How old was Grandpa? I don't know. When was he even born? Why don't I know that? I know Mom told me once, or maybe more than that, but I never remember. Nineteen forty-something? Yeah, probably. Then when did he die? Nineteen ninety-something? So he was fifty-something. Why do I always think of him in that dark gray running outfit? Maybe that means something. I should go to a psychiatrist some day and ask him what that kind of stuff means. He'd probably say, "Nothing, now leave me alone, you freak." I wonder what a psychiatrist would have to say about constantly thinking about death. Some say it's normal, others say such a morbid fixation is necessarily linked to oddity. I'm not odd for thinking about dying a lot. I'm sure other people do it, too; they just wouldn't admit to it. Have to be happy -- or at least feign happiness -- so no one thinks anything's wrong with you.

Why would anyone want to be a psychiatrist? I would hate to have to listen to people drone on and on about their dreams and their pasts and their dysfunctional families and how they were neglected or yelled at too much or coddled or something. Some people need to learn how to just deal with things. I don't think anyone could pay me enough money to listen to people whine about their problems. How do psychiatrists not go crazy?

When I die, I'm going to be cremated. I wonder if that's cheaper than a huge funeral-type event, coffin, burial, flowers, and all. Where would my ashes be put? Not in an urn on someone's mantle. That's creepy. How do you explain something like that to someone? "That's a nice urn you have there." "Thanks, it contains the ashes of a person I knew." And what if someone knocked the urn over? You'd have Toshie powder all over the place. Do you use a vacuum cleaner or a dustbuster for something like that? Weird. But I couldn't have my ashes thrown out into the sea or through the mountains or something. That's pretentious and unnecessary. "Good night, sweet prince." The Big Lebowski is a funny movie. Maybe I'll have my ashes stashed somewhere in a bowling alley. No, not stashed; maybe mixed with the cement of the foundation or something. Who would do something like that for me, though? No one I know. Oh well, I'll have to think of something else.

I just want to die before people become weary of me, and before I become weary of everyone else. Some people probably think that's now. It's annoying when people ask me nearly every day, "Do you hate me? Do you hate me more than such-and-such a person? How high am I on your list? Why are you so antisocial?" It shouldn't matter so much to a person that it prompts that person to ask me such ridiculous questions. It passes the time, though. "...time won't give me time, and time makes lovers feel that they've got something real, but you and me, we know they've got nothing but time, and time won't give me time..." Ha. Culture Club is the greatest.

It would be pretty cool if you could choose the way you want to die. Like a menu of death or something. "I'll take the boating accident with a watery grave on the side." Ha ha. My death can't be one of those things radio DJs talk about years later so their audience can laugh about how stupid I was for dying in such a pathetic manner. I wonder what a respectable way to go is. Definitely not fighting for my country, or defending some cause. I don't think I could handle semi-martyrdom -- posthumously being the center of attention is probably worse than being the center of attention when you're alive. Unless you like that sort of thing. Nothing unnecessarily slow or painful, either -- that's got to be the worst way to go.

I hate euphemisms for death. To pass away. To expire. To kick the bucket. Why make up these gentle substitutions for dying when it's a natural thing and it happens to everyone? Will softening the blow make it not happen? People don't expire like milk. Well, when milk gets old, it gets chunky and it smells, kind of like some people who get old. Other than that, I don't think so. Where do people pass away to? If you pass away, you must be going somewhere. In the ground, maybe. But why bother saying "pass away" if the only place you're going to is six feet under? And does anyone kick a bucket before dying? Like a rite of passage? It makes no sense!

Then there are those people who cheat death for a living. How obnoxious and pompous. What's even more irritating about them is the tide of television specials in which they're featured. If I were Death, I would spend all of my time seeking out people whose livelihood is to cheat death -- i.e., me -- smite them, then laugh in their faces. That would teach death-cheaters a lesson, I'm sure. Plus it would give me something to do.