As I sat at my desk today at work, contemplating photos of fur seals and sea lions for our website, a young woman was falling to her death across the parking lot. I hadn't expected to be shaken into a deep contemplation of mortality when I came to work today, but as for this young woman, life is unpredictable, and you never know what it will deliver or take away.
Sitting at my desk, I was asked to move my car out of the parking lot because a helicopter needed to land there. I moved the car and watched as assorted fire trucks, ambulances, National Park Service, police, and the Coast Guard descended on the scene. I listened in on the radio correspondence of rescue workers and overheard that there were two victims down the side of the cliff, and the "survivor" was alert. I heard them ask for the time on the radio so they could call the time of death. I watched the helicopter disappear behind the hill, then return to land in the parking lot, where a young man emerged and was led to the picnic tables. A blanket was put around him and he was given some water, as two officials wrote on a pad of paper while he spoke animatedly, gesturing. About ten minutes later, the helicopter returned, and a body bag on a stretcher was unloaded and walked to the ambulance. As I left work for the day, on my way to the post office to mail my tax return, the absurdity of life just hit me. I walked through the parking lot to where I had moved my car, and passed by the young man who had just lost his hiking companion. Police stood by as he took things out of an SUV with a dazed look on his face. He looked up as I passed, but looked right through me.
An hour earlier, this guy was hiking up a trail with a young lady. I'm left only to speculate on their relationship...a first date? Madly in love? What struck me was that he did not know (at least I certainly hope he didn't, lest this turn more sinister) when they pulled up and parked in the beach parking lot that one hour later his life would be forever changed, she would be dead, and he would be clearing out their belongings from the car.
As I drove to the post office, away from this scene, I was triggered into a spiraling internal dialogue. I was deeply disturbed, slightly nauseated. Later, I scanned the stories on the news websites for the one outside my
office, and saw that a woman was also killed in San Francisco today
when a tree fell on her while she was getting her dog out of the car at
a park. A man in Mill Valley was also killed when a wave washed him
overboard during a shark diving trip in South Africa. We don't know at what point the period at the end of our life will come. We can only create right now. This is it. There are no do-overs or practice games. Time doesn't wait for fear and doubt. I need to get to doing the things I want to do now. Remind me when humdrum life lulls me.
This website lets you play a vocabulary game, and donates money toward feeding people for every word you get right. Challenge your brain and feed hungry people!
In a town meeting in New Hampshire on January 3, an audience member expressed concerns that we might be in Iraq for 50 years. John McCain flippantly remarks, "Make it a hundred." I'll be referencing him as "100 Years War McCain" from now on, and I hope you all do the same.
I have to carve out moments now. They don't come easily. This evening, I took advantage of the bizarre cool weather (the puppy days of summer?) to take a quick hike along my trail. It was so quiet, and I only then realized that I haven't had a chance to hear myself think for quite some time now, let alone breathe. This evening I had the luxury of having the trail to myself, as it was in that twilight hour where all the kidlets are inside and families are eating dinner. The houses in the valley below were dead silent. Lost in my reverie, I came down the trail, where I was pulled back to the world by a Ginko tree, its wide fan leaves flapping wildly against each other in the breeze. So I stopped and accepted the applause.
All both of you blog readers may have noticed I dropped off the planet
for some time. There have been a lot of changes in my life lately. I am
moving soon, and I suspect when everything settles down a bit I will
pick up the blogging ball again.
In the mean time, I saw my good friend Stephen and his acting partner Jon's show, "Ten West"
this weekend, while they were in Northern California. These guys are so
good, they never fail to have people doubled over (laughing), and the
audience was hooting and hollering for more when they finished. I'm
pretty awed by their talent, knowing how hard it is to pull off what
they do. Anyway, go see them if you can.
I'm still doing my hikes and walks as metaphors, but rarely have time
to write about it. This week, I went for my standby favorite, Tenessee
Valley, with my friend Louis. We talked all the way down to the water,
and then sat on the beach and talked some more. I forget how nourishing
it is to be able to talk that way. I know we all walk our paths alone
in the end, but sometimes the extra set of footprints beside me can
help put the road in perspective. I hardly noticed the hills.
Today I had to pick up my car from the shop and because I didn't have
time to exercise at any other time, I walked across the city to get it.
