It's times like this I wish, fiercely, that this board were a real, physical place. There's nowhere else I want to be today but here with you all.

So much yes, to this. I keep thinking about the last physical-world funeral I went to, my aunt's, and how mourning takes on that weird unreality, where you can kind of stumble around in your haze mumbling "oh god. oh no." but at least when you bounce off other people they're doing exactly the same thing. And the bittersweetness of reunions, of "I haven't seen you in ages! But... we're here."

It's awful, but there's an in-the-moment quality to it that I'm really aching for right now.

I so wanted ita to have a chance to be ita again.

Oh god, yes. So so SO much.

I have no words. This is...fuck, too many words, actually. Unreal. RIP, ita. I'm glad you're not in pain any more. You'll be so, so, so missed.

Oh man. Oh. Fuck. I'm crying in my hotel room bed. Got in late last night and zonked out and was checking email...and suddenly saw this "buffistas must check in" thing. And you know my first though was that there'd been some sort of new horrible terrorism? It didn't cross my mind that it could be anything like this. Fuck.

Nilly, you made me cry and want hugs.

And I'm so glad to see all the old folks but so so fucking mad for the reason.

Where do we go from here?

There are a lot of great poems about death. The obvious fitting one is the Edna St. Vincent Millay one that ends "I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned." Which, no, I'm not, and I never will be.

But somehow this e. e. cummings one particularly works for me, for the glory that was ita. [praying that pre is one of the HTML tags we let through, because cummings]

 	Buffalo Bill's
 	defunct
 	       who used to
 	       ride a watersmooth-silver
 	                                stallion
 	and break onetwothreefourfive pigeonsjustlikethat
 	                                                 Jesus
 	he was a handsome man
 	                     and what i want to know is
 	how do you like your blueeyed boy
 	Mister Death

I so wanted ita to have a chance to be ita again.

Yes, in all - in the lack of a better word - technical, "outside" terms, in terms of what can be actively done and take place.

But, to me, in my eyes, in her spirit and heart and soul, the way she dealt with an such an unbelievably impossible situation, and dealt with it with such strangth, courage, grace and fierceness - she kravved the hell out of that aweful hand the universe had dealt her. She's a total hero.

And now I'm crying again.

I don't know what to do. I just gave Mr Peabody a dog biscuit for no reason.

We let in pre, thank goodness.

He's there with you. That's reason enough, Ginger.