Rooting for the Shark 2019/12/03

Many of you know my obsession with Law & Order SVU. And Dateline. And any kind of true crime. Or fictional crime. #crimejunkie So it stands to reason I'm in love with a podcast called My Favorite Murder. The hosts are Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark, and they're hilarious. Yeah yeah, a podcast of people getting murdered isn't inherently "funny", but these ladies make me laugh...and I could use more of that these days. Another reason I'm drawn to them is that Karen's mom Patricia died from early-onset Alzheimer's, and she writes about it in their book Stay Sexy & Don't Get Murdered. It's the most accurate description I've ever heard of what it's like watching someone you love decline into the depths of this disease.

"Having a parent with Alzheimer's is like living inside a horror movie that's playing out in real time. It's as horrifying and awful as it is tedious and mundane. It'd be like if you lived in the movie Jaws. You're happily swimming in the ocean and then everyone starts screaming, 'Shark!' You start to panic, but then someone yells that the shark is twenty miles away, so you calm down a little. But then a third person gets on the bullhorn and says you're not allowed to get out of the water ever again. So you start panicking and flailing and fighting and yelling for help. You scream about how unfair it is you having to be out in the ocean with this killer shark alone when all those other people get to be on the beach. You scream until your voice is hoarse. No one responds. You finally start to accept that it's your fate. But then you start thinking that everything that touches you is the shark. You can't calm down because you can't stop reacting to things that aren't there. You grab wildly at anything that looks like a weapon, but every time, it turns out to be seaweed. Boats go by filled with happy families enjoying the sun. You hate them all so much it makes you feel sick. Then you get really tired and you cry so hard you think your head will burst. And then finally, you gather all your strength and turn to look at the shark. Now it's 19.8 miles away. It's the slowest shark in history, but you know it's coming right for you. And after five years in the water, you start rooting for the fucking shark."