These past weeks have been so full of strange and unexpected news that I just don't know where to begin.

First of all, my aunt and uncle got a phone call from my grandmother on my Dad's side a few weeks ago. I might have mentioned her before- you know, the paranoid octogenarian with the racecar? She started crying into the phone with my aunt saying that she has Alzheimer's and cancer both, and is resigned to die of cancer to spare herself and everyone else the pain in the ass of the Alzheimer's.

I talked to her yesterday, and she cried a little bit but sounded remarkably stable, except when she started telling me about the poison her neighbors are injecting into her tomatoes. She said that she wants to drive down here so she can hear me play piano with the gospel band before she goes. (Never much for the underdramatic temperament supposed to afflict Lutherans, that side of the family.)

I then called my cousin on my Dad's side. I actually have two, but Matt- who's a year older than I- seems to have disappeared completely, and Sarah's always been closer with Grandma anyway.

Talking to Sarah is disconcerting. I'm her only cousin, and we're not close, though I do like her OK. There are lots of - well, what's the opposite of a pregnant silence? A barren silence? - those. But Sarah thinks Grandma has gotten lonely, and is making up the cancer because she wants attention. I wouldn't put it past her, but I tend to think that inventing a cancer is proof of dementia, so the only really morally culpable thing Grandma could possibly be doing is lying about the Alzheimer's and telling the truth about the cancer in order to cover for her desire to die.

I hate having a side of the family I have to think of in game-theoretic terms. With them, everything's about who gets to know what; why they get to know, and when. They're like their own little nomenclatura with no peasants to dupe.

Grandma doesn't want me to tell Dad she's dying. She wants to tell him herself after the June party my Uncle's throwing my parents upon their return. That way she won't spoil the good time.

My parents may be moving to DC. That would make American University a viable option- I'd have room and board taken care of, and I'd be able to lend them my truck, which I'm sure they'd appreciate (except for the bumper sticker: I DON'T HAVE TO LIKE BUSH TO LOVE MY COUNTRY.) And I'd be able to walk Ingemar. Just what that dog needs- another capitol city's worth of monuments to piss on. As if Tallinn's weren't enough.

My band finally has a gig- an actual bar gig, with lots of drunk people and everything. The bassist, Scooter (inventer of my favorite phrase: "[x] sticks out like the cock in a fruit salad") mercifully convinced Willy, who left the band for awhile, to arrange a Marvin Gaye cover, Inner City Blues. It's one of my favorite songs ever, and we're performing it, and I get to play a badass piano line made of two heavenly chords.

(Readers, your eyes must be tired by now. Avert.)

An old friend of mine has asked me to write a shooting script for a trailer for an animated film based on a short story I wrote- more accurately, began to write until I realized I had a novel's worth of story with a haiku's worth of dedication- a couple years ago.

And that's not even everything.