Considering the alternative

While 'dancing round the D word' 

Nora Ephron made the following observations:

Chances of dying.

When you cross into your sixties, your odds of dying -

or merely getting horribly sick on the way to dying - spike.

Death is a sniper. It strikes people you love,

people you like, people you know,

it's everywhere.

You could be next.

But then you turn out not to be.

But then again you could be.

Questions

Here are some questions I am constantly noodling over:

Do you splurge or do you hoard?

Do you live every day as if it's your last,

or do you save your money 

on the chance you'll live twenty more years?

Is life too short,

or is it going to be too long?

Do you work as hard as you can,

or do you slow down to smell the roses?

And where do carbohydrates fit into all this?

And what about chocolate?

There's a question for you, Gertrude Stein - 

(who as she lay dying was asked by

Alice B. Toklas, "What is the answer?")

  what about chocolate?

The final prognosis.

Before you get sick, you have absolutely no idea

of how you're going to feel once you do.

You can imagine you'll be brave,

but it's just as possible you'll be terrified.

You can hope that you'll find a way to accept death,

but you could just as easily end up raging against it.

The funeral.

I know what sort of food I would like served:

those little finger sandwiches 

from this place on Lexington Avenue called William Poll.

And champagne would be nice. I love champagne.

It's so festive.

But otherwise I don't have a clue.

Burial or cremation?

I haven't even figured out whether I want to be 

buried or cremated -largely because I've always worried

 that cremation in some way lowers your

chances of being reincarnated.

(If there is such a thing.) (Which I know there isn't.)

(And yet.)

Life goes on.

I need more bath oil.

And that reminds me to say something about bath oil.

I use this bath oil I happen to love.

It's called Dr. Hauschka's lemon bath.

It costs about twenty dollars, which

is enough for about two weeks of baths

if you follow the instructions.

The instructions say one capful per bath.

But a capful gets you nowhere. 

A capful is not enough. I have known this for a long time.

But if the events of the last few years have taught me anything,

it's that I'm going to feel an idiot if I die tomorrow

and I skimped on bath oil today.

So I use quite a lot of bath oil.

More than you could ever imagine.

After I take a bath,

my bathtub is as dangerous as an oil slick.

But thanks to the bath oil, I'm as smooth as silk.

I am going out to buy more, right now.

Goodbye.*

* I Feel Bad About My Neck 
Nora Ephron 1941 -2012