Let's get back to normal

What a week.

First of all, I was sick, and took at day off, and then that night I got the news about Michael, and like everyone else, I didn’t know what to make of it. It just came out of nowhere. Kaz asked me to pass it along to everyone, and I did, and then I just sort of went into some state of suspended animation for a little while.

Tuesday, though, I decided it was a good idea to have a meeting. We needed to talk about this—hell, I needed to talk about it. Michael was in Bump tab a couple of weeks ago, and got close to a lot of kids, and then reunited with a lot of the alums, to whom he was one of the constants of the activity. So we talked a bit, and then went on. That is what you do, you go on. You don’t learn much from it, and you don’t come out any better for it, you just get through it. And the closer you are to a person, the harder it is. For Sheryl and the NFA kids, it will probably take a lifetime.

But, as I say, you go on. So I did some Christmas shopping the day before Thanksgiving (the Day Job gave us the day off), and that was productive in getting me into the spirit of doing some Christmas shopping, without actually doing much Christmas shopping. Starting friction for something like this is very strong, and must be overcome. And it’s not even as if there’s that much to buy (although Pip has left a very long letter to Santa that must be attended to). It’s more the thought of it than anything else.

Thanksgiving was, no doubt, much like everyone else’s. Relatives come, turkeys are eaten, games are played. I dug up my old Disney Trivial Pursuit. Kt and I beat the pants off all comers, but that was to be expected.

I spent a lot of the weekend cleaning up computer stuff and organizing and doing things I’d been putting off. Put some pictures on Facebook, posted a collected debriefing from here on the Bump page as a guide for future coaches thinking of running a tournament, connected with some people I haven’t seen for a while, including Olivieri, who I ran into at Circuit City. I updated my jimmenick.com home page so that CLG could find the Amazon link (lord knows somebody needs to find it). Got started on a writing project that’s been in the back of my mind. Had a lot of trouble making CDs from my Christmas tapes, so I gave up and went for MP3s. Played poker and won three whole dollars. Took some naps, read some old magazines (I’m caught up with the Thanksgiving 2006 issue of Gourmet). Recorded a Nostrum. Etc. In other words, I didn’t do much of anything, but it seems like I did a lot, or vice versa, and I guess now it’s back to normalcy.

Take a deep breath. Hold it a minute. All right. We’re ready.