Wednesday, December 3, 2003
Met with Rodney to take pictures of the Basic Science Instruction Center for the Web site. Made a lot of progress with the student directory on the web project. Breadcrumbs are done, so is leftnav and the leftnav image. h3 headings which disappeared along the way have been restored. The login and logout logic is working. Was doing cookie rejection testing when I decided to quit for the day. Placed an order for a car cover and replacement wiper blades. Lunch at Yummy Yummy. The restaurant was packed at 1:15 pm, and the host asked if I would mind sharing a table. I said no and ended up meeting a pleasant young Taiwanese man named Roger. He's a native of Cherry Hill, New Jersey, did his undergrad at Syracuse, and is now a first-year law student in a 3-year program at Golden Gate University. We shared conversation during our meal, him having some pho and me having bun bo xao—a dish which I missed having when I lived in Seattle. It was my first time to Yummy Yummy, and if Joel or Melissa are agreeable to Vietnamese food, I think I'll ask them to join me on a return trip. My meal was about $9 after tip—a little higher than I like paying for lunch, but I didn't mind because it had been such a long time since I had such that favorite dish I enjoyed. Dinner at home with Patrick: leftovers from Ha's takeout. Ha! After dinner I cut my hair, showered, caught up on the handful of blogs I read. Today Patrick started creating a Top 100 Madonna playlist—what he says are the songs that define her. He's working chronologically, so it starts out with the 12-inch version of Burning Up followed by the True Blue Super Club Mix of Everybody. Patrick met with Erick today and confirmed what Patrick and I had guessed—he and Travis are dating. Erick gave Patrick a copy of his manuscript to read and had more questions about getting published. Last Sunday my former co-worker at Adobe John Cornicello sent me e-mail saying that Stan Henry (aka Staszek), another Adobe employee, had died. Although I couldn't say that Stan and I were very close, we did work closely together for about a year providing support for Adobe's pre-Web online services: CompuServe, AOL, and its own BBS. I could say he was my friend—we were slightly more than acquaintances but not quite close friends. And he lived in my neighborhood just down the block from me, so I'd see him on occasion that way, too. I've never been good at dealing with death, having had very few people I could say I've known to die. Indeed, these past few days I've been reading The Lovely Bones, and the book fascinates me partly because death in large respect is something foreign to me. When I was about 10 or 11 I went to Honolulu with my dad for his father's funeral, but I don't remember a great deal about it except for a tradition of burning foil paper and another tradition of walking throughout the house calling the name of the deceased to follow you when you left. I remember I got to go but my brother and sister did not because I was the youngest descendent. When I worked at Adobe, my co-worker Gail gave birth to a stillborn child, and I remember then wondering: how do you communicate or provide sympathy for that kind of grief? I didn't know what to say to her after she returned to work, but some words fell out of my mouth, and I got the pained but welcoming grimace I expected in return. Was it enough? Is anything ever enough? I never know, and I always imagine that my words will sound no different than those who had come before me and those that shall come after me—a barrage of I'm So Sorries. Would it be better to say nothing at all? My father suffered a stroke once, but I can't remember where I was at the time—I must have been away at college. My mom once threatened my dad with a knife, but again I wasn't there to witness it. That's all I can remember of having to deal with death. Incredible, isn't it? Some might call it lucky, but I cringe at that—as though all life and death were decided randomly. Stan's death surprised me because he always seemed to have so much vivacity. I can think of nothing bad anyone has ever said of him. JC relayed news of memorial gatherings for Stan, and I've already decided I won't be going, figuring or hoping that Stan would understand and permit me to remember him in my own way.