After seeing the Sue Klebold TED Talk where Klebold discusses the mass murder her son participated in at Columbine High School, I felt compelled to read her book A Mother’s Reckoning, so I picked it up from the library and finished it in four days. Needless to say, the Columbine shooting shook the entire country, if not the world, and opened our eyes to so many issues that are still a problem today: mental health and illness, the dangers and life-long lingering effects of bullying, gun violence and control, among others. I’ve finished reading the book, and have also spent a decent amount of time reading news articles covering the mass murder at the time, and also Amazon reader reviews, and this is generally what I think.

Sue Klebold is so right in that it’s so easy for us to say as outsiders that it’s easy to blame the parents. If you have never experienced the suicide of a loved one, or a suicide-homicide in her case, it’s easy for you to think that it could never affect your own life or that of someone you love who is close to you. You think to yourself, “if I had a friend/brother/sister/daughter/son/etc. who was going through that, I’d have to know.” No, you don’t have to know. No, you wouldn’t always be able to tell the signs. Sometimes it’s the people closest to us who have the most to hide and are the best actors. All of our lives are busy, and all of us are always going to overlook things that in hindsight, may seem obvious. We are all human beings, after all, and we are prone to error in judgment. We need to accept that we are not infallible. I’ve personally had to accept that every day since Ed’s death.

It’s hard for me to blame Sue Klebold and her husband the way so many readers and outsiders do because at the end of the day, don’t all parents “try their best”? Their best may not be your best or my best, but it’s to the best of their ability, as all of our spheres of knowledge are so different. Of course, the book is written by her, so it’s obvious she would want to portray her and her (now ex-) husband as good parents (which could make a potential reader think she would be an unreliable narrator), but that also seems to be the general consensus of those around them, as well, who knew them. She is also brutally honest in revealing all the “danger signs” that she and Dylan’s dad chose to either ignore or overlook at the time. She’s really using this book as a way to be a warning to all parents even non-parents out there: be aware that you may never fully know your child, but also look out for signs like all these that I failed to see. And I personally think that is so brave of her. It’s even braver of her to put herself out there in the world, volunteering for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, going to conferences around the country to share her story, despite all the hate and death threats that she has received.

One thing she does repeatedly in the book is refer to mental health as “brain health” instead of mental health. She says she does this because “mental health” is not something people can see or grasp, and therefore it is easier to ignore or avoid it; if we refer to it as “brain health,” it’s more visible, and it forces us to see that it’s part of our head. It’s an interesting concept, one that a number of readers have complained about, but I do think it could have some merit. Her argument is correct: it’s hard even for the medical community to take “mental health” seriously. Isn’t that why so many suicide attempts and hospitalizations are treated so poorly and handled in a way that wrongly treats suicide attempts as a conscious and active “choice” rather than a poorly made decision in a medical state of emergency?

Today, I talked to my mom, who informed me that one of her friends who attended our wedding back in March has passed away. He’d been struggling with health issues for a while now, and when we saw him back in March, it was clear he wasn’t doing well; he could barely walk. Yet he and his wife still made the trip from Hawaii to California for our wedding. He’s already been cremated, and the family is holding a memorial service for him in a month to allow for their relatives back in Japan to come to Honolulu and pay their respects.

It’s sad to hear about his passing, especially since he was so kind to my family and me when we visited their home in Hawaii back in 2007. Then, he seemed to be in great health and spirits, exuding so much warmth, enthusiasm, and a bubbly sense of humor. It had clearly faded by the time we saw him earlier this year.

Lives go on after our wedding. Babies will be born, people will die, others will get married, separated, divorced. We will all get older and time will pass. Or, as my dad recently said, “well, most people around our age — if they’re not dying from heart attacks, strokes or cancer, then they’ll die from falling in their homes. You have to go some way.” I wonder if they’re going to make the trip to Hawaii for this memorial.

