Hi Darling Ones,

On Saturday I logged into Facebook, something I don’t do too often, to find a woman I graduated high school with had died.

The Blaine class of 1990 has lost many Bengals in the 33 years since we graduated. This one, though, hit me hard.

I didn’t know Becki well, which is not surprising since our class included 650+ kids. However, I knew of Becki since she was a little person. I’m sure she knew of me too, since I was a giant.

Unusual height was not the only thing Becki and I had in common. We both had strokes.

Becki’s stroke killed her. Mine is simply annoying me to within an inch of my life. I’ve never been so grateful for an annoyance in my life.

It’s hard to reckon with how both Becki and I suffered a stroke and had such different outcomes. I’m typing about mine on the Internet while her friends and family plan her funeral.

Why was I spared? How did I get so lucky? Who knows? Since I’m pretty nihilistic, I don’t think there’s a reason and if there is, it wouldn’t matter anyway.

The world is random and often meaningless, and as my new PT said, sometimes brains are jerks.

Becki’s brain was jerkier than mine.

Bleh.

In other news, Sister #2 arrived a week ago for a surprise visit. She’s here until the first. She’s taking me to my 384 appointments. This is barely an exaggeration. I have various physical and occupational therapies four times a week. More on this later.

She’s also helping me declutter Supergenius HQ. Yesterday I donated 28 unused notebooks. That doesn’t count the 10 or so I kept.

She also put a new toilet in my downstairs bathroom to replace my squatty potty. It’s ginormous and I love it! Today she’s doing the bathroom in my bedroom.

Anyway, I’ll tell you more about what’s happening next week.

Grateful I’m here to annoy you too,
Jodi