Went
to a wedding and a funeral this weekend with Mary. Sacramento, Santa Rosa, then
home– a whirlwind trip through weekend bay area traffic. The traffic was
horrible – life changing horrible, but not unusual.
As
with most things, it’s a balance of an the unnamed terror and an easy chair in
a padded room that rocks.
The
wedding was delightful, part of an interconnected strong woman’s club that
marries off their daughters to provably weaker men. And so, the cycle
continues, but the company was nice and I’m too old to wonder at the process
anymore.
The
funeral was for another interconnected strong woman, who, by hinkey or dinky,
was a scary woman that I used to work with as a nurse. She would have been
surprised that I outlived her, much as Charles the cat was. Please pay
attention out there – this is how life works.
(To
be fair, she didn’t put up with shit and I liked to throw handfuls of it around
as if I were Christ standing on the back of a broken piñata heaving candy cigarettes to the unwashed.)
At
the Catholic church, I came to a couple of decisions about services to be
requested upon my death.
I
don’t mind the church thing, but the mass has to be in Latin. I love the
rituals of Catholicism, but almost every English word they say during mass make
me angry. The whole thing is stupid and I can no longer support it or encourage
others to listen to it – It's not a choice if it's just wrong. I’m too
old, and it’s too criminally stupid to even pretend that it's reasonable
anymore.
Again,
these are my wishes – do whatever you want, even if I'm dead I probably won’t self-combust
if you don't. Really, there is nothing wrong with taking comfort where you find
it and, as a Baptist preacher once said to me, “What’s wrong with a crutch if
you need it?” I find religion suffocating and rigidly stupid, but maybe you
don’t. Religion is like smoking to me -- get it?
As
an aside, I used to think the United States offered, ‘freedom from religion,’
but realized later in life, to my horror, that it only said, ‘freedom OF
religion.”
Pick
one because, apparently, the shame of unbelief is what’s in the real take home
doggy bag.
(In
Akron, the Holy Ghost Ukrainian Catholic Church has a weekly Latin Mass. There
are probably others as well.)
Really,
any language will work if you keep in mind that the more incomprehensible the
better. God works through the rituals of faith – science, truth and words only
fuck it up.
At
my funeral I want stories, only stories. I want people to tell stories about me
that make them laugh or whatever, and then I want to go away.
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