I didn't really expect to write anything here. I never got to meet
Christine in person. I don't believe I ever talked to her on
the phone. Even though I knew her through her writeups and by exchanging
/msg's with her, I still felt like I didn't know her, and that anything I said would be an imposition.
The thing is, I do have apologies.
First, I'm sorry I didn't do more. I sent comics and letters. And
those seem like tiny, insignificant things to send. Kevin
has told me they loved getting them, but they still feel tiny and
insignificant. I've had a guilt complex since I was a kid -- I always
think I've let someone down by not doing enough, whether or not I've
done anything. I'm still sorry I didn't do more.
I'm sorry I never got to meet Christine in person. I never went out
to Davis to visit her and Kevin. I hate the modern
security circus at airports nowadays, and I'd never get enough time off
work to make the drive from Texas to California. And I hate traveling
with a violent purple passion. Yes, those are excuses, and possibly not
very good ones. I'm sorry I never got to meet her.
I'm sorry I didn't let her do her Decaversary Interview early. A year
or two back, she asked me if she could go ahead and do her interview
before her ten-year anniversary. And I told her no, because of course
she'd live forever, right? It'd be no problem for her to do it after
she'd actually hit the ten-year mark, right? Obviously, once she had
actually passed her anniversary of being a noder, she wasn't healthy
enough to do the interview. So there isn't a Grundoon Decaversary
Interview. And there never will be. And just thinking of that makes me
want to go sit in the dark and stick pins in my arms. That's a colossal
failure as an interviewer. And you know her interview would've been so
damn good. It would've been so damn good. And that's an opportunity that's lost forever. I don't deserve to ever be forgiven for letting that slide.
I had another apology, relating to what's probably a minor element of
the Gamma Girl character from the Metro City Chronicles... but by the
time I got it typed out, it read like the whinings of a tortured artiste,
and no one wants to read that crap. So I'll make the apology to
Grundy's spirit and memory. (/me makes apology to Grundy's spirit and
memory, ignores the rest of you lot)
Christine was intensely important to the site and to me. I loved
getting to chat with her, whether it was about the desire to squash
trolls like bugs or just about whatever mad silliness was zipping
through our brains. She used to have more of the mad catbox
conversations on her homenode, and I'm sorry they aren't there now,
because they remain some of my favorite memories of her. Thinking of her
in pain, or frightened, or gone -- that's all the proof I
need that gods don't exist, because no benevolent deity would let that
happen to someone as awesome as Christine.
/me misses Grundoon, and I always will.