June 13, 2008
Dear Clusterflock
If you were to die today, what (age) version of you would you choose to represent yourself in heaven for all eternity?
Of course, we’re assuming a few things here, like: (a.) There’s a heaven. (b.) You’re going there. (c.) Once you get there, you’ll get to choose to be seven or twenty-eight or fifty-three for the rest of ever. (d.) You don’t hate wishy-washy, pie-in-the-sky, ethereal questions like this one. &c.
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Thirty-six.
For me, the answer is simple: twenty-eight, my current age, since every time I reflect on earlier times in my life I always feel like I was an absolute fool.
If, however, I can be an age that I haven’t been yet then I think I would at ten years to the original number just for good measure.
I’d want my current version, because I’m in pretty good shape and stuff, and like, I would want to train to be a Heaven Warrior (TM) or Cloud Ninja (TM), and I need all my strength to pass those tests. I downloaded the training guides from the Internet, BTW. Did you know Heaven endorses PDFs? They do. For real.
Sadly, I’d pick the fourteenish version of myself. ‘Cause that’s when I was the most vulnerable and honest.
That pretty much well sucks, huh?
Okay, so I’m the only loser who’d rather be a different version of him- or herself, eh? Great.
I need some old, fat, rundown people to comment here, I guess.
Jonathan, you made my day.
Hey, Jonathan–Sheila is not thirty-six. Hehehe.
Actually, the idea of heaven gives me the dry heaves, so I’m having trouble with the whole concept.
27. Because, when I was 14 I was much more awkward and had more pimples.
Cindy. You are a mean girl. I am putting you on notice.
And if you will tell Jonathan THE TRUTH — that I am thirty-seven — I will call you Cindy Norway and pay for the privilege.
Mean? Moi?? Why, Sheila, I’m shocked that you would think that. Had you played this better, Jonathan might have thought from my comment that you are not yet thirty-six.
Cindy Norway. I do like the sound of that.
1. I believe in heaven (please don’t barf on me anyone)
2. Why, 14 Jonathan, you weren’t even dating me then.
3. I don’t know if I am going to heaven, anyway.
4. I like these questions.
5. I always thought you got to be whatever ever Jesus thought you looked best. . .
Now why would I want Jonathan to think I was not yet thirty-six? I wasn’t into the jeune fille en fleur thing even when I was a jeune fille en fleur. I aspired to that femme d’une certaine age thing back when I was sixteen.
And now Alisia is onto this. And she’s obviously smart. And probably hot. But I can probably coax her into the next room, where we can roll our eyes and sigh over Men.
That’s Alisia. She’s pretty.
Yeah, Cindy, I was guessing older than 36, not younger. Your cackling laughter (as represented by ‘Hehehe’) kinda gave that away. Nice try, though.
Now, back to Alisia:
1. You can probably get away with that, I think.
2. I knew that was going to be an issue.
3. Oh, puh-leeeeeez. If anyone’s going to heaven, she’s it, people. Seriously. Unless stupid, overblown humbleness is a sin (which it should be).
4. …
5. The Jesus talk, though, I’m not sure if you’ll get away with. I think the idea would be that you’d get to pick, no? I mean, really, why would Jesus care how you look? Cuba Gooding Jr. got to pick in What Dreams May Come. That’s all I know.
Well, you sure are a femme d’une certaine age now!
In every dream home a heartache . . .
Yeah, Cindy, I was guessing older than 36, not younger. Your cackling laughter (as represented by ‘Hehehe’) kinda gave that away. Nice try, though.
Oh, yeah. I am mean.
At this point, I was imagining a different future for the two of you from this:
Dammit.
Cindy: And I like it! (Delivered in the manner of Alice Cooper, just to confuse things.)
For the record, y’all, I will be 50 on July 29. So you need to start planning the virtual party now.
Jonathan. (Alisia.) There’s always clusterflockstock. Memorial Day Weekend 2009. Fannin County, Texas.
I’m gunna be ah ripe ol’ age o’ twenty-four come this ‘ere ack-tober.
I like my youth, I think I’ll stick with it.
Side-answer: If I were to die today, it would preferably be through some epic means. I’m talking like building falling on me, asteroid from the sky, maybe a volcano. Possibly chocking on a pretzel.
I have officially designated spontaneous combustion as my preferrerd mode of exit.
I am so ashamed of my misspelling of “choking”. I guess I need the learned lessons of age to correct my treason against the English language.
I think I would have to die on some excursion to the Congo:
Mista Kurtz–he’s dead
Sheila, do you, by any chance, play the drums?
Garrett, punkin: I was fixin’ to dip into my well of wisdom (thank you, Cindy) to fix that youthful error of yours, but I got all distracted trying to make myself out to be Catherine Deneuve or Jeanne Moreau or one of those other hot old French chicks.
Michael: I’m bringing my congas to clusterflockstock.
Andrew: I just reread Heart of Darkness for — what? maybe the fifth time? — a couple of weeks ago.
Good, just don’t spontaneously combust in the middle of your performance.
Oh, no, Michael — I’m saving that for the very end.
First, I wanna be the Flockers!!!!!
Second, I wanna meet the Flockers!!!
Third, because Jesus gets to make people cute or hot when they are in His Heaven. . . why would he want ugly people there?
So, if you are an ugly person, he takes you as a kid. . .
SOS! Love it love it love it, especially “if you are an ugly person, he takes you as a kid”.
Meet you in the next room at clusterflockstock?
Alisia, kids can be ugly too!
