Is LJ borked? It looks borked to me

I suspect that LiveJournal has made some kind of change that doesn't jive with my current LJ template, because my journal page and my flist both look really peculiar. I need to figure out how to reconfigure my template into something more compatible. Either that, or it may really be time to decamp elsewhere--which would make me immeasurably sad, given how long I've been here and how much work I've invested in my journal. Will investigate.

Thoughts?

A time to be born and a time to die

It's been that kind of week-and-a-half. I posted briefly about the death of my brilliantly gifted cousin St. Martins VP Matt Shear while I was in New York. While I was traveling, we all received the wonderful news that mrdorbin and southplains became the fathers of a beautiful baby girl. And then this week, in rapid succession, we lost both the brilliant and gentlemanly author Frederik Pohl and the brilliant, ebullient, and fierce author and author's advocate Ann Crispin. When mortality hits, it hits hard.

I'm grateful to have known, even at a warm-acquaintance distance, Ann Crispin. My introduction to her work was inauspicious. I received her book, Yesterday's Son, as a gift from my cousin Eric, who wasn't fond of her as a person (they were coworkers) but who knew I was a Star Trek fan. She autographed the book to me for him, nevertheless, but he colored my initial perception of her with his presentation. When I finally met her, she was a large, enthusiastic, energetic presence, and I liked her despite my conditioning. That conditioning rapidly dissipated. We were ever close? No. But because her energy was infectious and her smile immediate, every meeting was like meeting an old friend all over again. The last time I saw her, I ran into her completely unexpectedly at the Museum of Natural History in NYC a couple of Christmases ago. We chatted quickly and with great energy in that massively confused crowd, and I regretted that the visit was so brief. I'm glad to have had it at all.

I met Fred Pohl at the very first Foolscap. He was there as one of the two guests of honor. (The other was Ginjer Buchanan, creating an automatic theme for the weekend.) He was gracious to everyone, generous with his time, and he dazzled this fan, who had read his novel Gateway (and the other Heechee books) very early on in her history as an SF reader.

I haven't said much about Matthew's death because it's a complicated thing for me. Matt was my first cousin and, like all my cousins but one, older than me--some by a decade and more. As adults, the age difference shouldn't have made a difference, but as children, 6 years was an uncrossable chasm. And so, growing up, I suspect he always thought of me as a kid, and I always thought of him as part of the older-cousin cohort. It meant that our relationship was well-intentioned but not close. The peculiar thing is that it might have been and never was. He was already an officer at Bantam when I started in publishing. I never talked about our relationship with coworkers because I wanted my career to be my own, and I didn't spend any time with him for the same reason. But given that we both loved books and the business, we might have been closer. It just . . . never happened. My family had started to disintegrate after my mother's death. With the death of Matt's father (my mother's brother) it shattered completely. Once I left for Seattle, my only ties were my brother and my cousin E--and that's pretty much how it stayed. So when I got the news of Matthew's death from a publishing friend--and I happened to be in New York--I knew I had to go to the funeral to pay my respects and try to reconnect with that side of the family.

I did not anticipate the welcome I received. My aunt dissolved into tears when she saw my brother and me. My cousin S, Matt's sister, did as well, saying that I looked about 16. I was moved in ways I hadn't expected. After the service, my aunt and my cousin and I spent hours talking. In the end, though Matt and I weren't close, he brought me back to family.

I have a lot more I want to say about all this, but I have more processing to do. I don't know how things are going to play out with that side of the family from here. I hope we can continue to be in touch. My aunt is in her early 80s and at this point I suspect her time is limited though she looks good and seems to get around well. My cousin S and I have lived very different lives, but I want to try to find some commonality with her.

Like I said, I have more thinking to do. Mortality will do that to you.