I remember thinking when I was in the hospital for my appendectomy, back in 2003, that being sick in a hospital isn’t as tragically glamorous up close as I thought it would be. Or really, tragicaly glamorous at all. I didn’t relish the concern, or the doting, or even the lovely flowers. I just wanted to be up, and better, and eating cheeseburgers. I don’t know quite what it says about my mind that I had assumed any level of tragic glamour. Too many childhood viewings of Shirley Temple’s Heidi, maybe?

This is like that. I think I imagined the grief I’d feel over losing my dad and the real enchilada doesn’t look much like it. I probably thought I’d cry more, or more around people other than Stuart. I know I thought I’d have been a wreck at the funeral – I wasn’t. I remember being terrified at being around his body right after the life tiptoed out of it. I wasn’t, funnily, it was still like being around dad. That was still nice.

But when I do cry, when I do feel it, hoo boy I feel it. I said to Stuart that I felt silly now, for any grief I’d ever felt over any of my ex-boyfriends (sorry guys). He asked why, and I said that until This, there wasn’t anything that had made me cry harder than lost love. And now it seems quaint, trite, almost adorable.

I had lunch with Simon, who I have dubbed The Wise Man (it says so in my phone when he rings) and we talked about grief and religion, and whether there’s any comfort I’m missing out on by not believing. I suppose you can’t walk into a bargain with Belief – you make me feel better in exchange for my membership! – but I wanted to know if it helped. I wanted to know whether I’m missing out by putting Life and Death in two distinct, irreconcilable boxes at opposite ends of a room. My favorite thing about Simon is that he thinks he’s some sort of curmudgeonly misanthrope while actually having a heart bigger than Texas. A lot like my dad, actually.

Aside from thinking all these deep fucking thoughts, I also had an amazing massage on Thursday, and I had a wisdom tooth removed yesterday. The ridiculous along with the sublime, it seems.

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