Actual Status Updates #4

Holly finds she feels far less lonely when she can be completely alone without interruption.
Holly is overwhelmed by sadness and wonder and anticipation and knowing that relief is so close only makes it more intense.
Holly knows she is being unnecessarily obtuse and that this is an act of cowardess.
Holly misses normal sleep.
Holly is harder on herself in this blog than she is in general. She kicked ass today. Huge ass.

Full Circle

Going to see Tegan and Sara at the Music Box tomorrow with Braden and Caleb and Jason. Almost exactly one year later. More prestigious venue--four sold out nights. What a difference a year has made--for you lovely ladies and for me. Am I right, girls? Good job. I like to think your success is still based on the strength of that last album and not the Grey's Anatomy factor.

I never did post my pictures. Goddamn iPhoto. I will defeat you this time with mobile uploads.

More actual Status Updates

Holly talks to herself out loud. A lot. Oops.
Holly's infected tooth has been hollowed out and so has Holly.
Holly's tooth antibiotics make her poop a lot, which seems medically backwards.
Holly is having a "Crying on the floor of the shower until she's basted in pruny self-martyrdom" kind of day.
Holly is wearing "Pirate of Death" socks under her boots. They were a gift from her brother, who thinks she likes ridiculous socks. She does.

What my Facebook Status Updates should actually have read over the last several days

Holly is barely keeping it together, folks!
Holly knows she shouldn't keep checking, but it's so hard not to.
Holly thinks her ass looks pretty good in jeans these days but goddamn this fucking cellulite.
Holly is prone to getting lost in the lyrics in new and different ways.
Holly's cat agrees that she is a fucking saint, but they both realize it's a joke.
Holly is mustering everything she has to not take one for the team on this one.
Holly is getting older, and therefore knows a little more about knowing nothing at all.
Holly needs to make time to write.
Holly can't focus, so please lower your expectations for the foreseeable future.
Holly wishes.
Holly keeps thinking about that Gauguin painting of Jacob wrestling with the angel. Is it Gauguin or Cezanne?
Holly checked wikipedia. It's Gauguin. Somehow she forgot about all the Mennonite women in the forground. Are they Mennonite?
Holly googled "Jacob wrestling the angel Gauguin". They are Breton women.
Holly wants to run and run and run but sooner or later her hip will give out, so she should probably go to work.
Holly is tired of being her own planetary system at work. A planetary system without sunlight because she doesn't rank high enough for an office with an exterior window.
Holly wonders why letting go of something painful always hurts more than the pain itself?
Holly can't help feeling a twinge of satisfaction about skipping two meals today even though she knows everything that is wrong with this.
Holly is vamping like crazy behind closed teeth. Mental jazz hands. Sleight of mind.
Holly is a salamander.

Holly needs more of you in her life. You, reading this. Yes, you.

Holly could have done more to help that dog this morning.

Americana, Americana

Photo by Ken Hively, The Los Angeles Times



Americana at Brand is a "mixed use" development that recently opened in Glendale, a suburb of L.A. Americana is an ultra-high end, open-air retail center, wrapped around a perfectly manicured "Green" with a standing clock, a showy fountain and statuary, traversed by an old-timey trolley, and capped by several storeys of luxury apartments. I could go on about these "new urban" faux environments which are popping up all over L.A. and the country for that matter. But for now, let's dwell on Americana. Here's a higher vantage shot to give you a better idea of the, uh, "grandeur":

Photo by Carlos Chavez, The Los Angeles Times

Last week I went with some friends to see the Pixar film WALL-E at the Pacific Theatre at Americana. WALL-E is about an endearing robot whose purpose is to clean up the (literally) mountains of garbage left by humans over centuries of wasteful and unsustainable consumption before they abandoned the Earth entirely. As we stepped out of the spectacularly over-air-conditioned theatre into the "street" where tour-i-dents photographed each other by the dancing fountain, the air was as thick with irony as it was with the canned refrains of various Greatest Generation crooners.

