Raccoon and Stripper

I was driving off of the highway when I saw the ball of fur thrashing about on the street before me. I swerved, and my heart sank. I could make out the ringed-tail and the black legs of a large raccoon.
I wanted to pull over, but there were cars coming up fast behind me. I expressed my sympathy for the maimed raccoon to my passengers, who were not as soft-hearted as I. Behind us a vehicle managed to pull over, and I assumed they were going to offer the poor creature some aid...
We continued on our drive. Dropping my passengers off at a pub, I left them to move onto another, much more entertaining venue: a strip club.

....I smiled at the sparkles on my nipple as the raccoon took his last breath.

Drama

Being drawn into a dramatic fallout is like being sucked into someone else's shit-whirlwind; it is not my fault, but because I am caught up in it, I am guilty by association.

Last Night...

...my band, AGAINST RESTRAINT, played a show with GOLGOTHA at the COBALT...

Fight

I don’t even say good-bye; I just leave.

I start the vehicle that I have loaded with my belongings, and I drive down the Barnet Highway. Even in the dark, the beautiful views from the road momentarily distract me from my anger. But the anger comes raging back once I catch sight of my new apartment, as I am exhausted, and I know that it will still be awhile before I can sleep.

I pull into my new parking spot, and sort through my new keys. It is late, and I have a lot of unpacking to do. If I leave my possessions in the car, someone may steal them. I have six boxes and a rabbit cage to carry through the door, and it takes me two hours of struggling. When I am done, I look down at the bare wooden floor that I will be sleeping on. The anger surges within me, but I swallow it. I will have to awaken early, and if I allow the anger to swamp my mind, then I will be up all night mucking through a brain of bullshit. Slowly, the grip of anger begins to subside, and it releases me into the waiting arms of slumber.



Weeks have gone by and we still have not spoken. Our stubborn heads have butted, and neither father nor daughter wants to show any weakness. My back aches from the hard floor, but it does nothing to mask my inner resentment when you stop by one day to drop off my mattress. Our eyes do not meet, and I take the mattress in without a word.

I am working hard for minimum wage, but I have my freedom, so I feign contentment. I eat pizza every day, and go out whenever I want. Acquaintances come by to visit, and I enjoy the company—an escape from my solitude—sometimes a little too much. My sweater begins to smell of another woman’s husband.

I am having fun with my freedom.

My mind has been switched off since I moved out, but reality is starting to worm its way into my apartment of gluttony, and my common sense stirs. Freedom may be fun, but life needs a purpose. I realize that although being free for its own sake is highly valued, not using my newfound freedom positively is pointless. It is like I have turned from a forest path and wandered off into the woods to get lost on purpose, and I am fucking random bush-people along the way.

This is a positive realization; it will fuel me to aim higher. But it comes too late.

I get up one morning-and I fall back down. My foot is swollen. I call into work; I tell them that I must have broken my toe.

The next day is the same. I am in pain, so I go to the hospital. The doctors shrug me off as a stubbed toe. I call you, finally. You are surprisingly supportive. I tell you that I will try to continue to work through this pain. You call me a fool.

I wake up the next morning and remove the blankets from over my weakening body. I test my swollen foot on the wooden floor. Pain. I get on all fours and crawl down the hall to the bathroom. I run the faucet, and tears fall from my eyes as the water hits my flesh. I wipe my face and my tears are swept down the drain. I shower sitting in the bathtub because I can barely stand. I dress, and limp to work.

My pain has forced reconciliation between us, but my freedom has been taken away again. You are there to support me, and I am grateful for it, for although you were the one hindering me before, you are now the only one helping me.

I lose my job and become as useless as my swollen toes. The doctors tell me that I have arthritis, and that it is spreading rapidly throughout my joints. I stop eating pizza, and no one comes to visit anymore. You invite me back home, but I refuse, just as you refuse to believe that a young woman can become stricken with an old man’s disease. We are stubborn again. You are angry with me; but I am convinced that moving back home would make me a failure.

I am out of work for a month and a half when I decide to regain my independence. I have borrowed enough money from you, and I must go on living. I will not accept this pain; I will fight it for as long as I can. If there is anything I have inherited from you, it is your stubborn will.

