I was once flying back from somewhere (I don't even remember where), and my flight back stopped through Atlanta airport. Ginger offered to come by and do dinner with me, but I declined because there just wasn't quite enough time in between flights to leave the airport and come back.

But then I got to meet her in DC and again in SF.

When I was confused and angry about Shari getting declined on her first attempt at getting back on a liver transplant list, Ginger was one of two people (Brenda being the other) who reached out to me backchannel and helped me to see the truth -- that Shari was in fact secretly an alcoholic who was drinking herself to death.

It would be a couple more years before I found the wherewithal to actually end the relationship, but I will be forever grateful to both Ginger and Brenda for their stern but gentle help in seeing the ugly truth.

Fuck. Tonight I will grieve and rage. Tomorrow I will pull my socks up and go about my business as she would, I think, want me to. But fuck.

I will miss you, Ginger.

I don't have any socks! I don't even know where my socks are! Argh.

A little story about tonight. I stopped at my favorite taco shop to grab a burrito for dinner on the way home. A homeless woman was sitting outside and asked if I would buy her a taco. My first (shameful) instinct was to shrug her request off -- so many requests for money here, and I almost didn't register she was asking for food. As soon as I got in line inside, though, I thought about Ginger. Thought about how often she helped, quietly, unobtrusively, never asking anyone for recognition or even thanks. So I bought the woman dinner and a bottled water and gave it to her as I left. And it was nothing, something I should have done anyway. But tonight I did it because of Ginger, and I've made a promise to myself to do it far more often. Just help when I can.

I think reminding myself to pull my socks up will be my mantra now.

I will follow your suit, Pix. It will be a nice way to honor a spirit so honorable.

Oh man. So sad, but so glad there are buffistas. Knowing that if anything were to happen to me, it would be like a vigil at my side, albeit in the Vast Series of Tubes in the Sky...

Thought about how often she helped, quietly, unobtrusively, never asking anyone for recognition or even thanks. So I bought the woman dinner and a bottled water and gave it to her as I left. And it was nothing, something I should have done anyway. But tonight I did it because of Ginger, and I've made a promise to myself to do it far more often. Just help when I can.

Right. Pull up your socks and help somebody out. Definitely Ginger's way.

I had forgotten. She sent Matt some books .

Ginger was a women of many interests and casually generous.

I aspire to that

And thanks to the magic of FB, I've just discovered that one of my friends, whom I've known since college, knew Ginger way back in the 70s, in the Southern sci-fi fandom group. Ginger had said she'd gotten out of fandom after Deep South Con 1978, which was the year before I went to my first con, so we just missed each other. How weird.

That's a good way to honor Ginger

I am sad and numb. I can't say that I'm relieved that she's no longer in pain, which is something I felt with ita, because I get the feeling that Ginger would rather still be here with us, pain and all. And that breaks my heart.