Ah, Americana. Why is there a little Eiffel Tower perched atop your cute steampunk elevator shaft? Was it a gift from the people of France to the people of Glendale? If I climb up to the top, will I have better cell reception? And how should I characterize your style, you coy jewel of the San Fernando? Is it that you bring to mind the faux Belle Epoque charm of that other tres jolie gem of the desert, the Bellagio, or that you remind me of Japan's idea of pre-World War II Europe, as I've so often seen it imagined in anime films? Or are you, perhaps most evidently, the wet dream-come-true of that empire-building cartoonist who lived and died not far from where your fake turn-of-the-century street lamps now stand sentry in the somewhat dark night...at least until 10p.m.?

Taco Truck Night Re-cap!

Taco Truck Night!
Originally uploaded by hollywhat

While I indicated I'd be less infrequent with my posts, I never said I'd be prompt. So one week later, here's the post-script to "Taco Truck Night!", complete with pics on Flickr.
When we rolled up, it was apparent that the word about Taco Truck Night had spread... there were an awful lot of people in line for 8pm on a Thursday night .
While we waited a little while for our order (two tacos de suadero, two tacos al pastor, one taco carnitas and 1 suadero quesadilla), I took an informal poll of the people around me to see what they were eating and what they recommended. The group of three small, skinny dudes in tapered-leg girl jeans and completely unironic vintage t-shirts were obviously regulars (more so than those of us who only show up after Dodger games or boozing it up in Echo Park or K-Town), so I chatted them up. They collectively agreed that Taco Zone is the best truck "outside of East Los, or at least this side of the river" and crowed approvingly and knowingly when I told them we had ordered the suadero. One of the Dudes was experimenting with being a vegetarian and was excited about trying the new Veggie taco, but his review was mixed. "It's pretty good, except I'd probably leave out the beans next time. And the rice." I looked at his taco, which seemed to consist of a tortilla, beans, rice, and cilantro, so either it was really good cilantro or he was being extremely generous.
There was no fist-pumping, no battle cries, but about 5 minutes after we got our food, a guy taped this homemade sign to the window of the truck:


Fight the power, Dudes.

of gates, locks, barricades and dams

More than one friend has accused me of never crying. I wish they could look inside my head and see the impressive machinery of titanium gears and locks I’ve constructed to keep the tsunami at bay. I’m saving us all from the epic swell of my emotions. Global economies could be destroyed, people. Or I could be. At least I have some idea that that’s why I needed to build it in the first place.

Shit happens to all of us when we’re kids, and we build our various fortifications and machines accordingly--which is pretty ingenious of children if you think about it--but the thing about how a kid’s brain works is that function follows design. We build our edifices out of the best materials and make them bigger, stronger, higher than is necessary. And when we no longer need them, they remain as monuments to our past. I am deconstructing mine. Some days I get a blowtorch and some days I get a chisel, so I’m asking everyone to bare with me.


***
I do cry, by the way.


***
As I get older I recognize more and more the importance of letting people in, of sharing, especially with people I love, so I am trying harder. The effort can be disorienting, overwhelming, mentally/physically/emotionally exhausting and it scares the shit out of me. But that’s okay. I’m not getting out of this alive, impressive machinery or no, and neither are you. Right now the main point for me is to do right by myself and the people I love, and to recognize, be okay with, and ultimately enjoy the fact that I don't have any answers.

Taco Truck Night!

To honor and protect East L.A.'s favorite indiginous animal, the newly endangered taco truck, tonight we're taking it to the streets! At 8:00, B and C and I will make our way to the Taco Zone truck on Alvarado, where we will stand united with other taco-lovers, pumping our carne asada and al pastor laden fists heavenward with a defiant cry of, "Viva la taqueros! Viva la resistance! Don't fuck with taco trucks!" You will know us by our greasy fingernails, and you shall tremble, L.A., you shall tremble...

This is just to say...

