Going dark for a week starting Saturday morning for a week, so email will likely go unread for awhile.

Hi

t waves

I'm Jewish now.

Taking a Charlotte moment. And I'm done.

Prayers and all comfort~ma are needed. We found out today that one of the boys that BF coached in hockey was killed in a one-car accident early this morning. Rod was 17 years old.

His family is distraught, and I'm not taking this too well either. He was a sweetheart.

My father's undergoing the Whipple procedure on Tuesday. It is one of the most major pieces of surgery being performed; it routinely takes ten hours. My father has a serious heart condition, had colon cancer last year, and had primary (i.e. not metastasized) small-intestine cancer this year. His surgeons, his oncologist, and his heart doctor all agree that this is the right thing to do. The routine death rate for this operation in the best facilities is a little less than 5%.

I'd be very grateful for your prayers Tuesday.

Mmm. This isn't bad news, though I hate following those whose lives are less than pleasant right now.

I made it to Chicago--took my first cab and my first American train all in one go, my plane landed early, and I got my baggage in ten minutes. I can safely say that this was the best travelling experience I've ever had.

My apartment is great, and there's unencrypted wireless internet that I just jumped onto from someone's apartment; I took a shower and have food in the fridge. Life is *good,* though I miss you all.

Retroactive to about, um... last August? I'm going lurky. On walkabout. It may have been the prescriptions, but that's another story.

That short story of mine that was accepted lo these many moons ago has finally seen the light of day in an anthology called "Closet Desire IV". Amazon has it. Warning: may contain icky porn. And, hopefully, some good porn too. My story is called "Freestyle".

Have not quit the day job. Still at the same day job, in fact. Maybe this print shop will survive my curse: place shuts down, gets bought by another print shop, and they ship me over along with the Macs and a few printing presses. Packing tape is less fun than you'd think.

It meant a lot to me that people remembered me at the F2F. It was so good to see everyone -- and so many new faces -- even if I was too shy to talk half the time and kind of used my knitting to hide. Even knitting, I was in good company.

I know I'm not about so much these days, but I'd like to request a little exam-ma for tomorrow afternoon and the afternoon of June 11th. Big exams, halfway through an important course, all that stuff.

And thanks for being here, guys. You've made me smile when I needed a smile more times than you'll ever know, especially since I moved back towards lurkerdom.

Just a few pictures from the nc-ista finale party

My dad's out of surgery. The Whipple procedure went well, and he only needed half a unit of blood. He'll be in the ICU for the next few days while they sort out his heart medication.

Thanks for all the -ma.