Our sofa is getting a makeover. I finally got new foam cushions delivered for the seats of the couch and spent tonight resizing the cushions by cutting them with my big bread cutting knife. The cushions came sized a bit bigger than ours, so I had to bring out my DIY self and start cutting away. When I was done resizing, cleaning up the foam shavings, and stuffing them back into the cushion covers, I sat down on the “new” couch to feel a firmness that had never been there before for as long as I’d lived in this apartment. It really was like a new couch, just with the same color and stains from before.

Re-upholstery. It’s like one of those “grown-up” tasks that you tend to hear about when you get older and you have to start doing these things because they are either good for your health or good for your house or good for your kids. Chris thought to do this because he has been having back problems in the last month or so, so the firmer cushions would help with his posture and of course his back. We really are getting older.

I was at work the other day when I came across an article about the top selling items at Trader Joe’s. Most of the items, like Joe Joe’s (better Oreos), Three-Buck-Chuck, Speculoos Spread, and almond butter I would have guessed, but there were a few surprises, like fennel bulbs, which are the only vegetable/raw item on this list, and who knew that fennel was so popular?! Number Four, however, was the Reduced Guilt Guacamole, which immediately annoyed me when I saw the words “reduced guilt” in front of guac.

The description says that the reason it is “reduced guilt” is that part of the avocado is replaced with Greek yogurt, resulting in 50 percent less fat and 40 percent less calories than regular guacamole. When did guacamole become an unhealthy item? Of all the snack dips you could have, this is by far the most natural and the healthiest. At its most basic, it’s just avocados (good fat, mind you), onions, cilantro, lime juice, jalapeno, salt, and pepper. Sometimes it’s jazzed up with tomatoes or other vegetables to make it more colorful, but that’s it. What is unhealthy in that list of items that makes people think that they should be eating or buying lower fat guacamole? For the freaks who are anti-oil, there’s no oil, and there’s no animal fat here. I’m so tired of the food industry and people’s neuroses when it comes to what is “healthy” or “unhealthy.” The obsession with healthy eating just ends up resulting in unhealthy habits at the end of the day whether you realize it or not. Eat what you want, all in moderation, and exercise, and you’ll be fine.

I was reading an article the other day about attention span that said that based on website analytics across numerous news sites, the average amount of time one spends on a news story is 15 seconds.  And as I was reading this, I was fighting the urge to skim the page instead of reading each paragraph through. Apparently, I’m such a millennial. I am a product of the time in which I live. I can’t even read a full news article on one page without just wanting to read a few sentences per paragraph. Sometimes, when I am reading articles that are not about food or health (the main things I like to read about), I even realize that sometimes, I have to read some paragraphs more than once to fully comprehend everything that was written. That’s not a good sign.

So I decided to try out Lumosity, a web-based brain training program that is supposed to improve cognitive function – reaction times, memory, attention – you name it. I tried out two tests, one for speed and one for memory so far. As I would expect, my speed/reaction time is far worse than my memory. The games are actually fun to play, and it’s good to know that some of the time I am spending on the internet is not just wasting time. I’m adding this to my goals list for the year now.

I was just added to an e-mail chain at work of women in the office who are either vegetarian or part-time vegetarian. They were discussing getting tofu burritos at Chipotle next week. I love tofu. I love burritos. But the idea of them together just sounds wrong. Maybe I am just a taco/burrito purist. I also do not like Chipotle, and in Manhattan would take Dos Toros a million times over Chipotle (too bad there’s no Dos Toros near my office). I’m fine with the part-time vegetarianism; I would think almost all of us are “part-time” vegetarians without even realizing it. I rarely eat meat at breakfast (it’s hard to combine a slab of meat with my morning grapefuit…), and a lot of lunches I have don’t even have meat. I just never thought to label it as that. Maybe I am also part-time vegan, part-time gluten free, and part-time anti-wheat?

Today marks exactly seven months since my sweet Ed jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge. And I have also flown home again to the home he will never return to. I didn’t even think of this when I booked this flight.

I figured it’s been enough time for me to stop being ignorant to Golden Gate Bridge suicides, so today I spent some time researching it. Since the iconic landmark of San Francisco was first unveiled in 1937, over 1,600 people have chosen the Golden Gate Bridge as the place from which they will jump to their deaths. It’s considered the suicide bridge of the world with the highest number of suicides globally. It’s fail-safe compared to hanging, pill overdosing, and even shooting. Four seconds of falling at a speed of up to 75MPH down 220 feet, and it’s all over.

