I Tell Y'all What...I'm reading

Our new Constitution is now established, and has an appearance that promises permanency; but in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.  — Benjamin Franklin, in a letter to Jean-Baptiste Leroy, 1789  

Bleak, but accurate.

I'm not a morbid person -- there was no goth phase, no romance with the macabre for me. Caitlin Doughty on the other hand, takes morbid fascination and practically bathes in it.

She doesn't look like a one woman danse macabre but it only takes one video or one chapter of her book to realize you're dealing with someone who lives for death.

I've been reading her book, Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: And Other Lessons from the Crematory. Doughty is the titular star of the Ask a Mortician YouTube series.

In her book, Doughty pulls back the coffin lining on the death industry and modern society's warped relationship with death, decay and mourning. Whenever I read about a mother being asked to leave or cover up while breastfeed, I always think 'It's literally the most natural thing in the world?! How can people not understand this?! How does it get so twisted?!' Okay not everyone was breastfed but (as Doughty likes to remind viewers at the end of every video) everyone will die. And yet, most folks don't die at home any longer (a relatively new trend), we embalm the dead into freakish, waxy mockeries of 'life like' and we spend thousands on boxes to do what, exactly?

Read this if: you are curious about what happens immediately after you die