What now?

What do you do when someone you love dies? How do you get to the next step and once you get there how will you know? It all feels surreal right now. I'm tired, even when I've gotten some sleep. I'm sad, even when I'm laughing. At least I can laugh, MT and I are keeping each other laughing as much as we can. We're both past the shock stage, the denial stage, the numb stage. Now it seems like we're both smack dab in the middle of the depression stage. This just sucks.

I can hear Jimmy's voice so clearly in my mind. I hear him picking on me for wearing my favorite red Doc Marten's boots all winter with my jean skirt... he called me "Amy Pohler in a punk sketch". Ever since last winter he always called me Amy. What a nut. We spent last Sunday at the Brooklyn Museum checking out the contemporary Caribbean art exhibit. He was really impressed with a few pieces in particular. I think I want to go back and see them again.

I hate feeling aimless, but I don't know what to do now.

Jimmy Rosina

Our friend, Jimmy Boppapoleze, died last night. Well, that wasn't really his name, it was Mike Rosina, but that's a whole other story. Jimmy had been sick for a very long time and had been in bad shape. He didn't wake up this morning at home in his own bed. We loved him, still do. Jimmy was part of the hectic weekend last week as one of our out of town guests. I'm so glad he came. It's hard to plan our wedding without Jimmy playing a role. I'm at a real loss for words right now.

All hope is not lost

I was getting to the point where I hated weddings and all that goes along with them... and then we found a venue and a caterer that doesn't want to charge us a million dollars or make us sign over our unborn first male child. Remarkable. Plus the caterer is Brooklyn-based and the location can't get much more Brooklyncentric (Historical Society! Check out the pic of the Library - that's our place. Unreal.).

Sorry I've been so absent. Been crazy busy (again). Will have something interesting soon, promise. Small recap of recent weeks: I got a teeny tiny eensy weensy raise (3%! Gag me.), we got a renewal lease for the coming year and our rent went up 5% (notice: raise in salary not equal to raise in rent), MT flipped out on his boss upon hearing his boss call someone "a goddamn pussy" for the fiftieth time and didn't go to work for 4 days... in the process he brokered himself a $30k raise and got his boss to admit that he has anger issues (no joke - I'm amazed that all went down), we had out of town guests and I made a fabulous brunch, NYC has had a preview of Fall with temps in the 70s and it's been beautiful, I got an additional client at work and am back to working like crazy again.

Marblehead Gold

We painted the kitchen. It has been transformed from blah off white to oooh ahhh Marblehead Gold. Good stuff.

Before...







After...







He didn't exactly help, but Duke sat around looking pretty damn cute while we painted.

Disgust

If I see one more "Never Forget" banner or sticker or sign or keychain or t-shirt I will vomit. I wish there was an anti-war rally I could go to today. Today NYC is full of flag-waving lunatics who are actually saying things like, "Well, at least we're over there giving them what they deserve!" As if the Iraqis had anything to do with the mostly Saudi group who killed 3,000 of my fellow New Yorkers. It makes me sick.

I'm going to meet MT for lunch today. That was our compromise. He wanted to stay home from work today, but I thought that would be an unhealthy choice and I asked him to rethink his decision. At least this way he gets out of the house and we get to meet in the middle of the day to break up his awful steady stream of 6 year old memories. The scar in his lung will never let him forget even if he wanted to. I wish people would understand that.

Ah, celebrity

Like just about every other neighborhood in New York, last week my humble block joined the ranks of "Law & Order shot here". My block was used in scenes for a new episode and it was pretty cool. Aside from the parking restrictions for a full day and the local gawkers there wasn't any disruption to the neighborhood.

Some of you may remember a mention of a wedding I called off about 5 years ago. The guy I didn't marry (thank Whatever Deity You May Choose) was good friends with Jeremy Sisto, the new guy on Law & Order (also from White Squall, Clueless, Suicide Kings, Wrong Turn), in high school back in Chicago.

Well, I was walking Duke on Friday past the shoot and there was a guy with a King Charles Spaniel sitting on the sidewalk across the street from the house the shoot was using, so of course Duke had to say hi. Well, sniff butt, but that's "hi" in dogspeak. The dogs were getting acquainted and the guy & I were chatting, but in that way that lacks eye contact and any meaningful substance while one's dogs are sniffing and licking and doing that dog thing they do. This brief time period also included Duke peeing on a producer's notebook that she left on the ground by a lamppost. Felt bad about that, but I didn't see it and he is a dog after all... About 3 minutes of chatting (and apologizing) went by I actually looked at the guy and realized it was the very same actor the guy I didn't marry was friends with.

I asked him if he knew said Guy I Didn't Marry and of course, he did and we ended up chatting for about 20 mins. Very nice guy, very unlike his character on Six Feet Under (Billy - uber creepy brother of whatshername, I've had nightmares about him... which of course, I told Jeremy. He seemed to get a kick out of that.). It was a nice little brush with celebrity in my own backyard, well on my own block. You know what I mean.

The Big 3 - 0

I'm 30 today. Happy birthday to me. I don't feel older, I don't feel wiser, I don't feel sad for the expiration of my 20s. I feel good about getting to 30 and knowing that while I know myself far better than ever before and understand my stake in the world much more, I still know barely anything at all and there is a whole universe of things to learn about out there for me to explore.

Here's to 30 being better than 29. Here's to the instant legitimacy which 30 lends that 29 could never have. Here's to always being interested in the world and retaining the curiosity of a child at any age.