So sad. It's hard to believe.

This is too hard. Godspeed, Ginger.

Luckily all I had to do at work today was push paper, because I can't concentrate. I'm knocking off early. I haven't heard anything else from anyone about memorial services or anything, but I didn't expect to yet. Everyone's just in shock and there's so many things to be done at the worst possible time to have to do them.

So many significant decisions have to be made when you're unable to cope. One slight mercy is that it wasn't over a weekend, or worse, a holiday weekend.

One thing that always struck me about ginger was she had the rare combination of being knowledgeable about so many things, but also having the wisdom to wield that knowledge in such great ways. Maybe sensible is the word I've been looking for.

This. Very much this. Like with the nuclear accident in Japan: people out there were flailing and ridiculous. In here the flailing was more sensible, but still, it's not an odd thing to be concerned about. And Ginger just stepped in and laid down facts and alleviated concerns.

Or when I hated my pictures from my graduation and was looking for someone to photoshop my excess chins for me, Ginger just stepped up and offered to take a shot. Now, she wasn't as successful as we'd hoped, but then she commiserated with me about thick necks. Which I appreciated.

So that was Ginger to me..."Hey, does anybody know how to... or the details about... or what's really going on with...?" And after speculation and wondering, she steps in and lays down sense.

I'll really miss seeing her around.

Most of my divisions is at the holiday lunch, which I barely tolerate attending under the best of circumstances.

Which means every goddamned fucker who can't read the instructions is calling me or showing up at my goddamned door because the helpdesk isn't responding.

The fucks I give? Don't exist.

Yeah, I'm going to take a half day today. I'm just wiped out right now.

I don't know if I'd mentioned it, but my Uncle Jack died last month, and my Aunt Doreen--who has some Ginger-like traits--just started chemo for probably terminal cancer. Funnily, I mentioned Ginger specifically when talking to Mother about Doreen.

So it's been a shitty kind of year as far as this stuff goes. Lot of death and loss and impending death and loss, and I've run out of cope.

On Saturday there was a booth at the fair raffling off a tree all decorated in pink to raise money for pink lemonade. Mom bought a ticket and as we walked away said me "Let's hope I don't win." I couldn't help but think of Ginger and her abiding hatred for the pink saturated awareness-raising nonsense (I think this organization does actually do good stuff, local friends have benefited from them, but that was a lot of pink).

Mom, of course, did win.The tree is going to the Boys and Girls Club.

It's 9pm here. I was sad for hours today (at work. Where I had to do a lot of small talks and pretend that nothing happened). By the afternoon I just got so very tired. Now just want to go out, have a drink, and tell everyone I know about Ginger and what an amazing person she was.

And then I want to get back here and read her new-from-tonight pixels.

Every night, before I head for bed, I stand in front of my witchy altar and say goodnight to the people I've lost that are important to me. Last night I said goodnight to Ginger. So, so hard.

A few years ago, she sent me the Edward Gorey toy Dracula theatre book. The original, spiral-bound one, just like the one I nearly kept from the library when I was a tiny spooky child. I promptly emailed her and said it was lovely, but it was a collectible worth something, and was she sure? She said she wanted it to live with someone who would love it, and she knew that was me.