Good Boy

Got a bit of bad news today. My parents' dog --and my adopted dog when I am home visiting my parents-- is apparently really sick, and not in the getting-better kind of way. Apparently he'd been acting sick for about a week, and he'd stop eating and drinking, and that, coupled with the nature of whatever it is he has, means my parents are going to have to put him to sleep tomorrow :(. Even though he wasn't the dog I "grew up with," since my parents only got him a few years ago, while I was in college, I did a lot to take care of him when I was home, and he was a pretty righteous dog. Only dog I ever knew that actually chased his tail, and then would catch it.

It sucks to lose a pet, and I am sorry that I can't be there to say good-bye, as it were. I am glad that I was able to hang out and play with him when I was home in March. And that the boyfriend got to meet him. Anyway, there is not much to say about this. The fam only had him for a few years, but what years they were.

Peace out, Coco. You will be missed.

Coco, aka Kokomo. Aged 10 years

Sorry for the downer posts the last couple days. Will try to come up with something more cheery for the next installment.

Forever Young

Also known as "the depressing part of YouTube." I spend a lot of free time on YouTube, and eventually stumble onto things that are poignant. As probably everyone with an internet connection knows, the other day Glee actor Cory Monteith was found dead in a hotel room in Vancouver, Canada. As of yet, no cause of death has been released. I am not a "Gleek," nor do I watch the show, really. But at 31, it is always sad when a promising young person suddenly passes away.

It reminded me of a bunch of videos I had found the other night on YouTube, tributes to stars over the last 100 or so years who died young -- often before reaching their 30th or 40th birthdays. The tragic part about it, is the "what ifs" and the unfulfilled potential. People who at a very young age had accomplished a lot, had burst on the scene in a flash of blinding light. What else would they have been capable of?

And yet, when I watch these videos, and read about these people, sometimes I wonder. I wonder, is it better to have your youthful star burn brightly into the night, even if that star of passion must quickly flame out? Or it is better to live a measured life, slowly waiting for time and age to find you, while you go about doing whatever it is you do? The people in these videos, in many ways lived more than most who make it to two, three, four times their age. And they are forever remembered as their star was burning, not after it had long burned out. If nothing else, they had interesting lives, which is more than most can say. The real trick is, have the interesting life longer, keep the star burning long after day has broken. But very few people, it seems, in that way, get to have their cake and eat it too. But perhaps this is all romanticism. No matter how long you live, what matters is the life in the years, not the years in the life. How we all forget.

Incidentally, these lists are why I will never do drugs. Also, "the 27 club" is as tragic as it is unsettling. So many iconic figures (particularly from the Boomer generation) died at 27.

In case you are in need of quiet reflection:

A tribute to young musicians lost

It's sad to realize that the silent era is all but a fading memory now

The "27 club"

Forever young

To close, I leave some thoughts from smarter people than myself on the subject:

"They that love beyond the world can never be separated by it. Death cannot kill what never dies." ~William Penn.

"Oh how wrong we were to think that immortality meant never dying." ~Gerard Way.

"The question is not whether we will die, but how we will live." ~Joan Borysenko.