Let's call it an urban hike. As I walked down this particular stretch
of road, I marveled at the sheer numbers of day laborers. There were
probably close to 75 men lining the road, as there are every day,
waiting for a truck to stop and offer them a few dollars for some
lifting/hauling/pulling/digging. The day laborers lay around like
cattle bunched around the few trees lending shade. Not a car or truck
in sight, they played cards, or napped, or chatted with the others.
Laboring under the illusion of the American Dream.
One word: Gorebama. And apparently I'm not the only one. It kills me to say it because I am a Clinton fan through and through, but I am afraid the Clinton name raises the conservative heckles too much in this backward country to win in the final showdown. We have to bet on the pony that can win in the final lap, cause any Democrat is better than the Republicans running. My 2 cents. Come on, Gore, let's turn this planet around and groom the most dynamic, diplomatic, and intelligent candidate since Clinton for the future presidency. Gorebama 08! Whoop whoop!
As I have been struggling with a healthcare issue and the frustrations of my crappy Blue Cross insurance which doesn't cover diddly squat, I serendipitously happened across a meeting supporting a new California bill which would institute comprehensive universal healthcare for state residents. Please watch the following video and click HERE to sign a petition supporting the bill. It is up against Arnold Schwartzenegger's own health "reform" bill, which, not surprisingly, isn't much of a reform at all.
I have two childhood friends, Isa and Ana (twins), who have Cystic Fibrosis and both underwent double lung transplants a few years ago. Without the transplants, they would most likely not have survived this long. On May 5th and 6th, I will be part of a walk with them to raise money and awareness for organ donation. The walk is from Petaluma to Santa Cruz, done in shifts over two days. I will be walking 11 miles in Marin, and then another 10 miles the next day. If you'd like to help us raise the $1200 we've pledged to raise, please click on the link below. Thanks, and much love!
I hiked down to the ocean today through good ole TennesseeValley. Due to global warming, a
heatwave has descended on us mid-February, and the trail was swarming with
people of every size and age. I enjoyed passing mini-dramas, like changing the channels
of a TV: “Dad! I can't do any more!" (sobbing child on mountain bike,
looking at blistered hands), “So I told him to take his poodle and get the hell
out, andI’m going to sublet until
David’s relocated to North Carolina…”
(woman to friend) “Vjor bradoosh porkeeski” (indecipherable Eastern European
man to small daughter and large wife). With each snippet, I mused on what the
rest of the story might be, and what brought them to this trail today.
What I love about the TennesseeValley
trail is that it starts out very wide on a fire road, then gets narrower as it
winds toward the bottom, sandwiched between the valley walls. At the bottom is
a stunning small beach where waves crash into the inlet between spectacular multicolored
rock formations carved by years of the sea’s force. It’s like a reward, the pot
of gold at the end of the rainbow realized.
When I arrived at the beach today, somebody had created a
massive heart on the sand in rocks, most likely as a gesture on Valentine’s Day
a few days ago. But it still works on so many levels. I looked back up the
valley, and saw the trail winding to the beach, people moving up or down it. It
was, in fact, very much like an artery/vein carrying blood to and from the
heart, this vibrant little stretch where people and creek water funneled into
an opposing rush of tide. I saw people, myself included, traveling down this
path to be reoxygenated by the ocean, and then carrying our reinspired bodies
back up the path to our daily lives, reconnected with the source, the power of
nature.
As I headed back up the trail I reveled in this analogy and
watched the mini-dramas that I passed with that much more interest, aware of
how we all traveled down this vein, passed through the same heart, and took its
gift up this artery. We stepped into our cars, and carried it through other
arteries, into the tiny capillaries that feed different places, different jobs
and houses, and wildly different lives. But all connected in this web, meeting
at the heart.
As I have been saying for a few years now, the Bush administration has adopted a "damned if you do, damned if you don't, we're gonna bomb your asses whatever you do" policy on Iran (and Syria, the next country on the "list"). This week, the administration trotted out their latest attempt at drumming up reasons to justify their intent to target Iran. They claim that people in the Iranian military have sent weapons into Iraq, and the top levels of government may, or possibly may not, be involved. I know, compelling evidence!
GEORGE W. BUSH: What we don't know is whether or not the head leaders
of Iran ordered the force to do what they did, but, here's my point,
either they knew or didn't know, and what matters is that they're
there. What's worse? That the Government knew or that the Government
didn't know?
and Mr. party line Tony Snow: What's more frightening, the notion that they are freelancing or that
they're not?
So now their take on it is that either way, it means the Iranian government is horrible and should be taken out. Hmmm...I like where they are going with this, something about being hoisted by one's own petard comes to mind...
