Today was Pro's Bay Area memorial.

Becky's been touring the country, stopping at places where she and Pro lived, visiting with friends and inviting them to celebrate his life. Today was the Bay Area memorial, held ridiculously close to our house. We went, thinking about the event all morning, moving slowly, doing little else but thinking of Pro and telling various stories. The memorial was incredibly bittersweet: holy crap, look at all these amazing people whom I've met over the last 10 years of my life (wow!), holy crap, why does it take the death of a friend to bring all of these people together?

Wow, yeah, everyone, Becky, Kate, Mike, Liza, Maeryn, Kyle Schleifer, Bridget, Linda, Mark Smith, Cece, Nam, Keebler (who tells it like it is, when he commented my snowboarding jacket makes me look like a fireman), Sunita, Greg, Jo Adamkewicz, Keith, Jen Lee (it's not like anyone will be able to find me on Google), Nilla (yikes! he reads my site! awesome!), Dania (thinking about Wildflower for this year), Phil, Juliette (who played with us at Women's Masters Nationals), Jason Gische, Holly and Adrian and kids, Alan, Kat, Mike Peercy (crap, they had practice today and we didn't know), Doyle, Shirley, Wes, Gillian, Paul (who set up a slack line for people to walk on), Chookie, Martha, Liz and Mike, and so many kids that at least two ultimate teams could be formed with the next generation.

The event started around 3, with people filtering in over the hour. When Paul set up the slack line, I felt it was okay to pull out my camera, having felt uncomfortable about taking pictures of people in pain. Kate commented that the previous two memorials didn't have any pictures for them, and that Becky wanted some for remembering. Everyone played ultimate at the Hawaii memorial. Everyone dressed up too nicely at the San Diego memorial to be able to play ultimate. We had a good mix of casual and formal dress, with most everyone in comfortable clothes.

The first hour, we all talked, told stories, caught up with people we hadn't seen in years. I was comfortable until I said a big foot-in-the-mouth comment to Becky, and the event went downhill for me from there.

Becky started the Eulogy by thanking everyone, and reading a poem. I was fine for about 3 minutes, then pretty much lost it. I wanted to leave right there. I wanted to run away the way I had run away from BJ's accident, the way I had run away from the pain so many times. Why wasn't everyone there crying? I wanted to scream "I don't understand why is no one here crying?!" I still don't understand it. Out came the kleenex, and by sheer force of will I didn't honk into it.

Becky talked and said thanks, Greg Wolff talked and told Pro stories, Phil Price talked and told more Pro stories, Kate talked and told even more stories. I have to say that Greg and Phil had a lot of humour in their stories, because really, Pro was full of life and gusto and humour. The humour helped the pain recede a little bit. Kate didn't have quite as much humour in her words, almost as if, oh god, here was someone who understood, here was someone who was also in pain. I wanted to walk up to the podium and give Becky a big hug that never ended, then give Kate another one.

Once the eulogy was over, we talked a bit with a few more people, then left. I lasted as long as I could before I had to leave or completely break down and bawl my eyes out in front of everyone.

I'm unsure why Pro's death is so hard for me. I fear people are looking at me weird, thinking, "WTF, you weren't such close friends that it should hurt this much, two months later," that it really shouldn't hurt this much. I fear that my pain is infinitely selfish, that I'm mourning the recognition of my own mortality through Pro's death, that I'm expressing my fear of loss through tears that aren't completely for Pro. I fear that, crap, I'm surrounded by these amazing, awesome, incredible people, and my life is so unaccomplished in comparison, and the tears that flow are a sign of frailty and weakness, that I missed so many opportunities to be a better friend, that his death hurts so much because I ran away from the pain instead of helping Jo and Sunita and Greg search for the best trials for Pro, instead of emailing because I didn't know what to write, instead of calling and saying hey, because I didn't know what to say.

And so, I cry, as I've cried every day for the last two months. And I stop Kris during his day, step into his arms and just hold him, as if I'm trying to hold off the inevitable, because as much as this one hurts, I'm not sure I can bear what's coming.

As an aside, I think Liz Gannes is one of the most effortlessly beautiful women I know. I doubt she's ever had a bad picture taken of her, even when caught off-guard.

