Death is more universal than life; everyone dies but not everyone lives.

I know why Florina has become completely obsessed with Michelle Tea's writing. I zipped through Valencia in 2 days. Maybe it's because it all took place in San Francisco and I can picture exactly what she's talking about. I can picture her and her friends sitting at Baghdad's at 2am because I've done the same thing. It's weird and I love it.

I've been feeling kind of weird since last night. Finding out that a friend I haven't talked to in years passed away almost 4 months ago and I didn't even know about it until last night is just a strange feeling. It makes me wonder why I haven't been taken yet. Why, of all people, have I been left on this earth. It's something I used to think about even back in high school. I knew in my head that some people in my high school won't make it into adulthood I just always wondered who it would be. Fuck, some people I knew didn't even make it through high school at all. But why me? Why am I left? Those other people I've known mainly died in car accidents (I'm in cars all the time) or committed suicide (of course I've thought about it). It just makes me think that I need to be living as if I'm going to die tomorrow. I need to quit sweating the small stuff.

But why me? I've just been fucking around trying to figure out what to do with my life, not doing much that's worthwhile. So why was it the people who had something to really offer this world? Great artists, writers, and all around great people. I'm happy to have known these people and this world just won't be the same without them.

But as people pass on, new lives are brought into this world. I'm very happy that I found out I'm going to be an auntie. And being told that I will be an "awesome aunt" gave me a smile and a hope that things will get better.


In other parts of my heart and my brain, I'm ready to move and be free from a marriage that I went into knowing was a bad idea and have my name restored. Was that even me? When I talk about that life it feels like a different person. I'm ready to get rid of the photos, erase them from my life now because they were my life THEN.