katallison

So, my dad's funeral is over, and it all went very well. In particular, my brother, whom I was ready to throttle Friday night for his non-phone-answering non-arrangements-clarifying ways, delivered a eulogy that just knocked the ball out of the park. He was *splendid.* And some of my dad's old professional colleagues were able to show up, to my great joy, and said some funny and loving and intelligent things. The only downside was ... well, let me just say that if you're ever engaging a singer to perform at some event, be sure to verify in advance that he is actually able to carry a tune, and perhaps also play chords upon the guitar that correspond more or less harmonically to the tune he is supposed to be carrying. (Right, you already know that, on account of you're smarter than me.) Anyway, it was a fine ceremony, overall, and I think my dad would have been pleased.

And I got my grant proposals done and in, and I'm now sitting here, contemplating rather dazedly the prospect of an evening in which there is nothing I have to do. And even more, no niggling painful guilt about how if you don't have other things you have to do, you really should go visit your dad or your stepmother. No, my calendar and my conscience are entirely, utterly clear, for the first time in what feels like forever. Mr. P. and I are not doing the V-Day thing tonight, but have deferred until later in the week, when the crowds will have dwindled and the restaurant prices will be back to normal and I'll have gotten some sleep.

I went out after work and bought myself a stack of Nero Wolfe mysteries, and a bottle of champagne, and I plan to have a quiet solitary evening on the couch, sipping and reading and having a little hot chicken soup. The bronchitis is much better (huge thanks to lapillus, who brought over on Saturday a bottle of Mucinex tabs, which is vilely named but does a fantastic job of de-gunking the lungs). I'm looking forward to Escapade, and I'm looking back, from time to time, at the past few weeks, and I'm thinking a bit about some writing I want to get re-immersed in. But mostly I'm just going to be quiet and enjoy my evening.

Home from my stepmother's funeral. About which I will only say, when I die, put me in a cardboard box, cremate me, toss a party where the beer flows like wine, and please please please do not have some minister give an ungrammatical and Jesus-laden eulogy which demonstrates that he never *met* me in my frickin' life. Amen.

Well, I'll add that I diverted myself by observing the vast behavioral divide between my stepsiblings (a warm, emotionally-bonding, expressive, huggy bunch) and me&brothers (poker-faced, uncomfortable-looking, given to standing around with hands in pockets, conversing quietly about comparative funeral rituals of various cultures and edging surreptitiously toward the exits). I love my stepsiblings, truly I do--they are the warm yeasty bread of humanity, they give and they bond and they connect and nurture. But I am glad I am not *of* them.

Also, a thought on pantyhose. It is brought home to me that there are women in the world--plenty of them, in fact--who wear pantyhose every frickin' workday of their lives. Which is just ... I can't even encompass it. After four hours I was ready to rip the damn things off with my *teeth.* It's like the last time I went bra-shopping (oh, man, I have a whole rant on that topic) and realized that:
(a) about 95% of all bras on the market are underwire, which means that
(b) at any moment, about 95% of the female population are wearing underwire bras.

All of which leads me to marvel yet again that women do *not*, in fact, make up the lion's share of mass, spree, or serial killers. As Fraser notes in Speranza's A Dare's a Dare (a.k.a. The Drag Story):

Instantly Fraser was tugging the dress up, over his head, and then he was pulling the bra off over his shoulders and shoving the tattered pantyhose down his legs and tugging off the low-heeled shoes. "Horrible," Fraser said with a small shudder. "I don't know how women stand it." Naked now, Fraser scratched first at his arms and then at his chest--there was a faint red line there where his bra had been. "They must have depths of strength about which we men know nothing.". Indeed.