Popocuffs

Yesterday I went to the pie shop and happened to be wearing an Animation Show shirt. They were out of the pie I wanted, and there was a quick chat with the girl at the register.

Her: Sorry, we're out of those pies, but that's an awesome shirt! Are you an animator? I love animation!

Me: No, but have you heard of Don Hertzfeldt?

Her: No.

Me: Rejected?

Her: No... can you write that down for me? <grabs a piece of receipt paper>

Me: Sure! <writes "Don Hertzfeldt, Rejected"> Definitely check him out.

And then I walked out.

Sorry it wasn't a question, but I just wanted to share the story of how I could have slipped a girl my number yesterday, but I told her about Don Hertzfeldt instead. Also, there was a pie shop involved.

I realize I gave the pie shop girl "Rejected" for accessibility's sake, but I just want you to know "It's Such a Beautiful Day" is definitely my favorite.

I was just thinking, "man a bag of wine sounds pretty trashy" but then I realized boxed wines are just the same thing but with extra packaging.

My grandmother passed away earlier this year, and we had one of those "last chance to say goodbye" moments.

On behalf of my family and anyone else who has had the same, thank you for that opportunity.

Talking about it is definitely key. There's such a mess of emotion when it happens that you'll wreck yourself if you keep it all in.

We found a heartbeat last year, and then lost it at around 8 or 9 weeks (I'm actually not sure -- it was the third OB visit). We were so excited that we had just started announcing to close friends and relatives.

...And then we had to un-announce to everyone and suddenly we found out how many of our friends had gone through something similar and just didn't talk about it because they didn't want to be downers, which opened up some pretty heavy, but productive, conversations.

At 8 or 9 weeks our baby was just a little bean, so I can only imagine we only felt a fraction of how you felt, and even then it surprised me how much it affected us. It triggered the "get ready for baby" process of figuring out finances, building out the baby room, etc. -- we were creating this future, and all of a sudden it became an alternate timeline that spun off without us. Sometimes I think about the alternate versions of us (plus one) and hope they are doing well.

Finding out that we were not even close to alone was a huge relief because I just kept digging through what we did, trying to find what caused it. Was it that thing we ate? Maybe because she picked up that heavy book that one time? That stupid Chinese superstition? The self blame is crushing, and talking it through with loved ones was a huge help.