Although she often seemed sad, my grandmother’s face would always soften and lighten when she looked at me.  This was true even when she lost some of her mental faculties and couldn’t remember the people around her.  If I visited her in the nursing home and stood in front of her, she would smile and nod--as though she was warming herself in front of a fire that she could barely see.

The home had little to do with her sadness; even before those days, she would sit and play solitaire for hours on end with a half-empty bottle of wine next to her.  “Haunted” is too strong a word.  It was more like resigned disappointment.  As though the world had failed to meet certain, exacting expectations.

I grew older before I found out what happened before I was born.  My mysteriously absent grandfather had a way with hitting the bottle, and eventually he had a way with hitting the road.  This explained lot, but it didn’t all come together until I saw a photograph of my grandmother as a young woman.  She was stunning--a model’s cheekbones and gorgeous black hair.  Combine that kind of beauty with a rigid, conservative upbringing in the ‘20s, and you end up with a traditional girl who expected to marry Prince Charming and stay married for the rest of her life.  She ended up married to Jim Beam, who really can’t claim any kind of blue-blooded pedigree.

It would be easy to conclude that she wandered into the chambers of her mind and shut off all the circuit breakers marked “Love” and “Sex.” I suppose she did.  But when I was nine, I made a fantastic discovery--I found a trashy thriller novel on her sofa, pushed face down to bookmark the chapter. It was by Eric Van Lustbader, which has to be a pseudonym because it’s just too accurate a name on multiple levels.  His characters hunger passionately after each other.  Their underclothes are torn in fits of torrid romance.  Everyone carries a gun; the heroes have to fight ninjas.

I devoured the novel and gorged myself on the salacious prose.  Afterwards, I was sated enough to spare a moment’s thought for my grandmother.  After all, even though I didn’t know the details about her marriage or her upbringing, I knew she was alone and that she sometimes seemed sad.  I thought, “Good for you, Nana.  You should read more books like this.”

I regret that she left us before I could grow old enough to connect that sense of childhood approval with my adult desire to help her do even better.  Because I know what I’d like to do.  I’d sit down with her and lay the book in front of us.  I’d say, “I know you were sold a bill of goods as a kid, and I want to make sure we’re on the same page.  This book is a pretty good start, but I want to make sure you realize that, in real life, people do hunger passionately, underclothes can get torn--in that good way, not in the way that you accidentally catch yourself on a nail or something.  And it’s worth keeping your head up to watch for whatever might be lurking around the corner--even if, y’know, you go your entire life without meeting a ninja.”

I can’t believe there’s a job title at my company called “Functional Team Manager.” Isn’t being functional a prerequisite of middle management, at least in theory? I don’t go around calling myself “Competent Communications Manager.” I like to assume that it’s implied.

Since we are apparently allowed to put extraneous words in our titles, maybe I can add a few that give more of an idea about who I am as a person. For example: “Sensuous Communications Manager Who’s In Tune With Your Feelings.”

That’ll fit on a business card, right?

I finally understand why girls love shopping.

I used to hate it.  I couldn’t believe they created a magazine for the subject; I’d rather read about intestinal flu.

I hated it for two reasons.  First, I knew that the salespeople would recognize a complete clothes ignoramus as soon as I walked through the door.  They’d think to themselves: “Score.  Get an easy commission and offload crappy merchandise at the same time.”

Think I’m kidding?  Let me tell you something: that fierce jungle cat, the Le Tigre, wasn’t extinct as long as I was still in high school.  And Members Only jackets?  I was the very last member.

Second reason: as a result of the first reason, I hate talking to salespeople in clothing stores.  I avoid them.  I barely meet their eyes.  They say: “Can I help you find anything?” And I grunt something in ancient Sumerian.

So what happens when salespeople sees an anxious, on-edge shopper?  They immediately pull up their walkie talkies and whisper, “We got a Winona Ryder here on the second floor.  Don’t worry--I’ll keep an eye on him.  Have Manny and Jack wait outside with sniper rifles if it gets ugly.”

