1. My dad isn’t screaming anymore. The trick is a tiny sliver of Valium. It’s enough to take the pain away but not too much to get him high and dopey. Instead, he gets sort of hyper but because he actually can’t physically move much, the energy manifests itself verbally and this is why I spent four hours at the kitchen table yesterday talking with my father about:

a. The oil spill and how bad my dad feels for the fisherman. (Really bad.)
b. How many weeks left until they can get him off antibiotics and he can have a glass of wine. (3)
c. How much he loved hanging out with us kids when we were little. (It was at this point that his eyes got misty and he started crying.)
d. How thankful he is that the catheter came out and he can pee on his own except he refers to peeing the way he and my mother used to refer to our baby diapers so instead of telling me he has to pee, he says he has to “go wet-wets”. (My father is 65 years old. FYI.)
e. How he thinks the worst way to live your life is in fear. (YOU CAN’T BE IN YOUR ROCKING CHAIR WHEN YOU’RE OLD, THINKING OF REGRETS. YOU GOTTA SAY “AT LEAST I TRIED”, THAT’S WHAT I ALWAYS SAY.) (He doesn’t always say this.) (But he kept repeating it yesterday.)

2. I watched the Tony Awards as has been my custom since I was 13 years old. If you would’ve told my seventh grade self that there would come a time when I didn’t count down the minutes until it started, didn’t whip out a VHS tape so I could record all the performances, wouldn’t scream at people in my living room to SHUT UP because I needed to hear the acceptance speeches, she would NOT HAVE BELIEVED YOU. But that night was last night and instead of feeling exciting because TONY AWARDS and BROADWAY and MY LIFE AS AN ARTIST, I was bored out of my mind. Holy cow. The only good part was watching it with my dad who kept dozing off and waking up and saying something completely incoherent. He wants you all to know that he thought La Cage Aux Folles seems confusing, regardless of whether or not Frasier is in it.

3. Remember when every month on my blog I did NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTION BREAKDOWNS so I could keep up with my resolutions and they were all cute and adorable like “Pay down $300 on your credit card!” “Ask D to go to dinner!” AWWWWWWWWWW. IT WAS SO SWEET.

And then my dad got sick and I got busy and if I wrote a blog like that now, it would be

a. SLEEP.
b. HANG OUT WITH DAD.

Funny how that happens. Maybe I’ll get back on track this summer after I come back from Italy.

Which reminds me.

5. Do you know how much it costs to rent a car to get the hell out of Switzerland? YOU WOULD NOT BELIEVE ME, IT COSTS THAT MUCH. It costs more than the zillion dollar train tickets to get the hell out of Switzerland. So, we are just going to take a train. OR we are going to climb every mountain by foot a la Julie Andrews and maybe I can hire some nun to sing while I do it. IT WILL BE AWESOME!

6. My Italian class ended about a month ago and I wasn’t able to fit the next semester into my schedule. In order to keep it fresh in my mind, I asked my teacher if she would privately tutor me until I could get back into a regular class. She said yes because she is truly amazing and instead of saying “all day long”, she translates it literally and tells me she did things “all the day.”

Um. GENIUS?

Anyway, I love learning Italian more than anything in my entire life. I am now learning to use the past tense instead of just present so I can successfully talk about things I did yesterday instead of all the things I am doing right now. This is very usefl because as you can imagine, in every day conversation, you are often talking about things you did already.

YESTERDAY, I WENT WITH ALAYNA BY FOOT ALL THE DAY. WE WALKED ON SOHO FOR TO SHOP FOR JEANS WHITE.

Perfecto. Benissimo.

7. I do not have anything to say for number seven.

8. In philosophy this semester, we are talking about “saying and doing nothing unnecessary”. So often, I feel like I’m using energy to do things that don’t need to be done. Words fly out of my mouth without awareness, I’m blabbing all the time and saying things I REALLY don’t need to say. So. I’ve been practicing that. As a result, I’ve found that I’m quieter, more centered and my e-mails are much shorter. The same can’t be said for my blog posts. AM I RIGHT LADIES?!

9. I made spring rolls for dinner last night and vegetable fried rice. FROM SCRATCH. THAT’S RIGHT.

10. The twins asked me on Saturday why we call lollipops “lollipops.”

Me: I don’t know. In different parts of the country, they call them something else. When I was in college, they called them “suckers”.

Twin #1: Ohhhhhh ‘cuz you SUCK ON THEM.

Me: Um. Yes.

Twin #2: I’m going to call them something I just made up.

Me: Okay.

Twin #2: *stares at lollopop on stick* OH I KNOW!

Me: YES?

Twin #2: I am going to call mine “BALL SUCK”.

Me: *falls over and dies*

Twin #2: WHY ARE YOU LAUGHING LAURA?

Me: NO REASON.