edna.

My great aunt edna is dying. 

I am at a loss for most words, so i'll keep this short. 

She is a wonderful, sweet woman and has been so kind and giving. 

I am going to see her today, to tell her how i'm going to look forward to seeing her at my mom's Fourth of July party this year. 

I am going to leave a nice picture of her great great niece by her bed at the hospital. 

Know this, fellow fortysomethings: this is going to occur a lot more over the next twenty years to us. The loss and the funerals and the like. 

There is a generation turn over going on and we have to be strong, caring and respectful. 

Loss.

Facing death or the loss of a loved one has never been a thing i've enjoyed enduring, but both are as inevitable as the sun setting every day.

I am a graduate of the school of loss-as we all are- and i am of the idea that i like to remember people when they are alive, as opposed to withering away or passed on. 

This said, i want to explain here, that i have attended many an funeral and remembrance, and i have been a pall bearer as well. 

The task was quiet and extremely somber. I remember my uncle who i was commiserating as a fun loving, life living man. Yet he never really had sort or personality that i'd align my with on a social level. 

I think it was when i was delivering flowers on one fine summer morning-at 10:30- he came put of a dive bar i had been walking by and we both stopped short. 

This was the first time i had seen him outside of family functions, since i was born.

He was taken aback by seeing me kind if acted weird and be both kind of said 'hello.' 

That was the most i'd learned about him up to the age i was. 

Anyway, he left this mortal coil when i was 31?  

What has happened since i was that age-and especially in the last two years- is that Terri has seen the loss of her step grandfather and his son. 

We are losing those we love and do not know, save a photo opportunity and a quick kiss, and that's it.

Or, they seem as strange as they think you are. 

Or, they are just people like you and i.

Or, they have their own lives and fates. 

Or, we're all headed for the same fate

but we have to remember as they were alive. 

Dying and especially death are an inevitable that no one will ever escape. 

But as we have loss, we also have gain. 

I was just making an observation on how the loss of others may be perceived,and is probably perceived, by at least a few people as the plausible a way to 

perceive passes.

hike.

if...

As an idea and writing exercise, i decided to start a post 'thread' called 'if...'

I am doing this purely for fun and take a hypothetical situation, examine it and put it back on the shelf.

This 'if..' is: if i came into 100 million dollars.

The first thing i would do is hire an accountant and a lawyer. Both will be invaluable to my needs now and into my future.

I would then buy out of my current phone account. I would purchase two pay as you go phones, on for my self and one for Terri.

I would give my new number only to immediate family, the lawyer and accountant.

I would then rent or purchase a smaller sized recreational vehicle, and begin my (our) second trip across this great land. 

The reason is that i wanted to do this again and to look for cities or towns that i would but a condo to live in and to use when i needed. 

I would spend my time going to these places over and over until bored. 

After a three to six month hiatus, we would return home.  I would then rent a good sized hall or eatery, invite all of the rest of my family ( our immediate families would be taken care of indefinitely) and ask that they bring any statement of debt (i.e.: mortgage, car payment) that i would allow a ONE TIME PAYMENT of that debt.

I would also set up a charity or foundation in my name.  I would try to bring good music back to the area i live in and would encourage art and music for children in need. 

If i had 100 million dollars, i would be wise and compassionate. 

Visuals 8.

Visuals: insidious, true detective, cabin fever, star trek: deep space nine. 

Audio: swans, off!, john coltrane, hendeka, kondor. 

Reading: Recombo DNA, Star Trek: Enterprise- The Romulan War. 

Serious.

Here is a merry go round. It keeps going around and around. It's colorful lights and music add to the fun you'll have on the merry go round. 

But underneath is a grind of oiled gears. Underneath is the dust and detritus that

keeps the fun running. 

Those beautiful woods, gardens and flower patches you admire as you go for a stroll through?

They would not exist without the death, decay and rot that allows them to live.

In India, when a body is given to the river, as per ritual, the body sinks at the mouth of the river.  Said mouth of the river has one of the most succulent crabs this side of The Chesapeake. 

 I hope you are seeing the connection. 

Now, i am a serious person. I really like to  think about current, past and future choices and situations that i am involved in. I enjoy deep music and am in avoidance of 'small talk.'  This makes me an marginal person of interest to most. Those i do know, i can start up the same conversation that was left off upon at last interaction. 

This being said, those who are happy go lucky, easy going or are so completely oblivious are ones who think that someone such as my self as off putting, odd or 'rotting' their happiness or bliss.

I have found little or no company in the truly happy. 

They scare me. 

It makes me think that something underneath their veneer is so rank, so wretched that no totem of cheer could hide. 

I forget the quote or who said it, i even tried to find it.  It is: 'Only the serious people can laugh.'

I interpret this as: only people who have gone through pain, loss or suffering and have come up from those depths are allowed to laugh.'  We have earned it. 

We are the ones who have suffered the rot and stagnant pond of despair, depression, loss and any general malaise you can muster. 

If you are reading this and think that i'm depressed or upset, then stop. 

This isn't for you, because you've never had your nose in shit.  

Visuals 7.