A Cartoonish Life

I can't believe I didn't include anything about the passing of Steve Jobs in my post yesterday, so I'll say what I have to say about it here.

He changed the world, man. He changed the way we work and play. He changed the way we interact and communicate with each other. He even had a hand in revolutionizing the entertainment industry (he was a co-founder of Pixar). He made what was seemingly impossible, the sort of stuff we dreamed about for the future in "The Jetsons" or Back to the Future 2, possible. And I realize I may be typing this on a craptacular PC while saving up for a much-coveted Mac that I'll be purchasing as a birthday present for myself in December, but the fact that I even have a home computer wouldn't be possible if it weren't for Steve Jobs.

Best Jobs quote?: “Bill Gates‘d be a broader guy if he had dropped acid once or gone off to an ashram when he was younger.”

Loved her music. It's a shame, really. They say to sing the blues, you need to have lived through them. And she had her demons. (But I'll be honest. When I heard about this on the Internet yesterday, I thought it was another hoax. I guess not.)

Last night, Comedy Central was showing the roasts for David Hasselhoff and Pamela Anderson. And it didn't occur to me till last night that three people at Pam's roast are dead now.

--Bea Arthur
--Anna Nicole Smith
--Greg Giraldo

It's like watching old WWE pay-per-views and pointing out all the wrestlers who are dead. Just....depressing. :(


And WTF was this, the Miz FINALLY cashed in his Money in the Bank on "Raw" this week, and I wasn't watching because of how crappy "Survivor Series" ended?! FUCK THAT!!!! Dude, I'm glad the Miz is FINALLY the champ, but UGH. Trying to ensure people will watch "Raw" now that Cena's gone, huh, Vince? Hmm? What a cheap shot.

For the most part, "Survivor Series" was awesome...up until the last match with Wade Barrett against Randy Orton with John Cena being a ref. That match just seemed drawn out and not much really happened, and can Cena actually be a crappier ref than he is a wrestler?! YES HE CAN! And they had to drag out the ending for another ten minutes so he could go around the whole arena saying goodbye the Cenation. Couldn't see you before, Cena, now we REALLY can't! Go off and make another movie! (Eh, he'll probably be back as entry 30 at the Royal Rumble. I'M CALLING IT RIGHT NOW. Entry 30 at the Rumble in January, and he'll probably WIN the damn thing, too.)

Well, I made the post on Facebook a couple of days ago, so if you didn't see it, yeah. Kevin's dad passed away early Thursday morning. Today's the visitation and memorial service. (There's not really going to be an actual funeral. He's being cremated, and the process won't be done until Tuesday.)

And now the part that scares me. See, things with me and Dan kind of started going downhill after his brother died. And sometimes I wonder if I would still be with Dan if his brother were still alive today. (Probably not.) So I'm a little worried about how things will be with me and Kevin, now that he's lost an immediate family member as well. I hope not. I really hope not. I just don't want the same sort of thing to happen.

But there's a world of difference between Dan's family dynamic and Kevin's family dynamic. Dan was very much a mama's boy. Both he and his brother kind of were. But I think a lot of that had to do with the fact that they were both adopted. And I wasn't really thrilled with the fact that after his brother died, he decided he would move back out to Illinois with his parents and the suggestion was made that I could come out every other weekend and visit. (I was the one doing allll the traveling back and forth from Lowell to Portage in the first place.) From what I understand, Dan and Becky still live in the same house as Dan's parents (in their little downstairs apartment). Kevin's parents were divorced, and even though Kevin was living with his mom for a while and with his dad until this happened....let's put it this way. At least he's been moved out on his own before, away from either his mom or dad. (Whether it was with Fester in the trailer, or with Walter out in Hammond...)

I don't know, I could analyze this until the cows come home. But I don't want to ramble too much. (That, and I still need to get ready for the service.) Kevin's holding up all right. He told me his mom was having a hard time processing it, though.

Mom and Dad were asking me a little bit more about it. His dad was 58. We figured it out, and we realized that Paw-Paw (my grandfather, Dad's dad) was about 55 when he passed away. And he had prostate cancer. So yeah, that sounds about right. And I think Dad's a little freaked out because he's 51 and having problems with his colon. In any event, I know I'm kind of freaked out. I'm pushing 30, and Mom had her first MS attack on her 30th birthday. I've got a history of cancer in my family (Paw-Paw, Grandma Cozie, Great-Grandma Louise), and I may possibly carry the gene for cystic fibrosis. It's kind of scary to think about.

...My head hurts.

He's been having stomach pain for the last week. It might be his ulcerative colitis flaring up, or it could be something worse. And now Mom's scared that...given the family history and what Grandma Cozie ended up dying of...it might be stomach cancer. I'm scared that it could very well be cancer as well, because there is a family history of it, after all.

Now Mom's worked herself into a tizzy over the "family curse." I, personally, do not believe in this curse. I mean, it's unfortunate just how much of Dad's immediate family has passed away in the last 20 years, but I don't think it's really a curse.

Angela--died in 1988, barely a year old, had spinal meningitis.
Paw-Paw--died in 1991, had prostate cancer. He was 59.
Aunt Pam and Amber--died in 1993. Now that was a freak accident.
Uncle Ken--died in 1996. Let's be honest, he was overweight, depressed, and a drug abuser; he died of a drug-induced heart attack. But if that hadn't killed him, the HIV would've eventually turned into full-blown AIDS.
J.R.--died in 2004. I don't think it's tragic, but I think it's rather remarkable he survived as long as he did with as serious of a case of cystic fibrosis that he had. Doctors had been telling him and Aunt Pam he "wouldn't live another two years" since he was about two years old. Well, he died a few weeks shy of turning 24; it's a miracle he lived as long as he did.
Grandma Cozie--died last year. And once again, it's remarkable she survived three previous bouts of cancer before the last one. I don't consider that a curse at all.

