Dear Dad,

I'm sorry I haven't written to you in a while. I could say it's solely because writing to you makes me cry and when I'm having a decent night I don't really want to think about the fact that you're gone, but that would not be completely true. It's also because the new season of American Idol has begun.

Oddly, I still feel like I can't live without you, though I've been doing exactly that for one month and eight days now. I believe this is the longest I've ever gone without seeing you and man, it already feels like forever. I can't imagine how I'll feel a month from now or a year from now or ten years from now. I can't imagine it will ever be easy. I miss you very much. The list of things I want to tell you just keeps getting longer and longer.

I believe the last time I wrote to you, I was getting ready to go wedding dress shopping with all of my favorite girls. That day was fun, but it wasn't until last Friday that I found and purchased the dress of my dreams. Since the day I got engaged, I've been hearing that I will know which dress is "the one" as soon as I try it on. Now, I had tried on A LOT of dresses (or at least what seemed like a lot to me, probably 25-3o of them) and, though several were gorgeous and fit me very well, I felt pretty indifferent about all of them. I hated to be the annoying bridezilla who puts dresses on her wish list and then decides she doesn't want them and goes in with a whole new list of fourteen more dresses to try on...and that's who I was becoming. But Friday, with Christina and Red along, I found THE ONE. I cried when I tried it on. I think the tears were a combination of pure joy, relief about finally finding THE ONE, excitement about marrying Nick, and sadness that you won't be there to see me wear it. Speaking of which, Mom almost accidentally bought a mass for you on October 10th, because it's the Saturday evening closest to your birthday. Yoses, you almost had to miss a mass for yourself to be at my wedding! Or maybe God would have shared a little bit of that omnipresence with you. I don't know how all that stuff works.

Speaking of mass in honor of you, Red and I went up to Tower this weekend to attend one...well, that and to spend a little birthday time with Mom. Home without you there is so much...well, dumber, I guess. It still doesn't seem real that you're gone. Gooty is doing well, though obviously missing the shit out of you. I think she was pretty excited to have us home. She woke us up at 5:30 the one morning we spent up there. She tried every trick in the book to get our asses out of bed. She licked her chops, thumped her tail against the bed, shook her ears, scratched her ears to bang her foot against the floor, knocked her head against the bed. I ignored it because, hello! 5:30am on a Saturday is made for sleeping! Red, being the softy that she is, fed the affectionate yellow ball of fur and took her outside to relieve herself. Goots then graciously allowed us to sleep until 8:00.

Red and I left immediately after mass to head back to Duluth because Neil was going to be in town and wanted to go out for a couple of beers. The night was fun. We met up with a bunch of people from high school and Nick and a couple of his buddies even came out for a while. As you may have seen from up there, and probably would have guessed even if you didn't see it, shit got out of control. I'd been worse, but it still wasn't good. I lost my camera, along with the memory card that had all the pictures of my wedding dress on it. Oh well. In a successful effort to put things into perspective, I have convinced myself that this isn't really a big deal. Material possessions can be replaced and, though I have a few pictures on there that perhaps can't be replaced, they can be recreated in time.

Today is Mom's birthday. Don't worry; I got her some licorice. I talked to her after work and she said Mike's family was heading up to make dinner for her: hamburgers on the grill. Well, I was so damn jealous that I ran to the store and bought some hamburgers and buns of my own. Nick just cooked them up on the grill and they were mmm, mmm, delicious. We also had ketchup chips, which I don't believe you ever tried before you died and that, Fahj, is a tragedy in and of itself. I tried them for the first time the night of your aneurysm, when Red accidentally bought them from the vending machine outside the waiting room. What a happy accident!

Today is also inauguration day and it doesn't break my heart to know you're missing that. In fact, I'm having some difficulty not losing my lunch whenever the tv is on. As you well know, I didn't vote for Obama. In fact, this past November was the first time I ever voted and I was very adamantly pro-McCain. So, yeah, I was a little disappointed when Obama won. Having said that, I support him and hope to be pleasantly surprised. I can't take all of this people-weeping-in-the-streets shit though. It's only because he's black and, let's face facts, he's only half black. He was raised by his white grandparents. The color of his skin really shouldn't matter anyway. So, I'll be happy when all this inauguration hoopla is behind us and he gets his chance to show us what he can do. I'm actually sort of excited about that. What's done is done and there's no use bitching and whining about the election results now. It's time to be positive and make the best of it. And if he sucks as bad as you expected him to? It's only four years.

Nick and I booked our honeymoon trip today. We are going to Antigua, which is really exciting. It's been a long time since I've traveled anywhere that requires me to have a passport. If it's anything like the pictures, it promises to be beautiful, potentially one of the most relaxing weeks of my life. In fact, this winter has been so awful (snow, horrible cold, repeat) that I find myself staring longingly at those beachy pictures, regretting the fact that we didn't book the honeymoon for before the wedding...say, next week. People would understand that, right? Who goes on a honeymoon in October?! October in Minnesota is beautiful!

Nick just headed to his parents' house for a little bit, so I'm going to seize this opportunity to eat some ice cream and do some reading in the tub. As tempting as it is to tell you I hope everything is going well, I know that you are deliriously happy....and I'm happy for you.

Love,
Angie