Today someone asked me why I was so nervous about moving and I said, "Gee, I don't know. Maybe the fact that I AM MOVING TO A FOREIGN COUNTRY ALL ALONE FOR A JOB I'VE NEVER DONE BEFORE. YA THINK?"

My room looks like a truck carrying moving supplies and laundry hampers collided with one carrying the entire contents of Urban Outfitters, including the jewelry, into the window of a library. Tomorrow everything goes into boxes, and I will cry. I will, just because it's so REAL, and so SOON, and WHY AM I TAKING SO LITTLE WITH ME? What about Hairybutt Bananapants, the gorilla Emilie gave me? And the 2-foot-tall inflatable Jager bottle from the flea market? And my Jesus action figure? Who will read the Oregon newspaper from 1953 that lines the bottom of my dresser drawers? Who will dust off my Coors Light bucket and my giant blue clown sunglasses?

Sad times.

Sometimes things move too fast for you to get ahold of them and decide how you feel. Two days ago my sister and I, having some R&R in Palm Springs, heard that our Grandmother Hancock (our step-dad, Jack's mom) was missing. As in, had gone to the grocery store and hadn't come back by the next morning. Didn't know quite what to think about that, but nobody seemed enormously worried, so we weren't either. Then, they'd found her. She'd gotten in a car accident and was very disoriented. All this is by phone from my mom and Jack, who are two of the most practical, stoic down-players in the universe, so we still didn't quite know what was going on.

I'm blabbing because I still don't know exactly what I feel.

This morning my Jacky called to say that they had decided to take his mom of life support. She was going to die. Today. As in, this very exact same day that is happening right now.

I'm writing this as I'm waiting for my sister. She's driving up from Pacific Grove and we're going to drive up to Sacramento, to the hospital where Thalia Hancock is on life support, with my dad (one of them, at least) at her side. So we can say good-bye.

And though I never knew her very well, and we all thought she was so kooky (because she was), and I won't know what to say to her, she was important to the man I love more than anything, the man who has been there for me through everything like a true father, the man who has loved me and raised me like his own child. And for that, I'm going to mourn her deeply.

So good-bye, Thalia. Thank you.