Tonight, we had my best friend and her boyfriend come over for dinner, and after enjoying the Turkish feast I cooked up (and the many cocktails and whiskey pours that Chris gave everyone), we decided to head out at 2am for some late night karaoke a few blocks away. We were all at varying stages of drunkenness, so this sounded like a good idea.

When we got there, Chris and Crista picked Mariah Carey and Boyz II Men’s “One Sweet Day,” and after singing it on stage with Crista, I would end up crying. The bar was actually fairly empty so it wasn’t like everyone was staring at me, but it still felt miserable to be drunk, crying, and remembering Ed.

When the Daydream album came out in 1995, it actually coincided with the death of my grandmother. Ed and I would play “One Sweet Day” a lot at that time. It was one of our favorite songs on that album. That song used to remind me of my grandmother’s death, and tonight, after not hearing it played for so many years, it reminded me of Ed’s death. I had forgotten the lyrics, but as the music went on, I remembered every word. The lyrics discuss taking for granted your lost loved one. I think in a lot of ways, I’m sure I took Ed for granted, and it made me feel even worse.

There’s nothing that can be done about that now, but I agree with the song. One sweet day, we will see each other again. The sad thing, though, is that until then, I will occasionally be reminded of the pain of losing him and probably end up crying here and there, and not always at the most obvious moments.

I barely spent 24 hours in Fort Lauderdale for this work trip, yet somehow, the monstrous mosquitoes there were able to find me and give me bites in four different spots of my body, three of which were fully covered by pants and a long-sleeved shirt for my work meeting. All of these bites happened during one short walk from the hotel to our rental car. The one on my elbow has swelled up and is over four inches in diameter. How does this always seem to happen to me?

I am a mosquito magnet. I don’t know what I’ve done to attract them, but somehow, no matter where I go, I am their sweet target.

In the last four months, I’ve somehow managed to identify two new sensitive spots on the inner sides of my molars. Any time anything very cold touches them, it’s like electricity flying because of my nerve endings being hit. It’s been making it difficult for me to eat cold things, so I started using Pronamel sensitive teeth toothpaste and have been eating cold things very slowly and deliberately. I usually try to chew on the front side of my mouth, away from the back where the sensitive spots are, and then I swallow.

This makes me sound old and pathetic. I haven’t even reached 30 yet and my teeth are already bothering me. The most frustrating part about all this is that I’m so good to my teeth; I haven’t had a cavity since I was under the age of 10, I brush my teeth twice a day and floss every night, and I even wear my retainer and mouth guard each night to Chris’s absolute disgust. I’m sure that despite wearing my mouth guard that my jaw still clenches at night. I guess there’s nothing I can do about that, sadly. I just don’t know what else there is to do to prevent any more sensitive spots from cropping up.

It’s these moments when sometimes, I think it may be easier to just have all false teeth. Then, there would be no nerve endings at the end of the teeth to sting my mouth.

My emotions have been going crazy the last week, and I’ve found myself tearing up and remembering how horrible this time last year was. I kept playing in my head the image of my brother walking up and down the Golden Gate Bridge, waiting for lesser foot traffic so he could get his moment to jump.

Last night, I dreamt that I was back home just days after he died, and I was going through all of his belongings. I was sitting on the living room floor surrounded by piles of papers and books and boxes of his many toys and collectibles. I opened a box with a lot of miniature figurines no bigger than my thumbnail, and I’m admiring each of them one by one, wondering how he had all these little things and I had no idea. In the dream, my mouth feels dry and my entire head feels numb. And the house is somber and I am alone, all by myself, surrounded by Ed’s things.

This dream was disappointing because I never even got to see him; who wants to dream about remembering pain and misery and losing someone? I think he might do this to me purposely. When he hasn’t visited in a while in my dreams, and I want him to come, he doesn’t come. And this time of the year will always be the worst because not only does it contain the anniversary of his death, but just one month later, what would be his birthday. And this year, it would have been his 35th. My poor Ed never got to see his 35th birthday. Yet life goes on without him.

I spent a lot of the morning in bed thinking about Ed and the words my friend had written me in that card I received last night. I thought about how his life was cut short voluntarily, and how he had so much more to breathe in and experience. And then, later in the morning, I find out that someone else I have seen regularly, about once a month for the last year and a half, has also died.

Our building has arranged for an exterminator to do regular checks of each apartment monthly, and for the longest time, the same man would come knock on our door on a Saturday morning and inspect and spray our bathroom and kitchen. He was generally a friendly person and always smiled. Today, another exterminator came in to inspect the apartment, and having polite conversation with us, he asked if we remembered him. Of course we did, we said. We saw him every month. Well, he died, this man said.

Apparently, he died of a brain aneurysm. He supposedly seemed completely fine beforehand, but the aneurysm ruptured, and he died. It was such a shock to both of us when we found out. We saw him regularly for so long, and now suddenly, he is dead and we’re never going to see him again.

I spent a lot of today thinking about this on and off. We didn’t really know him as a person; he was just the exterminator who came to make sure our apartment was roach and rodent-free. He’s someone we saw regularly but had no real, deep relationship with. It still makes me sad. He’s someone who was in our lives, but at the same time, not. He couldn’t have been any older than 40 or 45. How does one even prevent a brain aneurysm? Or are we all just going to die of something ridiculous like this, or as I keep hearing, of some stupid, new form of cancer that seems to be a result of the chemicals and additives in the food we eat in today’s “modern” society?