This makes my shopping experience even more stressful, because I’m expecting to get jumped as soon as I leave the store:

“Hands in the air buddy!  Let me see what you?ve got in your jacket there!”

“But I didn?t take anything.”

“Oh yeah, then what do you call this? A bag of croutons!”

“What do you care?  This is The Disney Store.”

And so on.  But yesterday, that all changed.  I found a pair of perfectly fitting Guess classic-fit jeans for $18.00.

$18.00!

My heart is singing.  My mind is sizzling.  My spirit is dancing.  This is shopper’s high!

So now I’m thinking two things.  First, girls are pretty smart.

And second, I’m thinking that maybe next I’ll get a pedicure.

If the show weren’t already ending this season, I might just have to stop watching “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” Not because I don’t still love the series in its seventh season, but because its star, Sarah Michelle Gellar, is such a yogurt head that it pains me physically every time I read an interview with her.*

It’s not that she’s dumb.  She seems reasonably able to breathe and walk without assistance from others, but her worldview is clearly distorted from being an actress all her life.  She always says something that just makes me want to slap her.  And her latest quirky quotable?  Her explanation of why she’s quitting the show after seven seasons:

“This isn’t about leaving for a career in movies, or in theater--it’s more of a personal decision. I need a rest. Teachers get sabbaticals. Actors don’t.”

Actually, you know what, I retract this entire tirade in progress.  Now that I’ve written down her words, I really do see her point.  Sarah’s right.  It’s so much easier being a teacher than a highly paid actress.

After all, do teachers have to memorize pages and pages of dialogue, fight choreography, and stunts?  Heck no.  They get to just hang out with students all day and maybe correct some homework.  It’s like a working vacation.

And after all, do teachers have to worry about heavy income tax payments or keeping up appearances on a lavish Hollywood lifestyle?  No sireebob.  With an average salary of $45,000, they are spared the burden of all those crushing financial decisions.

And after all, did they offer Sarah first crack at being Daphne in this summer’s masterpice, “Scooby Doo”?  No way.  They went to tons of high school teachers first.  Only after Mr. Baldrick, a physics teacher from North Dakota, turned down the role because he had “too much grading to do” did they finally relent and say, oh okay, let’s talk to that blonde chick from the show with the vampires.

Some of you live in Los Angeles.  If you see Sarah--just give her a slap from me.  All right?  Thanks.

No one appreciates my little gestures of kindness.

I’m aware of the fact that I am--well, let’s put this bluntly--quite a bit cooler than most of my friends and associates. But I don’t want them to feel uncomfortable around me.

So I’ve been walking up to them and saying “I just want you to know: I’m still I’m still Greg from the block.”

To my astonishment, the frequent response is “Shut up you halfwit.” This is what I get for being magnanimous.

1. It’s a great and startling thing to make Helen Jane laugh.
2. It’s a great and startling thing to be old enough to have dinner with someone you’ve known for over twenty years.
3. Second hand, unverified: It’s impossible to sell used Philip K. Dick books on Half.com because coding on the site prevents people from trying to sell porn.
4. There’s a store in San Francisco in which the first half is nothing but bongs and the second half is nothing but gay porn, meaning that some people have a strange idea of what constitutes “getting the munchies.”
5. Apartments don’t clean themselves.
6. Novels don’t write themselves.
7. If you put a Weber starter chimney in a Weber grill and use no-light briquettes, the result is a column of flame so high that Zeus is likely to peer down from Mt. Olympus and snap “Look, I’ve left you all alone for the last several millenia, so do you think you could return the favor and stop burning my ass?”
8. If this upcoming Bay Area evening is even a tenth as gorgeous as this Bay Area day, I retract all the grumpy, cynical posts I’ve ever made on this site.*

*Except the ones I really meant.