How to Die (or, Again with All the Dying, Already?)

I was writing a post for this coming Wednesday that included stuff about the Academy Awards® and I remembered I know/knew this dude from college who won an Oscar® for editing in 2000 and how I used to totally flirt with (mac on) his totally beautiful girlfriend back in like 1988. Then I "Googled" his old girlfriend and saw that she's on the Facebook and I opened the Facebook to "friend" her. She looks exactly the same; hasn't aged a day. I imagine this the first thing most people do on the Facebook, and that's what's great about the Facebook, you can exchange like two or four "wall postings" and move on your merry way never "talking" again. What did we do pre-interwebs?

But then I found out on the Facebook that a really, really old friend/colleague, Roger, had fucking died. That saddened me aplenty. Then, I noticed that, Holy Crackers!, another old friend, Tommy, had recently died too. I mean, what the hell?!

Then I had to delete like three people because my new/old "friend" put me at 103 "friends" and I, very specifically, have a 100 "friend" hard cap just 'cuz i'm like that. But the hard-cap-as-metaphor is somewhat salient since I did find one old real-friend but, unfortunately, kind of lost two others. I got to thinking....

I was filled with all these thoughts about these people who have recently died; what they meant and how I remember and will remember them and whatnot. And I got to thinking about how we remember people, in general. Memories become less about the stories we share about these individuals and more about that person's essence. While we can recall some of the stories with varying detail, the overall memory is a composite of many things.

Then, of course, I got to thinking about my composite; how people who knew me well or not very well would remember me. There are specific stories, there are interactions, there's essence, and there is also the pieces I've deliberately place to tell the stories about myself once I'm dead [clicky]. I mention this like every twenty-five TGA seconds, I know, but I guess my so-called "process art" is my way of telling some parts of my story to somebody in the future. It's a way for me to leave enough jigsaw pieces and Easter eggs for people to kind of understand the composite that I want them to understand. Maybe. But I realize that this is probably as good a point as any in one's life to start specifically shaping The Story by completing the puzzle, and putting down what it was all about. Now is Season 5 of LOST, I suppose.

I sometimes wonder how I will die, not in a paranoid or fearful way but just out of (morbid) curiosity. Especially when I hear weird stories like how Ania fell down the elevator shaft in Philadelphia (rendering Steve Martin's Pink Panther 2 slapstick fall through multiple levels of chimneys ironically riveting). Or like that Buffalo plane crash, where you're, one minute, just sitting around the house eating Cheetos and then BAM! So solly, Chally, you die now. Will it be wholly unremarkable and without drama - slow and quiet where no one will finds you until you start stinking up your pathetic condo building? Or will the word "irony" play a major role?

How would you rather die? Skydiving or swimming across the English Channel or from some horrible parasite contracted while hiking through the Amazon at age 70 or scuba diving in the Galapagos or something glamorously romantic like that? Or just slipping away alone in a La-Z-Boy watching in front of the TeeVee. I say the latter. Quiet, simple, no fear. But I'm sure there are those who'd disagree.

Anyway...just sayin'. Like I said, Season 5 of LOST.

RIP people who died and got me to thinking again.