Luciano

To all three of you that read my blog (so sad) I apologize for not keeping it updates this past week. Last week was a very rough week for me as I lost a friend to cancer. It's so horrible because he was only 36 and one of the happiest and well humored people I had ever met. What was even more tragic is that he never drank, smoke, or did drugs and exercised everyday. It's so insane that some of the healthiest people can get cancer and at such a young age.

This Saturday I had planned on going to his memorial which I had braced myself for. I thought, I'll stop by just for an hour pay my respects and go but instead I showed up to a full fledged funeral. The minute I opened the door to the little chapel, I knew it was going to be extremely rough. The funeral room was very formal and grim, like a smaller version of the chapel at Fisher and Son's a la Six Feet Under. There were huge red and gold curtains and dark uncomfortable chairs with red satin cushions. Hardest of all, his coffin was at the very front of the room surrounded by his pictures and huge sympathetic floral arrangements. I have never been to an actual funeral in my life. I have always gone to memorials or celebrations of life where people show pictures and sit around and reminisce so it was even harder to go a "real" funeral of a friend and someone who was so young.

After the funeral, I was in a very weird mood, somewhat reflective and saddened which made it very difficult to go the Daft Punk concert that we had planned to attend to for months. When we first arrived, I hated every moment of it. Here I was, coming from an experience of real and true emotions, and I was entering a room with 20,000 people, half of which were in some drug-educed false state of emotions. Walking through a sea of snooty hipsters and drugged out ravers I had so much contempt for everyone. All I could think was "these people spend so much of their life wasted pouring drugs into their bodies or trying to be cooler than everyone." I had contempt for them because they had body free of illness and so much life they didn't appreciate.

I finally knocked myself out of this angry and void state when we found our group of friends and I saw another friend of ours who is in his late twenties and currently battling cancer. Looking at him, knowing that he was in so much pain but living for every moment of the show, I realized that there was no use being angry at strangers and that I should enjoy this experience. The rest of the night I had a great time and danced with my friends but I couldn't help but think occasionally how none of us know exactly how much time we have in our weird little lives. I can only hope that I remember this when I am complaining about stupid things like work, money, etc so I can stop and appreciate everything I currently have.

Sanity

It's July now and I can't help but feel the theoretical summer glass is half empty. Whenever I think of summer, I think of hanging out by the beach, eating watermelon, and going on lots of vacations. So far, all I feel I have done is go to the beach twice and work. I suppose that's what happens when you get older, summer becomes a season and is no longer an activity. The two things that are keeping my spirts up are knowing that in 3 weeks I will be in Lake Tahoe and next month, we will be off to explore Portland and Seattle. I don't really have too many things to pour my heart out about at the moment so I'm just going to focus on things that are keeping me sane. I apologize for the similarity in format to the last blog. Hopefully I'll feel more inspired after some highly needed vacation time.

Things that are keeping my sanity:
-Coppola Roso : a delicious and cheap blended red table wine. Just 8 bones with your Ralph's Club Card y'all!
-Dryer's Slow Churned Rocky Road Ice Cream - Makes me feel like I've been outside all day
-Feist The Reminder -helps me to mellow out
-Flight of the Conchords - This show always gives me a good solid laugh and I look forward every week to watching it.. I know.. sad.
-My hubby -my rock.