The Default State Is Broken

My sister posted a really excellent summation from her point of view: "My Dad taught me to fly fish, to understand the importance of organized labor and the value of work, and that it was possible for people to change for the better even well into adulthood. I think that was good parenting." And my other sister summed it up thus: "Take pride in your work. Take all of your vacation days. What you can't handle, surrender to God. Help people when they need it. Let people help themselves when they can. Be faithful."     And so I've been thinking about the things I learned from my father. And I learned a crapton of really useful, everyday stuff from my mom: compassion never hurts; charity isn't a contract, it's a gift; when in doubt, try to give rather than take. My mom taught me a lot of those things by example. The stuff I learned from my dad was different. It was more technical and experiential, and I often learned it in conflict with him, bec...

A while ago some friends of mine pointed out to me online that they were involved in a kickstarter that was live, so I went to check it out. And it was a kickstarter for a gaming convention in the Bay Area in October, and a whole bunch of people that I cared a bunch about were going to be involved and wanted it to succeed. And I was a bit flush that month, so I said 'fuck it' and I backed the kickstarter and that got me a ticket to BigBadCon 2018. And so I had a ticket, and I made reservations, and bought a plane ticket, and everything was looking up. And then I broke my foot. And now I was mobility-limited. And then my mom died. And I had to go out of town and deal with all of that basically the week before the con, which included taking a bunch of unpaid time off from work. And I thought really seriously about not going, but then I was like: no, there are cool people there that you haven't seen in literal-years. And you've already spent the money. So I said 'fuc...

(CW: death and dying, Catholicism, Bible quotes) My sisters are planning my mom's mass today. So, lemme back up: my mother, who's name was Joy, (and a good chunk of my family) are devout Irish Catholics and the home parish for this is the local Jesuit church, St. Francis Xavier. Because my mother was basically a pillar of the community for so long, there's a lot of weight about doing her final appearance Right. Mom would demur, but in this case I think she'd be wrong; lots of people knew my mother as "Joy From Church" and lots of people loved her, especially because she was always about the open arms of love that she thought was the Basic Catholic Message. My mother was not without (sometimes great) flaws, but she believed in her heart that it was her job as a Catholic to love everyone, and she worked hard to make that happen. Anyway, for the Catholics, there's a specific mass that's said as part of a funeral. And so my sisters are working out the...