You know, it's a blessing-curse having a record of what you were doing at this time last year, at this time two years ago. You want to go back because some things seemed happier then...and at the same time you want to wipe the history from your books, electing instead to pretend it never existed at all. Experience can so effortlessly masquerade as Mistake. As the old saying goes, I wish I knew then what I know now. But, I feel good about where I am now...who I'm with and what I'm doing. Perhaps the pain I've paid has been well spent after all.

...and some people are afraid of smiley, flower pillows. Or, more accurately, what a gift of a smiley, flower pillow on a day celebrating fathers and June birthdays from a this-close-to-senile grandmother means to an August-born lass. It's darn scary. She didn't want me to feel left out...being neither a father nor of those born in the sixth month....because I totally would have....I'm exceptionally bitter that I've not met either qualifier in all my 24-almost-25 years.

The point being, that people often develop an irrational nervousness toward otherwise benign, innocuous whatnots. I honestly just didn't like the way the pillow looked at me when I pulled it from the bag. Nick held it in his lap on the way back to his place, and I didn't like the way it smiled while he mechanically squeezed a petal while lost in thought at the traffic lights. It didn't blink. Its unerring smile broke my calm and I felt drops of uneasy sweat slide down between my shoulder blades.

I immediately disposed of the thing. Grandma would never know...she never does. She hasn't quite reconciled herself to the fact that I'm no longer nine years old...beyond being frustrated with my dual-toned eye, she's hoping that one of these days I still sprout up to do my viking ancestors proud...and hasn't quite forgiven my father for marrying into the short-n-stout, shitfaced, German blood line. Well, so be it. Those guys know how to live.

I tossed the pillow toward the trash with a spin and thought the matter closed...until I left the room briefly, and returned to find it situated with Nick's throw pillows on the couch. More than a little unsettled, I took several deep breaths before reviewing the scene. I renewed my efforts to eradicate its place in my life.

Thinking the matter closed, I cleansed all related thoughts from my mind. Besides, I've been a little "out there" as of late...my medications, where I am determined to keep my accusatory finger pointed, have been to blame for many a spacey moment. I had a somewhat upsetting dream the other night.

It was a Wednesday...and I was watching Nick and his family play volleyball...as I tend to do on Wednesdays. Then I got a phone call...on my cell phone...not many people have my number, or even access to my number. My whole family was dead, the caller told me: freak car accident...everybody was gone, both sides of my family. At first, my reaction was normal—you know, sad, disbelieving, tortured—but it passed a little too quickly and I demanded, "HOW DID YOU GET THIS NUMBER!?" Then, a second thought crashing through, I interrupted their answer to inquire, "Why the hell were all of my family in the same place? They don't even like each other!"

Then I woke up. This just in: my soul really is blackened.

So anyway, being that I'm up a few times a night, and several nights a week I still catch myself wanting to get dressed at 1:30 AM to go to Mom's bedside and see that she's alright, I figured I imagined the pillow too. You never know, and you can never be too protective of your failing mental capacity. That, and I'm blond...I get enough points deducted just because I have that "look" to me.



However, as I entered the bedroom this afternoon, I am pretty sure that I could be described as completely lucid and quite in control of my perceptions. He likes mind games, my Nicholas does. I just wish he wouldn't choose such pliable subjects to poke.

So, Nick is hosting his family's Father's Day celebration today (mine held theirs yesterday). I asked if I could bring something, as polite people are supposed to do, and without internal struggle, deliberation, or timidity, Nick blurted, "You could make that seafood salad." I guess it pleased his palate...somewhat.

The game plan was to hit my family get-together and then buy groceries for me to make my salad and Nick to make potato salad. This is to be a monuments occasion...Nick has never made potato salad, and for sure he has never made his mother's potato salad, though he's probably had the recipe for the better part of the aughts.

He was selecting eggs at the grocery store when his phone chimed—his mother. She told him that she bought potato salad earlier that morning. I questioned Nick on this, being that she has a supposedly special recipe and all...he advised that she's gotten lazy in recent years—his words, not mine.

He told his mother that that was just too bad, he was seriously up to the challenge of the potato salad, and his basket was already loaded with potato-salad-makings. I am walking at his right elbow, slightly trailing him (Nick sporadically changes directions, stops suddenly, and generally makes himself an accident waiting to happen while on foot). Meanwhile, I hear her giving him pointers, Nick looking pointedly at me as if to say, "Are you writing this down? Can you remember that?" I bit my tongue and refrained from airing my all too pitiful growl.

We got back and I whipped together my salad...pasta needs time to suck in the Miracle Whip...yes, I'm a Miracle Whip kinda girl...hold the mayo, if you please. (Actually, it doesn't really matter to me one way or the other, but I'll always BUY Miracle Whip...that's what Mom did...Mother knows best.) Meanwhile, I hard-boiled eggs for him, chopped his allotment of onion, and asked if he'd like me to start his potatoes as well. I'm nice on occasion.

So I complete my role, placing my dish in the refrigerator. Nick comes in, needing only to, essentially, mix everything together. I left the kitchen in pristine shape, counters sparkling, his ingredients lined up in a neat little row. And in a span of about 10 minutes, the counter had a potatoey-grime texture, gobs of Miracle Whip—Nick's of a Miracle Whip people as well. I was impressed by the mess—the procurement and the completeness both.

Often, my downfall in cooking is scorching and exploding of foodstuffs while I'm too busy taking care of the dirty dishes I've made. Nick's a grand chef, however...I'm told you should never trust your dinner if it came from a clean kitchen or a thin chef...well, one outta two ain't bad. So, Nick: I applaud your mess. Perhaps one day you can teach me the trick.

She's among my score of single aunts who claim their nieces and nephews as their own, use them as their heirs. She set up my IRA several years ago after receiving a surprise health insurance check from her recently deceased husband. She's been investing money in my, my brother's, and my cousins' names (that's right, all four of us). I received a letter from the investment organization handing the accounts—and coincidentally (or not so much) the organization under which she is employed. The outer sleeve seemed to indicate the need for an immediate response.

I opened the letter, desensitized to the "RESPOND IMMEDIATELY!" headlines in red blinking lights by the flood of credit card applications that are only interested in me for the next five days...you know, until they renew the offer next week.

But included in the letter was a self addressed return envelope, stamped too, and a form to change my beneficiary. A little detail that I had forgotten during the graying-out of my marriage.

So I threw Brenda's name and soc on my form, trying not to roll my eyes too belittlingly when she had to look up her social security number, and sealed the enclosed envelope. Now, the life insurance. I requested beneficiary change forms in April when I sent in my premium check. Nothing. I suppose next time I set up life insurance, I should go through a bitter, burned-by-love relative instead of my significant other's good acquaintance. Live and learn.