I'm one of those fuckers. I love you too, fucker. I need a hug today.

Work today was real odd. You know when I have my own personal shit I'm better at keeping things together then I am when someone else has shit that I can't control.

you loveable cynical asshole. im happy for you, been here since the very beginning, and your one of my favs here.

@mrfluke:

Thanks dude.

The Red Faction: Guerilla review waa my first stop. Then the Mortal Kombat TANG. Then every single other TANG. Then I became a lifer.

I've been crying on and off all day. Barely could go to Aikido. Giant Bomb is a great help to us working our way through life. Shit sucks, man.

Wow, thanks man. I appreciate the shout out. While unexpected, it's nice to hear I helped in some small way. You did great and have overcome a lot. You should be proud. I am.

I actually arrived in SF the day Ryan died after a weeklong road trip, so this is bizarre to me, but clearly he'll be missed. It's good that the community can come together over this, though. RIP Duder.

Though I wasn't quite as active in my keeping-up-on-being-sober-blog-thing you commented on as I should have been during the times when I wanted drink I would think, as weird as it might be, 'Fuck I can't lie in that blog and Wrighteous reads it and so if I drink and then blog then what the fuck am I doing?'. So you kept me honest and when I fell back you were there to see the wheels in my brain spin and out came 'exercise you idiot!'. You saw me through that whole process so, you might not have known it, but it was a big thing for me.

Fuck you you fucking motherfucker!

Aww. You know what all of this has brought up in me? I had a classmate in graduate school who got cancer and went through chemotherapy during school. We talked a little bit about the cancer but I didn't really know what to do. I don't remember the type of cancer it was but it was the type that survival rates were low. But she was trying because she had kids and a husband that she didn't want to leave. She even kept going to school, taking hard classes and often outperforming me. What always got me is that she tried so hard and never missed a day of class even when she would feel like shit from the treatment.

Well, I was going to graduate after that class so I was never going to see her again after the class ended (likely anyway). So knowing this, and knowing that she might die relatively soon, I wanted her to know that I really admired her. So on the last day of that class I told her even if I felt like it might be awkward. I did it because I felt it was something that I think she would enjoy hearing and I wanted her to know that, even if she isn't aware of it, I appreciated what she did and it made me want to be a better student and therapist.

I never regretted doing that and, in some ways, I wish I had made this blog before Ryan died in the off-hand chance he would read it. But you and others are still alive so, even if I couldn't tell Ryan that what he did was important to me, I can let the rest of you know.

Nicely said dude. Kinda funny how some innocuous small decisions in life can lead to some life altering situations.

fwiw I'm sorry about the times we squabbled over some things which admittedly was entirely my fault. Shit seemed stupid then and really trivial now.

Don't worry about anything dude. I'm often an intolerable jackass so I get it.

I'm not quite active enough to have forged the relationships on the site that you talk about in your post, but reading about it makes me a) want to congratulate you for your progress, despite being late in doing it, and b) share the sentiment of Ryan being special to all of us.

This community is amazing and stories like these really show why.

@negativecero:

Thanks for the kind words and for reading.