September 02, 2007

• Difficult to know what to say, really. But having lived in London for a long while, I can easily imagine someone dying alone there. Despite the mass of people jammed into a very small place, people are very distant from one another. but then again, we all die alone. It's the same for everybody. Ultimately you face that alone, don't you?
• Good find, swbm.
• Ultimately you face that alone, don't you? Maybe you will, Captain Nobody, but I've already got the slaves working on my pyramid, and when it comes time for quidnunchotep to face the Asp I intend to have quite a few of them sealed into the tomb with me. But keep going with your crazy Christian religion: maybe Jesus will take your rotting, non-mummified soul into the Western Lands in his magic station wagon, or whateverthefuck you people believe.
• Great writing.
• Not quid, obviously.
• Get back to work on my sphinx, Abiezer-Ra.
• Touching story. Somehow made the brief chat I had with my neighbor on the elevator this afternoon seem more important.
• What about death on the internet? We've all made virtual friends and aquaintances here, but if any of us died, would the rest find out? I know that I come to an investment in your existence, so if you just disappear it's hard to tell if you just stepped away, or left in a hearse. Am I the only one who finds that distressing? I'm thinking of our sweet beeswacky, who took went awol late last year, came back briefly after hinting at a family tragedy, then just disappeared.
• My friends would post it on my blog. Always give one trusted friend a password to somewhere.
• What are these 'trusted friends' of which you speak?
• The people in meatspace I know (~_^). The ones I see if I actually leave my apartment.
• I was having just those thoughts recently (it was 3am). I guess in our will or "open after my death" file, we should include passwords and stuff. Some tips.
• Muteboy - thanks for the reminder. I'll have to pass those tips on to my mum. She loves discussing her funeral and the chaos that will follow her death. Shortly after my grandmother died she turned up with a cheery little form similar to this one. She was disappointed that there was no option for viking burial and I had to tell her that she could only have a hearse drawn by plumed horses if she was paying for it. The hours of fun she is going to have updating it to include all her online stuff ...
• When I die you will know it by the constant wail and rending of garments, the dismal rain that will not cease and the refusal of animals to behave sensibly. They will call it the Big Bummer and it cover the earth in darkness for one year. Or my husband will come on and post for me, whichever.
• stop all the clocks...
• You can't stop this clock
• Your Personal Day of Death is... Tuesday, February 27, 2052 That's much too long. Thankfully, I have my trusted friend Laphroaig to help me...
• And on a Tuesday? That stinks. Late Saturday night, please.
• Crap, I get a Tuesday too: Tuesday, June 28, 2044.
• I get to go on a Saturday. At least I won't make people have to leave work. I have actually been thinking about this a lot of late. My grandmother died a couple months ago with all her family around her. I've chosen not to have kids, and have only one sibling. If they all go before I do, will I be alone? If I die a lingering death like my grandmother did, will it be in a hospital with nobody to visit me? Then I just think "ah, hell with it, I could be hit by a bus tomorrow".
• ...will I be alone? What am I, Larababy, chopped liver?
• Will I be with chopped liver? ^
• you can die of a chopped liver
• What about death on the internet? We've all made virtual friends and aquaintances here, but if any of us died, would the rest find out? OK, I'm glad I'm not the only one who ever thought of this. I've never mentioned it to anyone because I didn't want to sound maudlin. Great advice about the "open after my death" thing. Your grandmother sounds like one awesome lady, Velvetrabbit!
• Et s'ils tremblent un peu est-ce de voir vieillir la pendule d'argent Qui ronronne au salon, qui dit oui, qui dit non, qui dit: je vous attends
• I miss Beeswacky, path. Her rhymes really livened up the place. And Lara and TUM, I can relate to your rumination. This is really the only site I've stuck with for any length of time, and I have been known to comment to those I know three-dimensinally on what a creative, fun, articulate bunch o'monkeys reside here. Yet I've never met any in person... and this could not ever have occurred prior to the Internet. How does this make me feel? Not sure... Internet associations are as tentative and insubstantial as mist, yet time and again they get me through the day. I feel sad when a name vanishes from the threads, and wish that somewhere there was a coffeehouse where I could drop by and find a tableful of monkeys to chat with. What an odd, frightening, lonely world we live in. The Internet was supposed to bring us all together; instead it often all-too-painfully illustrates the fragility of long-distance interaction. P.S., I recommend that all see "My Best Friend," the current French film. Highly apropos.
• bees is a hymn
• Funny, all this time I thought bees was a her.
• Yet another reason why I wish the monkeys were three-dimensional. My apologies to beeswacky, whereever she/he/it is.
• Yeah, Bees was a Hees. And I miss hims. Some days it's the high spot of my day when I get on MoFi and read some of the comments. True. Does that make me pathetic?
• Good heavens,no! It makes you connected.
• If that makes one pathetic, I don't wanna be .... unpathetic?
• You're the greatest horse lady that ever lived.
• And he should know, being a centaur.
• What's mildly disturbing for me personally is that there is a part of me that identifies with the apparent wishes of Andrew Smith to isolate himself from people. It's an article that stokes the maudlin thoughts for sure but for those people that find the day to day human bustle a painful experience, then a 'successful' withdrawl from humanity by Robert can no doubt appear to have been the more palatable option. Was he lonely? Probably. But because of either depression or cumulative experience, loneliness was easier to tolerate than angst I guess. We play around online with this notion of 'closeness' or 'friendship', but for a lot of people I daresay that the internet is often a codependent tool to justify or rationalise elements of isolation out there in the real world. Be nice to someone. Just because..
• And he should know, being a centaur. Of attention?
• peacay - maybe it works both ways. I came from a stituation where I was immersed in relationships with people at work and at home, then was "downsized" and came here to take care of my mother. The transition was really tough, but the internet, and especially MoFi, was a godsend. If you can have friends IRL and don't, yeah, maybe the internet is a way to avoid actually having to get out in the world, but I live in a community where having active discussions with the neighbors is pretty much impossible. My neighbor to the west is really into the idea that income taxes are illegal and had his wife stay continuously on the cell phone when she went to buy Chinese food across town since "they were dangerous over there." The neighbor to the east tried really hard to not get to know us, and the woman in the next house can only dicuss the fact that she had her chairs custom made and that she's fed something like 80 stray cats in the last 10 years, none of which she had spayed or neutered. Across the street, there was the neighbor who was sweet, but a complete ditz, and decided to have her swamp cooler taken out in a summer where we had temperatures of 110 or more for about a month. She died of heat stroke. Her next door neighbors are an enigma. From the number of cars that park there, there must be 20 people living there, and they recently bought a Hummer. My guess is that they're into drug dealing, but I could be wrong. And in the community at large? It's largely (more than 60% hispanic, and my guess is that 50% speak no English. Their children will get there, but that doesn't give me anyone to talk to today. And, since gang life is a real issue here, maybe I'll never have anyone to talk to. So, the internet lets me get outside of my situation, and I'm thankful that MoFi gives me a place where I can natter on.
• Oh I wasn't trying to imply that the internet is a bad thing (the recursive hypocrisy on my part would just about do in my brain) necessarily. I agree that it's dependent on the user. I had that same language/communication need filled by the internet when I was in Vietnam. It doesn't sound like our Andrew Smith had a computer though.