'Bred Crumbs

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Now that winter has wetly descended (and not in the good way), let us recall that wonderful, warm, sunny trip to Florida back in October, where among the many diversions were the "international" signs at the amusement parks, warning direly of the disaster that might await you on a ride if you weren't an exact perfect physical specimen. The Universal parks, in particular, have gone out of their way to try to make icons convey conplicated notions that icons just can't. I'll let you try to piece out the intended meanings yourself; here's what I got out of them.

	No getting jiggy with anything.
	No yelling that you're comin', Elizabeth.
	No carving holes into women and crawling in them to hide.
	If fog machine persists, remove headphones.
	Aren't you glad you're in this park instead of on a cruise? [Sign clearly posted in anticipation of rampant cruise-ship illness. The CDC should look into it.]

I'm especially fond of the carefully rendered vomit in that last one. I would love to have heard the discussions in the graphics department over how much cubic barf should be shown, and how granular it should be.

I think this iconography should be adapted for wider usage. For instance, it should be used as a required warning on posters for certain kinds of movies.

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And in a flash he was gone. As if a flame unattended, a brief moment when I wasn't looking, had gone out.

The world moves faster here and now – you know this. Whole economies and markets thrive and crumble; ways of life blossom in the prosperous sun and wither in the subsequent eclipse; circles of associates splash gloriously and ripple apart; yet, only a few years pass. And the number of found things you'd like to stay abreast of and encountered people you'd like to stay in touch with exceed the hours. Preferences and priorities rise up on their own, forgetfulness and routine (somehow constantly changing yet stern and inflexible as a headmistress) weigh down the rest, and time whips by and you realize it's been a while since you visited a personal site you once made sure to check daily.

And so tonight, looking for any reason to further put off bill-paying and budget-checking, it occurred to me, I haven't read Scott's 'blog in a while.

And I went there and learned that Scott died at the end of July.

His website is still there, for now, kept up by friends and family in memorial to him. It doesn't say how Scott died (and though of course I wonder, it's not my business), just that he was found dead in his Denver apartment. There are photos of him as he lived – more even then I think he put up himself – and there are the remembrances of friends, such as the especially touching one from his close friend Tabitha, quoted above. By all accounts he was warm and inspirational – "a beautiful man and a wonderful soul," Tabitha says. "He touched so many people with his pure generous light without even really trying."

I became one of those people, though I never met him. Scott found me first; I found him back thanks to the modern miracle of referral logs.

Tim,

I suppose I should have done the neighborly thing and introduced myself, but I'm glad you managed to track me down. Truthfully, I just stumbled on your blog through Blogger and have since become a devoted reader, if an envious one.

Thanks for the words of encouragement. I'm still finding my way around the experience and exploring my writing on it a bit, and I'd imagine that once the little black rain clouds blow over, I may even start being witty again. Now if only I had the html skills to match...

I hope can send at least a few folks your way, although I fear they may jump off my boat once they realize there's someone out there doing it better... But I'll be back for my daily dose of your candid writings, too. Perhaps you will inspire me on to new realms of self-exploration... And thanks for the offer of linking.

Best of luck.

Scott

We read each other's sites and exchanged a little e-mail, bonding over a surprising number of common interests: John Irving, MST, Chucks. I thought I'd found a straight kindred spirit in this Colorado collegian. (Because he was in college, I assumed he was much younger than he actually was. As it turns out, he was only a couple of years younger than me.) I saw a lot of me in him, especially those "little black rain clouds" that seemed to dog him a lot. Through text from hundreds of miles away, I watched him struggle to learn something I had only recently begun to comprehend – as he wrote me another time, "My life ain't that bad, and reinforcing the angst is the wrong way to be for me. It's just dwelling when I should be off being happy or finding out how to be happy again."

Scott wasn't nearly as generous to himself as he was to everyone else.

I told him his writing struck a chord with me, and I hope that knowledge helped him. I thought he was someone I would like to know "in real life," but it never came to pass. Sometimes these so-called virtual connections can change lives, as I can attest based on where and what I'm typing; but in this case, events good and bad kept us both locked in our already established circles. As Scott said in his last 'blog post, six days before he died:

I've been busy. Busy, busy. And will continue to be busy.

So just be patient, okay?

Scott's death, along with my delayed learning of it, parks perspective on my stoop. That exquisite song "Do You Realize?" circles my head (I bet Scott would have liked the Flaming Lips). But I know that the momentum of civilization will win out. So I trust that the people important to me know they're important to me, even when I fail to return their e-mails in a timely manner or to thank them for fantastic birthday presents (thanks, Kath!) or to tell them about a hundred times a day how much I owe them all for bringing me all the good that's in my life.

Goodbye, Scott, and to his loved ones: I know that losing him hurt like hell, but count yourselves very fortunate that he was in your lives. I wish I'd known him, too, but given the crush of the world, I feel glad I got to experience at least a glimmer of his brilliance.

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For once, I took a Web quiz and got the result I wanted. Which Street Fighter am I?

The site that hosts the quiz is way incomplete, but it has a wonderfully deceptive name: Colin's Porno Extravaganza. Fear not, it's work-safe.

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