Heaven: No Uggos Allowed
Garrett: I just recently discovered that ‘chocked’ is a word. I also discovered that it’s a word that, when printed in all caps—CHOCKED—is the same upside-down or right-side-up. How’s about that?
Sheila: Somehow I don’t think you mean that about clusterflockstock the way I meant that about your futures. It’s okay, though. I have an imagination for a reason. Also, and by the way, people speaking in non-English languages is another of my soft spots. So stop that! Sheesh.
I’ve changed my mind. My new choice for epic way of dying: Death by Chock.
Oh, criminey, Jonathan, I’m sorry if I stepped over a line. I really thought I was just goofing. Truly. But, hey, look — if my goofing touched a nerve, if it was just flat-out offensive — believe me, I retract it. I don’t want to offend smart, decent people with cheap, crappy jokes.
(And I think I need to reread my femme d’une certaine age comment, ’cause I have the feeling that it wasn’t the absence of a circumflex over the ‘a’ that got to you . . . but I’m not sure what it was. Honestly. Okay. Enough. Clearly I crossed a line I didn’t see; maybe (I hope) we can clear things up privately.)
Okay, wait. Huh? No! Offensive? When? Where? Who??
Almost nothing offends me!
By soft spot, I meant that I get all, uhh, weak-kneed when people speak other languages. Like I’m likely to bat my eyes at you and such. Like when you said ‘crepuscular’ or when you quoted Tom Destry.
Clearing it up privately would probably get us in trouble.
Jeez. Sorry. Understood. Over and out.
I can’t honestly say that I’d pick an age that I’ve experienced thusfar. Life, to me, is defined by experience. If we’re playing with the assumption that there is a separate entity of “self” that is apart from the body (the soul, or what have you) then my “self” can’t really judge my body objectively. It’s never been what my focus is.
Besides, being unchanging is hardly my idea of heaven anyhow.
Excellent point, that.
Yep. Kinda what I always thought David Byrne was getting at with the line “Heaven is a place where nothing ever happens”.
Oh no. This is why jonathan shouldn’t have said “go answer this”.
I think heaven is a place everything happens. You fly and dance and eat and run, but never get tired. You laugh until your belly hurts, but good hurting not bad and then you look at your belly and it just stops hurting. And if you want it to be sunny it is. Or snowing, then it is. It’s heaven. . . I mean, come on. . .
You never cry, unless you want to be. You have every good experience you ever wanted. You relive every good memory you ever had. . .
See? She walks around with that picture in her head. And that’s why I love her.
That and that she laughs at my dumb jokes.
Having said that, I actually always liked that Talking Heads line ’cause you can read it both ways.
Sometimes I think he’s saying it in that snarky way that explains why Cindy gets nauseous at the thought of heaven.
And other times I think he means it the other way. Like maybe it would be nice if nothing happened for a while. Maybe that’d be heaven.
Either way, Stop Making Sense is the greatest concert film ever made. Period.
alisia (jonathan’s wife), you probably don’t need that parenthetical note any longer, but I appreciate it since my wife’s name is Alicia and it really makes things easier for me.
Actually, I don’t think she can change that while her browser’s remembering who she is, can she?
I can change it, I think. Let’s see. Look up. Did it work?
Why, yes. Now, I am me and me alone. Isn’t that pleasant?
I am still jonathan’s wife, yet my own identity.
Thank you muchly, Michael (Alicia’s husband).
20. I didn’t know I was dying then.
The current version of me has been optimized with 48 years, three months, a few weeks, a couple of days and so many hours of experience. For whatever it’s worth, right now I’m as good as I get. Two things: Jesus is hot, and I like pie.
well considering this is heaven
now
living it so to speak
I’m quite happy with what I am
Sheila – I bet your aspirations to femme d’une certaine age thing was entirely successful, back then and now we’re all there anyway it feels like vintage wine thing
… is spontaneous combustion on the Congo an achievable aspiration… if so can I get some tuition?
Alek — well, you know, there’s this bit where Marlowe says something like “I came upon a boiler wallowing in the grass” — everything’s all gone bust — especially the steamer (and he’s waiting on rivets) — so, yes, I’m thinking that maybe things can and do spontaneously combust on and in and along the Congo.
(By the bye, I had forgotten till looking at a map recently that there are two Congoes now — one big, one little, one on either side of the river.)
Oh, and — yeah — I was thinking to myself that we’re all — most of us — at that certaine age anyway. Maybe the one that Tracy noted — the one that came after he was twenty.
i’m always 20
Another word for ‘twenty’ is ‘ageless’, I think. For those on one side of it, anyway. Maybe the other, too.
Maybe there are two 20s. Just like there are two Congoes. And you can be on one side of the river or another, but they’re really as close as makes no difference.
Two sides of 20…not quite legal drinking and the good side.
Years ago, (1984?) my sociology professor posed, “What will you do in heaven?” A stalwart young Christian with magnificent thighs, sitting across the aisle and one seat forward from me, answered, “Why, we’ll sing and praise Jesus for eternity!”
“Sounds a little boring to me,” said the professor. “Know what Muslims get to do in heaven? They get to kill their enemies over and over again. Sounds more fun. What will you do when you’re up against an enemy who believes the grandest purpose in life is to die a martyr and go to heaven, and heaven is fun?”
I’m pretty sure no one, except the professor maybe, knew how that might play out 24 years later.
When I get to heaven, I’ll choose to be 29 again and see if I could take a crack at those thighs.