   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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Well it’ll all be fine.
is it just me or is kurtz style person running Yakisobacon’s table?
It’s a homestuck cosplayer.
Oooh. nice banner, BorkCon!
I forgot to add something, I know we do it all the time but has the hotel staffs of all these hotels ever complain about their being like 12 people in a single room? Because I know on a normal occasion growing up in a 7 person family that hotels cap out usually 4 or 5 people in a room so in my family’s case we always had 2 rooms because of this.
But has there ever been any complaints from the hotels about this?
…not if they don’t find out about it! 🙂
Offically, hotels don’t allow ‘extra’ people in a room, in part because it’s a safety violation. If the Fire Marshal were to catch that many people staying in a room, the hotel could get into legal trouble. Plus, having all those people stay in several rooms is more money for the hotel.
On the other hand, the hotel is generally aware that all those people wouldn’t be there if they couldn’t share, which would mean no money for the hotel. And the Convention, which gives money to the hotel, wouldn’t be happening without all those people. So hotels tend to not look too hard at how many people are actually staying in a room. But if you’re blatant about it, they can, and and sometimes will, take action.
Exactly. My con very strongly pounds a “Four people in a room!” now, but in the early days, we had 15+ people in a staff hotel room for several years running. A big ol’ suite, which meant room for everyone (I brought an inflatable bed and claimed the spot behind the minibar), but still cramped.
Most people I know keep to the 4-person limit. Pushing beyond that point gets so cramped folks don’t try it again unless there’s desperation points.
For a conference in Belgium we once rented a suite with I think six beds, for a dozen or so people to sleep there. (Plus a few more that met there in the evening, but didn’t stay for the night.) The staff was looking funny when more and more people kept arriving, but they didn’t say anything…