.  we have vaginas too.  and they can be as deadly.

more so because thanks to the silent killer ovarian cancer is often misdiagnosed.  and when finally discovered it's almost always grown to such a huge mass that you have no other choice but to have most of your organs cut out and to be fed through a tube in your stomach and to lay in a hospital bed for 9 months until you die.  until you die internet.

so forgive me if i'm a little bitter.  a little piss off that this susan g. komen woman has stolen all the lime light when there are other cancers out there.

other cancers that have a higher ratio of deaths.  other cancers that women need to be educated about.  other cancers besides the damn in vogue breast cancer.

so do yourself a favor and remember to get all your parts checked out not just your breasts. 

know that the symptoms of ovarian cancer can be attributed to menopause or irritable bowel syndrome.

know that there are other things out there that aren't pretty and pink and mass marketed.

-the paper doll wants to know when designers will be making special edition turquoise wear

revision

we all have those days.

sleeping through the alarm clock.  the dog eating your favorite shoe.  snakes in your backyard.  being caught by a train.  running late.  falling down.  tripping over yourself. 

days when your best is managing not to drop the coffee pot when you pour your morning cup.  days when you can't seem to get a grip around who it is you are because everything else is slipping through your fingers too.  so you do what you have to do just to get through.  and you're sure it's because of that mirror you broke or the man you cut off in traffic last week.  karma.

my life has been a well spring of those days and it all started two years ago this sunday.  that's when everything came crashing down with the words-i'm going to die.  so that most of the time doing my best means a shitty rough draft of the girl i am.

a small bit of me wrapped up in the wrinkled clothing.  the spilled cups and stains.  the shoes with broken straps.  the scrapes, scruffs, and mistakes.  the bad timing of sloppy living. 

no one expects those things life changing thing they just come.  i haven't always done the best job handling them.  but i haven't always had the best material to work with either.  so that somewhere along the way of sitting in hospitals and losing my mother part of me got gone too.

some days i don't even recognize myself.  i've become rudderless without her.  setting out for grownup missing the north star.

and now that it's all fallen on my shoulders i'm not sure what to do with the burden of being who i am.

now that i get to decide, to live just for me, i feel stretched.  misspelled.  crossed out. 

and the words i do manage to find aren't always the ones i mean to write on the days. 

luckily the thing about shitty rough drafts is that you always get a chance to rewrite them.  i'll never edit the part about how much i miss her but the other stuff, it might have to go.

-the paper doll is working on it

the ides of september

ceasar had march to do him in.  i've got september.  the month i'd like to kick in the balls.  the month that changed my life.

and i know you're thinking but what about november?  your mom died in november shouldn't that be the month you want to brutally injure and prevent from procreating.  and yes internet i imagine i could do some severe damage to november.  but it's really september's fault.  because she's the one that revealed to november my mom's death.

if september never would have happened then november wouldn't have been able to take her away.

my mother was diagnosed with stage three ovarian cancer september 24.  the exact date my parents married some twenty odd years earlier when she thought she'd live to 90 and raise 6 grand babies.

she only lived a year and two months after that black day.  and i don't even know if what she did could be called living so much as tumbling through doctor's visits, and two major surgeries, and chemo, and 9 month long hospital stays.

she walked outside for the first time in six months two days before she died.  all her family came to see her unexpectedly the day before she slipped into a coma.  and i was there thursday night when she was no longer her self but a body pumping blood trying to survive.  i saw her last breath on sunday morning.  i heard the birds singing as we left her body to the man and the hearse and began our new lives.

i kissed her lips and told her not a day would go by that i w0uldn't think of her.  i felt her coldness. 

and i walked away to keep that promise everyday.

so here we are at september. 

here i am figuring my life out.

and all those last days seem not to be behind me but hours i walk through over and over everyday.  wishing she was still here to tell me what to do next.

which man to date.  what graduate program to apply for.  which dress to wear.

how to be grown up.

-the paper doll needed to vomit that up

inactive*

"my mom's in icu she's in a coma all the family's on their way i haven't eaten or had a shower in 24 hours i didn't get any sleep last night i'm staying here with her tonite."  the words fell out of me like water through a sieve.  my mind unable to hold but one single thought-my mother is going to die-soon.

silence.

