Bored to death

Apparently when you yawn it's because your body needs to take in oxygen. I often find I yawn when I'm bored so if being bored leads to a lack of oxygen, if I didn't yawn could I die? Could I literally be bored to death?

I've certainly on occasion been so bored I've lost the will to live. And I know I shouldn't say that, my sister always shouts at me when I say I'm losing the will to live. And when I think of all the people I've lost over the years I do feel a moment of guilt for being so flippant.

Weirdly I have a vague awareness of my mortality. That awareness comes and goes though. Like sometimes I'll be really aware of it in some kind of weird belief that I could die at any minute. Well I suppose we all could really. And then I have other moments of arrogant belief that stems from a reliance on the reality of television and film and novels where everything always works out well in the end and as I am the lead character in the story of my life then surely nothing bad is ever going to happen, that won't eventually come good. Rather than dying my story will just end on a high note and my life will be preserved in a state of suspended animation or something...actually I have no idea what a state of suspended animation even means, but I was listening to the Divine Comedy the other day and that line is said....I might wiki it and see what it actually means....

*opens up a new tab on t'internet*

Oooooh ok, I have decided I don't want to be preserved in a state of suspended animation at all...I hate being cold! And in any case I've completely lost my train of thought now. The point is that sometimes I find myself wondering if what I'm about to do could potentially be fatal. And then I go and touch the nearest bit of wood - because of course touching wood means that no bad thoughts will ever come true - I dunno how it works, it's a branch of science that I don't understand.

I had a funny spate of car accidents a few years ago - nothing major, and none of them my fault. I'd be stationary in my little clapped out 17 year old VW Polo (Margo her name was, I loved that car, everyone ridiculed her and called her names but she was like a beloved pet to me) at some traffic lights, or in a queue for the roundabout when some buffoon in a fancy car would misjudge the distance and smash into the back of me. I often wondered if they were so amazed by the age of my car that they needed to get a closer look, but it did mean that each time I got into a car I wondered if I would have another accident and if it would actually be serious. I was so worried about it in fact that after Margo finally went to the big carpark in the sky after her final arse ramming, I acquired a beautiful Mazda (The reverend, he was green), and was terrified everytime I drove it because it was just too pretty to injure. Perhaps due to the respect the Reverend demanded by other drivers I never had any incident in it, but the stress of driving him became too much and I sold him on and bought a slightly scratched Ford Fiesta...(initially named Fernandez after my Spanish friend Cristina Fernandez, but the fact that Fernandes played for Everton and my car was blue...well I had to change the name to Fernando for Torres)
Within a month of owning Fernando a black cab drove into the back of me. But it was ok, just nicked the corner and no damamge was caused.

Anyway... I was watching Jade's wedding on Thursday night. And I cried. I don't much like weddings mind you, so it wasn't really the wedding. I like Jade. She's provided me with many hours of reality tv viewing. And she inspired one of my hair cuts - yeah most women copy Jennifer Aniston, but not me, I go in the hairdressers with a picture of Jade Goody. Again due to the nature of watching TV and all that, I am assuming that even though her cancer is terminal, and it's called reality TV for a reason, somehow at the end she'll pull through and it will all be ok. But then of course while watching Jade's wedding it occurred to me that that it's not a soap opera, or edited in a way to make you think it's worse than it is. She really is dying. And it's so sad.

When I think about death the overriding sadness for me is the thought of all the songs and TV shows I'll never know about. Sometimes when I'm thinking about my friend Nick who died a few years ago I think about all the cool songs he never got to hear. And I know it's stupid because well, once we're dead we're not going care about songs we wont get to hear - or maybe we'll still hear them...who knows?

But anyway. Life is for the living. Sometimes it crosses my mind that I waste a lot of my life sitting on my sofa watching TV when I should be making the most of it. But essentially at the end of the day all we can do in life is strive to live the happiest life we can. And we all find happiness in different ways. And if your home is where you're happy then my home is on a sofa under a red blanket in front of a TV.