reason to live; the story left behind

I know a lot of people disagree with my sentiment that it’ll be less work to die old, and that perhaps I’m putting myself through undue suffering

But then I ran into this story of this exceedingly average person for his time, a small businessman in the late 19th century. He died in 1906. But here he is getting talked about, which to me makes him a success story. The legend goes that he tried to spend so much on his monument that his family didn’t get anything. The truth turns out that he wasn’t specific about the amount to be spent. He said 1/6th of his estate, $6000 in 1906, and therefor has this huge monument that ended up really rubbing the locals the wrong way.

See, the chunk of granite was so heavy they had to reinforce every bridge on the route over hundreds of miles. And the thing towers over the other graves.

It’s almost enough for me to stay here, seeing if I could do something that mean spirited to my current locality, which I do hate.

The guy was the kind of rich that gets a lot easier late in life, he didn’t even know how much he had. I’m not bad off, but I know where every penny is. In 44 years though, I could do something and make a legend of myself. I don’t think there’s much I can do on this earth that’ll make that huge of an impact, but it’s cool to see someone who succeeded

Then it turns out just the next town over, a guy really did hate his family so much he put all his money into his monument. $14k, in 1895. And somehow that story is more absurd, because at least Bosworth went for granite, there’s tons of that in New England, not a big deal (though it is a big stone). But this second monument was made of Italian marble, it had to be shipped from Italy

At the end of it all, he left one of his sisters $50, and the other $1. Now that’s petty, game recognizes game, that’s the kind of story I like to hear

In unrelated happenings, I have some kind of sinus issue that has derailed everything. Again, why I hate where I live, because some places don’t give me that bad of allergies, then it would just be diseases

I sneezed so hard that I felt it in my fingers and toes, it was terrible. So now I’m a little dizzy, taking it easy. Eight days to go to interview, and if necessary I can pull it together for one performance. Because they have interviews scheduled through the rest of the month. When I found out about that I was cranky, but now that my nose has gone AWOL, it might end up being a blessing any way.