"hey are you there?"  i sobbed into the cell phone i wasn't suppose to be using.

"umm yeah i'm here, i'm going by my grandmother's.  you can call me there.  or leave me a message on my machine if you need anything.  i might go out later."

it was a friday night and this time the silence came from my end of the line.  his words not the bowl i needed to catch myself in.

"fine."

"what?  well tell me what you need me to do.  what am i suppose to do?"

i could hear the argument dusting itself off, waiting for the go ahead, ready to pounce through the line.  after all it was a conversation i had memorized, could do blindfolded with one arm tied behind my back and duct tape across my lips.

"i gotta go.  i can't tell you what to do.  you just have to do what you think is right-what's in your heart."

i clicked the phone off and left the argument unaired and disappointed it wouldn't be fed that night.  but it laid down knowing its time would come.

with each swish of the electronic doors i looked for him.  listened for his click against tile.  sniffed for his cologne.  searched for his arms.

but he never came.

and instead of his shirt, i sobbed into the chef's (an old friend from high school who arrived unasked ten minutes after i phoned him with baguette and cheese in hand).

that was six months before we broke up.  and the one thing we never argued about because i was too crushed to even admit to him how detrimental his absence was muchless fight about it.

but the funny thing about arguments is, your silence fattens them up more than any words do.

-the paper doll needed to get that off her chest

* in·ac·tive    ( P )  Pronunciation Key  (n-ktv)
adj.

5. Biology. Marked by the absence or reduction of activity, such as the ability to cause infection.

oh and ps-part two of the date story will be up soon.  sometimes more important things need to be said.

home sweet hangover

it never fails that when we are all together we talk about her.  she kept us together in life and now manages to do so in death.

and while i knew most things about her there are always new things uncovered when we sit and spin yarns.  when we raise glasses and cook meals.

it keeps her close while magnifying her absence.  makes me laugh.  makes me cry.

as i buy my first house and box up my belongings and as my dad tears up the house of my youth, i've thought about what home means.  and i've realized it doesn't matter at all.  because what makes me feel most at ease is a bottle of wine and good company.

it also causes me to have a bit of a headache and a mild case of exhaustion.  but measuring furniture and picking paint colors was worth the bottle of wine, pomegranate martini and lack of sleep. 

-the paper doll is feeling nostalgic and a little nauseous

rooms to go

I don’t know if it’s all the mother’s day advertisements plastered in cyberspace or this new domestication I’m taking on but lately I’ve had new aching for my mom.  A total superficial desire to have her around.

All one had to do was mutter some small thing about not having anything to wear, or make a comment about how you saw this thing in that store that would go perfect with that other thing and like magic a check was being written or a box appeared on your doorstep. 

And I know many of you are going to get your panties in a twit about how spoiled that must have made me.  and yes I’m an only child and yes I had a good life.  but every wish was not her command, it just brought her great joy to see me smile.  and it wasn’t about money or objects or buying my love.  she said no.  and she didn’t produce her credit card on demand.  she often snuck back without you and snatched it up keeping it under her bed for weeks before giving it to you. for her it was the abundance she had the luxury of sharing.  the giving she could do.

as I buy this house and drool over all the furnishings I wish I could have I miss her perceptiveness.  I miss the surprise boxes and bags and shopping trips.  I miss the fawning and attention and smiling because I found the exact thing to go over the fireplace.  the endless conversations about paint color.  the time spent together searching.

the absence of a woman figure has been magnified by this purchase and it looms over me like the roof line of my new dwelling.

my father ensures that I don’t spend money replacing the roof or having my septic tank pumped out.  he buys me dispose-alls and new duct work.  he smiles at the craftsman ship of my mantle and the shine of my hardwood floors.  he drools over putting surround sound in my living room and building me new kitchen cabinets.

and I’m extremely grateful for his generosity and do it yourself spirit.  for the quick gruff phone calls about tapping on to the public sewer supply.  I couldn’t have made this purchase without him.

I just can’t furnish it without her. 