I've been remiss in keeping up this blog. It seems all but abandoned. I'm ashamed to say there is a fine layer of silt over this blog and that it's starting to smell funny. But I'm ready to start fresh again. I was recently re-found by a good friend after a tragically long absence. And I learned that, in spite of not having seen me in -- years, this person, who posts his own very funny/sad/insightful/nakedly honest musings online, read my entire blog, such as it is. It's hard to explain but this simple act really moved me and has inspired me to shake off the dust. More posts coming soon, including a few older drafts that for one reason or another I didn't finish or just forgot to post and then they just felt too outdated. But I think I like the idea of being on record about something, even if it's about something that's no longer relevant. Some things can be isolated in time, some can't but in the grand scheme of things, it's all snapshots in a shoebox. It's late and this is starting to feel too precious and possibly unintelligible. Fuck Bush! Here's my mea culpa:

This is just to say...

I got lazy
or distracted
whatever
The point is
I am back
to write pithy observations
and possibly
semi-coherent rants
forgive me
you will have to deal
until I get distracted again
or lazy
whatever

The Con

I am so ramped up about going to the Tegan and Sara show tonight that I wanted to share with you all the new video for the best song on what is, without a doubt, the best album of 2007:



Tegan and Sara - The Con

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Seriously, "The Con"(the song and the album) is so good, I had to take a hiatus from it for three weeks to be fresh for the show tonight because I basically stopped listening to anything else. And aren't they just the most adorable twin-lesbian-folkpunk duo ROCKSTARS you've ever seen?

Lame

The embed function doesn't work so great. Our videos take so long to buffer, the anticpation has given me psoriasis!

My Job

Part of what I do is work with producers to create content for TBS.com. We've added an embedding feature, so I thought I'd test it out with this delightful bit of slightly dirty puppet improv:

More I heart food: Okonomiyaki no more

I fell in love with Okonomiyaki a year ago when my brother introduced me to this dish in a little Mom & Pop (Mama-san & Papa-san?) bistro near the many-red-gated Fushimi Inari Shrine on the outskirts of Kyoto. The base is a batter made from egg ,flour, yam and cabbage that gets fried up on griddle or a teppan. From there, you can add pork, beef, fish, oysters, scallops, daikon, vegetables, shrimp, shiso leaf, cheese, kmchi, and you can top it with fish flakes that seem to dance in the heat . According to my brotherl, okonomiyaki means "your choice, grilled", so sky's the limit. We ordered some variation of the above, and then striped it with Japanese mayo and a brown sweet sauce. Have you ever seen anything more beautiful? I was hooked, instantly. In Japan this is considered bar food, which is all the better for me! I ate Okonomikyaki at least 3 more times during my twelve days in Japan, sampling the regional variations as I went from Kyoto to Tokyo to Hiroshima to Osaka.

Sadly, upon my return to the States, I wasn't able to find it anywhere. After searching far and wide--if asking for Okonomiyaki in some sushi or rice bowl joint, should I find myself in one, counts--I had concluded that no one serves this famous Kainsai dish or a fair substitute within a reasonable distance from my home....

Until today! While doing my weekly stroll through the Silver Lake Farmer's Market, I decided to check out the Crepe Guy's omelet menu. It's limited to three omelettes, but each are about $6 and all of them sounded tasty. I went with the Andalusian--smoked scallops, onion, mushrooms, spinach, tomatoes and cheese in a mushroom garlic sauce.

After chatting with the sugar cane smoothy/raw vegan taco people in the booth next door and sampling some of their goods, I I came back to the crepe booth to find my omelet waiting for me. Oh man!! The texture! The flavors! The hot goey gruyere, the lightly chewy scallops, crisply browned onions and fresh veggies all encased in a fluffy pocket of eggy love. And strikingly similar to my first taste of Okonomiyaki. It ain't exactly the same, but Crepe Guy's andalusian omelet is awesome in its own right.


