Being largely out-of-town for more than a week does leave a feed addict like me with, well, quite a backlog. I must say, I wielded a pretty strong scythe to get down to zero this time, but I’m there now. Sadly, NNW still doesn’t do this as swiftly as FeedLounge did. I miss FeedLounge’s Ui but not its craptacular performance.

The best thing about resolving not to Really Try and Read all this stuff? I missed almost all the early bitching about the iPhone. [Yes, based on what I saw in the Keynote, I'll buy one; I'm already a Cingular customer, so I'm used to their rates and it's not going to be a huge cost increase over my Treo 650. Plus, it'll be something other than my Treo 650, which is a good thing. I keep waiting for Unit #3 to die on me.]

“I kept reading your updates from the road and was thinking, ‘Man, he’s got to be really tired.’ ” And, well, I guess that I am, in a lot of ways. But I’m ready to get back to things.

Other than, of course, getting back up with my alarm clock in the morning. I haven’t been beholden to my alarm clock for a week-and-a-half. The last time I could say that, I was a college student home for the summer after his first year off at school. Phew.

There’s so much that I want to write about the last couple of weeks that I just assuredly won’t do, because … well, some of it’s really personal, and some of it’s just hard to put into words, and on both scores, navigating those shoals usually leaves me without the desire to post at the end. But man … I have been sustained by your concern for me. It’s been a blessing.

Back to the grind in six hours.

Well, I am home. Feels pretty good to be here, even if I feel like crap. My ear’s getting better, albeit slowly … and it’s definitely time for some ibuprofen and another round of drops. More later when I have had some more sleep…

Well, we had the funeral and committal yesterday in Delphos. Funerals are for the living, and we certainly needed it, even if we didn’t want it.

Afterwards, we started making the drive back, having decided to do so late on Wednesday night. Unfortunately, my right ear started to bother me yesterday—another blasted ear infection. I figured that I could make it until I got home—which I would do today [on Friday], a day early, because we’re only seven hours from west Tennessee—but after a couple hours of sleep, it’s obvious to me that I won’t make it that far without serious complications. My right ear canal is, unfortunately, swollen shut by this moment [0130 EST]. Unfortunately, both aren’t closed, so I can still hear the chorus of snoring Morris men in the room.

I’ve looked up a doc-in-a-box in Beavercreek, and I’ll be waiting on them to open at 0800. Joy, joy, joy.

The drive up today was largely uneventful, even if I didn’t get a good night’s sleep last night. Despite the fact that I’m the one who drove most of the way, I’m the one who’s wide ass awake right now. [I'm also the only one under 30 and the one who loves to drive, so that probably has a lot to do with it.] Despite the fact that I’d really rather not be making this trip, I’ve enjoyed the driving. The rest … well, the rest is what it is. We do what we have to do as family and the community of believers. There’s nowhere I’d rather be given the circumstances, but … I really don’t like the circumstances. [I hope that all makes sense.]

We’re going to drive down to the Dayton area tomorrow afternoon and hopefully see some old friends tomorrow night. I think we could use some friendly faces that aren’t so tired and grieving. Yes, these friends will grieve with us—look how you’ve all grieved with me—but a burden shared is a burden made a tiny bit lighter, and Lord knows that this is a very heavy burden.

Until tomorrow.

Well, the drive from Madison to Jackson was largely uneventful. Well, save for the nasty wreck on US 72 west of Tuscumbia and east of the state line: three fire trucks, five or six state troopers, and a medical helicopter with blades going full-blast, waiting for a passenger to be put on board. I slowed down, said a quick, quiet prayer, and kept on going. It wasn’t worth dwelling on, but … sadly, someone in North Alabama got some really bad news tonight.

I’m about to shut my folks’ machine down and hit the couch—Another night on a couch!? cries my back; Shut up, you! cries my brain—and get ready to drive in the morning. I want to leave at 0600, because even though Google Maps’ routing me through Indianapolis [hi, Rick] does save me an hour, I don’t know what we’ll need to do when we get to the area, and I want us to be there to help Judy [Cindy's mother] and the rest of the family do whatever’s needed.

Prayers for safe travel would be appreciated. I’m refusing to let either my father or my brother drive any.

Well, I got back to Madison about a half-hour ago. I still feel like I’m driving, but that’s probably because I only stopped once on the drive home [and then only because I needed some cough drops and my cold medicine out of the trunk].