-the paper doll just wants one more day

snapshots: laughter

there's a certain memory of my mother that resurfaces at the oddest times.  it's just a moment.  blurry.  one i'm unsure of.  i don't know exactly where we were, or why, or when.

it appears soft and all i see is her amidst great racks of clothes.  standing in a wide department store aisle doubled over in laughter.  griping her sides.  rolling back and forth.  she has that look of pain.  when your laughter ceases to be something you can control but becomes a body shaking cackle.  an eruption of joy. 

it was a private moment and one i happened to catch from across the store in my department. 

she had an unmistakable laugh.  one that caught you up in it, tangled you up, and pried open your own mouth.

that's what pulled me from my own rack of discounts and drew me to her.  what led me to witness this moment between sisters.

lately i've felt guilty for feeling happy.  reminding myself that my mom hasn't even been dead a year.  my mom is dead.  i shouldn't be laughing.  i shouldn't be happy.  i'm in mourning.

then this memory darts in and i'm reassured.  i know she would want me to spend every moment i could arms flung to sides sobbing with joy because that's how she spent her life.

often laughing to keep from crying.

-the paper doll is making a joyful noise

rituals

when i was little my mom said that when she passed on she wanted to be cremated and her ashes put in an oversized margarita glass.  we were also to hire a new orleans style band and parade down the street dancing.  (dad was to be put in our pockets and sprinkled on the field of his favorite football team, a task that might take more than one trip, my mother admonished as she demonstrated the preferred technique of distributing ashes undetected).  as a family we all agreed to this and before my parent's first trip out of the country she had the will drawn up.  i was to go live with my favorite aunt in the event of a plane crash.

but that was when she thought she would go after her t-totaler parents did.  that was when she thought i'd be an old mother of four with a borrowed from her sense of humor about such things and a family of my own to lean on.  that's when she thought she'd have more time.

she changed her mind at the last moment.  knowing her family needed more closure than a stack of ashes in a cup, and that nana couldn't stand to see her first born burned and scattered.

she wrote out the rituals she wanted preformed and secretly gave everyone a task.  even asking her young nieces and nephews to walk by their pawbearing daddies.

so that when we all came together to plan a service in her honor there was little work to be done.  each of us sharing the written instructions we had been given.  even in death my mother had to be the perfect hostess.  and what she planned without our knowledge was about what each one of us needed, it wasn't exactly the party she had dreamed of earlier but because she included something for each of us that made it all the more about her.  because if anything, that's the way she was forgetting her own needs for someone else's.

now i'm left to decide what my own rituals will be.  how will i honor her now that she's gone?

as a society we are ill equipped to deal with death.  don't know how to neatly pack it into our day planner.  how to usher it to school, and soccer practice, and tuck it in at night.  we just don't know where to pencil it in.

and as i struggle with what to keep and what to do, i realize how she lives in everything i do.  in the mums i plant in the fall because they were her favorite.  in the guest soap i have.  and the happy birthday banner i hang.  in the letters i write to her each month.  in the daily rituals i perform to keep her close.

and i realize in some small way each day is a loud clanging parade in her honor and i smile knowing that she got what she wanted after all. 

-the paper doll is smashing cymbals and banging gongs

almost

"i feel like cinderella."

"you look beautiful."  my aunt damping her eyes with her sleeve.

"if you don't mind me asking but what event is this for?" the curly haired sales woman raising her eyebrows.

a pause and a look.

"my mom's funeral." 

it wasn't the typical store exchange, i know, but neither was my mother.  and her death was no exception.

i put those clothes on today.  the first time since wearing them to her funeral. 

had the first desire to watch the recording of her memorial service, the first burst to spill it all out here. 

not just to remember her but to remember the whole thing.  the longs days and quick weeks before and after her death.

to acknowledge it and call it by name.

but my fingers are not ready to pick out the letters.  the cursor unwilling to pound out the whole story.  we never like messes and this story is a great big one.  the delete button acting as my bounty, quickly wiping away the spill. 

but i am hopeful, because for the first time i have looked it in the face and held my stare for just a moment.  a moment too short to get down on the page but a moment nonetheless.  and that's quite an accomplishment.

