   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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I feel the urge to make a multiplane camera joke, but I can’t come up with one.
I like playing with multiple layers of depth and trying to mimic different types of camera effects. i do it a lot more often in Crosarth
It’s definitely an appropriate effect for an anime con, seeing as how, in the pre-digital age, multiplane shots were far more common in TV anime than in American TV animation (I’m working on Otakon’s Classic Track right now, so this sort of thing is very much at the forefront of my thoughts 😉 )
Also – the jokes,
“Ruth seems out of her depth”
“Sometimes it takes a minute for things to become clear”
“Barnes would be a great staffer if he could just focus”
Hey look it’s Harry
‘Not much bad can happen right now.’ …really, why does anyone ever say anything like that? It’s like taunting the Universe.
Pre-reg is kind of always the stress-free shift, for us. We know no matter how bad it might go, it’s still pushing through people so much faster than On-site.
..especially this year, when the reg computers had grand fail. From one line of code. For a facebook like button we forgot to pull.
Not my department anymore!
–Chiaroscuro
You just had to say it, Ruth…