Complex Numbers

Comedy

Looks like I'm scheduled to do next week's Comedy newsletter. I was at a loss as to what to do, since there's not much room for comedy in my life right now, until I realized: it's coming out right around Singles Awareness day, and if that's not a theme ripe for exploitation, I don't know what is.

They say when you're at low points in your life, that's when you need humor the most. I guess I'm not at a real low point yet, but I have been twisted every which way this week, between finances and work and my dad being sent to the emergency room. He's pretty much stabilized now, but when a 90 year old man gets sent to the ER, it's rarely a laughing matter.

It made me realize that there's a few things I need to take care of, like making sure I know all his life insurance documents, military service information and so on. There are also issues related to his estate. And of course, thinking about all this has gotten me thinking about my own impending doom (which will probably be after his, but there are no guarantees except taxes and... well, you know) and how unprepared I am for it. I mean, no one is ever prepared for it, but I haven't even made out a will or advance medical directive or anything. Hell, I haven't even decided whether they should play Dark Side of the Moon or Darkness on the Edge of Town at my funeral yet. Maybe Pink Floyd for the funeral and Springsteen for the wake. Yeah, that'll do.

That, and I have a birthday coming up too, just a few days after Singles Awareness Day. One year for V-Day, my wife got some roses for me, painted them black, and had them delivered to my office. Now, THAT was funny. No colors anymore; I want them to turn black. This year, she wants to have our single friends over for Singles Awareness Day, but I don't think she's put as much effort into planning my massive, gala birthday party (at which I want them to play Dark Side of the Moon and Darkness on the Edge of Town and maybe some Zeppelin to cap it off) as she has into planning V-Day.

My birthdays have been crappy, anyway, since I turned 7 and my grandmother died the next day. She's buried in New York, where my mother joined her about a quarter-century later. They're in the same graveyard as Andy Kaufman (if, that is, Andy Kaufman was actually buried.) My dad doesn't want to be interred there, though. He wants to be buried at Arlington, alongside a million other veterans. I guess he wasn't much of an Andy Kaufman fan.

Well, I've managed to cover birth, life, love and death all in one short blog entry, and I've even given myself ideas for next week's Comedy newsletter. Guess it's not such a bad week, after all.

"There is no dark side of the moon really. Matter of fact it's all dark."