Tip: If you're ever looking for a cheap Saturday brunch in Silver Lake that won't entail waiting in line with a dozen hipsters for half an hour, walk over to the farmer's market and get your crepe or omelet on for $4-$6. And there's delicious small-batch roasted coffee a few booths down at La Bodega de Cafe Organico for $2. Just get there befor 1:00.

I heart food.

So I'm dealing with this gluten-intolerance thingy (self-diagnosed, naturally) and the more I experiment, the more it becomes painfully apparent that I actually am gluten-intolerant, instead of just flirting with a gluten-free diet. I ate breaded calimari last night and felt like shit. Same thing the night before when I ate breaded vegetables. I don't normally eat that much crap, but I was in a bar at dinner time both times and... whatever, leave it at that. The bottom line is, I was casually playing the role of Noble Wheat Avoider and now I can no longer take little side trips off the Road Less Gluten without experiencing serious gut problems. Which totally sucks. Bye-bye to donuts, cookies, brownies, sour dough bread, pizza, sandwiches, croutons, French Toast, pancakes, waffles, cereal, pasta, lemon bars, rhubarb pie, cookie dough ice cream, garlic bread, dim sum, okonomiyaki, calamari, gardenburgers, Smart Dogs, crispy wontons, baklava, and a gagillion packaged products containing wheat-based thickening agents--forever. Or at least until the next time I'm at a bar and I say "fuck it" to imminent gastric distress.

Sometimes, the gossip blogs just get it right.

Believe the hype. Paris Hilton is even more over-exposed than all her press would indicate. How do I know this? Because I've seen her out in public no less than three times. This is significant because I'm more or less a hermit by L.A. standards. And yet I have managed to encounter Paris three times in three separate locations, and none of them were the airport or the grocery store, my usual celebrity hotspots. Granted, one place was last weekend's MTV Movie Awards (admittedly, not hermit-like, but the tickets were a gift from someone who couldn't go). I suppose you could make the argument that if there's one place one should expect to see Paris Hilton, it's at the MTV Movie Awards, a gratuitous, youth-oriented pop-culture kudofest signifying little more than its own existence. And I'd agree with you. But even considering the scene, one isn't guaranteed of being corraled in the aisle for five minutes because Paris, surrounded by her retinue of three massive body guards, is slowly primping and pouting her way to her seat. I and about fifteen other people received that distinct privelege among the thousands of messy-haired Twenty-tweeners, industry schlubs, and tarted-up stick women in attendance. I can die now.

What's the point of this? Nothing, really. There never is a point when you're talking about Paris Hilton, except maybe to indulge in a little self-loathing when you're done. Or to include a link to the super-snarky gossip blog What Would Tyler Durden Do's rad vitriolic response to Paris's premature release from jail. It almost redeems the dignity I lost in reading it in the first place and then taking the time to write this. Almost.

Post Cards From Fire Season

For the past 28 hours or so, scores of Angelenos, myself included, have been obsessed with the Griffith Park FIRE. All Hollywood Strivers have at one time or another glanced up towards Griffith Park's two most iconic monuments, the Hollywood sign and Griffith Observatory, to affirm our paths to glory or confirm our creeping sense of disillusionment.











Plus, as strivers everywhere do, we LOVE to see ourselves in the national news. I felt a tickle of pride today when I read an article in the New York Times about the fire. New Yorkers, indoctrinated in the gospel of "thou shalt know no other Park but Central Park, for there is no greater urban Park", woke up to a tidy, front page morsel about the lesser known, but no less great Griffith Park, Griffith J. Griffith's beloved but accursed gift to the city of Los Angeles. We've got your cultural monuments, endless hiking trails, gorgeous views(on windy days, anyway), campgrounds, gardens, a zoo, and Hollywood pedigree right here! Finally, a little credit where credit is due. So what if it's because it's on fire? We Angelenos instinctually grab our moments in the sun where we can, how ever they get tee'd up.