Driving is something I’ll be doing a lot of the rest of this week: I’ll work tomorrow, then drive to West Tennessee tomorrow night. We drive to Ohio tomorrow, have the second funeral on Thursday, and then drive back from Ohio to West Tennessee on Friday. Sometime over the weekend—probably Friday, but it’ll just depend on how I feel—I’ll then drive back home to Alabama. Yes, that’s a whole lot of driving. The only way to cut any off of it would be to meet Dad and Doug in Nashville, and while I could pull that off and find a place to drop my car off, I’d rather not make Dad do any more driving than he has to at this point. We’re all pretty tired, but I’m the only one under 30.
Again, thanks to all who’ve sent notes of support. They mean a lot.

Well, Doug’s posted the plans that we have to date, so there’s not much need to repeat them here.

I want to thank all of you for the outpouring of support. It’s been a buoy in a rough storm. For those who’ve left comments of support and those who’ve written more private notes, I want to publicly thank all of you. I’ll try and respond to everyone, but as you’d expect, my time is pretty limited.

Based on the plans that we have to date, I’m going to be here in the Pine Belt through the funeral here, then drive home Monday night so I can check in with the office on Tuesday. I’ll head to my folks’ place in Tennessee late on Tuesday, where Dad, Doug, and I will head up to Ohio first thing Wednesday morning. You’ll note that Mom’s not going, and that’s just because the trip would be too physically demanding on her. [As you may or may not know, Mom had a severe stroke six years ago and simply has limited mobility.] So while we’re on the road with all that, I’d appreciate some prayers of concern for her—for her spirit certainly is willing, but her flesh is weak. So it is with all of us in our own ways.

Folks have asked how I’m doing and how Doug is doing. I’m doing pretty well; yesterday was very hard, but today’s been a lot easier. I attribute a lot of that to the outpouring of support y’all have sent. Doug is doing as well as can be expected, but presently he’s very tired. I hope that you’ll join me in a prayer for him to have some rest in this time. Cindy’s family, especially her mother, are also doing as well as you’d expect—it’s still all very much a shock and doesn’t seem real … but it is.

Enough rambling. Doug’s not the only one who needs some rest tonight. Thanks, y’all.

Evening, y’all. Thanks for all the well-wishes and heartfelt words. They mean a lot right now.

I am here in my brother’s apartment, where I’ll spend the weekend with him. Plans are still up in the air, but we should finalize things tomorrow. When I have more information for you, I’ll share it.

God bless.

It is with deep regret that I have to inform you that my sister-in-law, Cindy Morris, has died. As Doug notes, everything seemed to be improving Tuesday and Wednesday morning, and then she suffered another seizure.

Here’s what I wrote about 11:30 p.m. last night:

Father God, You have called your daughter Cindy home to be with You tonight, far earlier than my brother or any of us would have liked. In our sorrow, we find solace only in the knowledge that Your Son’s work on the Cross provides her salvation and healing. Doug and Cindy may have only been married 19 months, but in that short time, they came to know You better, as marriage is the sacrament most closely associated with salvation and how You reconcile Your children to You through Jesus. Grant us healing in Your time.

With this, I’m about out of words. Well, save for this: Doug and Cindy always express their love and affection for each other. Would that we always did so with the ones that we love. If you wish to remember Cindy and honor my brother, please be sure to remember to remind someone that you love every day of that fact. I can think of no better tribute.

Things are generally busy around here, but last night, I got a call no one ever wants to get; my sister-in-law Cindy suffered a seizure, and Doug was calling me from the ambulance on the way to the hospital. As of now, she’s still in the ICU, albeit slowly improving; at mid-afternoon, she knew roughly why she was in there, but was still pretty groggy.

As you can imagine, it’s been pretty stressful. If y’all know my brother and anything about his regular work, you know that he normally goes in to the office by 0330 to do prep for the pre-Today show at his local NBC affiliate. The timing of this could hardly have been worse, as Doug normally would have been winding down to head towards bed in another hour or so.

I’ll echo his thoughts: I’d appreciate thoughts and prayers sent his and Cindy’s way.

Well, I started coming down with a cold late last night. Joyous. I have been a one-man snot factory today. Hopefully none of my friends here picked this up from me at our gathering last night. [I was feeling kinda meh, y'all, but I thought it was a sinus infection and not a cold, and I really wanted to see everyone.]

In other news, things at work continue unabated. The week off was awesome, and I’m glad that I took it, because if I hadn’t, the crazy events of the last two days might have put me over the edge. [It's all been good, very, very good. If this business is feast or famine, well ... let's just say that we have more leftovers than you did at Thanksgiving and Christmas combined. And no refrigerator. It's cuh-razy, y'all.] As it is, my head’s still spinning, but it’s like, “Wow, this is nuuuuuuts.” In a good way.

