So I heard some interesting news from Kristin Beck, the editor of a fine Seal Press collection of dating horror stories I was published in called The Moment of Truth : Women's Funniest Romantic Catastrophes...apparently the book was spotted on sale in New York's Museum of Sex bookshop! WOW~ I bet some creep is skimming my Vomit story right now! Kool.

I'm currently in Fresno where I have just gotten back from seeing my sister sing in the Fresno Philharmonic's production of Mozart's Requiem. It was excellent and she was amazing, even more so than usual (she got the talent and the looks, I got the bad posture and the panic attacks). As I listened to my sister's solos in the most dramatic piece of music on death that I have yet to hear, I couldn't help but consider what an appropriate year it is for her to be part of this production, for me to be watching her perform this piece, and for everyone I know to read my account of how uncanny this performance was. Everyone I know can admit that it has been a bad year for death (or a good year, depending on how you look at it, as I am sure the funerary biz is way up).
This year, the first movement of Mozart's requiem started for me at work in July when a co-worker in her mid-thirties had a heart attack and died right in front of all of us. We stood there (helpless and useless) with her body for two hours, waiting for a coroner to show and then we were shuttled into group meetings with grief councilors. None of us said what we were really thinking: I can't believe it is possible to die at work -- no one wants to be at work -- how alienating to die on the 26th floor. I walked home in a daze...no one I talked to really understood what I had seen, not even me. For months I had nightmares related to death and work: My supervisor entrusted me to deliver a dead baby in a cardboard coffin to its funeral, but the coffin was leaky and I was spiteful so I inadvertently lost it on the BART and then, as a result, lost my job...stuff like that. We never mention our co-worker's name in the office anymore. The nightmares eventually stopped.
Then Schnookie Book, my sister's best friend and one of the only dogs I've ever seen run sideways and suffer from a rare disease called hypothalmia, died of an entirely different disease.
Uncle Leo was the next. He survived a concentration camp, but not cancer. My aunt discouraged anyone from attending the funeral. I'm sure she had her reasons, but the body count was confusing me and I couldn't really understand at the time.
Then a friends mother. Then two family friends.
And now Rerun.
No one really knows what to say to each other...just like in the office. I have no real conclusion here except:
An interesting factoid about Mozart's requiem is that he never finished it. He died pretty much in the middle of writing it and a student of his guessed at the rest.