Mom dug up all the obits from when they all died, convinced they all died around this time of year. No, not really. Paw-Paw died in October. Aunt Pam and Amber died in November. Tomorrow will be the anniversary of Uncle Ken's death. However, Angela, J.R. and Grandma Cozie all died in April.

I honestly don't believe in curses, but here's how I feel about this. We're born, we live a little while, and then we die. When it's your time to go, then it's just your time. And there's really no way of arguing it. I'm trying to explain this the best I can without being too blunt. But I've been dealing with family deaths for 20+ years now. I've dealt with my share of unexpected deaths as well. Kevin and I had a talk about this a couple of weeks ago. I kind of felt I didn't cry as much over Fester as I probably should have, because he was such a good friend. But I don't know. Maybe I've just dealt with it as much as I have to the point where I know how to deal with it. But then again, people have different ways of grieving.


In any event, I'm praying that it's just another UC flare-up for Dad and not cancer. I just wish Dad knew to take better care of himself, despite all of Mom's nagging.


And I bet Mom's regretting bringing up all of that divorce-talk now.

I'm not going to keep track of each week that goes by since Fester passed, but Kevin sent me this tribute link, for anyone who's interested:




If anyone's in the NW Indiana/Chicagoland area, there will be a tribute show for him this upcoming Saturday (March 13th) at the Art Theater. For more details, visit HelpMeMommy.com

My great uncle Glen passed away a couple of days ago. So now all of the older relatives on Dad's side of the family are...well, gone. It's a shame, because we all really loved him very much. I feel bad that I can't make it down to Texas for the funeral. Dad's making the trip from Alabama, but Mom's staying behind. (They wouldn't have had this problem if they didn't take Bo down with them, because they can't just leave the dog by himself in the house for a few days. And frankly, the only time Mom should be making another huge trip is when they're coming home.)

Which reminds me. I need to get my butt down to the Hallmark store and get a condolence card for Aunt Roberta. Or pick one up from work before I leave tonight.

*tangent* Speaking of work, I came in sixth place in the NWI Food Bank donation drive for our store. I didn't pass what I earned last year, but the worker who earned first place earned a little over $2000. I'm not really jealous or anything. Believe me, I asked everyone, but I got a lot of people either telling me "no," or just flat-out gave me attitude about asking. So for the last couple of weeks, I didn't bother asking.

There's a pizza party this coming Monday for everyone who earned $300 or more, like there was last year. So yeah, I'm not passing up the opportunity for free pizza. *Yeah!*

And now we're taking donations for the American Red Cross for relief over in Haiti. And I have to be honest--I'm not pushing for donations. I know Haiti really needs all the help they can get, but we just got done taking donations for the Food Bank not even a month ago. And I'm tired of getting attitude from people about it. If people want to donate, they can...I'm just not pushing it. I already got one jerk who gave me crap about it. I didn't even ask, but he saw the sign and was all, "Yeah, those people in Haiti are going to be better off than they already were with all the donations they'll be getting."

Asshole, STFU and educate yourself. Even if the Red Cross gets as much as they expect to get through donations for Haiti, that'll only be a fraction of what the total cost is and won't do very much to help, sad to say; it's that bad over there.

And there's that telethon on all the channels tonight. Do I plan to watch? Not really. I've already donated. I'll be working on "Jem" snark tonight, and plan to have it up by tomorrow, since (like I said) LiveJournal will be down tonight for maintenance. It'll be a very charitable episode, I promise. :P

*tangent* The novelty of Hunter as a "roommate" is wearing thin with me. Frankly, I'm tired of him chowing down all of the easily accessible food and waiting on me to prepare something for dinner whenever he has Jess over. Plus, he still doesn't really tidy up after himself. I wish he'd realize that he should at least try to pitch in; just because he's a guy doesn't mean he can't help cook or clean.

We all knew it was coming, but he put up a good fight, and he won't have to suffer anymore.

In honor of Billy Mays, I'm watching the "Pitchmen" marathon on Discovery Channel. Plus, Hunter showed me these FANTASTIC Billy Mays dubs last night:







THIS one was MY favorite:

The King of Pop is dead.

Kevin called me with the news like as soon as I went on break at work.

I don't even know what to say. I imagine for me, this is like the equivalent of Elvis Presley's death. We've lost one of the greats, if not, THE greatest. And I take great pride in the fact that he and his brothers grew up around here in Northwest Indiana. I can't even think of any current music artist now who could even take his place. Michael Jackson and Madonna were the big music icons of my generation, and he will sorely be missed.





*edited* I would also like to add this. For all of you who didn't get to grow up in the 80s....you missed out. You missed out on the era when MTV was new and fresh and Michael Jackson and Madonna reigned supreme. I remember seeing Michael debut the Moonwalk on the Motown anniversary celebration, I remember Thriller on MTV, I remember seeing Captain EO in 3D at Walt Disney World, I remember all the fuss when his hair caught on fire when he did the Pepsi commercial. Seriously, all of you young 'uns who grew up on Britney and *NSYNC...you missed out.