10 Years Later: 9/11

I returned to Gymnastics in the morning. I got to brush up on Thomas flairs, the gut planche, a couple of back handsprings, and a couple of windmills.

"CHOIR BOY": I think "G"'s canceling his 9/11 shindig.
RYAN: Well, that's un-American.
"CHOIR BOY": You hear that, "G"? That's un-American.

But I couldn't go anyway. I had to drive straight to Northridge for Auntie Bella's belated Birthday lunch at A&W Seafood Restaurant. Cousins Andree, Janine and Jillian were present. So was Auntie Carisse. Mommy brought my change of clothes, but I felt gangster walking in with attire sweaty from a workout. So gangster it was.

I chilled at the Northridge mall and stumbled onto this Christian clothing store called C28 that I've walked into once before. I got a cult-like vibe coming from the employees. That's a bad thing. But Switchfoot's Dare You To Move on their sound system was cool.

Then spent some time at Borders next to the mall, one of the last ones and going out of business in nine days. I saw an autobiography of Kara Dioguardi and was reminded of how jackoffable she is.

After Church, mommy treated Auntie Bella and I to TGI Friday's. I was reminded of the existence of this hostess who resembles a young Dawn Marie. (See entry 7/31/11.) She's renewed in the database.

Our waitress was named Abby and she had the most jackoffable personality that I've seen in a long time. She's a brunette. The tone of her voice was sexy while the pitch was as valley girl as possible WITHOUT being annoying. (Whereas other chicks have had the valley girl pitch to the point where I wanted to punch them in the face.) Her responses were very alert and she had a response for everything. She even jokingly screamed, "Ahh!" when she thought she would collide into a coworker. She is so in the database.

Anyway, what I was trying to say was: I had the usual Jack Daniels Burger, substituting regular fries for sweet potato fries, and a side of bleu cheese dressing. But tried some blueberry slushee. It's bullshit that refills on the slushees are no longer free, but a $0.50 up-charge.

On the way home, I stopped by Barnes & Noble and finally finished the short story "The Monarch of the Glen" in Neil Gaiman's Fragile Things, the former being a novella-sized sequel to Gaiman's American Gods.

And sorry, America, but the new 9/11 to me is dad's funeral one year ago today.