h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

How come I can't find him on hootoo? Is he gone?

Sadly, yes, he got fed up with the whole sequel to the "death threat" controversy, and left. Plus, he has been ill, and his wife is doing nursing, they're flat out dealing with all sorts of stuff. This is one hard year for our kin!

that's an understatement! Good luck making it through! I'm starting to appreciate how hard it is. An acquaintance here at school just killed himself. I good friends with his good friends, though we never directly were close, I've seen the devastation it causes among the community.

Oh, dave, I am sorry to hear about your friend... The thing is, after Empty Sky, I was amazed at how many people I met (or already knew) who told me about their friends, or family members who had killed themselves. My nephew Michael had a friend at his polytech, and my niece Annjanette has a friend who killed herself after her father died - and then a few months later, her brother OD'd (suicide or not, I don't know). There's only the mother and another sister left in that family.
It is so horrible.

yes, it is all too common, and somewhat contagious, which is what really frightens me.

In a way I can understand... At first I thought, absolutely no, never will I do that, when I saw (and felt) the consequences of Empty Sky's act. But since then, when I have felt really very down, I have understood how it's possible to *know* how people would feel, and yet to have it sort of seem unimportant, irrelevant...
Not that I am going to do that.