-the paper doll is holding her own

do you see a pattern?

let's all play pretend for a moment ok internet.  let's remember that none of this really happened but is a feasible explanation for events that could happen between the hours of 9-5.  got me internet.  NONE OF THIS REALLY HAPPENED.  REALLY HAPPENED INTERNET.  does it help if i tell you i'm winking?  ok good... 

let's say that a girl-a very attractive (and well dressed i might add) red headed girl-spent 15 minutes locked away in a bath room stall sobbing.  but expertly sobbing because nary did a tear smudge her well applied makeup.  in fact, she faced doom and destruction to protect her mabeline by wedging a piece of toilet paper, so cheap she could have gotten a splinter, under her eye lashes. 

she then walked calmly to her desk and spent the next 6 hours avoiding eye contact and chewing her bottom lip to a frazzled mess.  i think there was even blood at one point, internet.  BLOOD.

while stoically facing the day she pondered:

a) wow i really need a manicure my fingers look worse than if edward scissors hands had tried to cut my cuticles.  my mom liked getting manis and pedis.  that's what she called them.  she took me on my first one.

b) how many more freaking hours.  how many.  my mom always complained about her job.  she hated it.

c) birds.  those birds look happy.  and they don't have any money.  maybe i should be a bird.  birds live at the beach.  my mom loved the beach.  we went there together every summer.

d) i really wish that song about taking your job and shoving it would just start playing.  like in alley mcbeal.  i could dance.  and there would be a baby.  wonder what happened to that show.  people said she was too skinny. i liked her.  my mom liked that show.  we use to watch it together.

then repeat that whole scene about being locked in the bath room.

just saying internet.  it could happen.

-the paper doll is a quivering PMS mess

my eternal question

i was flipping through old newspapers and an article about john lennon lead my eyes astray.

i know it's a big leap from lennon to my mother, but i couldn't help make the connection.  i've never read anything that so adequately explains...

"Why is it always Bobby Kennedy or John Lennon? Why isn't it Richard Nixon or Paul McCartney?"

"It's never Nixon, or McCartney, or Graham Nash, or Neil Diamond, because unlike them, John Lennon held out hope...But when you hold out hope, people get real disappointed if you can't deliver...."

and while my mother did not petition for world peace, or revolutionize the rock and roll industry, or marry an avant garde japanese woman, she did change the world.  it just happened to be a much smaller corner than the one lennon reached.

and like him she never gave up hope, not for one moment did she falter, and it seems cruel and unusual that her reward was death.  life did not even bother to throw her the smallest of respite.

disappointment is not a big enough word to hold the sorrow that has been created by her loss.

and i can't help wonder like that reporter:

"And today, in a world still at war with itself, in a time when expectations are so diminished, we again will pause to imagine how, if John Lennon were still around, things might have been different."

i guess it is the one question i will always ask myself.

i believe in angels now

it's funny how life keeps going even though it seems to stop all around you.

i have SO much catching up to do.  blogs to read.  posts to write.  one week away and all of you stayed busy despite the fact i was moving in slow motion.

i guess i expected everyone else to come to a halt just because i did.  it's both comforting and annoying that life continues without you.  that when you are frozen other people are doing regular things, eating french fries, smiling, pooping.  i still haven't gotten use to the fact that for everyone else it's been just another regular week. 

for me- well that's a wholenother story that i don't have words for right now.  maybe ever. 

it all seems so unreal.  even after a week i can't believe my mother's gone.

i still imagine myself going to the hospital after work.  or her not being in my growing up house because she's just at the hospital. 

wonder how long i can keep fooling myself?

in loving memory

not a day will go by that i won't think of you. i love you moma
january 15, 1954-november 6, 2005

(note to readers: please forgive me if i am absent my life has been forever changed and i can not seem t find adequate words)

if i don't post it they won't come

reading dooce's post made me strangely aware that i never really write about my mom.  i skim the surface gliding over the details.  i avoid putting my feelings into tangible words.  maybe,  it's because i'm afraid.  if i write them then all of this will be true.  will be permanent and i'll never be able to take it back or change it and i'll have to deal with the actual state of my life.  the unhappiness the uncertainty.  spilling open about her would topple the safety i've gone to such extremes to create.  i don't want to believe any of this is happening.