Kris and I met up with the Smiths for lunch today. Though Meter was wary of Kris-Stranger-Danger, she cuddled up to me, which made me very very happy. Yes, having lunch with two little girls who have a balloon and a tiara between the two of them, is a fabulous way to start a new year.

Yeah, and, about that tiara, I couldn't resist.

Well, it's the new year, and that means a new set of resolutions. This year, I have three resolutions, one of which is is a goal, one of which is a resolution, and one of which is a vague sort of an idea, but not really.

The first one is a goal: to discard one item every day for a year. "Discard" in this sentence doesn't mean throw away into the garbage so much as remove an item from my house. I have termed this resolution Days of Gone and added a link there up in the navigation menu. My description of this resolution and ground rules on my tracking pages are:

In an effort to be rid of the clutter and accumulation of stuff in my life, I decided that 2010 would be a year of clearing, a year of cleansing. Each day, I'm getting rid of an item, with a few ground rules:

1. Each item must leave the house, putting it in a box to "donate later" doesn't count.
2. For items being discarded, putting it into the trash is sufficient. For donated items, the item must actually leave the house.
3. There's no banking or pre-discarding items: if I discard two items on one day, I don't have a free day the next day.
4. Vacation days are the exception: I can bank items for vacation days, I still need to discard items for those days.

So, that's the goal. Get rid of crap.

The resolution is be like Joshua Greenough. When I told this resolution to Kris, he looked at me funny, so I explained. When I was helping Heather move to the City and we had forgotten the key to her new place, I called the various people I knew in the City (yes, yes, all of them are ultimate players, why do you ask?), trying to track down one of her roommates. We figured out that one of them worked with Joshua, and hey, I happened to have his phone number from when we both worked/volunteered at/with the UPA, he as college director, I as whipping boy, and so called to ask if he could find Chuck, Heather's new roommate. He said he'd look for Chuck and call me back.

A few minutes later, Chuck called Heather and made arrangements for the two of us to drive over to pick up Chuck's key for Heather to use. On our drive over, my phone rang. Since I was driving, I handed it to Heather. Joshua was on the line. He commented that he had found Chuck and asked him to call Heather. I don't know if he knew that Heather and I were in the truck together, but I heard him say that he said he would call me back, so he was calling me back.

And THAT was the moment that I knew I wanted to be like Joshua.

He had done what I asked, he had found Chuck and asked him to call Heather. He had also done what he said he would do, he called me back. He didn't really need to do that, as Chuck had talked to me. Joshua may have known that, he may have left the situation at that, that Chuck would call, he was out of the situation. Except he didn't just leave it at that. He followed through. He said he was doing to call me back, without leaving any qualifiers such as he'd call back if he could or couldn't find Chuck, and he did. He called me back. That follow-through, that "I do what I say I'm going to do," that is what I want to be like with EVERYTHING in my life. Andy is similar. When he says yes, he means yes. I like both of these aspects of these men's personalities.

So, that's the resolution. Be like Joshua.

The last one is vague sort of notion with the all-consuming project. The vagueness is more having not put it into words than not actually being able to articulate it well. It boils down to giving the project my all, even if I do fail. It's still unclear in its edges, but I want to be true to the project, to really try, to give up the safe route and jump both feet first because it's a product I believe in. If only I can get my thoughts out and into javascript and jquery sufficiently for it to work.

And that's what I have for 2010: cleanse, follow-through and be true.

One you can follow, one you can call me on and one you can see blossom in a week.

I've been working intensely on my project, with the intent of releasing it to the world before I go to bed on Sunday night, and that's releasing it in whatever state it's in at that moment. No, THAT'S not going to be a scary moment.

While working on this project, I've been stalled by worry, just before I've pushed through the moment and continued. I can only hope the end might be somewhat worth it. Fate seems to be willing to give me a slight nod of encouragement:

I interpret the traveling to be my going to various conferences to demo my product. The fortune, well, that's success coming my way.

Let's compare and contrast, shall we? In particular, the results of the the beers around the world celebration of the New Year.

Kris, asleep until 4pm.

Andy, awake and productive at 8am.

Given a choice, I'll vote for Andy's liver.