Muriel said she believed in freedom, whatever that means.

She said jumping rope was good for you because it was like stomping the devil further into the ground and away from you.

She told me that love was 19% real feeling, 57% lies, 23% figment of your imagination, and 1% hopin’ and prayin’.

She said God wasn’t real, but angels were, and they were the ones who pissed on us when it rained and stretched out every single neck on every single giraffe.

She said those angels weren’t nearly as nice as we thought. They were the ones who knocked innocent trees down with vicious lightining. They invented Isms and they hated f**s and they abused kittens and they let people starve.

Muriel insisted that she was going to kill every angel she found after she died. And she was going to take over Chicago (because that’s where the angels lived, apparently). She would plant flowers and save the helpless and make a God that was really real.

She said that the God she would make would like Harry Potter and have a sweet boyfriend name Sam who could cook very well and love every single person on the planet. And Muriel would live across the street with her pet fish, Francesco and a nice garden in the front yard.

Muriel died last Thursday.

The angels still piss on us, giraffes still have long necks, innocent trees still get knocked down by vicious lightning, Isms still exist, f**s are still widely hated, kittens are still abused, and people still starve.

But I still believe Muriel.