Being an actual young widow, I can't do ~those~ sorts of movies. That whole sappy death genre is right out. Those don't make for "good" cries for me. When I am hormonal and just bursting for Alice-in-a-pool-of-tears relief, I have to look elsewhere. I rely heavily on musicals. Cats, Superstar, Nightmare Before Christmas, Sound of Music... That sort of thing. I can still sing if I'm crying. But my go-to standard when I need to feel and belt and feel some more, is Cabaret. Liza is just so heart-rendingly perfect, and Sally Bowles is all of my gauche, American pretense at glamour, all of my selfish inability to cope with reality, all of my running and armoring myself in outrageousness to feel safe from both the outside world and my own feelings. We make the same mistakes over and over, not wholly by accident. ...Maybe this time....

"Happy" is a perfectly decadent outfit we put on when we wake up every afternoon. I cry for our self-imposed barricades and I cry for our stubbornness and I cry for our lost babies and our damn determined life-long performance and our desperate screaming at trains and for our inability to convince *ourselves* and for our genuine spark of "most strange and extraordinary" that is truly, truly there, somewhere, but we just haven't a clue how to nurture it on our own.

HALLO I TESS WOULD LIKE TO ADRESS TEH SCOTLING ISHEW ON BEHAF OF ALL KITTEHS. SCOTLING IS GRATE TO GO AWAY FROM ENGLAND AND I KNOW THIS IS OK BECUZ I TOO IS ENGLINDISH AND PROWD OF DAT BUTT ALSO I KNOWS TEH IMPORTENTS OF HOLLERIN FREEEEEEEDUMMM REAL LOUD AND WEN UR BLUE. SCOTLING SHOOD HOLLER THAT AND I WONT EVEN BE MAD BECUZ EVEN THO THEY ARE PROBLY SAVIGES LIKE DEEZ MERICANNS THEY NEED TOO BE LOWD TO HAZ FREEDUM TO JOIN MOTHER RUSHA AND BE GUD COMUNIST LIKE ME. I IS BRITUSH AND FREEDUMS AND COMUNISST AND NOTRILLY BUTT KINDA MERIKEN NOW I GESS TOO EVEN THO AMERRIKEN CATS IS GROSS AND STUPED. I CAN BE ALL DOZE FINGS AT ONCE AND LUK HOW GRATE TESS IS! SO YES VOTE YES FOR SCOTLING TO JOIN MOTHER RUSHA AN BE SCOTISLAVA GUD COMUNIST. LIKE ME TESS.

Oh, damn. I've accidentally conjured another furious but tiny squall.

Funny how I still manage to do that in a landlocked state.

And I was almost asleep, too. I blame what I've been reading almost as much as I do the migraine that usually starts storms. One shouldn't ignore synchronicity.

But now I've gone and scared the cats. Except Tesla, of course. My (overly) familiar. She's used to it, silly little thing. Mom's cat, though, for all her badass naming, (Hellcat. Heh.) is a Katrina rescue. I'm sure that's part of the reason she can't bear me or my electricalwhirlwinddæmon cat. Sorry, dear. It's not personal. But you can't reason with cats. But, then... what fun would they be if you could?

Back into my book now. And a badly needed nap. Always made more therapeutic by thunder.

I love you so much. Every day you surprise me and remind me why this is HOME. After Owen died, I suppose I could have gone anywhere. Atlanta was always home, always mine. I only lived here (Where? Ohio? Iowa? You're moving where??? Isn't that full of those Mormons? Do you live near Harrison Ford? I hope you like potatoes.) for 8 or 9 months before I got hitched & went to England, where I'd intended to be forever. When my forever came crashing down around me quite stupendously, I knew I had to get HOME. I never gave a moment's thought to that being anywhere but here. Not just 'cause that's where mommy & daddy are. Here is just........ just right. That short time I was here BEFORE, and the couple trips Owen and I made back here, all that had soaked in subtly and deeply, so AFTER, this is just where I knew I should be. I didn't even have to think consciously about it. Your winters suck. Sorry, I'm a Georgia peach, we don't handle the freeze well. But the love, acceptance, the sometimes insanely too close-knittedness, and the fact that, like it or not, we all know what color underwear every other single one of us has on today, all that is why this is HOME. Thank you.

I have always experienced the world through stories. It's not something I've chosen to do on purpose, it's how I have always existed. I think stories are the most important thing there is and ever has been. It's not a way of distancing myself from reality, it's not a thing that dehumanizes or trivializes anyone or anything, it is simply how the world happens for me. The world happens differently for everyone. People with acute sensory sensitivities experience the world differently from people with compromised hearing, who experience the world differently from people who function by strict logic and pragmatism, who experience the world differently from people who see colors other people can't, who experience the world differently from people who are genuinely delusional, who experience the world differently from people who are driven entirely by emotions, etc etc etc; and so we get this whole amazing variety of minds like Van Gogh, Einstein, Helen Keller, Bach, Robin Williams, Elvis, Walt Disney, and all sorts. A lot of the time how people are perceived is based much more on how the one being perceived receives and processes the world, than anyone realizes. If that makes sense.

So, my intrinsic way of being is stories.

