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incorrect assumptions

It's a weird world. People meet, become friends, separate, get back in touch, and catch up, after which it's easy to assume we know what's happened in the intervening time. We don't though. Not really. Sometimes there are big pieces that have been left out. My friend Marc, over at Misanthropicity is one of these cases. I was planning on writing this even before he threw me a bone, but here it is: Marc and I had a mutual friend, who passed on just over half my lifetime ago, and little more than half of Marc's. The friend was a fan of, among other artists, Spalding Gray. When Spalding's body was found, it struck me as another sad, senseless tragedy, and another part of our friend had gone, well... away. Here was another performer from that time, whose existince, parallel, linear, co-extant still with ours, was at least a reminder that some things go on, even when our friend's life didn't.

For me, the sadness of Spalding's death was remove, something like losing access permanently to a movie or book that I was fond of; it was sad, but impersonal. I assumed that the same was true for Marc, but it turns out he had dinner with Spalding Gray. Which has made me only more sad. I'll just go put on Mister Heartbreak.

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