No skydiving for Matt

It would be OK if I died.

No, wait. It would not be OK; it would royally suck. But do dead people feel that things suck? It would be really really rotten for everyone here, but I'd be dead. I imagine that if it happened I'd be cool with it. I mean I believe in God and an afterlife that better be totally bitchin'.

Being dead would enable me to get on with the plans for a top-to-bottom reorganization of religion. And if the right folks don't go along with the reorg, they will find themselves in Wisconsin. If there is real opposition to the reorg, I go hostile on their asses and take the question to shareholders.

A dead person would also not wake up for dinner, go to the bathroom, run over his left foot, really have to go despite the foot that is under the chair, somehow manage to stand up at the toilet, bang the heck out of his left knee on the toilet bowl and pee all over the floor and just enough on himself that it requires changing. I imagine.

All of the above was my thinking when I decided to go skydiving -- well, not the reorganization part, that's new.

Much like she did with rock climbing, my adventure sport friend J, who does every every extreme thing I am sure, found out I wanted to skydive and set out to make it happen. We all should be so lucky as to have that kind of friend.

And she did mostly. She talked to the owner of the skydive place, found out it was mostly safe, got a superstar skydiver to be my jump partner (although that fell through).

All I had to do was call and make an appointment, and on Sunday I did. Or really, Mom did because I can't hear too well. The woman taking reservations told her not to tell me this but that a woman who uses a chair jumped the day before and broke her leg.

Mom, of course, told me, and that was it for me: The dream was over.

Dying, I can live with (HEE). Breaking my leg? Oh, hell no. The idea of being more helpless than usual struck fear into my heart and is going to keep me firmly in touch with the good earth.

I have too many things I need help with, and breaking a leg would mean everything required help. Makes me want to throw up just considering it.

I have since learned that the jumper who broke her leg was 200 pounds and that I would likely be OK, so skydiving is back on the maybe list. But not soon.