On Jollification...

I’m sitting in the parking lot of a haunted house, waiting for the coffee shop to open. That’s a fine first sentence. I really like it.

I have a bizarre sense of becoming today. Not exactly certain what it is that I’m becoming (an adult finally…nah!), but I am changing into something hopefully better, definitely more.

I’ve been writing all kinds of things lately. Comedy scripts, research papers, a zombie novel and assorted other tidbits of horror fiction. Some of it doesn’t even suck.

I also got paid to act for the first time in the last few months and I’m going to be performing in a great big yummy vaudeville show at the end of the month at Skellington Manor, the aforementioned haunted house.

But enough about me. Happiness in a blog can be so depressing.

A young man died this week. I didn’t know him, but I know his mother since we went to the high school that she teaches at. I heard him play the violin at my local Italian restaurant. He was great. He was a brilliant student as well. His whole life and future ahead of him and a loss like that is difficult to put in perspective.

His mom expressed it beautifully in his obituary, “The light that burns twice as bright, burns half as long.” I think that’s a beautiful sentiment and, if nothing else, inspires me to fan these various smolderings in my own life.

A piece of advice then, more directed at myself than you, gentle reader. Whatever the hell it is, do it. There will come a time when you can’t and you’ll hate yourself a little for settling for less.

From Gilgamesh:

        Why, O Gish, does thou run about?

        The life that thou seekest, thou wilt not find.

        When the gods created mankind,

        Death they imposed on mankind;

        Life they kept in their power.

        Thou, O Gish, fill thy belly,

        Day and night do thou rejoice,

        Daily make a rejoicing!

        Day and night a renewal of jollification!

        Let thy clothes be clean,

        Wash thy head and pour water over thee!

        Care for the little one who takes hold of thy hand!

        Let the wife rejoice in thy bosom!

Peace.