Morbidly obtuse
Aug. 5th, 2010 10:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
serynI'm going to be weird now. I would ask you to excuse me, but if you've been reading for a while, you know it's the standard state.
I teach knitting on a volunteer basis with another woman who is seriously ill. Most likely terminally so.
I find myself thinking I should start shopping for a funereal outfit.
I mentioned this tonight to my SO. Who then said, "No wonder you want to die before me. You'd have to buy a dress if I die first."
Then I said, "Yes, I really want you to have to buy a suit without my help."
He added, "Plus I'd have to buy a dress for your body."
I was thinking, "Yes, that's my plan. I'm going to die so I can make you buy me clothes."
What I actually said was, "Why would you do that?" They don't care what you wear to your cremation, so why would he not just drape one of our ugly sheets over my body? Turns out he wants to have one of those corpse-on-display services. I think he should dress me in something I already have. No point in wasting the money. But I said, "Whatever helps you. I won't care."
But if the knitting woman dies, I'm going to wear trousers to the service, unless the dress I bought for the last funeral actually fits now. If someone tells me about it, that is. There's always a chance no one will bother. I don't get a newspaper so I wouldn't see the obituary... and that's if someone bothers to put one in.
The thought of going to someone's funeral is just ghastly. I'd have to wear pantyhose and makeup. And I wouldn't be a woman in comfortable shoes. It will be awful. *
Then I realized I was being selfish and it was probably wrong.
Then I realized this was in my own head and damned if I'm going to worry about seeming politically correct in my own headspace. But I promise I'll practice actually being tactful before I open my mouth in public.
* then after this thought about the comfortable shoes... I started wondering why there's a stereotype about lesbians wearing comfortable shoes... women who actually want to attract women wear high heels and gobs of face goo and other artificial enhancements just as much as the women who want to attract men who are deluded by the superficial. It's only the rare women who go completely butch who wear comfortable shoes and flannel shirts or whatever. And a lot of middle aged women do that just because it's practical. Of course I'm wearing my studly-smelling lime-scented men's antiperspirant, so I obviously no jack shit about attracting anyone.
ps. Fuck me. There's a wikihow.
I teach knitting on a volunteer basis with another woman who is seriously ill. Most likely terminally so.
I find myself thinking I should start shopping for a funereal outfit.
I mentioned this tonight to my SO. Who then said, "No wonder you want to die before me. You'd have to buy a dress if I die first."
Then I said, "Yes, I really want you to have to buy a suit without my help."
He added, "Plus I'd have to buy a dress for your body."
I was thinking, "Yes, that's my plan. I'm going to die so I can make you buy me clothes."
What I actually said was, "Why would you do that?" They don't care what you wear to your cremation, so why would he not just drape one of our ugly sheets over my body? Turns out he wants to have one of those corpse-on-display services. I think he should dress me in something I already have. No point in wasting the money. But I said, "Whatever helps you. I won't care."
But if the knitting woman dies, I'm going to wear trousers to the service, unless the dress I bought for the last funeral actually fits now. If someone tells me about it, that is. There's always a chance no one will bother. I don't get a newspaper so I wouldn't see the obituary... and that's if someone bothers to put one in.
The thought of going to someone's funeral is just ghastly. I'd have to wear pantyhose and makeup. And I wouldn't be a woman in comfortable shoes. It will be awful. *
Then I realized I was being selfish and it was probably wrong.
Then I realized this was in my own head and damned if I'm going to worry about seeming politically correct in my own headspace. But I promise I'll practice actually being tactful before I open my mouth in public.
* then after this thought about the comfortable shoes... I started wondering why there's a stereotype about lesbians wearing comfortable shoes... women who actually want to attract women wear high heels and gobs of face goo and other artificial enhancements just as much as the women who want to attract men who are deluded by the superficial. It's only the rare women who go completely butch who wear comfortable shoes and flannel shirts or whatever. And a lot of middle aged women do that just because it's practical. Of course I'm wearing my studly-smelling lime-scented men's antiperspirant, so I obviously no jack shit about attracting anyone.
ps. Fuck me. There's a wikihow.
no subject
Date: 2010-08-06 10:55 am (UTC)There was a trend a few years back, especially for the extremely elderly whose daily wardrobe consisted of super-casual easy-on stuff, of dressing the deceased in a robe and nightclothes, as if they had just "fallen asleep." I think it's kind of weirdly sweet for other people but it's not something I would want.
By the way, if you pre-plan your arrangements, you can specify this kind of thing.
"If someone tells me about it, that is. There's always a chance no one will bother. I don't get a newspaper so I wouldn't see the obituary... and that's if someone bothers to put one in."
Google Alert her name, that way you'll catch the information. I don't know how it is there, but here, you can pay for a "memorial" in the paper and put in whatever you like such as "Jane Doe was swept away from her loving family into the arms of Jesus" or you can take the standard announcement which is limited to some very non-emotional stuff like where you were born, died, education, career, family who died before, survivors, and where the services and burial will be. That standard thing is free. Even before that (well, like the day it happens), hospitals will release the death records ("Deaths: Jane Doe, 81, Local Hospital") or it'll be in the police reports if they died at home. At least that's how it works here.
...I know way too much about this, come to think of it.
no subject
Date: 2010-08-06 02:49 pm (UTC)Here you can pay for an obituary too, but it's expensive and unless you actually get the newspaper, would you think of it? I don't think anyone just tells the newspapers about regular people who died. Or that the newspaper could be arsed to print something about a random person's death. Maybe they do. There's usually almost as much space devoted to microscopic print obituaries as there is to Macy's ads.