Griffith Park is always present at the borders of my consciousness. I can look out on it's scrubby green hills from my 15th floor office suite and from my front porch. And like many, many Angelenos, I've watched toddlers scream in ecstacy and terror on aging ponies at the Pony Rides, eaten my share of hot dogs at graffiti'd picnic tables, jogged and hiked its canyons, explored the Bronson Caves and I've seen all the way to the Pacific from the decks of the Observatory. And I've seen it burn twice this year.
When I left work around 6:45 yesterday, the consensus of the local news media was that the fire was under control. Traffic, shockingly,was a breeze as I made my way in the 90-degree heat to a reading of a play which was fittingly set in Hell. 4 1/2 hours later, I emerged from the literary inferno and drove home to be confronted by the literal inferno, reinvigorated and still blazing about a mile and a half away. I grabbed my camera and took this picture from my front porch:

I realize it's hard to make out much. Just imagine you're standing on a hillside looking out over the city, and the warm scent of burning eucalyptus and chapparal fills up your nostrils, a light rain of ash is illuminated by the street lamps, and the occasional column of flame curls over a ridge as the low thrumming of helicopters provides a ceaseless soundtrack. The sensuality of it -- the warm, heavy air, the rhythmic rotor blades,watching the fire from a distance -- was sort of, well, lulling. Sure, I worried for the evacuees, the fire fighters, the animals at the zoo and all the wildlife that were doubtlessly forced out of the park or worse, trapped by the flare up. But yesterday, as helicopters continued to fly over through the night, I dreamed of camping in a primeval forest as smouldering fires crept down distant mountainsides. As disasters go, this one was almost cozy from a mile and a half away.

Dear Dharma Bunny,

Jesus Bunny! You wascally, wabbit, you!
Why didn't I see it? Odin had Loki, Vishnu had Hanuman, Zeus had Hermes, Ra had Set. I should have guessed that like all celestial sidekicks, you're the one with a sense of humor. How else to explain the stroke my father had during his transplant surgery?
That's right. Towards the end of the surgery when the bloodflow was established from his heart to the new liver, his heart stopped for a minute and then he had a stroke in his brain stem. A little-ish one. Small enough that we didn't notice he had a pronounced droop on the right side of his face for two days after the breathing tube was removed. Small enough that the weakness in his right arm and leg and his thick speech could have still been residual effects from the anesthesia on day 3 or even 4. But by some fluke of bed vacancies, Dad was put in the Neuro ICU where the nurses have an eye for the odd droopy grin or wandering eyeball. So Annette, the fantastic icu nurse supervisor who we were fortunate enough to have for two straight days, got the neuro doc on call to order a CAT scan.

Three days into recovery, an occupational therapist and a neurologist came in, asked questions, gave commands, shined lights and pinged joints. Then another occupational therapist came in. Then they wheeled Dad downstairs for an MRI and Mom and I got lunch and I had a minor meltdown because there is nothing healthy to eat in the hospital so I ended up settling for a banana and a hard boiled egg. Then we went back. Dad was exhausted. The neurologist came back. The CAT scan was ok, but the MRI showed damage to the brain stem. Yep, stroke. But no biggie. Dad was responsive and talkative, a far sight better than he had been just the day before surgery when the encephalopathy was making answering even the most mundane questions an arduous task.

We shouted, we'll take it! He's back, he's out of the woods, his eyes are getting whiter. That's all that matters.

That was two days ago.

Dad was alert and focussed 24 hours after surgery, but since he was moved back to the transplant floor he seems disoriented and slower. The right arm he was able to raise above his head and touch his nose with two days ago sits there as he struggles to make it move. He mechanically clenches his left fist and works his jaw feverishly at chewing the air. And now he often refuses to talk, even though he hasn't been having any significant problems with language.

Which is all fine and good. His brain and body have been through more in five days than most of us will hopefully ever endure in a life time. And his new, healthy liver is contending with the massive clean-up left by eight months of unrelenting disease. But what exactly are we dealing with here? One of the paradoxes of refusing to talk is that one is generally disinclined to tell people why one is refusing to talk. I suppose this is further complicated when one is probably experiencing encephalopathic confusion from liver disease on top of a stroke.

