Until Then, Then

A new rule for myself, first stated here, now, is never get up to write something and then begin reading articles online. It is inevitable that I will lose the gossamer threads of thought that connected ideas into words to become writing.

Crap.

It had something to do with the first spotting of the giant squid (even a small one, at 26 feet long), the ability to envision a blob of whale blubber as a sea monster, the gall of writing with no forethought and the inevitability of dying from a disease like Alzheimer’s or heart disease versus being hit by a car or falling through a manhole.

Forty percent of us will die from Alzheimer’s, says an op-ed piece in the Times today. That disease takes eight to 12 years of decline. So almost half of us are hurtling toward jelly brains and blabbery mouths. See? Tie in the whale blubber and the adventures of imagining giant squid and we’re almost there—at the point of conception my head was at a few minutes back, before I plopped down in front of the TV and started reading articles online. In the background, some whoever comedian on television is saying a doctor once told him this:

“You’re not dying from this disease, you’re living with this disease.

Until you die from this disease.”

~

[P.S. J has observantly pointed out that Ray Nagin's name sounds just like "rain again." Curious.]