After 1995, an official count of jumps was stopped for unclear reasons (maybe it’s the city’s way of just turning their heads the other way). But it’s estimated that approximately 24 people jump to their deaths from this site every year. Another 80-100 are pulled off the bridge annually by big-hearted volunteers who volunteer their time as suicide watchers, watching out for people who “look” like they may jump. They approach them, talk to them, coax them into not ending their lives, and in some cases, even have to wrestle them off the railing and bridge. I wish this happened to Ed. I can already imagine he would have been so quick to do it that no one could have reacted in time.

Ironically, in August 2013, the month after my brother jumped, a record high 10 people jumped off – to put that in perspective, that’s one person every three days. No one survived that month, as the survival rate is about 2%, assuming you hit the water feet first at a certain angle, and that the U.S. Coast Guard gets to you before you either drown or die from hypothermia. That water temperature is not forgiving.

I found one happy story about a guy who jumped off the bridge and somehow managed to survive. His legs gave out, but somehow, a sea lion came out of nowhere and helped push him to the surface of the water. He went on to be a mental health care worker and created a suicide prevention program that he travels around the country teaching now.

There have been plans since the late 90’s to construct a proper suicide barrier under the bridge, as apparently San Francisco and California in general are so broke that they don’t care about the lives that are lost here. A number of news stories I’ve read have said that this is the only “suicide bridge” in the world that has absolutely no barrier constructed. About $5 million have been raised, but the total cost of this project is approximately $65 million. And as one painfully clear suicide note left on the bridge said, “Why do you make it so easy?” I felt chills reading that.

A lot of critics have said, what’s the purpose of creating a suicide barrier, anyway? When people are determined to end their lives and you take away one means, they will find another means. Well, that’s a really sensitive thing for you to say. It’s like saying, “that person’s already determined to kill himself anyway, so nothing you do will help! Don’t bother helping!” Thanks. I actually got told that quite a number of times last July and August, thank you very much. You’ve really got to love all those assholes out there who don’t intend to be assholes but really just have no sense of empathy or of being a real human being with real feelings.

A number of research studies have found that usually when a person is suicidal, they tend to fixate on one particular way to end his life. Yes, they run through a number of methods, but they finalize one method and make that their goal. In 1978, a study was done by a UC Berkeley researcher that actually tracked 515 people who were restrained from jumping between 1937 and 1971. A few of these potential jumpers went on to kill themselves, but 94 percent were either alive years later or had died of natural causes – NOT suicide.

Someone commented on one of these articles and complained that if a barrier were built, it would take away from the beauty that everyone knows to be the Golden Gate Bridge, and it wouldn’t be as beautiful anymore. This idiot obviously is short-sighted and has no idea what it is like to lose someone to suicide.

Today, I spent a great majority of the day tending to different components of the lasagna bolognese we had for dinner. Including prep and simmering time, the bolognese sauce itself took over five hours, and that doesn’t even include the time spent on grating fresh parmesan (Chris does a good job of this), parboiling fresh lasagna noodles, constantly stirring whole milk bechamel, lasagna assembly, and finally the baking for about 40 minutes. This 9-inch-by-13-inch lasagna is supposed to yield 12 servings, yet Chris suggested that in some families, this may likely only yield about half given the massive portion sizes people eat these days. If I labored over something for 8-9 hours, I really hope it would last more than one or two meals. I don’t run a Blue Apron type of show here where even just 30 minutes of my time will only yield two servings. The more time I am spending on something, the bigger the yield should be to make that time worth it.

Then I thought about potential dinner parties that would be thrown. You can’t really control the portion sizes that people have; if your guests want more food, you can’t deny them of it. That would be a very mean host thing to do. Then it makes me think that I probably shouldn’t make something as time consuming as lasagna for a dinner party. That sounds selfish, but I love these leftovers. And if I had nothing left at the end of a dinner, I’d be so, so sad.