So there it was.
White. Bright. Practically dewy with freshness, dated Monday, December 8 2008 (I quadruple-checked the year)(which the literal-minded will note was not even technically the case in my time zone when I encountered it) sitting there on my monitor for all the world as if it were a regular article waiting patiently to be read, with a perky, amusing author bio in the sidebar looking as normal as all get out.
TMN Contributing Writer Leslie Harpold is a writer and designer with a long list of publications she’s marred with her work. She is working on a novel and dreams alternately of an über urban or ultra rural future, as she is not one to do things by halves. After misspending her 20s in New York City, Leslie now lives in Grosse Pointe, Mich. She makes pie crust from scratch.
Only, it wasn’t.
Normal.
Leslie Harpold, you see, has been dead for exactly two years today. [thanks to Wendie for the correction; I had it at one year. Freakouts are so fresh!] I remember her death particularly, because for several years friends had been telling me how much I, the Christmas nut, would love her annual online Advent Calendar. Which I’m sure I would have, only by the time I finally clicked around to it December 14th of 2006, it was frozen at the 7th. Which date it has been frozen on ever since, because December 7th was the last full day she was alive. She was found by friends several days after her death, in part because of curiosity generated by the failure to update her famous Advent Calendar.
So, naturally, the appearance of a brand-new and highly chipper-sounding article by the aforesaid deceased, most particularly exactly two years after her death and seasonal at that, rather freaked me out.
Mind you, it’s not the first time someone has blogged from beyond the grave.
I just wish they could manage it without:
- freaking me out
- making me feel even guiltier about my work ethic.
raincoaster 
Well…two years after her death, actually. And yes, a little creepy. I once received an email from a dead relative that was caught up in cyber-space for three days.
Ah, thanks. I’ll edit it. I get a little punchy when I see new articles from dead people. Talk about productive!
There will be a problem when I shuffle off this mortal coil and become extinct. Currently I have pre-published posts extending out over some of the next 70 days – – –
Not that intend falling off the perch in that time, but one never knows what stray asteroid is heading our way.
Indeed, I always had a superstitious faith that autoposting meant I wouldn’t die until the post was up. Imagine my shock to realize my error!
Down at the bottom of the post, it says it was originally published in 2002. No so beyond the grave. Quit trying to freak me out.
“Ah do declare there should be no tax without repree-sentation” [my real name has always been Abe Lincoln] hic
I didn’t get that far. I was too freaked out. And besides, you’d think they’d update her bio to include the news she’s dead!