Monday, April 6, 2009

Blogging after death




This is scheduled to be posted...I'm not actually here!





I keep learning new things about Blogspot. A few weeks ago, somebody mentioned scheduling a post for when they were going to be away and I discovered the scheduling function. Eureka! Having become compulsive about this, I’ve found a way to give myself a break from time to time. I can schedule a blog, like this one that will magically appear when I’m who-knows-where doing who-knows-what.


I can give myself a cushion!



Wait a doggone minute!! A somewhat macabre thought just hit my overactive and somewhat warped imagination. What if, toward the end of my life (assuming I had some warning), I scheduled a series of blogs to appear after I was dead. Wouldn't that be a hoot?!









For instance:


1. Scheduled to run the day after the funeral: " I’m really enjoying reading the blogs of all the people I’ve been following and sorry I can’t make comments any more but my fingers seem to pass through the keys when I try to type. But I’ve appreciated all the wonderful things people have said about me on my unfortunate passing. I wish they had all be true. You might be interested to know that I was actually given the option by the intake angels to view my funeral. Many people, they say, don’t take that option because they are either bothered by seeing loved ones cry or unwilling to listen to what people might be saying in the back rows. Butler is busy trying to understand how the principles of physics apply to the additional dimensions that have suddenly been added to the basic three we lived in for so long. Bagman is simply trying to figure out how to control his viewpoint without gravity, inertia, or substance so he get into positions to look down the blouses of women. Butler says that the vaulted ceilings of churches seem to help souls get around without bodies and the really large cathedrals apparently do this better than modest country churches. How did the architects figure this out in the 16th Century? But that’s a topic for a future blog."




















2. To be scheduled a week later: "Bagman, Butler, and I just arrived in purgatory. We’re still a little shaken and confused from the trip but the place resembles a combination of the stage setting for Waiting for Godot and a New York subway station after midnight. Although we don’t appear to have flesh and blood stomachs, we are still hungry and trying to figure out how to buy hotdogs as soon as we understand currency in this place. Butler is trying to estimate how long we’ll have to wait here but Bagman is really worried about his interview with St. Peter. He’s working hard on rationalizations. At the same time, he still won’t change his basic personality. Maybe he can’t. The other day an angel passed through handing out instructional flyers and Bagman tried to look up her robes. He got a slap from a large wing for his efforts."


3. A little later: "Well, here we are, at last, at the Pearly Gates, although they are neither pearl-like nor actual gates. It is hard to explain this if you’ve never seen it because it’s not so much a thing. It’s more like a kind of mashed potato like confluence of mathematical equations and music as it might be perceived through the sense of smell. I told you it was hard to explain. I’m beginning to understand that the use of words has not been an asset to the human race and, in fact, has been part of its downfall. Butler, always one for research, asked one of the lesser angels operating the “take a number machine” about this and the creature (a little less human in appearance than I had expected) just grunted and said, “Ask Adam if you see him. He’s the one who started it.” I’m not sure how long it will take before we get to see St. Peter. The line goes almost to Neptune. But we’re in no hurry. We’re not going anywhere. “Or maybe we are,” groans Bagman. He’s been very depressed since they turned off the life support."



4. A few months later: "Sorry I haven’t posted a blog in the last couple of days. But we’re now next in line! We’ve worked out our strategy. Butler and I are going to do all the talking. We are going to try and convince St. Peter that we are all part of a united team and that Bagman’s foolish and insensitive obsession with things of the flesh was, in fact, an attempt to help us connect more closely with people so that we could inspire them in a more spiritual way. It’s a risk. Bagman thinks we should just leave him behind and go on without him. But we took a vote and decided we would hang together or hang separately. We’re worried about Bagman. He can’t look anybody in the eye. I describe it that way, but there aren’t really such things as actual eyes anymore. Did I mention this is hard to explain."



5. Scheduled for anniversary date of funeral: "We made it! And in a most miraculous way! It turns out that St. Peter took an immediate shine to Bagman. In this case, shine is a good word because everything got really shiny, like a rainbow seen through a kaleidoscope. The interview wasn’t a question and answer session at all but much more like a whirlwind of feelings flying around each other – grief, love, humor, rage, desire, depression, elation – moving in and out of each other like colors combining to form white. It turned out that Butler was the real problem because he resisted it and tried to start quoting Martin Luther and Kierkegaard. Fortunately that just made St. Peter laugh and he waved us in saying something about Jesus having already made reservations for us. I’m going to cut this short now because we’re all really hungry which still confuses us because we don’t seem to have stomachs. But before I close, I want to mention to all you dog lovers down there that since words seem to count for nothing here, dogs are quite exalted. In fact, there were all kinds of animals in line and we had to save a place for a large mangledorper that had left one of its frimjabs in purgatory. Oh, didn’t I mention that we share heaven with beings from the rest of the universe. Earth really isn’t the center of everything, I’m learning. Although with all these other dimensions, the concept of an actual center is kind of meaningless too. As, I said, it’s kind of hard to explain. You have to see it for yourself. Fortunately (or unfortunately), you will certainly get the chance sometime.




