On death and dying (and the good things about black humour)

Song of the day: 'A Mhaighdean Bhan Uasal (Noble Maiden Fair)' from the soundtrack of Brave.

So, my grandmother just died. Which is sad. Uh, not to state the obvious, or anything.

And when the family got to know about it, there was grieving, and crying and generally being miserable but still a bit glad because she had been sick for so long and died in her sleep. I suppose that you could call it a good death, if there is such a thing. But more importantly she had a good life, or at least a life worth living, which is the most any of us can ever ask for.

So I stayed over with my sister and her family for the night to comfort them (for them to comfort me), and it was nice. But I kinda got this feeling that I would also have been fine alone at home by myself. And at first I wondered if that was callous, but no. I simply seem to have skipped right to the final stage of grief, if those can be considered accurate to the human experience. I mean, I didn't even cry. And then I realized that I had already done most of the grieving before she even died, because we all knew it was going to happen, although no-one said it out loud.

I think the story I have been writing throughout April (finished on time, by the way. Woohoo!) helped a lot. I didn't realize it at first, but the protagonist was experiencing the same crippling fear of death that I used to have when I was younger, and also dealing with my own grief of my other two grandmothers, which also died only last year. I wrote it without realizing that it was also about me, in a way, and dealt with the feeling that I had about being left alone. I mean, now a whole generation of my family is gone; all six of my grandmothers and grandfathers. And in the end, I realized it by writing it thus:


‘The moments leading up to death may be horrible, but the end itself just is. It’s neither good nor bad. There may be people left behind and there may be people who leave, but if life does anything, it goes on, and so does death. Don’t be afraid, Martha. People may leave, but that doesn’t mean that others don’t arrive.'

It was a pretty cathartic experience, and a good one.

So all in all, my grandmother was an awesome lady. I mean, she put up with my grandfather, for one (long story) and she raised like six or seven kids. She had my mum, which, not to brag or anything, is kinda important to my existence (and also happiness). She never went to what we would think of as a school in present time, but she was wonderfully smart and read like she was racing against someone (and had so many books I can't even count them). She had a wicked sense of humour, and in the tradition of our family a pretty gallows-oriented one. I think she would have appreciated what my best friend said to comfort me when I told her. I hesitate to write it, though, because of the chances of it being misunderstood by, well, everyone.

Ah, screw it, no-one reads this anyway.

'What's up with your grandmothers dying all the time?'

'And here I thought you had made it perfectly clear to your grandmothers that they should stop that whole dying thing. Tch, hipster grandmas.'

I just find this hilarious. But then again I do come from a long line of gravediggers.

Rest in awesome, grandma. We will meet again.

Real and unreal terrors

Song of the day: Hallelujah I love her so, with Hugh Laurie


So, not a post on Marvellous People Monday, mostly because I, in my addled state of dealing with finals coming up and also finishing the first draft of my novel for CampNaNo, could not think of a badass of history or the present that had already been lauded for their fantasticness by the masses already. But I am sure I will think of something later, when I'm just about to fall asleep after grueling hours of writing and schoolwork.

Also since there probably isn't anyone reading this I can do whatever the hell I want and nobody will complain.

So I have this weird thing I do whenever I'm walking home at night after dark. I basically start imagining every horrific monster I ever saw in any media ever, and just how badly they would mess me up if I came across them.

 These buggers alone can render me an insomniac for hours at a stretch

I even had a this crazy idea about lampposts coming into life and sort of stretching and turning out to be these giant stick insects that are dormant for the day and come out at night to eat unsuspecting passersby.

What is in this tea?

But I don't imagine these things for the reasons you might expect, to whit scare myself out of my pants because it's fun or because my imagination gets overactive in the eerie surroundings. I do it because it's oddly sort of comforting. Because I know they're just in my head and they aren't really going to turn up, and therefore I preoccupy myself with scary but harmless stuff so that I don't think about the equally scary but actually harmful stuff that can happen to a person walking alone outside at night.

I think it really says something about either the human psyche or the fear campaigns in media (or both) that despite people virtually NEVER getting assaulted in any way whatsoever where I live (well, except if they're on the main street getting outrageously swazzled), that most people are still terrified to go outside after dark. You know, they still do it and everything, but meanwhile they are trying not to have an early heart attack and keel over. Not so much of fear for the darkness itself, but for the things hiding in it.

Or some such stuff. It might just be me secretly having fun attempting to scare myself. I mean, if you can scare yourself with your own stories, you might have an easier time scaring other people. Which is, you know, kinda important when the story you're trying to write is at least partially horror.

I really should write down that thing about the stick insects...

Banananas and CampNaNo

So in philosophy class a couple of days ago I hear a friend of mine say the word 'banana,' only I hear it as 'banananas.' And that got me thinking, what would a banananas look like, that is the mix of a banana and an ananas (I refuse to call it pineapple since you English speakers are the only ones that refer to it like that and amazingly enough, it's neither a pine or an apple.) Would it be like a banana shaped ananas or an ananas with banana skin on the outside? Eventually I decided on the former.

And then when I got home I got home I googled it.

IT EXISTS

LOOK AT IT. JUST LOOK AT IT FOR A MOMENT

Okay, so it's photoshopped, but still. I love this so much that I've got it as my desktop background.

I could make a cult around this thing. Honestly, the banananas will fulfill your life. Bow to it.

On another note I have reached the 20K in CampNaNoWriMo Click here for those of you who don't know the awesome. Which means that the famed 'almost half-way there' slump may be setting in any moment now. You know, the feeling you get when you're happily typing along and then suddenly think to yourself 'good golly, I should go re-read what I have just written, I'm sure it will be great!'

And then ten minutes later you are lying face down on the floor moaning 'I WANT TO DIIIIE' having just realized that first drafts always suck.

But you know, being allowed to suck on a first draft is important (why does that sentence sound so wrong?) If you just let your writing be awful for a while and just power through and finish the damn story, you can leave the part of making it awesome to the re-writes.

Not that I'm some kind of a writing guru or anything. I mean, this is only my second full length novel -_-"

Which I should actually be working on right now along with school work, and not be writing a blog post that won't ever be read by anyone. But at least it's a good getting rid of writer's block.

Which reminds me, I've got like a ton (okay, maybe a kilo) of bones in the bathroom cupboard that I need to put in acid.

Wow. That really does make me sound like a serial killer when out of context, doesn't it?