Tam and I went out to New York this weekend. We stayed with my sister in Long Island. For those of you that have never been to Long Island, Its one of the first and largest suburbs. I think the population is in upwards of six million people. That's a lot of ranch houses. I like to describe it as hell with window treatments.

My sister had a big party for her daughter's first birthday, and she invited relatives I haven't seen in years. I forget sometimes where I come from and what that means, but this party flooded my memories with thoughts of family. I come from a long line of lunatics and alcoholics. I don't have the kind of family that sits around and recalls fine memories of so and so's graduation, or the time Billy pitched the no hitter. Our conversations tend to run along the line of, "Hey Matt, remember that time uncle Bob crammed that doughnut down your throat, and then threw your sister into the pool?", and "wasn't that the time you smashed the back door open with your hands and the glass slit both your wrists and you almost bled to death?" "Nope, that was the time I knocked John's teeth out with the hockey stick." My aunt Carolyn told us a sweet story about our father. She told us about the time she ratted on my dad and got him in trouble. He snuck into her bedroom in the middle of the night, placed his hands over her mouth and said in a sinister voice, "I'm gonna kill you in your sleep you rat!" Ah the memories.