Farewell Sweet Maiden

Pin It One thing I like to ponder is my own death. I have very specific ideas about how to achieve the funeral of my dreams. In our religion we're supposed to have these funerals that are uplifting, focusing on the fact that we'll be together again someday and making sure everyone knows all about that good news, leaving everyone feeling good.

And I know other people want their friends and family to have a big party, celebrating their life. That's so nice, I think.

But I don't want that. I want everyone to cry over me, a LOT. Because I'm DEAD. I'm FREAKING DEAD. I mean, come on. Party on your own time, this is my FUNERAL we're talking about. Show some respect, and by respect I mean, show everyone how you just cannot picture the world without my bright shining light of awesome lightness and how it will pain you to go on for even ONE MORE SECOND. Geez.

Unfortunately, when I tell my husband my final wishes, his response is usually to roll his eyes or laugh at me, or start muttering some more, so I thought I should post my final requests in a more public forum so that if I kick the bucket anytime soon he will have no choice but to obey my wishes. Accordingly, here are my FINAL WISHES:

1. I would like to give the eulogy, via a pre-recorded video. I think that would be really touching. Believe me, nobody will be more broken up over my death than me, you know? I can really lend it that air of gravitas and reverence, what with all of the incoherent sobbing I will do on the video. And also it might really freak a lot of people out which amuses me.

2. If that won't work because I die before I get around to making the video, I would like either my brother Mark or my sister Diana to give the eulogy, mostly because I'm pretty sure they would both fall apart and start crying on stage, which is always good for getting the audience going. Diana would probably get REALLY upset and fall into unflattering snorfle type crying (such is the sisterly love we share) which would be ugly but also super touching. Alternatively, my sister Wendy is an actress AND also kind of a wuss, and my sister-in-law Holly is an ultra-dependable public cryer.

3. If they give the eulogy, I'm at least WRITING IT. I mean gosh. How else will they know how to narrarate the powerpoint presentation I put together with highlights of my life? Besides, I've already spent a lot of time writing the dang thing.

4. I would also like to give the musical number, because hey, how touching would that be, having the dead girl sing at her own funeral. Not a dry eye in the house, that's how touching. I'm thinking I could sing something subtle and understated like My Immortal by Evanescence or Fantine's Death from Les Mis, something like that.

5. If I am in a bad accident, and there is some question about whether or not I am brain dead, I say leave the machines on. Because you never know. I might come back.

6. But if I do appear to be pretty much deadish, please give someone my organs. And then, after they have my organs, please send them a little picture of me to keep on a shelf somewhere, so that when they wake up in the night and look around with their donated eyeballs, they'll see me staring RIGHT at them, kind of like I'm haunting them, but in a nice way. Like that.

7. I hope my husband will remarry quickly. He's an affectionate sort and he would get far too melancholy without someone around to hug him a lot, plus the children would need a mother. Therefore, I think he should marry an old spinster type - someone completely unattractive but with a sweet spirit. If that won't work, he should at least (as I've mentioned before) not marry anyone younger than 25, or smaller than a size eight. (Seriously hon, a 19 year old might be hot, but she'd be REALLY annoying. She'd probably make faces at you if you decided to bake and eat a can of cinnamon rolls at ten o'clock on a Sunday night. ME? I don't judge. In fact, I care so much about your feelings that you can always count on me to sacrifice and eat them WITH you. I'm a giver.)

I think that's it. That's all I can think of right now at least. How about you?

SUBSCRIBE

Comment Requested

Pin It I want to make a comment box to hang around my neck and take to parties. And after I meet someone new, after we’ve talked and laughed and parted ways, I will request a comment.

If you think about it, a comment box would clear up so many things - Did they like me? Do they want to be friends? Did they think I was boring or dorky or dumb?

After they leave a comment for me, I could send one back to them, getting right to the point (not just dancing around it) - “Oh, me too,” “Yes, I’d love to be friends, I’m so glad you asked,” “I thought you were hilarious, it was so nice to meet you,” “What you said really touched me - I think you are wonderful.”

Then armed with the evidence of mutual good feelings, we'd skip the waiting period, move past the small talk and the pretend reason to call, and dive right into friendship.

Quirky? Who, Me?

Pin It Veronica has tagged me for Six Quirky Things About Myself.  Veronica's husband actually came up with the list of things that were quirky about her, which sounded like a terrific idea. Not only would I get a blog post out of it - I wouldn't even have to WRITE the thing. So I asked my husband what was quirky about me.

"I don't know," he said.

"You can't think of anything odd about me?" I asked him incredulously. "Seriously? You don't think I'm a little weird?"

"Oh, no, you're plenty weird," he said. "I just can't think of anything specific."

Oh.

Ok then. I'm so glad we cleared that up.

ANYWAY. Here is my list of six quirky things, NO THANKS TO MY HUSBAND:

1. I am quite sure I'm going to die before I'm 60, probably of cancer, or in an incredibly tragic traffic accident or a horrifying plane crash or something. Everytime I fly, I am sure it's going down. I start obsessing over it several days in advance, and by the time I board the plane I've usually convinced myself that my fears are actually the Holy Spirit warning me that the plane is going to go down with me in it, so I write a letter to my kids before I get on the plane and leave it somewhere easy to find, because I want them to have something to remember me by. The plane is always perfectly safe, and even though my husband teases me and says dramatically, "You're ALIVE, you're ALIVE," I know, deep inside, that it was a close call, and that NEXT time, it's for sure going to crash. Probably. (Did you know I was in a plane that was struck by lightning once? We landed safely, but it FREAKED. ME. OUT.)

