What Doesn't Happen

      About 12  years ago I was lying in this woman's bed.  (When someone else is in bed with me, I don't really sleep.  I also don't really have sex.)  At around 4:00 AM, while she's asleep and I'm maybe half asleep, I had a startling, profound, vivid realization that I'm going to die.  One day I will die and all my thoughts will cease; everything I'm working on (or should be working on) will stop.  It's hard to describe.  Just a startling revelation that the curtain will fall and my little show, such as it is, will fade to black.

    One would think that after such a jarring wake-up call I'd have resolved to buckle down, to reach  some goals; but alas, life since then has continued to be what might be best described by paraphrasing Lennon: what doesn't happen to you while you're not busy making other plans.

   Someone recently said  that "nothing happens after you die."  Pity, since in my case nothing much happens before, either.