for once humor and sarcasm don't do justice to the situation.  i can bash the hospital and the nurses and laugh about the greek guy but about her-i'm numb.  there are no words big enough to hold how i feel about seeing my mom suffer-becoming more and more like a child.  i am not ready for this.  can not be the adult i need to be. 

ultimately i'm left with only questions and the heartbreaking desire for all of this to go back to the way it was a year ago.  before the diagnosis, before the surgeries, before the chemo, and the hospital and the tests and my new job. 

i would have been a better daughter.  would have savored our moments together a bit longer.  would have told her i loved her more often. 

now-where do i go from here?

Le Weekend-a play in four acts

ACT 1- Exposition and Rising Action

have learned that operation take apartment back is in full effect.  the drunk college girls' nites of drunk dialing flour fighting* keg partying are on their way to being over.  my fingers are crossed at least.

i happened to meet a nice young man, we'll call him M, on sunday.  M has the unfortunate task of living under the drunk college girls. and i don't mean that kind of under, else he wouldn't be complaining.  no M and his lovely girlfriend are forced to have the soundtrack of drunk high heels on hardwood floors tapping along with their dreams. 

being the nice man he is, M thought it would serve the betterment of all if he: 1) went to talk to cette drunk college girls. when this proved unfruitful he sent his girlfriend.  when this didn't shut them up he 2) casually mentioned something to the woman who cuts the grass and takes the trash out.  she agreed she had seen A LOT more beer cans since drunk college girls commandeered the place.  she would mention this to the realty company.  3) he called the cops because in his words, "there's no way in hell those twerps are 21" and when all of this seemed to no avail he did what anyone wanting a good nite's sleep would do 4) he called the landlord himself.

well i say thank you M for being such an upstanding citizen.  for marching up those stairs and saying what so many of us have wanted to. 

peaceful sleep is on its way.

*yes i mean a fight where you throw flour at each other.  i only know this happened because our stairwell and the tops of the trees/shrubs are white and unless someone has an expensive drug habit i'm betting the drunk college girls slung that baking staple at some drunk college boy.

ACT 2-The Climax

my own little covert operation went quite well this weekend also. so well in fact, that i didn't turn the dog into an object d'art, after he found AND chewed the crotch out of my french panties that had been so carelessly thrown on the floor.  this is not the first time he has done this mind you.  no he has a french panty fetish.  i could leave my plain no frills i feel bloated panties laying all over the floor and they wouldn't peak his interest. but as soon as my expensive can't be replaced i bought these when i was living in france panties hit the floor he comes running.

i was in such a blissful haze i hardly noticed the shreds of silk littering my apartment floor.  The Boyfriend was even nice enough to take him out for a walk while i picked up the shrapnel.  in fact, The Boyfriend was nice enough all weekend.

breaking our rule, we saw each other for an unplanned date on friday nite.  he missed me he said.  we strolled the greek festival and met some friends for drinks.  it was idyllic.  easy and comfortable like i hadn't even kissed that other man. 

saturday didn't go exactly as i had planed.  not the romantic picnic in the park under the stars chocolate covered strawberries french wine date i had dreamt.  he mentioned cabaret instead of shakespeare in the park.  half naked girls and a main character sharing the name of his ex-girlfriend wasn't quite what i had in mind.  but it was fun.  felt very carrie bradshaw in my glittery top and six inch heels.  even got a compliment on my hair. 

on the whole was relieved there was no silence or clammy hand holding.  things were good.  too good in fact.  should have kissed other man earlier.  seems to have made us appreciate each other a little more.

ACT 3-Falling Action

on a much sadder note saturday was the one year anniversary of my mother's diagnosis AND my parents' 24th wedding anniversary.  yeah i know-what are the odds.

i had imagined i would take the day to reflected and mope.  even tried to write a long sentimental post about the year.  but it just didn't feel right.

instead, i made a batch of coconut ice cream, my mom's favorite, and took it to her at the hospital.  seemed much more appropriate to just be with them instead of wallowing at home. 

hope this year brings better fortune.

i love you mom.

