We're in Indiana right now for Amy's grandma's funeral.  This funeral has been just about the saddest thing ever.  Oddly, we're not sad for her, because she was 93 years old, totally at peace with death, and she lived a good full and Christian life.  She knew where she was going when she was done, and she welcomed it.  We are sad for ourselves, though, because we've lost the privilege of spending time with one of the nicest and genuinely caring ladies I've ever met.  We're sad for our family, too, because they miss her too.  And there's really nothing sadder than older ladies crying, and there were a lot of those at the funeral.

The whole funeral thing is odd to me, but that's a post for another year.  The weird thing though is that when people are made up in the caskets, I can never really connect them to who is now gone.  To me, people in caskets never look like their living selves.  Amy's grandma looked, to me, exactly like the other three grandmas I've lost.  Hearing the stories about her life, though.... that was heartbreaking, and Amy and I ended up blubbering messes.

I ended up getting my haircut a couple days ago, and it's quite a bit shorter than it's been for a while... probably since I moved to Ohio.  I did it for three reasons: one, because my hair was getting on my nerves.  I got it cut short for a couple other reasons, though... Amy likes my hair shorter, and Amy's dad REALLY likes my hair shorter.  I felt like it would be nice to let Amy's dad (a very conservative fellow) have a son-in-law that looked a little less like a hippie while he was introducing me to obscure family members at his mom's funeral.  I know that in a lot of ways, this goes against everything I'm about, not changing myself for anyone, etc.  But as Amy eloquently reminded me at one point this week, sometimes making a temporary alteration like this is fine if it has tremendous other benefits.  I think this is one of those cases.

Now, in order to make up for being gone from Akron for so long, I've gotta poop out a grant proposal that's due today.  Mary Lou said she'd print it and turn it in as long as I email it to her.  I really want to do nothing more than stare into space all day, but I need the money to visit New Orleans for my research.

I'm still physically sick.  I'm tired of being sick.  I'm tired of snot, and I'm tired of achyness.  I also hope this gets better.

We'll be back in Akron on Saturday night.  We might be getting together with various Indiana people while we're here today.  We'll see.