Stayin’ Alive
The end of last year and the beginning of this one have seen too many of my childhood music heroes passing, plus Alan Rickman, which is just as horrible. I usually react to the passing of a celebrity with a thought like, “well that’s a shame.” If I happened to be a big fan (James Coburn, Frank Zappa, Eli Wallach, Leonard Nimoy), I actually do cry. When Freddie Mercury left us, my roommates and I listened to Queen all night with heavy yet joyful hearts that such an amazing performer existed and gave us such gifts. Queen fucking ruled!
But that was before I had cancer. The spate of recent departures (Lemmy, Bowie, Rickman and now Glenn Frey) is different. All of them were 70 or younger, and as I approach 50 in a couple of years, and still healing from a bone marrow transplant, it all feels quite different. I don’t feel immortal anymore, and I wonder what I’m going to do with the rest of my life so that I feel like I didn’t waste it.
I have been out of the hospital for two months now, and I spent the interim time with Tom, David and the dogs since I wasn’t medically cleared to go it alone. The day of my discharge was a happy one until we got home and found out about the terrorist attack in Paris.
I moved back home, finally, one week ago today, and that joy was tempered by the loss of Bowie, which was really, really hard for me. The man’s music was a huge part of my adolescence, a huge part of me. In his final days he made a new album, put on a musical and made a video. And he was dying. I’ve spent my recuperation time watching “Gilligan’s Island”. It’s time to get my shit together. After all, today is the first day of the rest of my life.
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