Just reading Spalding Gray's obituary at nytimes.com and I realize I don't know much about the man. It's not that surprising that he killed himself. His mother committed suicide. I would think if your mother commits suicide, that must totally fuck you up. Because you've gotta figure that she made it long enough to decide to have you, and depending on when she killed herself, long enough to raise you, then at some point she just decided to leave you motherless. That must make you feel like shit.

With parents, if their kid kills themself, they will of course take all the blame, but you can usually point to outside sources. Maybe they got mixed up with the wrong crowd, or whatever. But after people have kids, that's pretty much it. The rest of your life is your kids. So if you decide to kill yourself after you have kids, your kids must suck.

Of course I joke. I always find it interesting how people commit suicide. Like with Spalding Gray, he jumped off the Staten Island ferry, and just presumably hung out there until he drowned. I don't think I'd want to drown. But I especially would not want to drown in the East River.

Virginia Woolf jumped in a river, but just to make extra sure she died, she put rocks in her pockets. That's commitment. I would totally put rocks in my pockets, so when they found me, some cop or detective would go, "Damn. This fucking guy put rocks in his pockets."