skeleton plush toys I haven't been wanting to talk about this on any sort of public venue- but in the interest of getting it off my chest and maybe finding humor where I can find it... which is hard to do lately.

Walking through palliative care tonight for the first time was like walking on the moon. I was so contagious and felt like the grim reaper blowing through those push-doors leading to the optomistically dying.I walked through the whole place, it's quite spread out and open. One half for the family members to relax around in(read: sit around waiting for death to do a jig in while doing jig-saw puzzles), and the other half for the residents. There's a widescreen TV, just like The Pines, with a cable package befitting of only the most uncommitted watcher. The OC was on as I cruised through. A large conundrum about Pep rallies and firewood raged on with intermittent commercials, and everything seemed to move a bit faster onscreen then I remember it doing before. Shelves were full of old romance movies and the entire Alfred Hitchcock collection and some WWF movies. Other shelves held stack upon stack of Harlequins. I thought that if I died while reading one of those, I'd at least hope it would be after chapter nine. Or else it wouldn't have been worth picking up in the first place.

I didn't take off my jacket or my scarf, adding to my spaceman feel as I wandered through with only the slits of my eyes peeking out and glaring at nurses before looking away guiltily, wondering if they could tell by my dilated pupils just how contagious I really was. Everytime my nose itched, I gasped and held my breath and saw spots in front of my eyes, convinced that if I coughed, I'd be kicked out instantly. Possibly hanged for murder.

Optomistically dying. Every person you see crumpled up in a chair or slouching over in a snooze in a beautiful piece of colorful stainproof furniture, is dying. People check in here, and they don't check out. They have plants that take decades to die everywhere though. Scads of fake flowers, or those seemingly immortal and contorted pieces of cane that just look like organic grave markers. And there are little permanent knicknacks everywhere. Things the passed have left behind. Ugly trinkets that children didn't understand the attachment of, and got rid of as soon as possible. Though this place is relatively newly renovated, they line the shelves in scarily profuse amounts. None of them are dusty at all, and I envision some government job dusting objets du morte that rakes in 40Gs a year.

There is a lone piece of witchhazel growing in the hauntingly beautiful twining way that only witchhazel can in an autonomous anenome sort of way, reaching and reaching, but not grasping hold of anything- twisted knots and curls hanging in a space so silent it's vacuous. A cut from an old flower arrangement, we're told, that someone put in a vase and left to "go a little crazy."

Grandma's room is "very tiny" she writes, from the notepad that is now her only mode of communication. To think I'd once joked about that as my preference. Her heat is cranked way above the outside floor, keeping out the drafts, exhausted nurses, and cold spirits. As we sat there and watched her unpack her stuff I thought of liminal spaces, a concept that hadn't made sense to me until that very second. How many people have transitioned (or just stopped engines) in this room. On that bed?

"Should we take your suitcase home then, Mom?"

We decide to leave it in case she changes rooms. Or- to take her stuff home. It dawns on me that there are no real "what-if" alternatives here. This is the end of any exhaustive and fruitless struggle, from where there is no other way out, no other opportunity.

I walked through the whole place, it's quite spread out and open. One half for the family members to relax around in(read: sit around waiting for death to do a jig in while doing jig-saw puzzles), and the other half for the residents. There's a widescreen TV, just like The Pines, with a cable package befitting of only the most uncommitted watcher. The OC was on as I cruised through. A large conundrum about Pep rallies and firewood raged on with intermittent commercials, and everything seemed to move a bit faster onscreen then I remember it doing before. I didn't take off my jacket or my scarf, wandering through with only the slits of my eyes peeking out and glaring at nurses before looking away guiltily, wondering if they could tell by my dilated pupils just how contagious I really was. I refrained from touching anything, felt the curious sympathetic stares of the family members who looked like they lived here. Everytime my nose itched, I gasped and held my breath until I saw spots in front of my eyes, convinced that if I coughed, I'd be kicked out instantly. Possibly hanged for being a murderer.

Everyone is talking about grandma like she's dead already. Godzilla is talking about buying the Explorer, everyone is talking about what will happen to the house, her stuff, everything. But, they are not being honest about their lack of tact either. Honesty would entail saying, "[after grandma's dead {defined as: gone, not on the earth anymore, dissappeared forever)], I think I'm going to buy the Explorer, because it would be good to haul the boat with."

Additionally, everyone's waiting for me to fall apart at the seams. Like I'm going to start spewing brains from my solar plexus. When my mom asks me, and I say yes, she asks, "are you sure?" about four times after, like she thinks she is giving me permission to be emotional. Everyone keeps looking at me as if I'm an ingrate for not bawling my eyes out at every tragic second. Like I should be on 24 hour demonstration, shaving off my hair and eyebrows. Or, everyone keeps asking me if I'm ok, and then they tell me they don't know what to say. I reply that I'm fine- because really, I'd be uncomfortable saying anything else. The best part is when they start saying, "well ah...I hope you know that I don't really know what to say..." because really, that's wonderful that my problem has suddenly turned into your problem and I'm supposed to help you out with that.

Really, I don't care what anyone says, just as long as they don't stand there and say fucking nothing. That would hurt me more then saying something stupid and self-centered or tactless. Or, in the case of one friend, all three in one go, I imagine [1].

And really, of course I'm fucking ok- nothing's even happened yet. I suppose you could ask to get smothered by a pillow on the first night, but realistically, the whole reason the place is so damn pseudo joyful, is because typically the clients don't drop dead on the first night. In fact...I hear that some of them hang around for quite a while, and that the only reason SHE prefers to be there now is because she doesn't like administering her own meds anymore, making her daughters and in-laws not sleep...and eating- which is actually the most serious reason. After a point, nutrition does funky things to a body that is attempting to shut down, and creates more complications than benefits- at this time, focus is switched on to heavy hydration.

I'm still really sick. But better then yesterday. And not obviously dying. We've been eating turkey sandwiches for the last two days though at lunch and dinner, and it's the happiest I've been at meal time for a long time. I could eat turkey sandwiches forever.

[1] This was a joke, even though it wasn't necessarily clear.  ¶ 11:33 PM