Today's outlook - weird again
Jun. 5th, 2004 04:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
marenceSomeday I'll stop being surprised by the weirdness around me, and I'll be dead.
First,
Wednesday night, I went out & sang a set with Mojo Whitey. During the set, a drunken woman jumped up on stage, and told the band that there was another singer in the house, and they should have her come up and sing "At Last." The band disavowed knowledge of the song, tried to make the woman go away, and finally got her off stage by telling her to ask the friend if she knows any other blues songs. So after the next song, she hops back up with a well-developed girl pouring out of a striped halter top. This is the singer, and she croons the first words to "At Last" in that perfect American Idol cutesy vibrato, and when the band all stare at her like she's some kind of alien and again tell her they don't know the song, she askes if they know any Mariah Carey. Or Whitney Houston. Finally, the guitar players and the drummer take turns explaining that they're a blues band, if she knows any blues songs, then maybe she could sing something. Later. The two of they continued to press the case of the Idol girl - she actually DID! audition for it!!! - until I got tired of the stupidity, and told them, in very small words, that this is a BLUES band, not a POP band, and stopped just short of saying, or karaoke. I finished the set, they walked out during Stormy Monday, one of the "easy" blues songs the guitar player suggested she learn.
Yesterday's weirdness is still percolating thru my brain. My friends never fail to amuse, astound, or both, and why do complete strangers in bars start discussions with me about liquid latex? Maybe more on the current weirdness later, or maybe not. , then
My brother called me today. He said our cousin Timmy died. Now, we haven't seen Timmy (who probably hasn't had anyone outside of the family call him Timmy for 30 years) since his sister's wedding 10 years ago. My brother told me he died of "sclerosis of the liver," and that he had been waiting for a transplant but caught the flu and died. Timmy was 45.
This kind of news makes me start thinking about my mortality, and choices I've made that contribute to my longevity or lack of it. How much drinking does it take to die of liver disease at 45? How healthy would I be today if I hadn't stopped drinking the way I did in the mid-90's? How many times have I cheated death and disease by the substances I used and abused 30 years ago? Not to mention foolhardy behavior, and the fact that I'm of the generation that came of age during the pre-Aids, pre-DARE, pre-mandatory seatbelts time when warning labels were an afterthought.
Little-known fact - I, too, choked on a pretzel. When I was 2, I was in the back seat of the car, eating pretzels, and my mother said she turned around because she "didn't hear any sound coming from the back." She said I was blue, and my dad stopped the car at the edge of the road, grabbed me by my ankles, and shook me upside down until the pretzel dislodged, and I started breathing again.
I cheated death again in New Orleans - I saw a courtyard that caught my eye as we were walking down Bourbon Street. I called my family over to see it, and as we stepped up on the sidewalk, a stolen car driven by teenage joyriders crashed through the barriers, killing 9 and injuring 86. We were fine.
But now, I think about death, and instead of obsessing about it, thinking of methods and actuarial tables and pathology and fate, I instead try to glory in each day I am still alive. There's lots more weirdness to see, and be surprised by, and I think I'm going to continue my quest to watch and document the weirdness for everyone's enjoyment. Mostly mine.
First,
Wednesday night, I went out & sang a set with Mojo Whitey. During the set, a drunken woman jumped up on stage, and told the band that there was another singer in the house, and they should have her come up and sing "At Last." The band disavowed knowledge of the song, tried to make the woman go away, and finally got her off stage by telling her to ask the friend if she knows any other blues songs. So after the next song, she hops back up with a well-developed girl pouring out of a striped halter top. This is the singer, and she croons the first words to "At Last" in that perfect American Idol cutesy vibrato, and when the band all stare at her like she's some kind of alien and again tell her they don't know the song, she askes if they know any Mariah Carey. Or Whitney Houston. Finally, the guitar players and the drummer take turns explaining that they're a blues band, if she knows any blues songs, then maybe she could sing something. Later. The two of they continued to press the case of the Idol girl - she actually DID! audition for it!!! - until I got tired of the stupidity, and told them, in very small words, that this is a BLUES band, not a POP band, and stopped just short of saying, or karaoke. I finished the set, they walked out during Stormy Monday, one of the "easy" blues songs the guitar player suggested she learn.
Yesterday's weirdness is still percolating thru my brain. My friends never fail to amuse, astound, or both, and why do complete strangers in bars start discussions with me about liquid latex? Maybe more on the current weirdness later, or maybe not. , then
My brother called me today. He said our cousin Timmy died. Now, we haven't seen Timmy (who probably hasn't had anyone outside of the family call him Timmy for 30 years) since his sister's wedding 10 years ago. My brother told me he died of "sclerosis of the liver," and that he had been waiting for a transplant but caught the flu and died. Timmy was 45.
This kind of news makes me start thinking about my mortality, and choices I've made that contribute to my longevity or lack of it. How much drinking does it take to die of liver disease at 45? How healthy would I be today if I hadn't stopped drinking the way I did in the mid-90's? How many times have I cheated death and disease by the substances I used and abused 30 years ago? Not to mention foolhardy behavior, and the fact that I'm of the generation that came of age during the pre-Aids, pre-DARE, pre-mandatory seatbelts time when warning labels were an afterthought.
Little-known fact - I, too, choked on a pretzel. When I was 2, I was in the back seat of the car, eating pretzels, and my mother said she turned around because she "didn't hear any sound coming from the back." She said I was blue, and my dad stopped the car at the edge of the road, grabbed me by my ankles, and shook me upside down until the pretzel dislodged, and I started breathing again.
I cheated death again in New Orleans - I saw a courtyard that caught my eye as we were walking down Bourbon Street. I called my family over to see it, and as we stepped up on the sidewalk, a stolen car driven by teenage joyriders crashed through the barriers, killing 9 and injuring 86. We were fine.
But now, I think about death, and instead of obsessing about it, thinking of methods and actuarial tables and pathology and fate, I instead try to glory in each day I am still alive. There's lots more weirdness to see, and be surprised by, and I think I'm going to continue my quest to watch and document the weirdness for everyone's enjoyment. Mostly mine.
