perhaps i need to go to the gym today and lounge in the hot tub for a bit. that sounds really nice, actually! i did take a hot bath last night, but my tub is so miserably shallow that i had to flip over onto my belly in order to keep my chest warm....which of course meant that my ass was above the water line. Grrrr. I really want a soaker tub!

There are people on my LJ friends list who have died.

At roughly 3am today, I was updating my contact lists, clearing out my constant contact bounces and just getting things in order.

I found my friend K's info in a bunch of places. Even though it has been 17 months since she died, it was a huge wrench to delete her address. But not to do so would mean seeing it pop up again, over and over. I have plenty of stuff with which to memorialize her...the electronic stuff, I suppose I can let go of.

An interesting side note on that story. Some of you may remember that K died in a car accident where the car was driven by her then 19 year old daughter. The daughter has many, many mental health issues and it was quietly assumed by pretty much everyone that she would not make it through the trauma and guilt.

Two days ago, I heard that she came into town for the holidays and is doing really well. Much better, in fact, than her younger brother who everyone thought would be like a rock.

It's definitely a mixed bag, but I'm happy for the girl that she got the help she needed an is able to live her life. Her mom would want nothing else.

My stepmom was saying, when I was there at Christmas, that she still has her mom's number in her phone. I don't know that I do but I have one email from her that inevitably makes me cry but I won't delete. Because it's a tangible thing.

I haven't erased my dad or my friend Paul from my phone/Outlook etc. I just can't.

I've tried to bookmark places that help your survivors deal with your online life afterwards but I always end up forgetting their name. Or they go out of business. Here's a 2009 Mashable article on various tools for various aspects of that: [link]

I was just thinking yesterday that I should give my mom my 1Password master password in a sealed envelope or something.

Heavens, I've been head down, so I've missed a lot, but wanted to poke my head in and send lots and lots of ~ma to Andi-- oodles even.

Also ~ma for erika's mom and for Laura's Brandy and meara's ear and anything/one else I may have missed.

Also, happy PixDesign day! Can't believe it's been a year, y'all!

Daniel, thanks for keeping us posted. ~ma for everyone in need.

I still have StE's number in my phone and his email address in my online address book. I don't have a voice message, though. Sometimes I think it would be nice to have. And sometimes I think I'm just being morbid.

Daniel, I'll be keeping you and Andi in my thoughts. Thanks for checking in. I've been worried about you two all day.

Bev - I don't think it's morbid. My grandmother kept the answering machine message in my grandfather's voice until she died. Sometimes, she would call me and say, "Call the house and I'll pretend I'm not here." so we could both hear his voice again.

I find myself wishing that I had recordings of her voice.