"It was just to see, just to see (All the things you knew I'd written about you...)"

I don't get the MySpace phenomenon...yes, I have a page, school alumni stuff. I can't recall the last time I was on there. I use it to get updates on musicians I enjoy, ie concert pre-sales, new singles, blah, blah, blah. Some of my friends and acquaintances have profiles there. The thing is though, if I want to talk to them...I go see them, I call them, I write them a letter...aren't those legitimate forms of communication and interaction? It's the same thing with small town back biting. If I so offend you have the chutzpah to speak up. Better yet quit living in the delusion that you have no idea why I find you to be a malevolent blight, we both know the particulars, I moved on you might want to do the same. If pressed my reply is that I have no need for duplicitous self obsessed twits. The funny thing is...most of these "people" rarely if ever come up. I assume most people don't like me, in fact a women once said she "enjoyed me" then said I reminded her of "The Soup Nazi", quite a dubious compliment. I operate under the assumption that I in fact am not liked...I keep waiting for the truth to come out when my loved ones are on their collective deathbeds. So the structure of MySpace and it's "friends" escapes my very nature. If I want to get updates on a band I like I have to request that I be added as a friend, then wait their approval. The college admissions process is less arbitrary. So I will never be a scion of MySpace or beloved by the backbiters of my pedestrian burg, alas inner fulfillment will have to suffice.

"So, so you think you can tell Heaven from Hell,Blue skies from pain"

When did being 83 equate to a death watch? My grandmother is dying and there's not a goddamn thing that anyone can do about it. She went in the nursing home for rehab.....she was so frigging crotchety that she refused to do anything to help herself. The walker at the home was "rickety" so she wouldn't use it, the food was terrible..."not even fit for dogs", so she refused to eat it. Her mind was still there...her will to live...vanished. Where had it gone? Where was the woman who sent us to fetch her a switch when we acted like heathens? The woman who taught me to embroider, to bargain shop, and gave me bumper bangs with plats? Where is Eloise and who is this frail woman that has taken my grandma's place? People get old. It doesn't comfort me this truism. It doesn't make my grandma's inevitable death any easier to face or prepare for....it does nothing to erase the guilt I feel for not being there to just see her, to make her smile, to make her laugh....I may never see or hear her do those things again. I hate being so poor that I can either fly out to her now and not be able to attend her funeral or never see her alive again. It is the cruelest conundrum. Especially since today is her birthday and I can't be there.