Different authors write different ways, have different relationships with their audiences, and those are all legitimate.

But I could always tell in her eyes if she got really pissed at me, and her eyes were still pretty smiley

I just want the pleasure of noticing these things at a safe distance.

Grief does not change you. It reveals you. And herein lies the gift that cannot die. It changes the course of your life forever. If you allow yourself the chance to feel it for as long as you need to - even if it is for the rest of your life - you will be guided by it. You will become someone it would have been impossible for you to be, and in this way your loved one lives on, in you

Half-drunk on well-creamed gas station coffee and the exhilarating loneliness of a freeway in nighttime.

What matters to you defines your mattering.

You may choose your song, but know this: Tiny. Cooper. Hates. Over. The. Rainbow.