Current Post On Trae’s Blog:
My grandmother died last night. This wasn't a shock or a surprise. Her health has been on the decline, and she's been in hospice for the last month. She lived a long life, and in her final days she was surrounded by her three adult children.
My grandma was a kind woman. She wasn't perfect, but I always felt loved in her presence. She was a retired kindergarten teacher, and was still working when I was a kid. I have so many happy memories sitting at her kitchen table, and I'm going to carry those with me for the rest of my life. She was also proof that anyone who claims that you get more conservative as you get older is full of shit, because she certainly didn't.
I think it's interesting how the body processes grief sometimes. I don't know that I'll cry, but over the past month, knowing this was coming, I've felt a tension in my gut. Now that she's passed, instead of relief that tension is replaced by a sense of emptiness. That something is missing that should still be there. Something has been taken away, and I feel it.
Of course, as I wrote that, I immediately started crying... so I guess my body processes grief in pretty ordinary ways too.
I wanted to come up with something profound linking this to Beltane, which we sit in the middle of right now, but it just seemed hackneyed. Like I was trying to dig out some greater significance when the truth is death comes whenever it wants. The only predictable thing about it is that it's the end of all of our journeys. I hope that when I pass I'm so lucky to have lived such a long life with people that I love around me in my final days.
For the record, I will be fine. I just needed to get these words out while they were still in my head. I don't have some rousing conclusion or deep insight to tack on here at the end, just that gut feeling that something is missing.
Because it is.
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*Waits one year to see how big of a disaster the gophers are at Unagi Con next year.
Hmm. That seems a mistake on Jim’s part. Generally, you don’t want to leave the defeated an avenue to come right back to haunt you. If he could rustle up that kind of support, it’d seem he could just as easily oust her entirely.
He doesn’t want her in charge of anything anymore to punish her. But at the same time he also doesn’t want to lose the invaluable skills she gives to Unagi Con.
Look back at what he did with Garner when he was still the problem. (http://www.unconventional-comic.com/2017/06/basic-group-dynamics/)
“I may have to subtly break apart any clique he’s started to form, and distract him with some task to keep him in check.”
Jim may think he knows what he’s doing, because he’s been dealing with people like Garner for a decade. But I get the feeling that he doesn’t quite understand the depths of what he’s dealing with when trying to handle Lynn in the same way.
Lynn has already made a mistake. Jim is not mad about the Nazi-punching.
he’s mad about Lynn lying to his face.
I still find this the least mature route to go in this instance.
Its just as much work to come up with evidence and confront the individual about the fabrication. But because Jim is the way he is when it comes to confrontation, he has to handle it this way. Which I just don’t understand – its confrontation either way. Just confrontation he’s comfortable with.