You come over one day to check on me. My apartment is in shambles. With my artillery of excuses I attempt to explain the state of my home, explain why there are mice and bugs and broken windows, and that I am still fully capable of looking after myself. You are unconvinced and offer me more money. I decline, and I state how well I am doing financially. Waitressing isn’t actually that hard when you can’t walk; it just hurts like hell. I repeat that I am working through the pain and that I am going to beat this debilitation. I put on my sweater that smells like rabbit litter.

You still can’t accept that your twenty-something daughter has arthritis. I have accepted the condition, but not its consequences. I go to a rheumatologist, and he pats me on the shoulder; he urges me to accept my fate. I shrug off of his hand and continue to decline anti-inflammatories. I meet his pitied gaze with determination.

I become desperate. I am obsessed with the cause of my continually spreading pain. Perhaps it is my diet. I stop eating; I gorge myself. I am anorexic; I am obese. No matter my weight you always tell me that I am too thin, even when I believe I am at my biggest. You say that men like women with meat on their bones; I go for another day without food. Men have nothing to do with this. It has everything to do with my health, my life.

Two years pass—two years of swelling and subsiding, pain and anger—and then, one day, I awake as usual, and test my now knarled, twisted feet on the cold, hardwood floor. No pain. I am confused, but thankful. That morning, there are more tears in the shower; but not tears of pain, tears of relief. I stand and shower. I swear to embrace my newfound freedom. I call you and ask you if I can move back home and go to college. You are relieved as well.



I drive down the Barnet Highway, my vehicle loaded with my things. I gaze out in awe over the inlet, and smile. I pull up to your house and park in my old parking spot. You are waiting for me, along with my mother and brother. I get help unloading my car, my rabbit cage and my mattress.

That night I drift off almost immediately. My last thought before I am welcomed by slumber is about the fight between us that caused me to leave in the first place; for the life of me, I can’t recall what is was about.

Ancestry

Ever wonder about your long-dead relatives?

What would a man who lived in 1693 be to me?
My great-great-great-great-great grandfather?

http://www.uwo.ca/english/canadianpoetry/eng%20274e/kelsey.htm

http://canadawiki.org/index.php/1690_-_Henry_Kelsey's_Trip_to_the_Prairies

Henry Kelsey was an explorer who wrote about all of his adventures in poetry-form. c1667-1724

...that's all I really know at this time...but it's pretty damn interesting...!!

Blog-Sloth

How often are you supposed to post in a blog?
I can't tell whether I am being lazy or not...have I adopted one of the seven deadly blog sins?
What else would there be...

Well, if I were any better at writing, or wrote more often, I may develop Blog-Pride, and brag about my measly spot on the vast worldwide web of meaningless words.
I guess Blog-Greed would be my next step, which would be the addition of advertisements along the borders of my blog.
Blog-Envy would soon follow, as I would begin to monitor the progress of other blogs, and burn with the jealous realization that other blogspot sites receive more traffic than mine...
Naturally, I would seek some sort of digitized-vengeance, and I would soon be overcome with Blog-Wrath, attempting to flood the comments sections of the more popular web journals with obscenities.
After that, I may begin sleeping with people to convince them to check out my blog, and, consequently, Blog-Lust would overtake my cyber-blackened-soul.

But don't forget Blog-Gluttony! I've got that already...I have recently begun two other blogs!



Heheh...not blog sins, but this site told me my deadly sin-count...(I'm not trying to advertise for them, I swear!)

Greed:	High
Gluttony:	Medium
Wrath:	Very High
Sloth:	Low
Envy:	Very Low
Lust:	Very High
Pride:	Low

Discover Your Sins - Click Here


.......

In Unrelated Laura News:

Life has been very busy lately, and not just with meaningless busywork...life has been busy with purpose.

Music and the written word-that is what my life is about right now-it feels great.

....

In an exit interview, a class instructor stated that I was very transparent...I wish I had asked him to elaborate, because now I am curious as what he meant by that.

Am I
-easily seen through, recognized, or detected or
-open; frank; candid
?


Alright, and so ends my tired personal reflection bullshit for the evening...or should I say, personal transparency?

A Firefly Lights Up Kamloops

I aimed the disposable camera at Heather.
“Take a photo, quick! We could be dead at any moment, and it will be the last photo of me, EVER!!”
I clicked the button down, and the camera recorded her terrified face for posterity. Of course, she could have just slowed down.
It was late March, and we were barrelling down the snowy Coquihalla at 120 km/hr. Heather was driving a ’89 Pontiac Firefly that had balding summer tires, and I was holding onto the shuddering door handle in the front passenger seat. Every few kilometres she would urge me to take a photo of her, and I would comply, as I too believed that any one of these screeching moments could be our last.

