Playing Catch-Up

Did everybody get to see the cool stops on the tour last week while I was gone? On Tuesday, Jake at Generation Q wrote a lovely piece about how we met, though she made the erroneous claim that I never actually swear in person. LIES! DAMNED LIES, I TELL YOU! Then on Wednesday, my friend and partner in sex shop crime Rose Hughes did a fun post and a giveaway (now closed). Thursday was Janice Ryan from Better Off Thread - she's an amazing designer and teacher whom I've admired from afar for a long time, so when she agreed to be on the tour I was very excited. She even complimented my quilting, which automatically means we are friends for life. Then we had my dear friend Flaun Cline on Friday, except it wasn't Friday, I  think it was Saturday or Sunday because life happens—and believe me, I know this as much as anyone—and she wrote about farts. Specifically, my farts. She threatened to do this and she followed through, which just goes to show you what you can accomplish when you set your mind to it. Flaun is truly a role model for us all.

So, we are starting the final week of the Endless Book Tour of 2013 and 2014, and I will let you know of the final posts as they go live. Then we will get back to the usual programming of quilty whining and dick-rolling.

And again, I do want to thank everyone who wrote to me, commented here, and commented on FB about the loss of my mother. Her death has hit me very hard, but as I go on, I want to remember the one thing about my mom that everybody who knew and loved her has said about her—she was funny as hell and loved a good laugh. My mom and I always laughed together whenever we talked, and my siblings and I have always said that we got our sense of humor from her. The last time I spoke to her was on Christmas Day, and she was so ill. She was hard to understand and much of what she said didn't make a lot of sense, and her hearing was bad and she couldn't understand everything I said. But still, we laughed, because that is what we always did.

I struggled for a long time with wanting to be a humorist, because I had convinced myself that it wasn't a good enough or noble enough goal. But I have come to understand that laughter is the light that shines through everything. It makes the worst things in life bearable; it lets you know that even when you feel you are at the depths of sadness, there is hope. It doesn't even matter what you are laughing about—a stupid pun or some particularly clever and witty repartee—it is just the act of laughter itself that makes you feel that there is still something in the world to feel good about. That's an incredible thing, and nothing to scoff at.

The last moments I had with my mother and my brother were spent laughing. The least I can do in their memory is to keep the laughter going. Thanks for laughing with me.