Click images for desktop size: "Brushed Metal" I took my regular day off today, to the dismay of my bosses who really had no choice but to agree.
Its not much of a day off. I had to go to sleep early so I could go and be bled . . . I wish they use leeches, it would have been cooler and a little less disgusting. They just take a lot of blood venal and arterial, and they take it in all these tubes and from all these locations. It comes to just short of a pint and always leaves me woozy.
And it left me walking in the rain.
There was a movie or a comedy skit where someone says, “I know I'm getting old because instead of the sports section the first part of the paper I read is the obituaries.”
I didn't claim it was a good joke.
Death always makes some people giggle. Its why we have horror movies.
It always makes me think of when I was about 16. A couple of friends, another Dave and Mark, dragged me to go mountain climbing. El Capitan, the Salathe Wall. Took us three days.
On the second day the climb wasn't being as challenging as my friends would have wanted it so we decided to do a couple of pitches free, just so we could have some time for self expression, I guess.
So I was soloing up a pitch and got into trouble. It was a flaky wall with no cracks and the flacks I was using for hand holds gave way, as in fell a thousand feet or so to the ground.
I remember thinking their fall was interesting.
It was about the same time I realized that the only thing keeping me from following the little chips was the three fingers I had clawed onto another higher chip. And that I was just hanging there, feet dangling held by the friction of my chest and three fingers.
I thought, “well, I'm gonna die.”
I guess my life flashed before my eyes. I liked it and decided then I wasn't going to die.
I remember it hurt a lot and at times I was thrashing and clawing like a maniac.
I wouldn't have wanted anyone to see that. I wasn't afraid so much as I just wanted to keep living to see what would happen next. Just to see if I could get up that 12 feet of wall and to the next little crack/ledge.
I made it, of course, then it would make a better story if I hadn't made it.
About an hour later I met up with my two friends. We all decided doing it free (rock climber for no protection) made for a better rush.
But I'm telling that story because I don't like people dying. Even people who I've only met briefly.
For purely selfish reason too.
Forget the sadness and the condolences and the anger at someone I know passing away.
What bothers me most is that each person's death takes something from me. It makes my world that much smaller. I'm afraid that one day the world will become to small for me and my puppy and I'll just be squeezed out.
Selfish and unreasonable but at the bottom of everything I feel about losing someone, there is always that.

When I got home from the clinic I had a nice lengthy conversation with my puppy's breeder. She had surgery and was full of pep! I liked that. I liked hearing about dogs and my puppy's family travails.
It was the opposite of death.

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