BLIZZICANE!!!!!

It's 3am and I have done NOTHING all this Boxing Day except monitor and participate in this EPIC blizzard pummeling the NYC metro area. I've been like the Facebook and Twitter weatherman. Flakes began falling around 10:45am...got heavy in the afternoon...and STAYED heavy. I've shoveled 4 times...then went for a 12:30am stroll through town taking pictures. This storm has impressed me on SO many levels...and i'm VERY hard to impress. Duration, amount of snow, wind, last-minute-track shock value, lightning and thunder (though I didn't see or hear it), falling the day after Christmas. Just HISTORIC. I've loved every minute of it. And it's STILL snowing heavily. I measured 25" and 27" in 2 seemingly level and non-drifty spots. Just amazing. A wonderful day.

Another Rockwellian Christmas down...

Now waiting on a BLIZZARD! I have SO much to say about Christmas in general, but again...it's 2:40am and...well, i'll say this: i'm very lucky...and realize many aren't. And i'm not even really talking about material possessions; i'm talking about how MISERABLE Christmas is for a lot of people because they're missing deceased loved ones. Odd coming from me...who felt for SURE at age 15 that Christmas was FOREVER ruined due to my grandmother being buried on CHRISTMAS EVE. But, no...life went on...and got better. Really. It's all tenuous, though. I've just survived another Christmas sans agony, and i'm very grateful. Merry Christmas.

My snappy Facebook comments have made the Small Town, SC Funeral Circuit!

That is all. 

Young ladies of America, what's with your dumbass picture pose?

I need to step up my rage on the following vexing issue: what the FUCK is with The Young Generation of Women and their asinine Paris Hilton-esque posing for pictures? You know the pose; you MUST...one hand on the hip, body pivoted sideways, head jerked slightly back, one knee thrust forward. It is INFURIATING to view. Oh, and you look like idiots, ladies. And it's doubly infuriating to think that all these women are getting their cue from Paris Hilton. All that said, I think I just gave myself another idea for a Viciously Sarcastic Christmas Card Photo...

Water and my face have a lifelong history of not getting along...

Tonight was no different as I used a nasal spray for the first time ever. You'd think such a device would be easy...

"In lieu of flowers or gifts, the family requests that you give your children an extra hug today."

That's how an obituary in the paper for a 16-year-old suicide victim read today. Certainly one of the more heartbreaking things I've ever read.

I keep saying I'm gonna stop reading the obituaries -- and it's not something I ABSOLUTELY do every day of my life -- but if a paper's in my hand, I'm always compelled to seek them out. And for what? I'm not sure. I always think, "well, reading them inspires me to live to the fullest!" Eh. They certainly give perspective, but more often than not, they also leave me in a funk for hours or days. Especially ones like today's. A very violent suicide, too disturbing to even write about. Not some "simple" drug overdose or anything. And this kid...this kid had EVERYTHING going for him; it just makes absolutely no sense.

And so I've spent TOO much time today on Facebook and Google, trying to ascertain exactly what happened, and exactly the type of kid this was -- things NEVER possible in the pre-internet days. It's macabre, spooky, bizarre...intrusive? IS it intrusive? I think it's bizarre before it's intrusive. Bizarre that it's POSSIBLE, not that I'm doing it -- though many would surely differ. It's a WHOLE new world with the internet...including death. As ghoulish as reading family and friends' Facebook thoughts on their loved one's death may seem -- though it's right there FOR everyone to read -- the internet also allows total strangers -- like me -- to offer (hopefully) comforting words and organize memorials. I think the good outweighs the bad. I have no real answers; I'm just trying to "figure it all out" myself.

But the main point of this posting -- which I wish didn't have to exist tonight -- should be what the family of this poor kid wished for in lieu of flowers or gifts. Because we always take things -- PEOPLE -- for granted, never thinking that in an instant, our entire lives will be forever shattered.