(no subject)

4:30 a.m., coffee is brewing, and I am up and at 'em like one of the older and more sluggish larks.

I made it home safely from VividCon (after skulking out in mid-panel and driving off furtively, because god, I hate saying goodbyes). And VividCon was fabulous--wonderful vids, wonderful panels, and amazingly wonderful people (whom I implore to post con reports/reviews, because I sure as hell am not gonna have the time to). And kormantic did not get blown away in the hurricane!

I am counting over these good things, because I need to be reminded that there is *some* good stuff in the Parade of Fucking Disaster that's been steamrolling through the past few weeks. _aerye_ didn't get to the con, which alone would have been sad enough, but the reason for her absence is heartbreaking (death of a beloved friend). I'm sending all possible good vibes toward gwyn_r and her sister, and of course toward ardent_muses.

And I came home to discover that my ex-partner's mother--a wonderful, funny, loving, delightful human being--died over the weekend. Eating dinner with her husband, he got up to go to the bathroom for a few minutes, she inhaled something, choked, and was dead by the time he got back to the dining room. Though I hadn't seen her often in the decade or so since S. and I split, still for many years she was like family to me, and I'm still sort of in shock. And her funeral is at exactly the same time as P.'s surgery, but I think I can make it to the visitation tonight, although by rights I ought to be at work until about midnight tonight trying to get caught up.

But the con was truly wonderful, and although this was in any logical sense a terrible weekend for me to be gone, I'm still so glad I went. P. is in good spirits and ready for his surgery (while driving home I had a major anxiety-spazz that he'd be pissed at me for being gone, and by the time I reached Madison I was already playing out in my head the details of how he was going to dump me, but he was fine).

And now I must slam down some coffee and motor in to work, because I also discovered, on listening to my answering machine last night, that my administrative assistant is coming back a week early from her medical leave, which is emphatically of the good (my wonderful, mentally-organized, methodical, detail-oriented assistant!) except that I've been using her office a lot and have left it in my habitual state of utter smoldering chaos, and so I have to beat her in and do the high-speed clean-up.

So I close with a little message to the Gods of Random Tragedy: Guys? You've made your point, whatever it was. You can let up now. Really.