"just in case something goes wrong..."

That is the title of a page, apparently now inaccessible, at gangcandy.

Ryan's gangcandy was my first experience reading a weblog. He was a friend of a friend. I didn't know him, and I still barely do. But I'd never seen anything like a blog before, and I was immediately smitten--mistaking the posts as a real, tangible and profoundly brave kind of intimacy.

I've since learned that blogs are not that at all. They are a carefully constructed exposition, a sort of paper-doll of yourself, that you dress the way you want, and make it look the way that is most flattering, and you pose for maximum effect. Maybe you reveal things that break that wall--I've tried to be as honest as possible in overhaul--, but it's never a surrogate for genuinely knowing a real live human being.

That said.

I hate flying. Hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it,
completely and utterly hate it. I am nauseous at the thought of it. It keeps me from sleeping when it approaches.

and I have to get on a plane Monday.
Needless to say, it is 3:36 am and I'm wide awake and hoping I don't puke.

Ryan at gangcandy isn't fond of flying either, because whenever he flew he posted a page that was basically a good-bye note to all his loved ones.

It seems to have vanished, or I would have linked to it here; perhaps he's changed servers; but I would like to make one of my own.

I'm sure if I do make it to the end of the flight, and get my feet on solid ground again, I'll feel lame for having done this, but I think it's a good idea.

so.

I love you all. You are my life, my being, my breath, my words. There is no light without you. You are everything. Thank you, thank you, thank you. And I am so sorry for ever having been a cause of pain for another.

To all my friends, there is no string of eloquent alliterations I could tie together to clarify or elucidate how you've enriched my life, and the degree to which I ache with hope that I have managed to enrich yours as well.

To my parents, absolute and unpronounceable love and gratitude, and regret that I have as of yet been unable to do all the wonderful things for you that i dreamt of doing when I was a very little girl.

To my students, thank you for all you have taught me, and I send you off with the wish that your days are filled with learning and bittersweet beauty until the day you die. You gave me the magical gift of knowing what it was to be a parent and the heart-raging feeling that came with caring for you.

For more practical matters, anything I own is of no consequence and if no one wants it it all can be chucked, except my computer, and the disks in my right desk drawer, which contain the burnt-in proof of my soul, my self. The writing therein, and the time we have shared together, is all that really matters.

Once again, I love you all, and rivers, oceans, seas to you, ten thousand pounding rains to wash you to your own shores, your own lovely ends.

...and as it was in the beginning, it now and ever shall be. World without end. Amen.