So now the reality creeps in. The process of recovering from a stroke and the process of recovering from an organ transplant will be completely inextricable from each other for my dad, and each complicates the other. It will be weeks or months before we know how severe his disabilities will be. Mom will have new forms to fill out and new claims to file.

But there is fun stuff too, like watching dad make perfect left-handed baskets from across the room for over an hour even though he needs help wadding up kleenexes to toss. And watching him hit the nurse with a kleenex ball when she inadvertently blocked the shot. He makes jokes. When a different nurse adjusted his squishy Coke can-shaped pillow for him, he looked at it and asked her if she did coke before she came to work.

Oh, Jesus Bunny. Before the transplant, I wanted an explanation. Why did my dad get picked by the universe to be the guinea pig for an unprecedented reaction to a drug taken by practically everone? And why didn't it stop when he stopped taking it? I wanted a place to put my anger. Like up the buttholes of Big Pharma hucksters, for example. But then Dad got a liver. We received a new gift of life for my dad. A storybook ending. Except, it wasn't, exactly.

But you know what? I'm not mad anyomore (well, mostly not). I get it. None of us ever gets out of the woods, right? But we might get to see different parts of the forest. So in the words of the Buddha: This is life, the one you get, so go and have a ball. Right?

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for reminding me what a precious gift we have received.

Recovery!! and Grey's Anatomy versus my dad

We got to the ICU this morning and Dad woke up immediately as we were walking in. He was very responsive but couldn't talk yet because he was still intubated. He's a really good eye-roller. They took the tube out about an hour later and started giving him moist oxygen through a mask. He could sort of talk, but was very hoarse after being intubated for so long. We had to lean in to hear him. The nurse gave him a cup full of ice water and little sponges on sticks (swabs) that he could suck on because he's not allowed to drink normally yet, or the fluid could go into his lungs. He was having some trouble navigating the sticks from the cup to his mouth, but once he got the hang of it he gained confidence and kept going for the whole cup. Mom or I would have to run over and grab it from him so he wouldn't drink it or spill it everywhere. He was not happy with us. He also tried to trick us into letting him get out of bed while we were adjusting it to try to make him more comfortable.

His jaundice is already starting to disappear. We could even see a difference over the 3 hours we were with him this morning. I could really see it in the tops of his ears and hands, which are now closer to the color of weather-beaten patio furniture than Post-it notes (this is a good thing). Even his eyes already look better. We left around 1:00 to get some sleep and food and we'll go back over tonight when they move him back upstairs to his room. Mom and I stopped by the nurses station on 7West to see where he'd be, and on the room chart where the patient's last name is supposed to be written next to the room number, his assigned nurse, Nikki, had written "4 Bob!!! :)". Awwwww.

I'll say one thing for major surgery. The patients don't look as pretty in recovery as they do on TV. Aside from the various drains, tubes, and suction pumps pumping/oozing fluids in and out of Dad, he's got crusty yellow sclera around his eyes, brown globs of mucus on his mouth and tongue, and clumps of coagulated blood in weird places, like on his earlobe and the back of his neck (how did it get there?). His lips are swollen and badly chapped from the 12+ hours of intubation, his lazy eye lolls about kind of crazily because of the anesthesia, and his voice is low and croaky. He is a skinny, battle-wounded bullfrog.

His scar, by comparison to the rest of him, is straight out of a text book: a perfectly drawn sideways "L" with the stem going across the right side his abdomen and the little leg pointing up to his sternum, punctuated every few centimeters by very evenly-placed surgical staples. Eventually, the rest of him will catch up to this gleaming tribute to modern medicine, his badge of honor, as the transplant nurses like to say. Hurray!

You know what's awesome?

Calling your Dad in the hospital and sitting with him on the phone for 15 minutes while he pants in pain waiting for the nurse to come in and move him because he's too weak to pull himself up.

