raybear | fuck off

Yesterday's dialogue is featured on the Black Star album, between track 5 and 6, as an intro to the song "Brown Skin Lady". What's that? You don't have the Mos Def and Talib Kweli album? Well, I think you know the answer to that.

I deal mostly in obscurity and minute details, for those who didn't know. I'm the walking example of postmodernism -- I haven't said anything original in over 10 years. I speak in footnotes. Everything has an origin, and with that, a story. I can tell you about walking down Chicago Avenue late at night to a former lover's apartment. I can tell you about Damon sliding the CD under the door of my bedroom after he finished borrowing it.

I have an intense history of things.

I've been thinking lately about wills and healthcare proxies. I'm strangely intrigued by the idea of cataloguing my life. Not so much because I'm bent on having every thing passed onto someone else for their burden. But just the experience of remembering. And not because I"m even particularly attached to any past time period -- it's more that I relish the process and sit in awe of it.

And it's strange that I talk to people once a week and advise them to take legal steps on their own behalf, but I don't do it for myself. So I finally looked at the forms and will bring them home. And I've made the decision that I will get down on one knee and take MelRo's hand and look deeply into her eyes and ask her if she will shoulder the responsibility to tell my doctor to pull the plug if necessary. And then we can go to Kinko's and shrink down a copy of the letter to carry in wallets, so she'll be allowed to get in the ambulance with me or enter the intensive care unit. These things are scary to me. Not the possibility of health hazards -- the ability to articulate that level of commitment. But if I were to ask my bed-ridden self if I would want her, and Damon, and Poet Friend with me instead of my parents....well, this isn't a matter of instead of. It's in addition, assuming they'd make it up in time. I would answer yes. Yes, of course, you moron. Why are you even hesitating?

Of course, it's the fear of putting something in paper that will then ruin something in real-life. If I sign something big and important and it has her name on it, then something will inevitably happen to cause her to leave my life. I know this is silly thinking.

But the beauty of power of attorney is that it's easily legally binding. And easily legally changed. I can tear up the piece of paper. Or write a new one. Or just tell someone I plan on tearing up the piece of paper, and as long as they're willing to sign an affidavit saying I said that, it's as good as doing it. So in the end, I won't let this stupid fear of "jinxing" hinder me looking out for myself.

Do I want artificial nutrition and hydration provided? Do I want to starve to death? That sounds horrible, though obviously if I'm in a condition that placed me in that position, the horror probably already happened. Talking about this brings up another psychological supersitition. That somehow, bringing up the topic will make it happen. That somehow, I'm psychic. Maybe I am. But even so, I should still fill these papers out and figure out what all this living will stuff exactly means, and not just guesstimate.