2. I think that if I don't die in an incredibly scary, dramatic fashion, I am probably going to die in a very embarrassing, mortifying way - like having a stroke when I'm naked in the tub. Or even worse, maybe I'll have a stroke when I'm pooping or something, and then they'll come in to find me dead but naked, and they'll have to try to move me off the toilet, and it will be gross, and my husband's last memory of me will be all - nasty.

3. I drive like a grandma. I'm the one in the right hand lane on the freeway going 59. I am no longer fazed by people who flip me off. I used to be a bad-ass in the car, and then we moved to a little town where the speed limit on every road is 25 and I rarely went more than 5 miles from home. Traveling on an actual freeway, in actual big girl traffic, is insanely terrifying. The cars are all going so fast, and all that's keeping us from slamming into each other is the tiny little white dotted lines, which, strangely, don't really make me feel all that safe. And of course, I usually don't think to write my children a goodbye letter before I get on the freeway, so I have to drive extra slowly so that I don't die on this particular trip, because if I do they will NEVER KNOW their mother loved them. Tragical.

4. If I lie down, I am asleep within seconds, literally. It drives my husband nuts. It doesn't matter if I'm tired or not, if you put me in a horizontal position I'm out of it within seconds. (Er, except when we're being romantic. Mostly.) I'll be in the middle of a conversation with my husband and a minute later I'm snoring. He always knows when I'm falling asleep because I do that little jumpy thing. (Do you know what I mean? You know how babies startle and jump when they are falling asleep? I still do that.)

5. If my husband looks at me a certain way, with a certain loving look in his eye, I cannot sustain eye contact and I usually giggle, and then he laughs at me. We've been married for 12 years, I should be over it by now, shouldn't I?

6. When I'm at home by myself, I like to tell myself stories I've made up and will actually sort of act them out. I'll walk around the house talking to myself dramatically as I'm cleaning, playing the different parts. I'll get so wrapped up in what I'm telling myself that I'll be disappointed when people come home because they are interrupting my story. I do the same thing in the car by myself. It's endlessly entertaining. Sometimes I drive around the block an extra time, so that I can finish the "chapter." Sometimes I make myself cry. Sometimes I'll get mad at my husband in my imaginary story, and it will carry over into real life. I can't help being irritated with him, and he'll say, "What?!" and I just say nothing, because I can't very well tell him the truth. He'd think I was crazy or something.

I'm tagging Karen, Heidi, Blackbird, Amy, and Hollywood. Unless they don't want to be tagged. Then I take it back. (How embarrassing.)

Please, no, anything but that...

Pin It I think I must be hormonal. Today I burst into tears four times, and I’m not really a weeper. (My mom just read that sentence and shreaked with laughter, I'm sure. I mean I'm not really a weeper ANYMORE, Mom. Not anymore.)

The first time was after seeing the horrifying chop and color job the hack stylist I went to this afternoon gave me. I went to her because I could not wait any longer for an appointment with my regular stylist, Taylor. (Taylor, I will never stray again, I swear. I have learned my lesson in the most painful way possible.) My hair is now a very odd shade of light brown, and the cut is NOT BECOMING, and I feel like the frumpiest frump that ever frumped. I find this wildly ironic, since just YESTERDAY I commented on a hair related post over at MMW, leaving advice about how to get a good haircut. The universe is punishing me for my hubris, obviously.

My old haircut:

My new haircut:

The second time was on the way home from Walgreens. I have an overactive imagination and always have, something I've alluded to in other posts. I tend to daydream a lot. I mean, I think I mostly have my mental health, but I know that I do an extraordinary amount of daydreaming. Sometimes when I’m feeling hormonal and I have errands to run alone, I’ll turn my IPOD to the “melancholy” playlist and let my imagination run wild, because it's cathartic to cry now and then, and I figure it's better to have an imaginary reason to cry than to come home and pick a fight with my husband over nothing. I’ll come home all teary eyed and will hug him and kiss him tenderly and tell him somberly how very much I love him, and he’ll just sigh, “You imagined I died again, didn’t you?” And I will lie, "No, no, I just love you so much. No particular reason. But, uh, hold me." (My husband spends a lot of time rolling his eyes.)

Today I started imagining what would happen if there was a fire in the house and my husband went back inside to get the dog but was tragically crushed by a beam, and the dog got out but my husband died. And then I imagined that I spoke at his funeral and told the world how much I loved him, and what a wonderful man he was, and how it was so unfair that he was taken from us at such a young age.

This had the three pronged effect of 1) making me sob all the way home as I gave the pretend eulogy, 2) making me love my husband even more passionately than before because he not only was an amazing, wonderful, fantastic man, but also he gave his life for a dog, and how selfless is that, and 3) giving me yet another reason to hate the dog. As if I needed another reason.

Behold, the evil creature who killed my husband. Er, in my imagination:

I did not want my husband to know about this particular episode of CRAZY, so I wiped away all of the tears before I went inside. (I can picture you all right now, nervously edging away from the crazy lady, clicking on other links to get away as quickly as possible.)

The third time I cried was when I tucked my son into bed and he made me kneel down next to him so that he could stroke my face and hug me and try to force me to lie down with him until he fell asleep. “You stay right here with me Mom. Carter love you real nice Momma.” It was so funny, and so cute, and I suddenly realized he is getting old way too fast and I can’t stop it from happening, and soon he will be a teenager and he will hate me, because all teenagers hate me instinctively. So I sat and cried on his bed after he fell asleep, then wandered around the house feeling melancholy and sniffling.

The fourth time I cried was after my husband left to go work out. I sat on the couch and worked on my laptop and watched the Biggest Loser. They did a challenge about tempting foods, which made me hungry, so I ate the rest of the bag of candy corns I had hidden in a drawer (in case of emergency). Then I cried again, because, seriously, what kind of loser eats candy while watching a weight loss show, while her husband is off working out? That would be ME.

Good heavens, I hope this is PMS and not pregnancy.