We had awoken that morning with a keen sense of adventure.
“Let’s just get in the car and drive.” Heather was always a spontaneous kind of gal.
“Sure. I’m not driving, though!” I had replied. I had to reminded Heather that I had just turned 16, and did not yet have my driver’s license; I would not be able to share in any of the driving responsibilities. She was fine with this, as she had been driving for two years now.
Being young, and cool, we did not believe in packing supplies before we set out on our journey onto roads not yet travelled by us. Heather and I just hopped in the car and made our way onto the highway.
We headed towards Langley, and then past Abbotsford. Blasting Madonna and Janis Joplin, we merrily sang at the top of our lungs, and completely disregarded the signs that flew by us along the road. About two hours into our trip, the roads began to get increasingly icier. The winds howled, and the tiny vehicle began to swerve with the strong gusts of air.
All was somewhat fine until snowdrifts began to burst, in frozen explosions, across the road’s shoulder and onto the windshield. For the next two hours after that, any car that passed the Firefly would have heard the worried cries of two teenaged girls. Flurries had decided to grace us with their unwelcome presence as well, and the road lines were soon indecipherable. Heather thought that if we drove as fast as possible, it would get us to a town sooner. It seemed like a good idea at the time. I squinted through the wall of white, waiting for sign of a town.
“Kamloops, 20 km ahead!” I cried out. I was relieved that we would soon be safe and out of the Firefly. I was also relieved that I could soon stop taking photos of Heather….

We reached Kamloops. Like a sign from a welcoming god, the snow ceased and the clouds broke open above the town as we rolled into it. We had the privilege of seeing the last few minutes of sunshine left in the day, and it had a calming effect on my harrowed nerves. We reached the first, and only, hotel that we could see.
After booking a room with two beds, we began to explore the town by car. It turned out that there was not much to explore. As we were both under 19, we were further limited for entertainment options that evening than most, and settled on stopping by the town’s pool hall. We were there only half an hour before we realized how awful we were at the game of pool, so we decided to go out hunting for excitement.
Hoping to attract some male interest, we cruised down the main strip of Kamloops in the Firefly. But men were not clamouring all over the car to get to us; there was scarcely even a soul in sight. We resigned to head back to the hotel after giving the town one last tour.
That’s when we spotted a carload of rowdy testosterone, and knew that our night was saved.
Pulling up to the guys at a stoplight, we motioned for them to pull over, got out and began conducting meaningless conversation. They were drunk; we were bored.
Suddenly, a car came careening around a corner, and crashing into an auto parts store across the street from where we were standing. The passenger door opened, and a woman emerged…with a gun! The driver side door opened as well, and another hand gripping a gun appeared. I blinked. Heather screamed and jumped into the awaiting arms of a drunken loser. I’m surprised she hadn’t asked me to take a picture….
The gun-handling couple didn’t even give us teens a second glance as they took off on foot around a corner and out of sight. It all happened in a matter of seconds, but the Kamloop natives’ that we were conversing with were quick to claim that what we had just witnessed was the most exciting thing to ever happen in their town.
The RCMP were quick on the scene, and real photographers also swarmed the site within minutes. I walked over to the car to be sure that I would be in the photos, as I wanted my image in the newspaper.
Now, whether it was from all the excitement of the moment, or just plain craziness, Heather asked the six older males if they would care to accompany us back to our hotel for drinks.
This did not impress me.
But, I did not have much of a say in the matter as I had neither driven to, nor paid for the hotel, so I had to go along with Heather’s possibly dangerous request. In our hotel room, we spent the remainder of the evening drinking beer, and watching wrestling and porno…a guy’s night for sure.
I kicked the drunken guys out of our room soon after Heather passed out, grateful that no one had had any wrong ideas about us, and fell asleep to the sound of the WWF announcers.

The first thing that we did the next day was to go to the local store and check for our photo in the local paper. If last night’s vehicular craziness had been the most exciting thing that had ever happened in Kamloops, then surely it would be on the front page. But Kamloops, being a smaller municipality, did not have a daily paper that we could find at the time, so we left the town never knowing if my photo had made its way into the paper. But I did know that I had a whole camera full of photos of Heather screaming, and the scene repeated itself on the ride back to Vancouver.

