Friday, April 09, 2004
BUT HE WOULDN'T LET ME WATCH 'THE DAY AFTER'
As I type this, my best friend and his nameless girlfriend are flying back to the right coast.
Even though my 6'3" frame hates sitting on commercial airplanes, I like flying. When those wheels leave the ground and you realize (Thanks to John Cusack in Say Anything) most planes crash on take-off or landing, it is very soothing. You accept that you could die and there is absolutely nothing you could do to prevent it. For the last few years, I have stopped and weighed what I have done in my life. I know that I could die on that plane if that is what must occur and I take a great amount of pleasure from that knowledge.
Now, don't misunderstand me. I want to live to be 91 (and die on my toilet). I am in no hurry to die. I want to marry Carmel, win an Oscar, and have a bunch of miscreant children & coerce them into competing for my approval. I'm not ready to check out, but if I have to, if I just so happen to fly on the wrong plane, I can handle it. I can accept my lack of control in those circumstances, because I have lived a pretty happy life.
This was not always the case. I use to worry about many things that were outside my scope of control.
Back in my pre-pre-adolescence, my overprotective father let me watch a documentary about Nostradamus called The Man Who Could See Tomorrow. Hosted by the scary demi-god, Orson Welles, the documentary went over all the things this 16th seer predicted. Being as young and impressionable as I was, the idea that this man predicted the rise of Hitler, the death of the Kennedys and the French Revolution really blew my mind. But when Orson Welles with that booming voice of his told me that Nostradamus predicted a nuclear war before the end of the millennium, well, I had nightmares for years.
I was going to turn 27 in the year 2000. At the age of 8 or 9, the prospect of dying before thirty did not sit well with me. I didn't want to spend nearly all my life in school. Plus, being burned by nuclear fires didn't really warm the cuckolds of my heart.
Basically, I was scared shitless by a man in stockings that had been dead for over 400 years.
I can't tell you when these irrational fears went away. Maybe they survived through the millennium, I can't be certain. But I can say that I appreciate each day now. It feels like it is some precious thing, the flip side of some pre-adolescent nightmare.
Instead of being some pile of ashes somewhere, I get to sit here, stare at computer screen and try to entertain some non-existent audience.
Or I can go outside in the park and watch planes fly overhead. There, I can realize that I've lead a good life so far, but I still want that Oscar.
wojr
As I type this, my best friend and his nameless girlfriend are flying back to the right coast.
Even though my 6'3" frame hates sitting on commercial airplanes, I like flying. When those wheels leave the ground and you realize (Thanks to John Cusack in Say Anything) most planes crash on take-off or landing, it is very soothing. You accept that you could die and there is absolutely nothing you could do to prevent it. For the last few years, I have stopped and weighed what I have done in my life. I know that I could die on that plane if that is what must occur and I take a great amount of pleasure from that knowledge.
Now, don't misunderstand me. I want to live to be 91 (and die on my toilet). I am in no hurry to die. I want to marry Carmel, win an Oscar, and have a bunch of miscreant children & coerce them into competing for my approval. I'm not ready to check out, but if I have to, if I just so happen to fly on the wrong plane, I can handle it. I can accept my lack of control in those circumstances, because I have lived a pretty happy life.
This was not always the case. I use to worry about many things that were outside my scope of control.
Back in my pre-pre-adolescence, my overprotective father let me watch a documentary about Nostradamus called The Man Who Could See Tomorrow. Hosted by the scary demi-god, Orson Welles, the documentary went over all the things this 16th seer predicted. Being as young and impressionable as I was, the idea that this man predicted the rise of Hitler, the death of the Kennedys and the French Revolution really blew my mind. But when Orson Welles with that booming voice of his told me that Nostradamus predicted a nuclear war before the end of the millennium, well, I had nightmares for years.
I was going to turn 27 in the year 2000. At the age of 8 or 9, the prospect of dying before thirty did not sit well with me. I didn't want to spend nearly all my life in school. Plus, being burned by nuclear fires didn't really warm the cuckolds of my heart.
Basically, I was scared shitless by a man in stockings that had been dead for over 400 years.
I can't tell you when these irrational fears went away. Maybe they survived through the millennium, I can't be certain. But I can say that I appreciate each day now. It feels like it is some precious thing, the flip side of some pre-adolescent nightmare.
Instead of being some pile of ashes somewhere, I get to sit here, stare at computer screen and try to entertain some non-existent audience.
Or I can go outside in the park and watch planes fly overhead. There, I can realize that I've lead a good life so far, but I still want that Oscar.
wojr
Labels: My Writing, Nostalgia
