I'm pretty much done with myspace. It was fun while it lasted, but I never come on here anymore unless I have a blog entry to crosspost (see previous) or someone emails me.

No offense, Tom. You're super.

I'm not going to delete my account, but I'm going to continue this blog at www.cynicgazette.com, and I still log into facebook too much. 

I'm going to work on importing these blog entries to my wordpress blog, and once that happens, maybe I'll stop being myspace member #94,528 for good.

Actually, that's a pretty low number. Don't know if I can give that up. Or let it down. Or run around and desert it.

Damnit. Rickroll'd myself.

Excerpt from a new blog post on the Cynic Gazette:

Busy, busy, busy, Bokonon would say.That’s been me. The last three months have been a landslide of activity, and I’m starting to remember that I used to have things I liked to do which beyond watching Heroes while Meg and I had a quick dinner before delving back into wedding planning...

Read the rest of this blog entry at: http://www.cynicgazette.com/2009/01/11/the-distant-future

I guess my recent experience of my dad passing away's started a little obsession with death, and mixed with my rampant skepticism of the more woo-woo beliefs people have, I want to quote this little probability calculation from Brian Dunning's Here Be Dragons:

• There are 105,120 5-minute intervals in a year
• If you only know 10 people (family, friends, celebs, etc) who die each year...
• And you only think of each of them once a year
• There's a 1:10,512 chance you'll think about one during the 5-minute interval in which they die.
• But since there's about 300,000,000 people living in the USA right now,
• That each year about 28,539 Americans think about someone during the 5-minute interval in which the person they're thinking about dies.

Not so spooky anymore, is it?

So it's Sunday night.

My being aches because I don't get to go to work tomorrow. I don't get to commute through some of the more medium-rare neighborhoods of Baltimore with Meg tomorrow morning, pop into Wholefoods for a bagel and glare menacingly at the homeopathy aisle. I don't get to say "good morning fellas" to Matt and John, log into my computer, skim the morning emails and then go get a cup of coffee to fuel the beginning of my work day. I don't get to go to a weekly department meeting and talk about my projects and give feed back on others. I don't get to IM jokes over to the next row. Not yet.

Tonight I'll be playing Spore until my bloodshot eyes can't stay open another minute, or reading until I pass out with a book in my hand, or keeping Meg awake watching 3 episodes of "How It's Made" in a row. This is my new ritual which sends me into a feverish sleep full of not getting comfortable and having those half-dreams you have when your mind's demanding that your body explain itself for wanting to lie there. My mind won't let me sleep if it can be avoided, working itself overtime just trying to handle all of the emotions lashing out at each other.

This is a lot harder the second time around. I hate the fact that one or two of you know exactly how this feels, and thinking that the other people I care about will have to feel this one day. I can draw a few drops of solace thinking this will help me to help others make the transition into the parentless phase of life, as I was able to be there for some of you who've experienced the devastation for the first time, in the way only someone who's been there can be.

I can't call him every few days to talk about my career, or the marinade I used grilling steaks last night, or to tell him there's a new picture I posted to Flickr I want him to see. I can't listen to him list off the 5 new cars he's decided would be perfect replacements for the Infiniti once his lease is up. We can't laugh about the latest movies we've seen on DVD, and we still never got around to playing Grand Theft Auto 4 online together (yes, my dad owned a PS3). I don't get to hear about the hot streak he hit playing craps at the Santa Fe Station, or get lectured about my finances. He's really gone.

I'm not screaming that it's not fair, and I don't ask what I did to deserve this. I'd rather have the pain than just a void. The pain. There's no shortage of that.

I know some of you are on my friend list and we don't really know each other, and some of you could write my biography without having to ask me anything. Some of you just randomly show up and only know me for my writing and pictures. There's a few of you who even though we're out of each other's lives forever, you check in from time to time to see what I'm up to, even if you're just hoping to get a laugh from someone you used to know. I leave my profile and blog open because I welcome you all into my life.

So this is for everyone. This is about the loss of my dad. This is about the loss of one of my best friends in the world. This is about the loss of the man who knew me best. This is about the second and final time I lost a parent.

Fuck.

We've finalized the arrangements for dad's funeral, and I wanted to post it here since so many of you had asked for it so you could send flowers or attend. The service will be at 1 p.m. on Tuesday, September 23rd at Goldsteins' Rosenberg's Raphael-Sacks funeral home in the northern suburbs of Philadelphia.

Goldstein's Surburban North Chapel
310 Second Street Pike
Southampton, PA 18966

Please call me if you have any questions, 410-963-3173.