Dear Jesus Bunny

(I moved this here from MySpace.)

Is it so much to ask, on Easter, for my dad to get a new liver? We had what turned out to be transplant dress rehearsal last Monday when a donor liver from Iowa was vetoed at the last minute, after hours of build up. The surgeons didn't tell us why, but under such circumstances, you have to take their word for it. If it's not perfect, you may as well connect a porterhouse steak to the bile ducts and hope for the best.

We were all hoping that you would come through for us again on Friday, which was his birthday AND--soooooo appropriately--Good Friday, the day when, according to tradition, Your Dad, the Dude on the Cross, made the ultimate sacrifice to save everybody. But that didn't happen, despite Your Family's well-documented flair for the theatrical, so now I'm gunning for today, which I guess is really your BIG DAY, a day of capital "R's"--Rejoicing... Renewal... Resurrection. Today, it would still make a good story. "Family's Easter Sacrifice Gives Colorado Man New Life" would make a great slug. Don't you agree, Jesus Bunny? Although I feel a little uncomfortable now that I've suggested it.

You're probably wondering why I'm not taking my appeal directly to Your Dad, since it is his celestial coming out party everyone is celebrating today. And truth be told, you, Jesus Bunny, are just the fuzzy mascot of a brilliant marketing campaign involving ritual homicide and a self-disinterring corpse (Nothing personal. I call 'em as I see 'em). But you bring up a good point. It's complicated, but I'll try to explain. Nothing in life is black or white, contrary to what Bill O'Reilly, lawyers, or Hitler would have us believe. If your job as a magical rodent handing out egg-shaped chocolate to children for the afore-mentioned disinterred corpse hasn't already made you acutely aware of this fact, it will in time, Jesus Bunny.

To break it down, there are two main obstacles that prevent me from making a direct appeal. First, I don't prescribe to the notion that I will be saved because Your Dad died for my sins and the follies of all Mankind to save me/us, although I really like the idea of a guy walking around telling lepers, beggars and whores that they are as worthy of heaven as the wealthy and the educated--without even panhandling. Love thy neighbor, loaves and fishes, don't cast the first stone, and all that. Lovely parables. But they get packaged together with all of this mean-spirited crap, and apparently I'm supposed to swallow the whole pill if I want to truly appreciate the lovely stuff, which I'm disinclined to do. Second, assuming I set all that aside and attempt a heart-to-heart; after we get through the ice-breaker chitchat, what would I say to Your Dad about my dad? How does one go about praying for the death of a total stranger? Isn't that sort of like telling someone you're going to shoot their kid and then asking to borrow the gun?

Of course I wouldn't put it exactly like that, but that's the reality of what has to happen for my dad to get a transplant, and it sure doesn't feel like an acceptable ask. Whatever else I believe, I do believe in the Golden Rule. But my dad is the color of Grey Poupon through no fault of his own and that's the least of his problems. He needs a new liver NOW. So you see my predicament.

Look, Jesus Bunny. I'll be straight with you. I don't see a way around this ideological awkwardness without you acting as intermediary. Your cousin, that fat elf, isn't the appropriate messenger. He's out of season, and besides, he's always laughing and winking. I doubt he's taken seriously at Your Dad's dinner table. Angels are intimidating and bureaucratic. I need someone sincere.

My friend Josh used to have this cartoon taped to his windsheild of you--this tiny rabit crouching before Christ in agony on the Cross--holding an easter egg, your little paw outstretched in offering. A pure, ridiculous gesture. It was hilarious and touching and it perfectly captured all the absurdity, hopefulness, contradiction and innocence of Eastertime.

This is a time of extreme absurdity, hopefulness, humor and desperation for my family. On Good Friday, my dad's birthday, I had a big basket of cookies delivered to his hospital room with a card that read, "It's not a new liver, but I hope this brightens your day." A pure, ridiculous gesture. What else could I do?