Now that I again feel human, I've been diving back into the depths of my f-list after losing the past couple of weeks to poisoning by fish. I see that I've missed some biggies -- a couple of friends suffered deaths of friends and family, one's brother ended up in the hospital a 2nd time for a horrifying skin bacterial infection, a divorce, confessions of fears at starting a new job -- and some more positive developments -- a friend going metrosexual (I so want photos!), trip reports, sparring with windmills, and so on. While I was recovering, Tom Delay quit and the rest of the country joined my planet and discovered that the emperor has no clothes that we aren't safer with Bush in office.

Please don't take my silence as disinterest. In truth, responding to bad news is hard for me. I suck with words and I am terrified of saying the wrong thing. It literally takes me an hour or more to figure out a couple of sentences that I think appropriately conveys my feelings without coming off as trite or insincere or boorish. It seems doubly useless when I'm trying to respond so long after the fact.