I'm spazzing

Someone I've known for the last 7ish years died on Monday. Keith Alexander died in a bicycling accident. He wasn't wearing a helmet. If he'd been wearing one, he would probably still be alive. I'm so pissed at him for robbing us of many more years of knowing him.

I only vaguely remember my first interaction with Keith. I came into #bodyart, I think - I'm pretty sure I met him on irc before I posted to rec.arts.bodyart... He hazed me, like the regulars would do to any newbie... and I must have said something quick and clever. I made him laugh, and won his approval. I never had any problems fitting in with the group after that. Such was the power of Keith Alexander's approval. #bodyart and rec.arts.bodyart regulars were some elitist pricks, myself included... but Keith liked me. I'm honored to have been one of the people Keith liked.

Keith Alexander was an amazing person. Someone said today that he would become the best at something and then tell it to fuck off and start at the bottom with something else. It's true. He really was the master of reinvention. From music, to piercing, to cycling, to whatever else he set his mind to... he always quickly became damned good at whatever he was doing. More about him can be read at http://www.nootrope.net/bio.html.

The bodyart community is still reeling from the news of his death. So many people knew him. I bet there will still be people for weeks or months who are only just finding out about it and feeling the way the rest of us are feeling today.

...and that brings me to the heart of why I'm spazzing. My surgery is coming up in 12 days. There are risks when you have general anesthesia. I could die, and how long would it take before the news made it to people I've known online for years? I know that far, far fewer people would care about the news of my death than care about the news of Keith's death... but I'm being forced to face my mortality and it's making me spaz out.

Another reason why I'm spazzing is that my husband found out that his employer will be sending him out of town the first week in August, which is the week after my surgery. That, plus financial issues that crop up out of nowhere, plus getting sick a week ago, plus a million other variables all bouncing around at once... I'm coming to realize just how little control I have over this whole surgery business. It's scary to find out that events are out of your hands. I'm not good at it. I fret. I spaz.

So I'm fretting and spazzing, and anxious to get this all over with. The worst part is that because my tonsils and lymph nodes are still swollen, I may not even be cleared for surgery when all is said and done, and they may make me reschedule. Wonderful... even more time for new variables to crop up, and to fret and spaz.