People do not die for us immediately, but remain bathed in a sort of aura of life which bears no relation to true immortality but through which they continue to occupy our thoughts in the same way as when they were alive. It is as though they were traveling abroad. ~Marcel Proust

My morning started with a phone call. My friend, Harley Herrin, died last nigh. He would have been 32 on Saturday.

I keep trying to put feelings into words and can't. I have had many phone calls, texts and IMs today about this. People checking if I knew, others looking for someone to talk to. I am happy to be that for them if they need it. But I can't for the life of me process this for myself.

Harley has been troubled the last few years. His life has tossed him a bunch of curves that no one could have anticipated and he didn't always have time to swerve. At least now it's all straight roads.

Goodbye, Harley. Your bear hugs will be missed. Your spirit can't be - it's part of us all now, making us each more beautiful for it.

In other news...

It was actually a rather productive day. I got up and went in to school (I'm interning at the Faison School in Richmond) and spent 6 hours working on my internship project, which is organizing the assessment room into a manageable system. It's like candy for me - I love to organize. Last week I cataloged what was there, now I'm comparing that to the assessments and determining what is still needed, then I'll organize the items so they can be more easily accessed by the teachers doing the assessments. I'm in heaven.

I'm enjoying the limited interaction I have with the kids. I think if it was more I'd dislike it, but I go spend a few hours in one particular classroom every other day or so and enjoy somewhat limited interaction.

Also today, I was invited to the walking group at the school, so today we walked 2.5 miles in about 40 minutes. That's a good pace and there were a lot of hills. I had a great time and I felt good having done it. I'm planning to start P90X in the fall when I'm on a regular schedule again, but in the meantime I'd like to just maintain (or even lose a little...that would be nice). My day is pretty sedentary, so any chance to be active is great.

Blowing Up Duckies

I have a dear friend who says that I like to put things in order, blow them up, and then put them in order again. She calls it blowing up duckies. I can point to instances of exactly that many times in my life. Very rarely do I get upset about the consequences of such explosions, since I know I do them and I am usually very cognizant of what's happening. And today...

KABOOOOM!

Nothing serious, I assure you. Right now, I'm sitting back and watching with a giggle.

Wedding Weekend

This weekend, friends of ours got married. The wedding was supposed to be outside and the setup was really lovely. Everything was running on schedule...

...until 6pm when the sky opened.

The wedding was subsequently moved inside, as was the reception, and it all worked out. The food was good, the drinks were aplenty and the party continued until all hours off the morning, well after the bride and groom had left. I had the pleasure of meeting the groom's family, who were lovely. They invited me to come visit since they're not far from Dallas and I fly through there on the way to OK, so we might be able to do that.

All in all, it was a fun, if very busy weekend. The wedding was about exactly what it should have been - the couple joining their lives together. There wasn't any drama and everyone was on best behavior. A good weekend and a lot of fun.