WWTDGD? (aka What Would The Dead Girl Do?)

I meant to write about this last week but then life intervened but I'm writing about it now because I'm trying to come up with all sorts of innovative ways to avoid working on my book and I've already spent a half-hour scouring Craigslist for apartments even though I'm not moving until September. And it's only 7:30am.

(BTW, apparently people don't care to respond to emails asking if the apartment they've advertised for rent immediately might be available in September, or might they have a similar apartment avail in September that's actually less money than the one they've advertised for rent immediately. Yeah--from the lack of responses I've gotten back, I'm thinking they don't really care about my anxiety about finding an affordable, a-little-bigger-than-a-postage-stamp, vermin/bug-less pets-OK pre-war apartment in Chelsea. Oh, did I mention it needs to be affordable?)

Anyway...I digress. As usual. Maybe that's because I have a codependent cat who spent all night scratching at the bedroom door because I wouldn't let him in because I wanted to test out my theory that I'd get more sleep with him out of the room rather than in.

Theory disproved.

Now. On to The Dead Girl.

Okay, so last week Ariel suggested I come to London for July 4th weekend and although part of the reason I moved to the east coast was so that I could go to Europe more frequently because it's a much easier trip than going from L.A., and even though I have the money, and even though I'd have a free place to stay, I still hemmed and hawwed because of the Impending Apartment Move because, like I mentioned, I'd like to live somewhere...you know...livable because I find that living somewhere livable really helps with things like my mood and the ability to write.

So I hemmed and hawwed about the London thing to my friend Michele, and then I hemmed and hawwed about it to my friend Deb, and I hemmed and hawwed about it to myself, and then I heard about The Dead Girl.

So on Memorial Day, this 26-year-old woman named Lauren -- aka The Dead Girl, but obviously not dead at that moment -- was jogging around the reservoir with her boyfriend and she dropped dead of a heart attack.

26. Dead. Just like that.

And the kicker is that apparently the boyfriend was planning on proposing that upcoming weekend. Now, I don't know if that part of true or if it's quickly become urban legend, but I do know she's dead because I know people who were close friends with her. I did not know The Dead Girl but I hear that she was just lovely in every way.

And as I listened to this story, in addition to feeling just awful for her family and her boyfriend/would-have-been fiance, and her friends, I thought about London. Specifically, I thought about the fact that The Dead Girl would not be able to go to London. Ever. Because she's dead. She wouldn't have been able to go even if she had the money, and she wouldn't have been able to go even if she didn't have the money and decided to charge it.

Because she's dead.

I bet, if she could, she'd go.

So right then I decided that, in her honor, I would go instead.

Not just because I have the money and don't even have to charge it, but because I can. Because I am alive and healthy and -- as far as I know -- don't have a heart condition.

I booked my ticket the next morning. I'm going from July 3rd-6th. I haven't been to London since 1991. I'm so excited I can't stand it.

And I'm going to trust that not only can I go to London, but I can also find an affordable, a-little-bigger-than-a-postage-stamp, vermin/bug-less pets-OK pre-war apartment in Chelsea for September 1st as well.

That is, if anyone on Craigslist ever emails me back.