Monday, October 16th. So, a little less than a month from now it'll be a year since my dad died. Amazing how fast time has flown, how much has changed, how much I've grown. I'm close to be done all the paperwork. I promise to make sure I have an honest lawyer that will help my kids with everything. It's funny that only now, 11 months later, that I'm finally allowed the opportunity to grieve, finally given the chance to cry and be angry and be frustrated. And it amazes me how things come about, when they come about, like on sundays when I wanna call my dad and talk about the Pats and the Bills, or when I want to let him know about things going on in life, or to ask him what spice I should use to bring out the flavor of something. And I can't. And people will ask me what my dad was like, and I think how you should've met him, cause for all the good and bad, it's hard to put in to words. You should've tasted his cooking. It was fantastic. And that is part of what stirred this writing. This weekend I found the cookbooks, the recipe books. And I flipped through them, excited and ecstatic that they are in my possession. I can't wait to cook them, grateful that I paid attention to the pinch and pile, the dash and splash. And I think how could someone who was so meticulous, so precise, and had spent so much time in the medical field NOT been more pro-active with his health, with his doctor visits, and keeping people in the loop. And really, it doesn't matter, because it doesn't change anything. He's gone, he won't be back. Stories. We leave behind all these stories--and yet these stories are only good so long as there is someone to tell them. The months leading up to my dad's death, we'd sit and talk--he told me of all these stories from his youth, from his 20s, from his time with my mom. I remember them, as I remember most things. Sure, I suck when it comes to, "hey, thursday at 5 we're meeting at the clubhouse", but I remember your stories, all of your stories. The stories of the people I know. It's through those stories that we live on. My grandfather told me lots of his stories just before he died. I never pieced it together. My grandmother, who I spoke to every week at the end, we talked all about her stories, and it was fun to connect about my living in Newton, where she studied nursing. Stories. People pass on those stories, ever more so as they get closer to the end. The need to live on. Even if one person only tells one story of another person, that person still lives on. Eventually the stories end...eventually they fade. Like the words on a page, or the grooves in a record. Faint, faint, fainter...gone.

yeah, that's right....i'm having one of those days...a double post day. My friend Julie, a lovely woman with a beautiful soul, is about to start a new job. She'll be working with pre-schoolers doing some speech stuff--I of course could use some help in that department myself. Anyways, she's been working with "troubled" kids for the past few years--and by troubled I mean kids that have threatened to kill her and do mean horrible things. Most are on the fast path to the state school for psychopaths. Good stuff...anyways, as I was on a roll this morning...i figured...why stop.....

Pre-schoolers will be fun, and it's speech, which is even better! That's awesome....plus, pre-schoolers won't threaten to kill you. Remember...say no to paste....it's addicting. It's like crack for 4 year olds. You know it's bad for you, but once you start you can't stop. Sure, other teachers will try to talk you off it, help you quit switching to elmer's glue (paste's version of methadone), but it won't be the same....then the 5 year old pusherman comes up to you...yeah, he's going to kindahgahden soon....He'll offer you a taste...just to get you through the rough spot...next thing you know your huffin' scented markers, lookin' for your next fix. If you don't pay up he and his cronies will start fingerpainting your car, crushing your macaroni necklace, and stealing your lunchbox.

How you know you're having a bad day...First, you wake up at your girlfriend's house to her two alarms. Second, you shower, start to get dressed, only to realize you have no boxers to wear at her place because she's been going non-stop for almost a week and a half and hasn't been home to do laundry and your gym bag is at work with a clean pair in it so you have to go commando. Yes, I am sitting here commando. I feel like Joey on friends. Then....you decide to leave early because yesterday was a holiday and traffic is always worse after a holiday, so you skip breakfast, head down to the car and find a parking ticket because you parked overnight on without a pass EVEN THOUGH IT WAS A HOLIDAY. $30 to that f'n'sh'tay town. Of course, her roommate parked next to you because you said, "it's free, it's a holiday." So, let's us add a little guilt to the whole mix. Finally, miserably, you get on the road. Yup, traffic is bad. You have to swerve into the breakdown lane because someone tried to occupy the exact space you held. Then, as you try and settle your nerves, you go to take a sip of coffee, only to realize the lid was open and it sloshed when you swerved, so the coffee is all over your cup holder and has now dripped on to your jeans, and when you tried to honk you hit the radio button and it's now playing The Cure because really you couldn't be any more depressed. At least the coffee wasn't hot.......god I wish the coffee was hot.