Today is first Monday.

Today I was at the hospital by myself. My brother flew back to L.A. for a few days, to make an appearance at his office. He would be back in a few days.

That left me to work the nursing staff and ask all the right questions of the doctors. It was a nerve-wracking role. That was my brother’s job. He’s always in charge- he’s the one that commands people and assesses situations. It’s how he grieves.

I’m the one who provides comic relief. That’s my job. It’s how I grieve.

Today I was alone with my dad in his hospital room, and I thought and thought and thought. I assessed the situation. My father had been in the hospital for almost a week now. That’s a long time. And he wasn’t getting better. New problems kept appearing. It was like a bad acne breakout that we couldn’t manage.

That’s when I knew.

I was alone in my dad’s hospital room, in the middle of the day, and things were very busy out in the hallway, what with all the nurses and all the other sick people. I was alone, and it was quiet in my dad’s room. He was sleeping. No one was there to lend the realization the gravitasse and melodrama it deserved. There was no ominous soundtrack or earth tremors or lightning bolts. No screaming or crying. Just me, alone, assessing the situation.

Just a little girl watching her Daddy die.

I am trying to stay away from the keyboard. I am trying not to write about this. I am trying not to bleed my way through this.

My father died on a Saturday.

He was admitted to the hospital on a Tuesday. He didn’t die that Saturday. He died the next Saturday. There were two Tuesdays.

But the anniversary of First Tuesday isn’t tomorrow, it’s the day after tomorrow, which is actually Wednesday. The way the calendar works, the anniversary of First Tuesday is actually Wednesday.

So it’s not tomorrow; don’t worry about tomorrow. It’s the next day.

Tomorrow he was still at home, still sitting in his chair, and we still thought that he was going to be alive in three Tuesdays.

Only this year, First Tuesday is a Wednesday. Not tomorrow, but the next day.

“Do you think he’s in love with me?”

“Of course he is, I mean, how could he not be?”

“Right. But how can you tell?”

This is a tricky question seeing as she has never met him in her entire life.

“Because he hung out with you for so long. Dudes don’t do that unless they are in love with you.”

“Ok, but I acted retard* all night, so how could he be in love me?”

“What? You were so not retard, nothing you told me was retard.”

Yes, but I only gave her the highlights that made me look genius. I refrained from telling her how I chatted him up about my purse being too big. That, my friends, was retard.

“He said he had a good time with you at the end of the night,” she said. “You are the only person I know who can take that and turn it into ‘I was retard’.”

Not true. She could do it in a heartbeat.

“Ok, but what is our strategy, because I can never see him again,” I said.

“What? I thought you wanted to see him again, why can you never see him again?”

“Because I can’t. I have to hide behind a pillar and pretend I’m not there.”

“Ohhhhh, I see. You do that thing that I do where you can’t talk to boys you like.”

“Exactly.”

“We can overcome that. We can design a training program that will prepare you.”

“But who is going to be the technical expert? I feel like we’re not qualified.”

I feel like we’re not qualified, said the retired sex columnist. There’s one more sign that proves Armageddon is coming like a nightmare.

“I think we can do this. Between the two of us, I feel like we can design a quality program.”

“What if we do the Cyrano de Bergerac thing, and I wear an earpiece and November has the other end and he tells me what to say?”

“I don’t know, is November good at hitting on boys?”

“He probably knows what boys want to hear. Wait, scratch that, he’ll probably tell me to flash him my tits and say, ’something, something, do it in the butt.’ That’s not a good plan.”

“No, we’ll have to scratch that. When are you going to see him again?”

Silence.

“Wait, does he have your number?”

“No.”

“Right.”

Retard (pronouned ruh-TARD) is a special word to us, although we try to avoid using it in mixed company, as it is quite offensive. We use it in honor of one of our fellow Peace Corps Volunteers, to commemorate the time she was trying very hard to yell at a man, in French, and tell him that he was late for their appointment, or “Vous etes en retard (ray-TAR).” Instead, she told him “Vous etes retard (ruh-TARD)”, which translates into absolutely nothing. God bless her. He probably thought she a little bit retard.

Jesus is coming.

Wanna know how I know? Because I’ll tell you.

The temperature keeps changing by about ten degrees everyday. There was a frost yesterday, when the weekend before it was in the 80s. That’s God fucking with us, because he’s about to blow our shit out of the water. He’s gonna be like, “Armageddon, bitches, how you like me now?” And that’s when we will all be sorry that I constantly say things like “Christ on a cross” because I will be the first one to burst into flame.

Actually, probably not. I mean that I probably won’t burst into flame, not that everyone won’t be sorry if I do. We all like to brag that we’re going to burst into flame, but really, we’re mostly decent people. I can’t imagine God would kick your shit right out of heaven for stuff like pre-marital sex or harmless unanticipated make-out sessions in bars when you were mostly a decent person you’re whole life. Plus, I’m pretty sure God invented unanticipated make-out sessions in bars. They taste too much like sugar-coated gumdrops to come from anything else.

Really they usually taste like beer and cigarettes, but you can see what I’m getting at. If not, go make out in a bar and report back to me. Even if God kicks you out of heaven, you’ll be like, “It was worth it, suckahs.”

And you better hurry, because I’m telling you, Armageddon is on it’s way any day now, and Jesus is going to land, and you’re going to be like, “Shit. I should have made out.”

I’m telling you, Jesus is coming.

Look busy.