Horses and Hot Tubs

I have not hung out with horses a lot in my life.
Saturday, out in Abbotsford at a farm, I spent the day feeding horses and talking to friends. The 70+ horses were behind stalls and fences, so all I really saw were their big-snouted faces.

When the time came to go back to the hostess's home, we had to trudge through a field of muck to reach the far gate. As I was focusing on not losing my boots in the mud, I fell behind from the group and did not notice a horse wander up until it was behind me. I was unaware that there were even horses in that field, so the curious beast that began to nudge my back was a complete suprise. I turned around in time to see 5 more horses began to trot over from the barn. It had the feel of a horror movie...Zombie Horses....or something of that sort...
They edged closer...I had never been alone with so many horses before...well, at least not standing besides them in a field. Usually they were behind a stall...I had forgotten that they had bodies...

An excellent day of horses, wine and hot tubs...

An Old Photo

Countdown to Impact

There are those days when you know that there is violence awaiting you.
It begins as you leave the somewhat comfort of the acquaintances that you are surrounded by. You walk through the seedy district of the city, all the while expecting an encounter of the worst kind. A woman walks by, and eyes your purse. You meet her gaze and brush by her, gripping the handle of your umbrella.
The moment passes, but your feeling of uneasiness continues. You just know there will be negative contact with another human tonight. You hear the music that emits from a portable player through your headphones, but you still listen for any sign of trouble.
You pass by a bar and visit friends. The feeling subsides for a while, but begins to build as your time to leave them nears. The feeling is in no way fear, but it is an onimous one.
You leave the friends and continue on your way, boarding the Skytrain. A scruffy, smelly man blocks your way to a seat and mumbles obscenities at you. You glare at him and tell him to move. He does slowly, and you sit down, knowing that the man will not be the only conflict of the evening.
Another man glances at you every few minutes as the train skates along its track above the tiring city. You wonder if that will be the one to hurt you tonight. Clutching your purse tighter, you watch the darkness out the window. Your stop comes up, and you have to change trains.
Upon exiting, a gang of youths approach you on the platform.
"Do you think I'm a bitch?" one asks.
"I don't know you," you reply, and stand facing her.
"Oh. Okay, thanks." The young native girl continues on her way. You get on the next train. You are poised for conflict, but appear relaxed.
Would it be easier to just hold your breath and await the violent fate that is stalking you?
You push on through the night, preparing for the moment when you will be tested. That is what life is about.
So you exit the train at your final stop and embark upon a bus. A strung out couple gesture to your purse as you make your way to the back. Drums pulse through your headphones and you focus on their intensity, absorbing it.
Your arms are full. Books and a discman in one arm, the coveted purse in the other. When the time comes you will have to decide what is relinquished to the ground so you may defend yourself.
The bus ride lasts almost twenty minutes. It ends when you see your stop and hop off. Two men step off behind you, and you feel that the time is nearing...
Crossing at the crosswalk, the men walk on the other side, stepping in parallel synchronization with you down the street. They have not looked at you. Then, you turn down a street…and they are gone.
So you are five minutes from your home. Two blocks.
Could you have been wrong about your feeling? This impending feeling that has followed you since you left the company of those you know…could it have just been paranoia?
Your mind floods with wonder as you continue down the street. What a peculiar feeling…
A group of girls is walking towards you.
You see them, but you are still too lost in your own thoughts. Suddenly the feeling returns with vengeance and you struggle to wade through all the thoughts in your mind. Just as you think you will reach the surface of this cesspool of strange feeling, there are a pair of eyes intent on you.
Your eyes meet the angry pair and hers widen. Finally there is the impact on your face. Face has met fist.
The books and discman go flying, and a guitar solo is ripped from your ears. One arm is now free. Throwing the widened eyes to the ground, your boot meets face…again and again.
Now you hear the screams, the apologies…but it is too late. You tell them that it is unacceptable to go around punching random pedestrians in the face, even if you are drunk.
Another of the girls step towards you. Your fist meets face.
Your mind jumps back to your property, now that you know that your life is not in danger. You vaguely notice as the girls help up their friend who has made neither a move nor sound in a while. You collect your strewn about items.
Some of the girls begin to run away. You are too intent on finding your headphones to care. They are out of sight now, but you can hear faint voices from their direction. Empty threats from empty heads echo down the street. The headphones are gone, and they are sorely missed. What will drown out the screams of the group down the street, now?
The feeling is gone. Fate met you as your face met a fist. You were somehow warned of these events, and you are thankful for it. Everything happens for a reason, and perhaps tonight you aided someone in a horrible way. You taught a valuable lesson that will awake with someone the next day as the blood from her nose drains down her throat, and dries on her swollen lips. For a few weeks, with every glance in the mirror, she will think of you as her bruises balloon with mauve, and then settle to green and yellow. And as they settle you hope that the bruises will be replaced with knowledge.
You arrive home and prepare for sleep, as you have earned a good night’s rest. But rest will be difficult, and you simultaneously thank and curse the adrenaline that still races through your exhausted body.
Sleep will come, but you must be patient.
Patience brought you readiness tonight, but it also brought you the stress of expectance and impendence. Mayhaps if you were more patient you wouldn’t have questioned the feeling that dogged you, and you would have been completely prepared for the fist you met. You would have been so prepared that you would have blocked the hand that meant to strike. This time it didn’t matter, as the impact upon your face and life was minimal…but next time it could be you on the ground with the boot in your face. So, you have also learned an important lesson. Awareness is key; do not question yourself or let your guard down.

