Went home this weekend. Everyone who could be was there, of course.

I picked up Adam and Jenna in the Cities and soon enough was on the biggest misadventure I'd ever had in the Deathtrap. We missed three turns, mainly because I was talking to Adam, who I rarely see these days, and not paying attention to the road.

These accidental detours added another two hours to the drive, a possible counterargument to the old claim that time harmlessly enjoyed is not time wasted. Needless to say, everyone had the right to mock my driving for the weekend.

Surreal coming home for something like this.

I was supposed to die first, you know. We'd agreed on that. Tragic auto accident at 24, in the Deathtrap of course. Manney, inspired by a scene in Requiem for a Dream, chose drug deal gone wrong at 27.

I rush to note that we were just joking around. That was way back in the day, when 24 seemed impossibly remote. Twenty-seven was the kind of thing you could joke about. And Manney loved inappropriate jokes, if you were clever about it.

So this weekend was strange. I kept wanting to make jokes, fill the void with the kind of stuff I'd imagine Manney might have said. At the Andersons, for example, we made fun of his driving. It's all so ridiculous, that he's just suddenly gone.

It's been hard to write anything since I found out about Manney, and I can't really think of anything to say about the service that would be appropriate. I think Manney would have appreciated not only what people said but how they said it. Graham read some of what he'd written on his webpage. Manney's sister called him easy-on-the-eyes.

The worst speaker was of course the pastor, the person who knew Manney the least. Manney was just one-of-a-kind, and you had to know him for the words to fit. Maybe it's just the atheist in me talking, but her sermon sounded hollow.

For the rest of the weekend everyone was together again, doing the stuff we always do, talking about Manney like he's in the next room. There were a lot of people using the present tense, slipping into it without thinking. And drifting into normal conversation only to fall silent suddenly and for a while.

And there were moments like in the movies. Looking out the window at Jane's, watching all the people in gray smoking by the shore. I wish it had been warmer, I would've climbed the middle school again. Had an urban adventure.

I don't know if I'll ever do so many typical Brainerd things again; its sad purpose notwithstanding, so much of the weekend felt completely routine. We went to Rafferty's Pizza for dinner on Saturday and saw The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy later that night, for free of course. And Sunday morning we all ate at Perkins before heading back down.