So, in signing out of my hotmail this morning (yes, I still have hotmail) I was tempted by their stupid USA Today style links to click on a story about a skater giving birth 2 days after being declared brain dead. I was treated to / abused by / amused by / outraged by the following lede:

In life, Jayne Campbell Soliman was a champion ice skater. Two days after being declared brain dead, she became something greater.

She became a mother.

Full link.
Ponder that for a moment. I can think of about 8 interesting/horrible things about that lede. I just want you all to know that if die tragically, and if I somehow manage to do something extraordinary in this life, I would like you all to tell the obits people that I want that accomplishment minimized by my gender and/or sexuality. Possible ways:

In life, Zach Summers cured cancer. 5 years after a tragic woodchipper accident, he became something greater.
Via artificial insemination, he became a father.

Or, to go full-on ironic:

In life, Zach Summers battled against gender discrimination. 4 months after a small carload of clowns beat him into a coma over a foam nose dispute, he became something greater.
He became an uncle.

Cripes. Even FoxNews' sports coverage pisses me off.

Well...

Won't somebody say something? This is just getting awkward, sitting around in silence.

Fine, fine. I'll work on it.

A Year of Pieces

Over one year since I posted here. Vonnegut is in and of the ground by now, I would suppose. This is something I have always found amazing: his body will be broken down, spun out, latched onto by roots then stems then flowers, then come above ground and be blown to wind, or eaten, broken down, eaten again, and made a part of that next link in the chain. You could eat the cow that ate the grass pollinated by pollen made up, in one small part, of a piece of Kurt Vonnegut. And he could now be the tip of your little finger, the curve of your nostril, that annoying curly hair on your back.

Stop singing "It's the CIRCLE OF LIFE" and listen: regeneration, repropagation, recycling. There is simply not that much matter here on Earth for all of us to be that different from each other. Your little bits and mine--surely by now we share any number from something that scraped off or came out, something that was exhaled or inhaled or ingested--your little bits and mine are a mixed bag of reincorporated mish-mash, a pastiche of hands we've touched, places, people.

To what does that bring me? Why do we marry? Why, when we are so much of the world, so many parts and pieces from so many places, do we marry just one part? Why choose this bundle of dust and sticks, forget-me-nots and tines of forks? Do we not have a collection that is great enough ourselves? The more we ingest and digest, rebuild ourselves and shed ourselves off, the longer we do all of that, the closer we are supposed to come to meeting, mating, replacing. But why, when we are so much of the world ourselves?

Kurt Vonnegut Is Dead

"Listen. We are here on Earth to fart around. Don't let anyone tell you any different."

When I saw the headline last night, I was sad... a serious but short pang, like I would feel if I found out one of my high school classmates had died... one of the many I haven't kept in touch with well enough.

I know, for certain, that I am not the only person around who has poured over Mr. Vonnegut's work again and again. There are simply too many people out there like me. I was a young kid, from a very small, midwestern town, raised in a conservative, religious home. When I read Bluebeard--my first Vonnegut book--Mr. Vonnegut became a bridge to a larger world of ideas for me. I think he was uniquely positioned to be that bridge. He understood the midwest, he understood religion, he understood the questions we all start asking when we're five and (for most of us), when we never get a good answer, stop trying on. Most days anymore, I wish I would have enjoyed the transition of that bridge for longer... kept asking questions. But at least I stopped for a while.

After that first book... and after exhausting my older brother's Vonnegut collection... I subsequently tracked down every single bit of his writing I could. I made it a habit to head to "Fiction," "Vs" whenever we traveled to a town with a bookstore. It's still a habit I have today, even though I've only been rewarded once in the past five years. Reading Mr. Vonnegut so intensely--and then expanding outward--I eventually switched my focus from biology and chemistry to english. When I went to college I majored in english & religion--two of the major themes of almost any Vonnegut book. I don't know if I should thank Mr. Vonnegut for the switch, but I certainly can blame him. And while I've lost touch with him--I try to read one of his books a year (Deadeye Dick & Breakfast of Champions are my favorites)--it is certainly the case that he affected my moral and intellectual development seriously enough to still influence the type of person I try to be today.

I think, in the end, the reason I felt a pang when I heard he died is because I felt like I had talked with him, not just because he had such a large impact on my life. That impact, after all, has dissipated over time, but the feeling of having talked with this stranger from Indianapolis hasn't. Mr. Vonnegut always said that a good writer should be the sort of person you would want to spend a lazy Sunday afternoon with, sitting on the back porch and drinking lemonade. And so, even though I never met Mr. Vonnegut, I feel like I did get to sit in on a few of his conversations, with a good lemonade or two... and so I feel a little sad.

And so, one way or another, I owe Mr. Vonnegut a little something... for opening my mind, at least, and, perhaps, for bettering me too. I doubt I'm the only person around who feels that way, and for some reason... that pang and that debt... I feel the need to express it, just a little, to a few people. It's cold and rainy here, and I'm in that sort of mood. So, if you're a little down today... if you're in a mood to wear a black arm band or a shirt that says, "So it goes...", I'm right there with you. I feel strange about it, but I am. My favorite quote, and one worth sitting on a while:

“Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It’s hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It’s round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you’ve got about a hundred years here. There’s only one rule that I know of, babies — ‘God damn it, you’ve got to be kind.’ ”