There is a lesson to be learned from everything.

A Thousand Dollars

So what is worth a thousand dollars?
Is going out and having an awesome weekend, and meeting new, cool folks worth losing a thousand dollars over?
Absolutely!
I was in a karaoke contest where I had the chance to win money, but I went out last weekend...had a great time...and that did a number on my voice...but sometimes you can't put a price on fun times with fun folk.
What's more is that I was shown a lot of support from unexpected people, and that too is pretty priceless...I was not about to take a karaoke contest seriously, but I still received extensive support from people...
One girl, whom I do not know, was so angry that I did not win that she ran up to one of the judges and sacked him...now THAT is PRICELESS!

Thanks to all that came out!

Imagine

Real life is much more boring than how it plays out in my imagination.

Me

Portrait II

Alright, here is the complete profile/portrait...had to be someone that I knew in person...

Please, feel free to give reader-based feedback...(ie how you feel as you are reading it.)

Thanks!

Amanda: Boston and Brown Eyed Girl

“Run!”
I didn’t look back. I did as I was told, and ran as fast as I could. Amanda ran next to me, her straight auburn hair streaming out behind her as we made our way down the rocky trail.
“I don’t see him,” I panted.
“Keep running, run to my house!” Although she was nearly out of breath, Amanda still had definite authority in her voice, and I was not about to argue with her.
We turned out from the forest path and onto the street. Now two blocks from her home, we were still unsure if we would make it to safety. I expected to see the white van turn up the street any moment, carrying within it an irate man that would surely discipline us with unspeakable punishment…
Amanda and I reached the front door to her house. As she fumbled with the keys, I kept watch to ensure that we had not been followed.
The door burst open at Amanda’s hand; we jumped inside and she slammed it. Amanda squealed.
“To my room, quick!”
As it is a young girl’s instinct to hide in her bedroom at any sign of trouble, we both ran to Amanda’s room and hid under the bed.
After a moment of silent darkness, with our faces crushed into old, smoky carpet, Amanda began laughing, and I followed suit. We were safe, and now the nervous laughter poured out of us.

