The beauty of the out of the blue email from the depths of sorry hell is it answers a structural question rattling in my brain pan.

To do something with the Pat book idea, I’ve been chewing on a story arc. To keep it all light and humor like, I’m thinking a thread, and workable arc could begin with the now classic episode of my life’s fuckedupedness — The house fire the week I first ever tried standup. Cuz, you know, nothing says funny haha comedy like, mom’s survived a fire, and I got a microphone.

The ending of that arc, could logically then be the ending of the real fucking arc, Pat’s and my relationship ending on this here mortal coil and all.

That’s cool, but I wanted more. The end that is the beginning, the point, the universal theme. You know, the smart shit, the pretension that makes a book an objet d’arte.

So, check it, my pretentious life’s lesson, story arc ending. The last fucking gift Pat handed to me on a silver tray of dripping irony.

Her death was the catalyst for the kiss off to the bad, bad man. The man who she suspected never treated me right, who she never liked, sight unseen, because he was too chickenshit to meet her.

If she hadn’t died, I may never had the scales drop from my eyes and, who knows, I may even have maintained some kind of fucked up, hobbled friendship with someone who isn’t capable of actual friendship.

So, the story will end with how I have continued on in a way, I think and at last, where she may actually have been happy and proud of me. Pat wasn’t Jesus, and lord knows, though swell at playing the martyr, she wasn’t a saint. But through her death, I was reborn.

Or some shit like that. It’ll be a comedy book, I swear.