Yay hibernation days!

The logical progression of "oh, you can drive a Zamboni? You must have worked on cruise ships" is more than a little amazing.

I love beyond measure that aurelia is screening resumes that include skills like Zamboni proficiency, and that Sophia is able to pinpoint what history those skills indicate.

ION, I am more than a little broken--one of my oldest and dearest and most complicated friends died late last night or early this morning, and I am slowly unraveling (long story *very* short, imagine either Angela or Rickie and Rayanne, probably a bit more Rickie as there was never any sexual rivalry involved, with the passage of enough time to heal the estrangement and begin to rediscover the connection and delight and playfulness). I can't and won't accept that she is past tense, that she was here in the world 24 hours ago but not 18, and that I pottered along another few hours before finding out.

She lives (I should say lived but I can't) just a few blocks from here, in the apartment she grew up in, caring for her agoraphobic and increasingly disabled mother until this past weekend, when apparently she got food poisoning or flu or something and couldn't keep anything down for two days and spent yesterday hallucinating from dehydration but refusing to go for help (she had the only phone in the place and her mother couldn't call for help). And sometime overnight she left, and this morning her mother broke down the bedroom door and found her.

I'm gutted. And I feel super fucking selfish for feeling gutted, when nothing I feel now is a fucking speck on the horizon of what she went through before she let go. But we'd only just reconnected, and she was so weird and difficult and infinitely precious. And wasted, and lost, and one fucking ER visit and an IV could have saved her.

Hec and Matilda are incredible, but I feel so fucking broken.

And I'm so sorry to vomit all this up. Where else can I go with this?

I have been sick at home for 4 days. I just gave up and let my boss know I wont be in tomorrow.

I'm so sorry JZ. but here is where should come so we can surround you with love and support

Oh, JZ. Nothing I can say seems adequate for this needless loss. Just know I'm here all the way in Ohio, and you have all my love.

I'm so sorry, JZ. That's just awful.

Oh JZ. No platitudes, just endless open space for whatever you need to express, and caring for her and for you, and hugs, if they'll help.

Thank you. This is home. I just keep staggering around. I was good for almost nothing at work until I couldn't stand it any longer and called my mom, who of course also knew her forever ago, and then I was good for nothing at all.

(Has anyone here ever played around with The Sims? She was almost all the female voices of the first few iterations and co-created the language. If you've ever played in that world, you know her voice. Or some of her voices. She was so fucking absurdly gifted.)

Oh no, JZ. I'm so sorry. What a terrible and senseless loss.

Oh, my god, JZ, I'm so sorry. How awful for you and her family and friends. I'm so sorry.