Hopefully not too soon. "


15 comments:

  1. Haha. Are there more posts in the series? Can't wait for you to die. JK.

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  2. Blogging after death? That would be creepy and I seriously wouldn't want that LOL. It will be touching and scary. There's an Irish saying that one shouldn't speak about death or it will come much closer. Wouldn't want that to happen with people I know.

    I have to admit, those are very good blogging examples you posted up there but I wouldn't really like talking about death LOL. How do you post using the scheduling thing? That's awesome!

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  3. No dont do it. Its strange enough going to peoples blogs knowing they have died. One blogger I followed just disappeared and was presumed to have drowned. Her family did not know where she was and she just disappeared. They cam on her blog begging for information. It was alarming. Then another blogger committed suicide. It was hard reading her posts written on the day she died. With blogging, we get this day to day insight into people's lives. Death, births, weddings, divorces, children, etc etc.

    I think something everyone should do is to leave their blog login details with their personal papers in case they do die unexpectantly. I mean your readers would want to know right?

    Thanks for the pre-death post but I don't want to read anything after you have gone....no videos either ok? Hey and I thought you'd all go straight to heaven. Is there something you should be blogging about that we dont know already??????

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  4. I do really think you've hit upon it: if you are anything like me a post made after death would necessitate you coming back to edit it. I can very rarely forbear to edit something once it's in the public domain. It does not matter how pleased I was with it up to that point, publish it and it needs immediate revision. A fine post in all respects.

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  5. no dying please ( but yes, i could see how that would freak us all out !!)

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  6. You are a hoot and a half! and you are one of the only people I know that can make laugh about death and dying! I definitely think I want to keep my blog going after I kick the bucket just to be a royal pain in the ass, which I have so frequently been during my life time -- I'd hate for my family and friends to miss that!

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  7. I thought Butler was the angel and Bagman the devil. Or is it the other way around? At any rate, one will get in and one won't. So you would have one with you either way..

    There is a better way. I am actually a channel from Oomgaloomph, a cruel and demonic warrior in 2,345 BC in what is now Germany. He is using me to gather information for his return to conquer the Earth with much plunder and rape. So all you would need is to find an incredibly intelligent and suave channel for all your blog posts.

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  8. Why didn't I think of that? It is certainly something to ponder.

    You could start a whole movement. "Blogs from the Dead."

    But what if someone were to hack your blog and start sending messages? That would start a whole new religion. The Church of the Righteous Bloggers. Then we would have blogging TV Evangelists, jumbo trons would spring up on every corner, and people would hang out in front of them blogging and Twittering their lives away.

    No one would go to work, and the very foundations around us would crumble until the electrical grids failed because there was no one to keep them running.

    Then there we all would be, standing on the corners of the world looking at each other with our blank faces, saying "Dang that Butler and Bagman!" Notice how I kept this "G" rated.

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  9. Lawd, don't put it in Bagman's head that B&B could start a cult, or else it'll be LRon and science all over again!

    Have you already had a near-death experience, or insightful trip (*cough), I wonder, B&B, for this seemed uncannily like what might be expected?

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  10. I sooo agree with A Woman Of No Importance...."Lawd, don't put it is Bagman's head that B&B coud start a cult, of else it'll be LRon and science all over again"! That was priceless dear lady and I almost fell off of my chair laughing.
    You didn't call me to tell me about this "death thing" dude. I'm wearing a black arm band now for at least a month.
    I can't wait to see your next post!!
    And HEY YOU!!!! Since there are now rules in the Friday Shoot-Outs have you considered shooting the Main Four where you are vacationing and quantifying your post by saying that you are vacationing? No rules means no rules......
    Sigh........I've missed you each and every day. When you were just in Charleston it was just a day trip to drive around the block where your house is. Now???? For some reason you wouldn't tell me where you were going......what's that all about??
    Call me.........seriously dude.......

    Steady On
    Reggie Girl

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  11. I think that your creativity excels after your death. Nice to know that you are funnier and more interesting after you are gone, huh?

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  12. Hmmm your ideas are a bit of odd but funny :-) Although the special feature of blogspot on scheduling your post is pretty awesome it's kinda weird to read such posts when someone you know is dead already....maybe it would be nice if your scheduled post is something about your "will and testament" hehehe or maybe about your future plans...hmmm, but still a bit creepy.

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  13. How funny! I'm still trying to figure out blogspot and blogging etiquette, etc. I can’t even get Twitter right. *sigh*

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