Posting may be light while we absorb the glut and while I fight off the rhinovirus.

Out with the old, in with the new. Welcome, 2007. If you prove to be as prosperous and enjoyable as 2006 did, you will be greatly appreciated in these quarters.

I hope this little note finds you well.

Well, let me put it this way: I hadn’t taken a full week off from work since I started working full-time. Yes, that’s four-and-a-half years without much in the way of a break. [I tend to take my vacation time in one-to-three-day spurts.]

Yes, I realize just how insane this is. That’s why I was going to take a week to go out to Utah to photograph things in July, before I up-and-went to Portland instead. [And, you'll note, only took two days off from work.]

I’m not finishing 2006 like I’d hoped when I started, but at least when I hit 2007, I’ll have had a little bit of a break. [Other than the nearly 1100 miles driven.]

While I’m thinking about it and am done with my travels, let me take a stab at the cities I’ve spent time in during 2006, a la Kottke [starred cities overnighted in multiple times on non-consecutive days]:

• Madison, AL. [My current hometown, duh.]
• Detroit, MI. [Did I really not overnight anywhere in January and February? My Weblog has a better memory than I do.]
• Portland, OR.
• Nashville, TN. * [Stayed once with Brandi and Aaron, another time with Derek.]
• Powder Springs, GA. I think this makes three years in a row where I’ve enjoyed the Hollands‘ hospitality.
• Charlotte, NC. Another great night of sleep on Brandon’s couch. [No, I'm serious. That thing is awesome.]
• Jackson, TN.* I didn’t visit my folks nearly as much as they’d've liked.
• Chattanooga, TN.
• Cullman, AL.
• Calhoun, MS.* [Dad will have to confirm that they’ve actually incorporated. I think that they have, though.
• Baker, LA.
• Guin, AL.

I hope to travel more next year. I don’t know if I will.

I’m back in Alabama. Good trip, all told; given that it all involves my family, I’ll not write about much of it at all. [That's not an I'm-afraid-to-write-about-my-family thing, that's an I-know-you-don't-care thing. And if you do, you'll ask me when you see me next.] But if you want to ask here, well, the comment form’s at the bottom of the page.
Something I will mention, though, is my new obsession with M. Ward. I mean … I’ve had Transistor Radio for some time now, and I did get Transfiguration of Vincent just recently, but when did I go nuts? Well, let me tell you…

When I’m away from home, I just don’t sleep well. Part of this comes from the fact that I need some noise in my room at all times while I’m sleeping. I’ve written about this before, and I generally make this happen at home with my XM radio being tuned to some talk station [almost always ESPN Radio or WLW] with the volume down low. On the road, though, this doesn’t work, so I take my iPod nano with me. I have the lanyard for the 1G nano, and between that and a set of Griffin Ear Jams, I can sleep while wearing my iPod on the lanyard and only rarely pulling a bud out of my ear. When I wake up and find one dislodged, it’s certainly not much effort to put it back in.

So anyhow, suffice it to say that the first night had me select the “M. Ward” smart playlist that I’d put together for the iPod, and … well, it didn’t come off of that playlist the first two nights. The third night it did, only to go only to playing ToV over and over again. I … can’t get enough of this album right now. The last time I spiked on an album this hard, it was Sufjan Stevens’s Illinois. I remember reading Pitchfork’s review of Transistor Radio and reading what I then considered heresy:

His last record, 2004’s magnificent Transfiguration of Vincent is at once sprawling and intimate. It’s grown on me like strangling vines in the last year and I can play it anytime around anybody without a worry. [Transistor Radio] is just a little tiny bit less perfectly imperfect than that album, but it’s still got all the warmth and gentle disorganization of its predecessor– with a few more oomphy tracks standing in for Tranfiguration’s (sic) most introspective meditations.

Ain’t no heresy. Before mid-December, I was poised to declare Transistor Radio the best album I’d acquired in 2006. That honor will now belong to Transfiguration of Vincent. In his review of Transfiguration of Vincent, Pitchfork’s Joe Tangari writes:

Some time in 2035, I’m going to pull this album out, and it’s going to sound just as good as it does now. There’s something running through it that broadcasts timelessness and defies genre constraints– quite a feat, considering how M. Ward’s previous outings had pegged him as a modern-day alt-country troubadour, tied to tradition despite promise that suggested he might one day transcend its confines.

Exactly. I fully expect that this is an album I’ll buy five or more copies of and just give to people over the course of the next year.