Criminy, billytea, you've left us all swouncing. Now who's going to pick us all up off the floor since you're down in the Antipodes? Falling down on the job, you are.

ION, I decided the mop I call hair needed to be pruned. I turned my daughter loose on it tonight and now I have this hair. Hec, eat your heart out.

Billytea is like, Lloyd Dobler with an Australian accent and an actual career. Dude.

Sail, you look fabulous! Love the new hair!

Thank you! I do think my daughter is a very talented young woman. Hard to believe she's only been cutting hair for two years.

Sail, so pretty! And natural curls!

t /dying of envy

Thanks again for all the good wishes. I really appreciate y'all's support and understanding. We're mostly packed, and I expect the next 40 hours or so to be emotionally and physically exhausting. Our flight is at 7:30, and we're supposed to land in B'ham at 4:45, where we'll pick up our rental car, fight rush hour traffic, and hope to be at the house by 6:30, where we will frantically change clothes so we can be at the funeral home before the viewing is over (it's from 6:00-8:00 p.m.). Then the funeral is at 10:00 Friday morning.

I think the weirdest part of this for me is when people are all super-gentle and kind and "take as long as you need before you do X again." Because I know it's OK if I break down and it takes me weeks to be ready to resume normal life. So I keep worrying that people will judge me if I don't break down, which if I follow my typical pattern for everything except that little set of uncertainties that trigger my worry script, I won't. But I feel like people will think I didn't love my dad if when I'm back in Seattle next Tuesday morning I'm restless and anxious to get back into the writing/job hunting/critiquing swing.

Susan, everybody mourns differently. People who don't realize that won't stay so naive for long.

What Trudy said. There is no right way to do this, and this is one of those times when what others think really doesn't matter at all. You do what you need to do for you.

Billytea is like, Lloyd Dobler with an Australian accent and an actual career. Dude.

Well, he doesn't sell anything, buy anything, or process anything as a career. He didn't want to sell anything bought or processed, or buy anything sold or processed, or process anything sold, bought, or processed, or repair anything sold, bought, or processed. You know, as a career, he didn't want to do that.

Susan, everybody mourns differently. People who don't realize that won't stay so naive for long.

Yes. This. All my siblings reacted very differently to our mother's death, but it was still all genuine. And I can tell you, I appreciated that they reacted differently from me. We watched each other's backs in different ways. There's not a single right way to feel here.