Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

(Sleep schedule all scrozzled, largely due to pain waking me up before I've slept enough. Woke up in time to see the interception and touchdown that eliminated the possibility of a last-minute tie and clinched the win for the Ravens; fell back asleep; have alternated sleep and wake since.)

I wonder how often other people contemplate their own deaths. It's something I think about often enough to notice how often I think about it, but I don't know whether it's a lot compared to other people.

Sometimes I think a really flashy death -- a "people will talk about this for ten years and mention it in trivia contests for fifty more" death -- would be cool. Like attempting some sort of Evel Knievel stunt at an advanced age and dying in midair from a brain aneurysm but having done everything so perfectly up to that point that the vehicle comes down intact and it's obvious the landing didn't kill me. Or a death with just enough warning to have a "famous last words" scene with people important to me nearby, so I can make my last words some absolutely horrible pun, so bad that even those most sorrowed by my passing cannot help giggle at the thought of the moment of my passing. (And if I can't come up with something good enough in time, my fallback is, "The money's under the ...").

I really like the idea of making those who would most want to cry have to laugh at the same time. Gives me the power, even in death, y'know? I like to make people laugh. (Yeah, the toppish side of being a performer: "I get to direct what you feel when you're in my audience".) It also seems like a way to say "[Expletive] You!" to Death.

But most of the time I think I want to die suddenly, unexpectedly, and painlessly in my sleep at an advanced but still somewhat active age (I want to still be playing guitar, even if not still on stage); a large, round number like 101. Better yet, I'd like to live to be 137, simply because that way I will get to witness the entire 21st Century, but I don't think that's all that likely. But I like the idea of seeing an entire calendar-century because it has a sense of "completeness" to it and a line-up-with-history/calendars round-numberness to it. Nonetheless, I think that if I make it to 101 I shall not feel cheated. (If I die at a much more reasonable age, such as 80 or 90, I shall probably complain that I wasn't finished yet.) Because of my religious faith, I have no fear of death itself (though many ways of dying still frighten me, and I'll certainly react with appropriate fear in the moment when my life is threatened -- my survival instinct is intact), but still, I do fear not having done what I want to have done, and I want to enjoy as much of this life -- and the people in it -- as I can before I go.

Of course, having written that, it would be terribly ironic if I were to get crushed by a semi tomorrow on my way to a gig a la Harry Chapin. Let us hope that wishing in print for a long life does not tempt fate to give me a premature death instead! (If it matters, I'm not counting on growing old; I simply desire to live long enough to do so appropriately. (As opposed to feeling twenty years older than I am due to the fibromyalgia, which doesn't count.) Hmm. Now the friends most inclined to worry about me are going to wonder whether something tragic has happened every time I'm late to arrive someplace in the next few weeks. I'm going to have to make more of an effort than usual to get to things on time for a while.)

Writing this down has reminded me of a conversation at a party when I was a teenager. A handful of us were talking about methods of suicide, and someone asked what way we thought was coolest. Some picked painless (freezing to death), others dramatic (40 story building, 38 story rope). I don't remember whether it was I or someone else who got the last word by saying, "Entropy. I'd choose to commit suicide by entropy. When the Universe dies of heat-death, it'll take me with it." I think that was me, but I'm not sure.

I'm not scared of what happens after I die, but I'm as concerned as anyone else about dying before I'm ready to. And I'm so disorganized, I'll probably never be ready. I can see myself at 95, telling doctors, "No, no, you have to keep me alive long enough to finish writing this symphony and then I have to organize the recipes I wanted to pass down to my grand-nephews, dammit!" *sigh*