When I met Amanda at 14, she had already been smoking for a few years, and her life seemed to revolve around cigarettes. In junior high school, she had been known to beat up people for smokes, and I had even been on the receiving end of her bullying, that is, before we had become friends of course.
We began to spend many a listless day together, watching TV, eating, and drawing on one another. And smoking, lots of smoking.
I could tell that there was something special and different about Amanda, but I could also tell that she seemed to lack the motivation to do much more with her life than sit around and smoke. There were those exceptional times where we would decide to go out, and those were the times that her uniqueness shone through.
When we wanted to go to the fair, Amanda would make me hitchhike. When we wanted to go on rides, Amanda would flirt with the carnies and we would get on for free. They would all call her brown eyes, and I would secretly feel a twinge of jealousy every time Amanda would get the attention that I had never had, even though it came from a carnie.
There were songs about girls like her, and even songs named after her. All I had was a stupid Christopher Cross song; she had a Boston ballad.
She seemed to possess more than me, even though her family had less. She had big, beautiful brown eyes, and she had a bigger chest, while I was just a boring-looking Laura. She had more than me in some ways, and although I at times was secretly jealous of her, I also secretly loved her for these features as well.
We saw the movie ‘Titanic’ together. At the end of the movie, as Leonardo Dicaprio sank slowly into the frozen sea, I glanced over at Amanda and our eyes met. The corner of her mouth twitched into a smile, and I let out an enormous laugh. She covered her face and tried to smother her giggles. Even in the darkness of the theatre I could feel the disapproving glances shooting towards me from the other moviegoers, but I couldn’t care. As the music swelled, and the saddest moment of one of the biggest films of all time played out on the large screen before us, Amanda and I burst into hysterical laughter. We weren’t sadistic; we just weren’t about to let a silly movie get us down.

It has been said that only men can feel the contentment of true friendship. Women are too complicated, and too prone to backstabbing, to maintain the loyalty necessary to understand and continue closeness.
Amanda and I are no longer friends. She moved away many years ago, and I have not spoken with her since. I heard that she moved to Manitoba and had a few babies. And she is probably still smoking.
But for a brief time in my life I did feel true friendship, true platonic admiration that was unmarred by the sexual tension that male acquaintance brings, and the disloyalty that usually accompanies female companionship.

The day that Amanda and I ended up hiding beneath her creaky bed, we were at the neighborhood corner store, and she had been uninhibitedly soliciting patrons of the store for cigarettes. A man in a white van had pulled up, and as he exited the store Amanda asked him for a smoke. The man obliged the smiling girl with the remainder of his pack, and then drove off.
Amanda looked as though she had struck gold. And then she opened the prized pack, and looked even happier.
“The guy left a joint in here!” Amanda was happy, and I was happy that Amanda was happy.
Still standing in front of the store, we smoked the joint and felt quite pleased with ourselves.
Then the white van returned.
The man, obviously realizing his mistake at giving away a cigarette pack filled with pot, leapt towards us from the vehicle.
That is when Amanda told me to run, and with squinted eyes and hazy minds we ran to her house and hid, paranoid but laughing, beneath her bed.

I hope Amanda quit smoking.

Portrait

If you had to write a portrait/descriptive story about a person, who would you choose?

Thank You

Many thanks to those that have been there for me during tough times.

To those that were no where to be found, I will be lost to you as well when your life reaches rough waters.

Good sailing to you.

Stupid 'Net Tests...

How the heck did they come up with that?!?!
The stomach flu will bring you to try strange things on a Friday night...

Alright, this one is MUCH better...heh...

Mystical Teasings

Many things have visited me today, just as the full moon settles directly above my head, bathing the room in a glowing light that only something not of this world could emit.
Dreams foretold my last two days, and with the dreams came visitors.
At first surprised, I soon came to expect them.
The past was reborn, and then wolven eyes came to meet mine as blood spilled below the perfect moon.
It all came together as does every piece in life, eventually…
One visitor stressed that we are all just parasites, feeding off the land, usurping everything we can…but how come everything still happens for a reason?
Is it all coincidence?
If just one thing has happened for a reason, then what says that everything hasn’t?
I am coincidence, and so are you…but this day was planned…everything in this day happened for a reason, and my head cleared considerably.
“We are all going to die very soon,” he said.
‘Too much Al Gore,’ I thought to myself…I considered all of his musings, but how come I had known I would see him? Or was it the dream that had prompted the meeting?
But the creature that arrived on my doorstep…that was none of my doing…and the aid that he offered was much appreciated and needed.
I knew the moon was full before I had seen it, before I had looked at a calendar.

There is more to life than what we are observing…stare and see, don’t see and stare…

Today I read a WatchTower Jehovah Witness magazine and it tried to tell me that I was below men in life, and that I should be silent in my own voice and only reflect what is said from men.

Crazy rant? Mayhaps.
But if you had the day I did you would be bewildered as well…or perhaps you did?

World

“Whoever refuses to accept a part wants the whole, wants everything.” -Sandor Marai, Embers

I believe the world is much more forgiving than most believe...what do you think?

?

Who wants to live forever?