Day in the Life of an Idiot

First of all, thanks to everyone who sent along their condolences. I know that before our daughter Ella died, I always had a hard time knowing what to say when someone I knew suffered a loss. What I learned about how I reacted to the various cards we got is that, for me at least, it didn't really matter what a person said so long as an effort was made, you know? Soemtimes the most awkward attempts were the most touching. A dear friend, who is rather reserved generally, simply wrote an email that said, "That's just horrible" which still sticks with me as one of the most honest responses to the whole thing. But Shawn and I tended to feel just as touched by cards that were just signed as the ones in which someone tried to pen a few phrases.

Speaking of Shawn, I'm expecting her back home this afternoon. The funeral is planned for Sunday, April 6 in Valparaiso, IN, in order to give Pat's friends and relations from North Dakota and Minnesota a chance to attend if they wish. The big question right now for our family is what we're going to do with Mason. Personally, I think it's important for Mason to have a chance to experience the funeral, but we're having some questions over whether or not it would really make sense to him and whether or not his presence would end up being a distraction. I don't really know the answer. He's four, and the funeral will probably be a couple of hours long, what with the visitation and everything. Can I just tell you how much I despise visitations? I'm really not sure what purpose those serve except to possibly "prove" to the psyche that this person is, in point of fact, quite dead.

At some point I'd like to write a Minicon report, although I may have to learn how to "friends lock" the entry since I had a very personal reaction to one of the panelists on my "Embalming From Then to Now" panel. (How is it, exactly, you can take such a sort of scientific topic and find something inflamatory to say?) Because of my reaction to that particular panelist, I decided to skip out on the following panel about "How it Feels to Publish Your First Novel." Instead, I ended up at Khan's with naomikritzer, Harry LeBlanc, and his two buddies, with whom I instantly bonded with but whose names I've suddenly spaced on. Nice guys! One of them bought me dinner, no less! We had a hoot, actually. We talked a little too loudly about "bend over boyfriends" and such like in a public restaurant. Ah, good times! In fact, think it was probably time much better spent than raising my blood pressure with that certain unnamed panelist.

"The Magic of the Twin Cities" and "Demonology 101" both went well, in fact I found myself bonding with the woman with whom I shared Demonology 101. We apparently read all the same books (which when it comes to demons and angels is a strange, but wonder find,) and saw all the same movies, although no one remembered "Jesus of Montreal."