That is how I be.

Everyone reading this is at least one story to me. It's not a depersonalization or that I am somehow turning you into fiction. You are your own true story, you are also stories I've shared with you, stories that remind me of you, stories for which I'm greedily awaiting new chapters, stories you have made it known are important to you, blah blah blah, ad infinitum. Because stories *are* infinite.

Anyway. I felt I needed that disclaimer before I just jumped right into trying to verbalize the especially difficult time I'm having coping with the death of a friend, a former student, an amazing guy.

In comparing him to a story, I am not un-personing him, mythologizing him, trivializing his life or death, or glorifying something I only felt after the fact. It is just how I receive and perceive information about everything around me. Having known him for quite some time, and being privileged to glimpse just some of the incredible depths and complexities that stayed hidden from most people, I've got a lot of stories for him. Of him. From him. Whatever.

I feel as though (obviously) his story was too abruptly ended, far too early. But I think a lot of my heartbreak is because, for years, seeing him grow up from a kid, I knew his story would be epic. I knew it would be a bestseller, even. That *everyone* would get to see the triumph and talent and shining awesomeness, and would inevitably match his ever-developing true greatness with the admiration and joy it deserves.

But it got cut short.

I feel not only a personal, terrible loss, but also a feeling of grief for what the *whole world* will now miss out on. Like I am feeling the sadness that seven billion people would feel if they'd just been able to understand they'd lost a future thing they didn't yet know. And that's a lot to feel.

But the thing is, his main story, to me, has always been deeply entwined with young, pre-Camelot King Arthur. I saw this happy, eager, excited, joyful, pure golden youth and knew for certain his story would keep on track for someday being utterly legendary.

Now, imagine if Arthur, still learning amazing things from Merlin, still excited and truly, truly *good*, through and through, no clue that he is going to change worlds, but totally cool with who he is already...... Imagine that Arthur had already just kinda absentmindedly grabbed that kickass-looking sword out of that rock as he strolled by, and he's kinda just swinging it around, having a great old time, but nobody's really noticed yet... And they certainly haven't realized the potential that just got unleashed. And then Arthur's horse throws him.

The end.

No story. No King. No hero. No Camelot. The world didn't even notice they'd lost their future champion and missed out on being a part of one of the best best best stories that has ever been. A few very lucky and observant people notice that HOLY CRAP THAT KID HAD FRIGGIN' EXCALIBUR!!!!! DUDE, HE WAS THE KING OF THE ENTIRE REALM WHOA WHAT EVEN JUST HAPPENED??!!!

What COULD have happened????

But there's not a story anymore. There's no mention of this rad ancient king dude that saved all of the Britons in Geoffrey of Monmouth, no Malory translations, Tennyson didn't write any Idylls, no Once And Future King, no Sword In The Stone, no future-Dumbledore singing in Camelot, definitely no Monty Python & The Holy Grail lines to quote all the time, no Last Crusade for Indy. Hell, there probably isn't even Star Wars now. There are just Saxons running amok everywhere, everything sucks, but that's just how it is because the story never got finished.

Isn't that a horrible thought?

That's exactly how I'm feeling now. All this missed future, piled on top of my own humble little personal shock and grief.

I just needed to try getting that into words. Just because I suck in great gulps of the world through a baleen filter of story doesn't mean I can tell one properly. But I needed to try.

As a Princess, one will, as a matter of course, reach a point when one must begin considering one’s inevitable career path switch to Evil Queen. Preparation must really begin while one is *still* Fairest Of Them All. To wait much beyond this will undoubtedly impose unfortunate restrictions upon one’s future Evil Queenery. Preserving one’s Fairness is crucial to so many Evil Queen machinations. Mature Beauty is a grand asset against Uppity Young Princesses. To use accessible Disney imagery as an example, whether said Beauty takes the form of Classical Beauty (Queen Grimhilde from Snow White), Gaunt, Majesterial Beauty (Maleficent of Sleeping Beauty), or even Lush, Overtly Sexual Beauty (Ursula from The Little Mermaid), one will always retain more power as an Evil Queen as long as one may retain one’s particular form of Beauty. Princessly Beauty always depends upon Youth, while Evil Queenly Beauty can take myriad forms, and shine in all of them. But a Princess who knows what’s good for her will not rely on Fleeting Youth to tide her over. The Truly Fairest Of Them All will be wise enough to lay in stores of Internal, Experiential Beauty from her earliest years, in advance of encroaching Evil Queenliness. This Beauty is what will guide a Princess into True, Exquisite, Effective Evil and over that oft-times very traumatic threshold betwixt Princess and Queen. Even as a Young, Lovely Thing, a Princess must keep her wits about her and her eyes open to all Future Princess Upstart threats so she will never be caught off guard, as an Evil Queen, by a sneaky, surprising Damn Whippersnapper Princess on her lawn. Constant Vigilance, A Good Moisturizer With Sunscreen, and all the aforementioned stores of Internal Beauty based on Life Experience (i.e.: not simply lounging in the palace courtyard all day, every day) will see any Princess through to her altogether more fulfilling, enchanting, magical, and just plain FUN future as a Perfectly Evil Queen.