Kyle's funeral was today. I don't think the actuality of his death really finally hit me until I was driving away from the service--you know, the real weight of it (listening to Lucero and Flogging Molly while I was driving did not help matters). Seeing so many faces from the past, some of them even major figures in my life at one time or another, brought down an avalanche of memories I had almost totally forgotten about. It's been kind of hitting me in stages all night.

Today was just all-around surreal. Running errands this morning in my funeral attire was sort of a shocking reminder of how differently people treat you based on the costume you're wearing. I got hit on by the snotty chick at my bank who usually just gives me shitty looks when I'm in there. Old ladies randomly walked up and started conversations with me in the supermarket (one of whom went on a 15 minute diatribe about the Kennedy dynasty, and what a bunch of jag-offs they all were). Everyone and their mother were calling me "sir," and the entire world seemed bent on being ridiculously polite to me all of a sudden. It's pretty bizarre how differently people respond to a pair of dress slacks and a tie. People are so amazingly bigoted in such small and subtle ways.

Cranking the weirdness factor for the day up even further, I stopped by my old high school, which is in the same part of town as the funeral, to see if one of my old teachers was around. Given the context of the day, I think the English language pretty much completely fails when it comes to describing the feeling I had walking those hallways again; weird just doesn't even begin to touch it. And to top it off I saw a girl I know on the cover of Guitar World magazine!

I hung out with April and Jess for a while after the service. That was really cool, and cheered me up for a while, but today has just been one long super-gigantic mindfuck. Kyle was one of the good ones. It really sucks that he's gone.

I really fucking hate funerals.