Employing callousness to deal with ordinary, yet profound, grief since 1994.

In case you missed the 967 status updates from your friends on Facebook... OMG Patrick Swayze died! I was actually JUST at the grocery store, waiting in line, perusing a National Enquirer-ish magazine which had an article about how he was heading home to die. (I might have to start paying more attention to those National Enquirer-ish magazines. They seem to be on to more than one would think.)

Until this year, the last celebrity passing I was truly saddened about was Kurt Cobain. (Don't ask - it was a grungy, angsty time in my life. Did not help that I went to a Pearl Jam show the night his death was publicized. The band and the ten-thousand-ish crowd were all a mess. It was the most intense show I have ever experienced.) Before that, it was Jim Henson in 1990. But otherwise...

Which is not to say that I don't always shed a tear during the Oscar obituary slideshow every year. But those folks have always been less familiar, less personal, less "my generation." Bea Arthur, David Carradine, Dom Deluise, Ed McMahon, John Updike, Karl Malden, Ricardo Montalbán, Ron Silver? Yeah, those were sad 2009 losses. Billy Mays, Oscar Mayer Jr? Well... I'm sure their parents were proud.

This year? First MJ, then John Hughes, then Jim Carroll, now Johnny Castle?? My adolescence can't stop crying. And Ted Kennedy, Les Paul and Walter Kronkite? Hell yes, those were losses to my generation.

(OK, my adolescence can't stop crying because it's realizing that this probably means I AM NOW OFFICIALLY OLD. Shit.)

Like I said, employing callousness since 1994.

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But if you really want to see callous, google "celebrity deaths 2009" and see just how many web sites are dedicated to this. My callousness is in the interest of self-preservation and sanity. Theirs? Just gross. (But surprisingly helpful in my old age!)