So Last week I finished this book about sharks. Now, all I can think of is this:

No matter how bored or stuck I become, no matter how happy or successful or stable or whatever, no matter what degree of certainty or uncertainty I experience on a day to day basis, nothing can change the fact that in a small New Jersey hamlet in 1916, a young kid who was swimming in a small creek with his cousins was suddenly, unexpectedly eaten alive by a great white shark.

Lately I haven’t been too happy. As a cathartic excercise I’ve decided to emulate Michael Bernard Loggins, the great author, in enumerating my fears. Here goes:

1. Fear of lung cancer.
2. Fear of eating a pizza and there is a piece of glass underneath the cheese.
3. I’m afraid of snakes.
4. Fear of having to tie my shoelaces when it is raining and I’ve been walking around and my shoelaces are really wet and dirty.
5. Fear of inhaling a deflated balloon and choking till I am dead.
6. Fear that failing in my career will make me an unhappy person.
7. Fear of HIV.
8. Fear of tuberculosis.
9. Afraid of going to the doctor when I am sick and they don’t know what is wrong with me.
10. Fear of having a disease named after me.
11. Fear that I will get too old to wear hoodies.
12. Fear of losing my hair.
13. Fear of my elbows and knees bending the wrong way and breaking really loudly.
14. Fear of that Christian god being real cause I have said some pretty bad things about him and the people who dig him. Also you are supposed to fear god according to the bible.
15. Fear that I will get old and confuse wisdom with obstinance and become unable to apologize.
16. Fear of being lied to.
17. Fear of not being able to tell the difference between life and dream.
18. I’m afraid of the dark zeppellin that lands once a year and if you sneak on board they never let you off.
19. Fear that my friends will stop liking me.
20. Fear of becoming dependent on alcohol.
21. Fear of seeing someone OD.
22. I have Imposter Syndrome and all its associated fears and terrors.
23. Fear of failing as a writer. This is a big one, so big it stops me from trying.
24. Fear walking up to someone and saying hi and they don’t say anything so I say hi again. Then they open their mouth and black marbles fall out.
25. Fear of not being funny.
26. Fear that I am becoming less funny everyday.
27. Fear of being in a room with many people and telling a joke I think is hilarious, but only one person in the room laughs and they are ugly.

What I need is some immortal friends. I am getting pretty annoyed and upset by the fact that all you guys will someday die, some sooner than others (looking at you, friend with ridiculous number of middle names). Don’t suggest poems or literature; those things are relatively finite also. Jesus is a loser and I hear from reliable sources that God is dead. Odin has a posse and I would just be a fifth wheel on top of those ravens, wolves, and his excessively legged horse. Maybe I will go the other route and try to befriend some skeletons. Skeletons like minimal techno right?

I just made and addendum to my Things To Do Before I Finally Die list:

14) Pee on the equator.

The list is in ink on graph paper.