ACT 4-Resolution

i ended this fabulous but bittersweet weekend at the hospital.  now normally this would incite a nasty post about the annoyance of spending one's nite at that dreaded institution.  however, all horrible events were over shadowed by the season premiere of Grey's Anatomy.  was half way expecting one of the interns to pop their head in any moment to take my mom's pulse.  the scenery really added something to my viewing pleasure. 

The Best Friend even texted me saying she was in a hospital watching it too. 

it was a nice closure to my first weekend as The Girlfriend.  ahhh, sighs, fluttering of eyelashes.  things are back to normal.  hope your weekend was just as dreamy.

THE END

this is why i love my dad

he says things like:

1-"you look.. nice. uhh i mean those colors, um are pretty.  your skirt and beads yeah, so how's work."

2-as we are flipping channels, "oh it's fox propaganda."

3-"they need their suvs for when they pull off road onto the grass as they drop their kids at soccer practice every week"

4-as we were watching the cnn coverage for the jetblue thing (if any of you watched this you know how stupid the reporter sounded). "yeah didn't you get the memo, he already said that 4 times-a 90 degree angle.  oh that's good, let's get a shot of that airplane from so far away you can't even see it.  it's not even on the screen.  oh now let's pan over to the man enjoying a nice quiet fishing trip that's about to get 10 million gallons of fuel dumped on him." then to me: "don't laugh at her you know she graduated from the same college you did."

i love that my dad talks to the tv. i love it even more that he's sarcastic and witty and points out how stupid humans can be.  and while these aren't perfect examples my father does have the ability to make everyone laugh.  he's just so darn clever.  i know i get my sharp tongue from him.  he helps make the long nites at the hospital so much more bearable.  i'm glad my mom picked such a smart man.  keeping my fingers crossed for the day she can laugh with us. at home. on the couch. in front of the tv.

thanks dad. i love you.

hell is a hospital room filled with snakes, paige davis, bob vila, and iv machines

i was less than enthusiastic about having to spend my nite at the hospital. 

first of all those damn iv machines beep incessantly.  and they know the exact moment when you have finally contorted yourself into a position which allows sleep.  then they unleash a beep so horrible i am convinced it wakes the dead. 

then there are the nite nurses.  who because they have to be awake assume that you in your pjs with a pillow over your head would also enjoy being awake every half hour.  most need signs on their asses that read, "caution makes wide turns will trip bump or ram myself into everything that's not tied down that can go crashing or wheeling around the room, will do this between the hours of 3 and 6 am."  it's only fair they warn me.  screw this how are you tonite i'm wendy i'll be your nurse let me know if you need anything.  next time will answer-why yes i need a stiff drink, duct tape, and pillows.  this way when you fling yourself into things you'll be protected and i won't have to listen to the sound of your body against metal.

the dr.  who is cute and sweet and a very nice man.  but oh how i want to go over to his house on a saturday morning. pound on his bedroom door. flip on all the lights. then say in a booming voice so how are we today.  if i were the patient my reply would be-today? day? the day starts when it's light outside.  this wouldn't be bad had he some insightful words to allow.  but how is it good for the patient to have a nice little chat at 5:30 in the morning.

yes the hospital is hell.  no i would not could not stay there for nites on end as my mum has.  but they are trying to make her better and for that i am grateful.  no matter the annoyance i'm glad i can be there to hold hands, brush teeth, mop up vomit, and watch hours of law and order.

back again

i got the call last nite.  my dad's voice on the other end of the line, "where are you?"

what this really means is-your mother is back in the hospital, i really don't know what to say, are you busy, can you come, have you eaten dinner, i'm sorry this is happening. it's amazing the amount of unsaid information that southerns can cram into a single question or a slight pause.

the status of my mom's health being the only reason my dad uses his circa 1989 cell phone my caller id had already warned me of this (how DID we survive pre-id).  so i had time to muster the of course dad- i'll be right there. 

i gorged on food from the greek guy and smiled when my dad felt the need to talk back to the television. all while the sweet sound of beeping machines harmonized in the background.

just another regular day.