The password is Perspective

The benefit was grand. I heard there were celebrities there but I didn’t have my glasses on so I couldn’t say for sure. Also, when your TV source is Netflix on Demand your celeb meter is skewed. I’m pretty sure no one from Battlestar or Slings & Arrows passed by.

More importantly, my dress was fab and I met someone who got me thinking about having a good death. About how the desire to die well, whatever that means to you, recasts every moment of your life starting now. And yes, I know I’ve heard that before, but like a MacDonalds ad, you have to see it at least three times before you robot in and buy your whatever-it-is-in-a-cup.

Talking with this new and interesting person made me realize that I’ve always assumed the appropriate pre-death mindset will kick in as my body nears the gate (assuming I receive advance notice). But this person told stories of people going kicking and screaming. Not good deaths. As far as we know. When my mom neared death, she spent weeks talking about how she wished she had the faith she’d always acted like she had in church. She was afraid, and she asked everyone from the priest to the neighbors how to get real faith. But in the day or two before she went, something changed. She grew ready. Her fear seemed to diminish as she looked closer into death.

A bunch of the speeches last night were about artistic community and how it’s all about the love. Then afterward, there were off-the-record stories of snippy comments and hurt feelings. All the same cast of characters. I think everyone was telling the truth as they saw it at that moment.

The benefit was held in an industrial-chic spot with an industrial-chic view of the skyline. Or you could consider it a depressing view. Or you could figure it was an irrelevant view, compared with the absolute, surely absolute, perfection of my dress.