28. Fates Worse Than Death

I was reading Fates Worse Than Death when Kurt Vonnegut died. He had just mentioned his suicide attempt in the 80s where he just wanted to sleep. And he botched it I guess. So I am sure it was fine with him at 84 to die.

It’s weird because Dave has most of his books so I have read almost everything he wrote. I bought the rest Dave didn’t have. I was actually getting a little annoyed with this book because it was too goofy along the lines of how I am goofy. Just a hodge podge of thoughts. Some good zingers, and then going a little too far. Just because he wasn’t really writing in the confines of his art. He was just saying things. So anyways, for me his death seems fine but just weird. Because his thoughts were a part of my life. And I related to his thoughts more than most people’s.

I have been so chemically miserable this week. I know I have slacked off on my vitamins and exercise. There really is no pill for this. Of all the things I have read by Vonnegut I only remember one thing he said (and he can say good things every paragraph). I remember him describing his chemical cycle to the actual days. Like 72 days (or whatever) like clock-work he would go down. Well that really stuck with me because of course that is what I have. That is what a lot of people I know have. I am friends with people like that or the people that are attracted to them due to their own dullness inside that makes it so they would just sit in a neat little reality doing not much. For some reason there are people like that that need a jumpstart to stay alive. Of course the people that can jumpstart them end up also needing to be kept alive due to the fact that they can’t actually bear to live like that. I guess it all works out. Mostly. I can’t actually understand how people like that put up with people like me. Because although I need the understanding of my fellow type, I can only assume that in the end if I were together with someone like me, we would kill each other. But I haven’t tested it for too extensive of a time. Obviously.

And yet in this book, I stopped being annoyed when he explained his suicide attempt. Not dramatically just dryly like that was how it was. No big deal and what a joke I screwed it up. That’s how I feel. Why be tragic about these things? People are so precious about everything, it makes me sick. Holidays and birthdays and weddings and divorces and death and marriage. Ok that’s great but why is there this perceived behavior of how one must behave? Some of us don’t have the same style of emotions. Marriage isn’t precious it’s just a business arrangement based on a perceived connection. Death isn’t always tragic. Birthdays are boring. Sometimes a divorce is the best thing that could possibly happen. So anyways, it’s always nice to find someone who even says anything that makes sense to you. Vonnegut made sense to me and to many I guess.. How would I know what people like things for?

I think it’s weird he’s dead. Not tragic. And I like that I was reading Fates Worse Than Death when he died.

4/13/07