Death

Today started out ... varying.  On one hand, I've had a backache for 2+ days now.  My spine is my enemy.  I've had surgery on my lower back twice, and it and I are still in contention.  It's the sort of thing one just has to live with, and I do, but, y'know, allow me a couple of sentences to bitch about it.

But the day perked up when Friend Nick asked me join him for Indian lunch buffet, this time at People's.  That is two Indian lunch buffet lunches in a row, which is #Winning.  People's is very good, but variable: by this I mean, some days you go and it's good and spicy, and some days it's bland -- there's no way to know until you're there.  Today, unfortunately, was bland, though the food was still good, just too mild for the likes of me.  However, two things about People's that are always good: it's $8 even, and they put out delicious chai with the buffet.  Mmm, chai tea.  (Yes, Friend Sarah and I reviewed People's for the Great Indian Buffet Tour.)

Plus also I got to have a nice long chat with Nick, who is one of my best friends, and whom I always enjoy seeing and chatting with.

After that, I spent the afternoon reading Atonement by Ian McEwan.  It was recommended to me by Friend/Boss David, who raved about it.  So far I find it compelling, but also flawed, in ways that I plan to discuss when I finish it.  Wait for the review.

The big event of the day, though, was visiting Friends Katie and Randy at the viewing of Katie's father, who passed away very unexpectedly this Monday.  I felt helpless, and mostly talked to Randy (her husband), who is the sort to make jokes in the face of sorrow, which is also my wont.  I don't know what to do around death, in part because I inherited my mother's stolidness on the subject: they're dead now, what was there is gone, and so that is that.  But I realize that other people aren't like this -- which is probably a good thing, because my mother and I might be dancing the line of sociopathy on this one -- and since it's a friend, I want to help.  But how? I didn't know what to do with my hands, and I kept sweating, which I do when I'm nervous.  Katie said she wouldn't turn down a casserole -- it was all I could think of.  Mumford & Sons, which is a band I like but isn't necessarily profound or anything, has a song containing the lyric, "In these bodies we will live, in these bodies we will die."  Something maudlin comes after that in the song, but I kept thinking of just those two phrases today.  That's all there is to it.  I think the only way most people can live their lives is to forget, from moment to moment and day to day, that they will  some day die -- and even when you have it put in front of you -- in this body I live and in this body I will die -- you still can't actually embrace it; something in your brain turns it aside and paves over it, over and over again.  At least, that's how it works for me.

Take that, mortality.

After the viewing -- Me to Katie: "We're gonna head out, we're helping your husband be inappropriate" -- Ted and I got in the car and drove, literally, across the street, to D's Six Pax and Dogz, the one on Northern Pike in Monroeville. It's not as good as the D's in Regent Square: the pizza wasn't as good (though it certainly wasn't bad) and the service was indifferent, plus the entire place had the faint odor of raw potatoes to it.  But Ted and I ordered a large "Three Little Pigs" pizza -- sausage, pepperoni, and bacon -- to, as we put it, spite death.  Because what else can one do?  I've paved you over, today, Death, with pepperoni.

A kitten picture, since things were getting a little heavy, there.  Did you know Matilda is laser-equipped?