So, right now, a couple things are happening. It's the winter solstice. There's a full moon, and there's a complete lunar eclipse going on outside. The moon is right out there, on a clear night I can see it from my back porch.

But there is also, tonight, for the first night in a week, an impenetrable barrier of clouds between my porch and that eclipse.

I feel like this does a good job acting as representative of my entire life.

98

My great-grandmother just died. My dad’s grandma. She was 98 years old, so it wasn’t a huge surprise. She couldn’t remember much anymore, she had all the aches and pains of old age. But I know my grandpa is heartbroken. Both his parents are dead. My dad seems fine, he says she’s better off now. I don’t know if he’s serious or not. He’s not a sharer.

I remember we’d go over to their house every Saturday for like the first decade of my life. Every time we did, the pair of them would foist upon us oatmeal pies, Pepsi, sandwiches, any food they had on hand. Did everybody get enough to eat? they’d ask as we started to leave, hours later. It started to be a joke in our family (we weren’t blessed with a lot of comedians).

The two of them were born almost the same time. They saw World War I, the Great Depression, World War II, the Cold War, JFK, Nixon, the Civil Rights Movement, the moon landing, the awesome 1970’s, the horrifying 1980’s. If you’ve seen that much, you shouldn’t die, you should just sort of live on forever as a wise old hermit or something. You shouldn’t slowly break down, your mind and your eyesight and your hearing and your bones going one by one till you can’t barely breathe on your own. It isn’t right.

I didn’t find out why my great-grandparents insisted on pushing candy, cookies, cans of soda on every unsuspecting person who entered their home until my great-grandma died. Her husband, who was always Papa Moody to the great-grandchildren, didn’t have anything growing up. Poor family, war on, stock market crash. Once he had a family he swore that none of them would ever be hungry. Not as long as he drew breath.

So there it is. Maybe it’s sappy but I needed to write it. We’ll miss her.

Horoscope, abridged

Today my horoscope warns that, since the past few days have been going so smoothly, I'm due for a fall.

Thinking about what my horoscope apparently considers "smooth", I can only imagine I'll be set on fire, dropped in a dumpster, and shipped to Alaska.

Molesting English.

Okay. Listen. People who edit WikiPedia. The phrase "quintessential urban zeitgeist" is nonsense. From top to bottom, floor to ceiling, it's a meaningless trio of words. If I see something like that again, I will find you.

Paid For By

Sometimes there are days when what you really need to do is find some ridiculous bubble gum music, get a snack, and do anything you can to drown out the voice in your head constantly screaming you've made all the wrong decisions in life.

And for days like that, I recommend Pepsi.