A cold and ovulation are really just a lethal combination.

Tuesday night was the first of the holiday parties and I pulled it out, barely.

It was just cocktails, so we finished early. But then I was coerced into "1 more drink" by my roommate and A. In the taxi, I tried to use my cold as an excuse to continue on to my apartment, but they would have none of it. I even tried the "fine, then you're buying because I have $13 until Friday" but they agreed to that much too quickly.

At the bar, I had two Guinesses, in training for my impending trip to Ireland for New Year's Eve. I have imposed a personally mandated Guiness training period for myself, which I think is very responsible in light of the enormous drinking that will occur upon my group's arrival to Ireland.

Anyway, as I was preparing to leave the bar, a guy friend of A.'s actually bet me $5 that I couldn't chug my pint of Guiness. What a *sucker*. I mean,if this guy is interested in GIVING AWAY MONEY, I'm gonna take it.

So I threw back the pint of Guiness as he and the Irish bartender stared with their mouths agape, wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, held out my hand, took the 5 bills and said my goodnights.

And THAT, makes the second time this week that I MADE money going out.

I'm starting to think I should buy a lottery ticket or something.

While we were at the bar, the owner asked about one of our friends from college who died in the WTC. I kind of zoned out while A. handled the conversation. Sometimes it's good to have a boy to handle things.

Then tonight when I was finishing work, my mind wandered to last night and that conversation. They had spoken about the "Portraits of Grief" that the New York Times has been doing.

It's been about a month since I read them. I had to stop, because they are so touching and I frequently would be surprised to see someone I knew or had met.

Tonight I decided to look again. I saw a kid from my class in college. His photo was taken on our campus. I saw another girl from college who dated one of our WACO guys. She was 25 and her write up was so touching...there was this story of a woman she had helped this summer in a good samaritan situation...the woman had recognized this girl's photo on a victim's website and wrote a letter to her parents, telling them of this wonderful act of kindness she had performed this summer and told them that she was "her angel" and she would add her name the list of friends who were lost.

I'm not going to pretend to know anything about Islam. I'm not even a very religious person. But I believe that a good life is a life spent treating others with kindness and compassion. I can't understand how a random act of mass murder of many innocents would achieve a greater good.

To look at this photo of this sweet 25-year-old girl who took the time to care for a complete stranger who had been hurt and realize that this same girl, was savagely murdered....savagely murdered...

It breaks my heart. It honestly and truly does.

There are so many stories like this. The guy who would play the Grateful Dead to his wife's pregnant stomach. The mother who chastised her son for living extravagantly and told him not to go to Vegas for a bachelor party because it was excessive and now says she's glad he went, that it was the last trip he had the opportunity to make during his life.

The guy who used to DJ in college. The other guy who played Prince Charming in his fourth grade production of "Cinderella." A guy from Jersey who toured with PHISH and rooted for the Cowboys. The guy who wanted his bride-to-be to walk down the aisle at his wedding to the Star Wars theme. The woman who lost her husband, a computer programmer, and her brother, a firefighter.

The 24-year-old girl from Boston smiling at me from the NYT webpage, wearing the same exact shirt that I am wearing as I read her obituary. She was to be married next June. She had just ordered her wedding dress.

They're just people. They could have grown up next door to you or shopped at your local supermarket. You may have passed them one time in your lifetime at Disneyland. They could have sat next to you on a beach.

I look at their faces and I think I may have passed them in a bar or sat next to them in a restuarant. I may have been impatient with them if they were taking too long at the ATM machine.

Their parents could know mine.

I'm sorry to be constantly reminding my friends about these people, but I wonder if the rest of the country has forgotten them. I wonder if the rest of the country has given some solid thought as to what the last few minutes of these people's lives were like. I have.

I don't know. I feel badly because I stopped thinking about them as a whole. I forget about the ones I didn't know but could have brushed up against on the subway and when I remember, I feel badly.

Maybe other people do remember these people and I should stop doing this to myself.

How many tears are enough to let these people go? How many times should I stop while at a bar and mentally note how many less guys in suits there are before I can stop?

It's hard not to have the answers.

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