Oh boy oh boy oh boy, I love bad photoshop!
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Once friended, check out <a href="http://sociologies.livejournal.com/27065.html#cutid1>this entry. </a>

 I decided to write this after thinking about how many deaths have happened this week. This applies more specifically to one person, but it can apply to many, sans the last paragraph. My thoughts are with the families and friends of all those who have passed this week, whether famous or not, and all those who are living, too. Semi-fictional, based on plausible scenarios, anecdotes,  my own life, and overhearing conversations.

When a friend dies, you always wonder,

"Is there something I could've done better? Is there something I should've done? Stopped doing?"
The time seems to slip away from you like sand through your fingers on a timeless, sepiatone beach. Emotion swirls inside of you -- shock, despondency, misery, reflection, regret, anger, and finally, in the last lingering remains you have of that person (the photo albums, mementos, voicemails from months before asking you if you want to get pizza on Ninth and to come to the house to pick up the coat that you left on the sectional, you know, the one with the snaps in place of buttons) peace drifts back into your life. Maybe it wasn't your fault, after all. Maybe the situation didn't really pan out as you perceived it. He didn't die to get away from you; he died on his own accord, when he fulfilled his purpose. Your best friend since fourth grade didn't leave you because she didn't like you, or because she never wanted to deal with you; she just left when the world (read: cancer) took its toll. "It isn't my fault," You chant softly from the inherited, plush crushed velvet armchair you keep out of sentiment, "There's nothing I could've done."

And then that voice creeps up your spine again, wraps around your temple, seeps into your vocal chord, and you meekly mewl,

"...Was there?"

When a friend dies that you don't entirely know, you attend the visitation politely and recall when you were first acquainted. Hands firmly latched behind your back, you quietly work the room and discuss the well-known details of the deceased. The affair started at 7:30, you leave at 8; you felt it was better that you didn't spend too much time there, or you'd feel alienated. People wonder what relation you have to the friend, and if you two were even friends. You do it out of common courtesy, out of support, out of what you feel is sound, logical reason, but you feel a pang of guilt for not getting to know them better. "I was too busy with work." comes to mind, but then there's that same voice, that same split personality inside of you --- every dualist's nightmare --- and it hushes your excuses with a simple: "How selfish." You drive home in an instant and drown your sorrows in the only proven tokens and most effective forms of vice: a pint of Haagen-Dazs and a bottle of rum, to the tune of a Lifetime made-for-TV movie. The pain is distilled by morning, arm-in-arm with the searing pain radiating from your skull down to your toes, but you go back to the arrhythmic flow of your life. "That's that," Pan to your cubicle in an ambiguous high-rise lying on a skyline wrought with anonymity due to the thick polluted smog obscuring any landmarks, "There's nothing I could've done."


When a friend dies that you never got to know personally, you're off-put with news of their death. You're not sure how to feel, as you never got to even meet the person, let alone exchange words. "That news is terrible. Their family and friends are in my thoughts." Is all you can reply with without feeling too close, yet too cold. The situation is spoken of discerningly at the water cooler, the cash register, the dinner table, in a "Did you know?" tonality. Murmurs revealing a painted-on sorrow --- how could someone be genuine without even knowing the person? --- and a thickly veiled confusion arise. The overall atmosphere is like that of watching the news of a war or natural disaster; the death tolls march in, the faces of newly-orphaned children appear, it may keep you up at night (if you're of the empathetic persuasion), you may cry over it, but it won't hit home with you hard enough to make you weep because you're aware of the circumstances, aware of the constantly regenerating cycle of life. You read the obituary for the acquaintance and send your best wishes out into the air, but it's nothing that will break you.


When a friend dies that is so iconic, so well-known, that you felt like you knew them as well, even if it was for professional or artistic reasons, your first reaction is doubt. Doubt that someone so powerful, so ingenious, so remarkable could leave the world for good. Doubt that it would ever happen to an untouchable. Doubt. After doubt comes dismay, around the time you realize how much of an imprint that person has left on the cultural landscape forever. Dismay that there won't be a new product, new work of art, new movie, new book, new album. Dismay. After dismay comes the rest of the typical grieving cycle, but then comes celebration. Celebration for this person's life and accomplishments. Celebration that you were lucky enough to even experience a second of it. Celebration. You feel the utmost joy because you know, you just know that their ethos will live on forever and will be emulated by the next generation. You know that there will be memorials, murals, specials, documentaries, biographies; you know that this person will not slip away into the bleak world of being unknown. Actualizing all of this, you call up your friends immediately. You don a red patent leather jacket, trimmed with thick black lines on each lapel, equally as exuberant red pants, and head to the nearest party. At the party, held in the loft of a friend of a friend of a friend, there is a jukebox in the corner. Your friend, dressed in a cream suit with matching fedora, presses the button to select a certain song. The entire crowd in the room stumbles drunkenly up to dance. Each carefully choreographed move is imitated, albeit drunkenly and giggly, by each attendee. The video starts playing, on mute because the jukebox intervened for audio, on your rather wealthy friend of a friend of a friend's flat screen. The room takes notice and claps. Applause. Standing Ovations. Cheers of the happiest variety. You and your friends clumsily dance with everyone else, taking your best to nail every spin, kick, stomp, march, twist, and turn. You've never had more fun inebriated.

"Cause this is thriller, thriller night
And no one's gonna save you from the beast about strike
You know it's thriller, thriller night
You're fighting for your life inside a killer, thriller tonight."

The music plays out a haunting scenario, contrasting the joy in the room. When the song ends, there is a moment of silence, of reflection.

And then it's back to the celebration again.




Rest in peace, Michael Jackson. You are missed.

If you have a twitter;

PLEASE RT! Vote in the Teen Choice Awards against Twilight. Whatever you vote for (preferably Star Trek) just vote. #twilightcockblock

I'm sorry to those on my friends page that do enjoy Twilight, but I'm awfully sick of this awful franchise. I'm aware of the uphill battle that will ensue in my quest to eliminate Twilight (and have Star Trek, even with its success, come out victorious over 209502950395035 mothers, ~emoshunal~ teenage girls/boys, and souls too prideful for real erotica)  from the Teen Choice Awards, but it'd be a nice change. If you don't have a twitter, blog this on Tumblr and have people reblog this, post this on livejournal and have people forward it around, IM people who this would be in relevant interest to, JUST DO SOMETHING, POR FAVOR.

LIKE BARACK OBAMA, WE NEED CHANGE:


OR LOGIC, THAT'S GOOD, TOO.


UNRELATED - Just finished Michael Jackson post. That'll be up shortly.