over the cliff

Surrealist Compliment Generator

I have read 6 books in the past 3 days.

I’m exhausted.

EDIT: Make that 8 books in four days.

Still exhausted.

That was the message facing me in my inbox. For the past 5 years or so I have been stalked by WeddingChannel.com. It’s like I’ve joined a cult only no one bothered to brainwash me.

Freshman year of collge I was friends with a girl who was quite anxiously awaiting a marriage proposal from her boyfriend. One night some other friends and I were browsing ring designs on adiamondisforever.com trying to pick out the ring that her boyfriend should buy her (it really is better for us to pick it out then conveniently e-mail him the acceptable designs) when we decided we should also pick out the perfect wedding dress. We went to weddingchannel.com, however, in order to look at anything, you had to be signed in. — wouldn’t create an account because she was afraid it’d be bad luck, so I volunteered. When creating an account though, you have to be engaged. And you have to give a wedding date. I always thought ‘May 21st’ sounded pretty and the next time that was going to be on a Saturday was in 2005. So boom, I had a wedding date and an account and we looked at dresses.

I forgot all about it, until the e-mails started coming. At first I thought it was funny, but after a while I got irritated and tried to delete my account. IT WOULDN’T LET ME! I spent a good half hour searching the site desperate for a “Fiancé eaten by shark, wedding cancelled” option. Then after a while I got a new e-mail program that blocked the e-mails because it thought they were Spam and forgot all about it, again.

Until this one. 16 weeks. Damn, I have a lot of planning left to do for my non-existent wedding. I wonder what will happen after May 21st. Will it automatically sign me up for Babychannel.com in order to constantly remind me that my biological clock is ticking? How about tips on how to keep a marriage alive? I don’t forsee any problems with mine. I might get mad at myself and say things I don’t mean, but I always make it up to me eventually. Usually with chocolate. I spoil me, but I deserve it.

My great great Aunt was 105 years old. I took Gan up to see her this past summer and she wasn’t well off. She couldn’t speak, Kitty Morgan (her daughter) and a nurse had to take care of her 24/7 and it just hurt to see her.

Kitty Morgan told me that she asked her mother once, “If you could have anything in the world, what would it be?” She said without a pause, “To get into heaven.” That was all she cared about. I have never met a more religious person. When I was a little girl I believed in God fiercely, largely because of her. Visiting her was touching faith. Kitty also told me that the Nurse said when Ninny would wake up in the middle of the night, she would pray. God. Faith. Heaven. That was all she cared about.

Her husband died when she was 52. She lived another 53 years without him. She was born in 1898 and rejoiced when she moved into a house on 34th street when she was a little girl because it had electricity. After she married she moved into her parents’ house with her husband and never cooked until the day her mother died. She had to call her Priest in order to ask how to make gravy. She appreciated a good looking boy and was not too shy to flirt, but that was as far as it went. At her 90th birthday she turned to some man whose name I can’t remember and said, with a cigarette in one hand and a whiskey sour in the other, “I want you to do my funeral.” He remarked during her eulogy, “I’m just glad I outlived her.” That’s what a lot of people said. She outlived her husband, her daughter, a grandson, her first accountant. She outlived her sister, her niece, her friends, her friends’ children. She remarked once, “I’m afraid God has forgotten all about me.”

My mother told Kitty that if no one in the family wanted the baby grand piano, she would pay whatever a dealer said it was worth and pay to move it. My father taught me how to play Do re mi on that piano. It was the reason I asked for lessons as a little girl. I never acquired her skill, but I can play a few things. Maybe even well.

I saw her maybe a half dozen times in as many years. But I still miss her.