Carolyn

I don't usually like to write of things that are too personal in the web site. I find that blogs and web journals that detail every minute detail of someone's existence are pretty tedious. Then again, I'm a terrible snob.

But this time I'll make an exception, because something happened a few weeks ago of such magnitude that I would be foolish to ignore it. My friend Carolyn died at a firing range two weeks ago. Officially, it's an accident, so officially, I will not allude to it as anything other than that.
Unofficially, I have my own ideas. But in the end it doesn't matter much how it happened. It's sad, it's bizarre, it's one of those things that may take me a good long time to wrap my head and heart around.

There have been a few people from high school who have passed away since graduation, and all those events affected me even though I barely knew them. But Carolyn wasn't merely an acquaintance. She was the closest female friend I had left. We actually got closer after high school, contrary to most other post-graduation relationships. I spoke with her six days before she died, and still have messages from her on my cell. She was one of the few people who never pissed me off, rarely got on my nerves, always could be depended on. She was one of the most extraordinary people I knew because she was crazy but not reckless, always had something outrageous to say and usually didn't give a damn about who looked at her sideways. Maybe the accident happened because she started to give a damn.

Most of my close friends in high school came back to town for the funeral, so we had our own strange reunion that week. Sort of like the Big Chill, about fifteen years too early. If anything good comes out of this, maybe we'll all keep in touch.

I spent a week back home trying to get my head together, and when I came back, the job search seemed to have taken care of itself in my absence. I came back to three (three!) offers for jobs and internships. I actually got an internship at Interaction, so now when I go online I can actually spend some time doing fun stuff like answer e-mail and read newspapers rather than devote all of my time to the job listings.

So in the span of two weeks, things have changed fairly dramatically, for better or worse. I'm still adjusting to this new normal, and now that things are at least interesting again, I'll try to be more diligent in letting you know how things progress. One of the things I'm going to do with my newly re-structured free time is scan a bunch of pictures of Carolyn. Updates to follow....

Robyn