Jumbled Random History Death

There always seems to be a topic for a good story floating around in my head. But just as that idea starts to develop, another one pops up. Eventually my head is full of lead sentences that never amount to more than brain clog that slows down the whole system. Somehow I need to defrag the file structure in my head because the disk space seems a little screwed up. We could talk about exercise, diet, smoking, sex, stress and other imbalances that may be occurring or I could just do a brain-dump rough draft all over this page.

First, a good friend of our family has just died. It's all so quite sad and tragic as she was young and had plenty yet to offer this world. I try to focus on the meaning of this whole situation but just end up numb. I doubt numb is one of the the typical stages of grief and maybe it comes under the category of denial but I don't think that is the case here. I'm fine with the short answers like "life's not always fair" and "God has his plan" but am still left with some sort of vagary about the whole situation. I feel bad for feeling this way but this is where I am.

Second, I had a decent conversation about racism with a 55 year-old black southerner today. He was sharing his perspective of segregated high-schools back in the day and I was talking about the Freedom Riders of 1961. I knew he couldn't answer my questions but I wanted him to know that I was starting to understand his pain. Ultimately I was questioning the absurdity of the human condition which causes people to beat the shit out of others just for the color of their skin. What is that? I could almost understand a major social mistake in core beliefs which could temporarily justify slavery. But after a war, some law changes and 100 years of thinking, you would think we knew right from wrong.

Third, I forgot.

Fourth, I also forgot.