I haven't lived by myself very much. Growing up, there's family. In college, if there weren't roommates, there were hall and housemates. After college, I lived with a series of boyfriends and roommates, interspersed with short periods of actually living in a house or apartment without roommates. While I enjoyed these times of solitude, having all the space be my own, and the lack of psychic noise, having someone around wasn't really a bad thing.

For one of these living alone adventures, I lived in a condo I had just bought. The complex had four building and sufficient underground parking that every condo had a spot. I had what I considered the best spot: the one right in front of you as you came down the stairs from the complex, minimum distance, minimum effort.

And, maximum target.

One morning, after unlocking my car and hopping in, I noticed something wrong out of the corner of my eye. When I turned to look, I found a garage door opener sitting on the passenger seat. Now, my car had been broken into before, resulting in a few thousand dollars worth of damage, a destroyed dashboard, a broken seat, and an amazing story of my friend Dan Frumin chasing down the would-be thief down streets, over fences, around corners, with his roommates in pursuit in a police car watching the merry chase around the streets and backyards of Pasadena. A story worth telling over bonfires and beers.

This time, however, the only evidence of breakin was the remote.

I jumped out of the car, left the door open, ran upstairs and called the police. They came out, dusted the car for prints, and looked for the car jack that came with the car. Honda car jacks were (and possibly still are) the scissor jacks, which can effectively be used to spread fence bars for breaking into, oh, parking garages to steal cars. I talked with the officer for a while, becoming less and less assured that anything could be done about the attempted theft of my car.

Six weeks later, they caught the guy whose prints were on my car, in the process of stealing another car. He was part of an Asian gang from Los Angeles that were stealing cars in Pasadena where it was easier to steal them. Like a small Honda was worth that much effort.

So, today, as I was hopping into my car, I was reminded of that whole event when I turned around to look over my shoulder before backing up, and saw something shiny sitting on the back seat of my car. I sat there, staring at the 2"x3" shiny metal, thinking, "What is that?" Note the obvious level of stun in that question: there were no curse words.

I hopped out of the car, hustled around to the back seat, passenger side door, opened it and grabbed the silver object. I quickly realized it was a business card holder.

I opened it and realized, to my joy, it belongs to Mike.

Car still safe.

Mike, I have your pile of business cards.

The summer after I graduated high school, I was at work (in a bookstore, of course), when a personal call came through for me. I thought the call odd, and answered it, to hear Jenn tell me Ben had died. He was on a plane that had crashed the previous day, wind shears, one survivor, not Ben. Telling me at work seemed smart: I walked into the bathroom, cried for a long while, cleaned up, then went back to work, moving as numbly as I could, just needing something, anything, to keep going.

Ben's funeral wasn't so much of a funeral, there was no body to view, as a memorial. I remember being seeming the only person there crying. I couldn't understand why no one else was crying. Half the people there, and not just the boys, didn't have any evidence of having cried at all. Ben's mom at one point mentioned the graduation gift that was still on Ben's bed, unopened.

No one was crying.

For some of us, it was our first introduction to death, and they weren't crying.

I was confused and even more upset.

Three days ago, we began receiving the emails that, oh, god, none of us ever want to receive.

"... becky brought pro into the hospital yesterday and it doesnt look like he will be leaving this time ..."

"... They have found that the disease has progressed more than they realised and he is not doing well. The doctors have estimated that he has about three days ..."

So, here I am, completely stymied, at a loss.

And crying.

This isn't even my pain, and I'm crying.

Crying, because here's the imminent loss of an amazing person. Someone who is quick with the joke, generous with his time, as intense as needed, and just amazing to boot. He's this amazing person, and he's dying and it isn't fair.

It isn't fair to Becky, who is a wonderful person. It isn't fair to his kids. It isn't fair that someone who is good dies of something as stupid as pancreatic cancer. It's their pain, and I can't stop crying.

I few months ago, I asked my mom to send me pictures of me as a child. I had read about a woman who, when she was frustrated and angry with herself, would pull out a picture of herself as a child and ask herself if she would be so angry with this child? We are our own worst critics, sure, but the negative self destructive aggression inward certainly doesn't help anyone.

And, oh boy, do we know how hard I can judge myself.

When writing up goals for the month yesterday, I suggested we write a goal for each other. Mom agreed, and wrote "meditate for 15 minutes daily AWAY FROM THE DOGS" on my card. Yeah, that was her emphasis. My mom - she's one smart cookie.

One of my goals for her was to send me those pictures. She does that, and I can cross that off one of my cards, too. Win-Win.

Well, she sent me them in spades.

I showed Kris a couple, and told him, "If you had seen this picture 10 years ago, maybe you'd have wanted kids." He gave me that little "believe what you want, woman" shrug, but I know my cuteness won him over. I mean, really, how can you be angry at this?

A funny thing happened today, while I was readying today's long winded post about something random that happened to me last night... I sidetracked myself and, as I do most days, googled for "kitt" A few weeks ago, I made it to page two (holy crap, that's awesome, page 2? WOW!), which had me so so so very excited.

Today, I found myself on page 1. I was so excited, I nearly peed my pants. Okay, right, I'm already ON page one for the search "old ladies pissing" because I keep pissing off old ladies, and page one for the search "sprint 8" (but you knew that, yay Andy!) and page one for "why did Rob Start have to die?", but, come on, none of them are quite the achievement as being on page one for "kitt".

I had Doyle confirm, and yep, I'm there.

I'm going to bask for these 10 minutes before the Google Dance happens, when the algorithm realizes the error of its ways and drops me back to page 5. Until then, OMG, I'm on page 1! WHOO!

"You like this shirt only because I'm not wearing any pants."

"I'll admit bias to that effect."

"Thought so."

"You are wearing boxers, though, which mitigates that bias somewhat."

"Somewhat."