Abu Ghraib, for example. I mean, Scott McClellan reminded us how those were the actions of individuals without the knowledge of those higher up, right? I mean, how could The U.S. government or military generals possibly know what was going on with the prisoners they captured to procure highly sensitive secret information from? But, ah, are you sure you want to now start saying, "What's worse? That the Government knew or that the Government
didn't know?", Bush people, as evidence that another government should be removed from power? You sure you want to use that tack?
Because I also actually quite clearly remember an interesting story (which was naturally forgotten amidst the important Brad and Jennifer split stories) regarding the complete plundering of weapons bunkers in Iraq under our watch. Anyone remember Al Qa'qaa? There are probably more weapons used against our troops from the 340 TONS the U.S. handed looters on a silver platter than from Iran. So, yes, let's run with this, Bush. Indeed, "here's my point,
either they knew or didn't know, and what matters is that they're
there. What's worse? That the Government knew or that the Government
didn't know?" I don't know, which is worse, George?
One day I'll come swimming beside your ship or someone will and if you hear the siren listen to it. For if you close your ears only nothing happens. You will never change...
And on this Valentine's Day, in lieu of my deeply moving interpretive dance, I think I can best express the spirit of my feelings for you through YouTube :
Doing dishes while on the phone with a friend this afternoon, something suddenly triggered a vague memory.
"I think I had a premonition in a dream last night and wrote something down so I wouldn't forget," I said. I recalled waking from a dream in which I had the key to solving some mystery, and had groggily written it down in the dark before falling back asleep.
I went to my dayplanner and flipped through the pages, before finding it. "Aha!" I told my friend, "Here it is." Scrawled in blind, almost illegible chicken-scratch were the following words:
Me on bus—-> Killer nextto me. Jessica Sklar!!!! DON'T FORGET!!!
"Oh, it's such a juicy mystery!" I said. "Who is Jessica Sklar?" I vaguely remembered that in my dream I had learned on a bus ride that the man next to me was involved in the murder of someone named Jessica Sklar. I had woken briefly with the total conviction that this mystery person, 'Jessica Sklar', was some runaway teen, and I had newly discovered psychic abilities to crack the case, and was well on my way to working for the FBI, or at least Montel Williams.
"Let's Google the name," my friend said. "Yes!" I said, as my friend began tapping away at her computer keyboard on the other end of the line, "I wonder who she is. Gee, wouldn't that be weird if it was some unsolved disappearance of a teenaged girl?" "Mmmhmm," she said, "Or, like, say, Jerry Seinfeld's wife?" "What?" "Jessica Sklar is Jerry Seinfeld's wife." "What?!" "Jessica Sklar is Jerry Seinfeld's wife." "What the hell is that? She's not a missing teen?" "No." "...Well, how weird would it be if she went missing?" "You are the worst psychic ever."
Got my new Harper's Magazine in the mail today, and as usual, turned to the "Readings" section first. I was very interested in the "Stet Offensive" excerpt (re-excerpted here) from questions sent into The Chicago Manual of Style, a staple of writers, editors, and proofreaders everywhere. One person wrote in to ask about the use of emoticons. Because this (mis)use of punctuation marks is very much a turning point in the English language in the digital age, I was curious to see how The Chicago Manual of Style would field the following question, which I too have posed to myself, to the point that I forgo emoticons entirely in these cases (I definitely forgo them now that any html program automatically turns them into stupid cartoon faces...I am, in fact, on the phone with customer support right now—and for far too long— trying to figure out how to turn off the auto-smileys this blog program generates, which screw up the whole point of this excerpt...OK, it's now the next day, and a team of tech support can't fix this glitch-filled blogging software. Argh. We'll call this "smileygate". In the meantime, imagine the following quote with old-school emoticons).
"Is there any standard for the use of emoticons? In particular, is there an accepted practice for the use of emoticons that includes an opening or closing parenthesis as the final token within a set of parentheses? Should I incorporate the emoticon into the closing of the parentheses (giving a dual purpose to the parenthesis, such as in this case ; simply leave the emoticon up against the closing parenthesis, ignoring the the bizarre visual effect of the doubled closing parenthesis (as I am doing here, producing a double-chin effect )..."
Bah, humbug. The Chicago Manual of Style declined to touch it with a ten foot pole, stating that "until academic standards decline enough to accomodate the use of emoticons", they weren't going to take a position in the whole emoticonversation. I admire their purist attitude in fighting the text-messagization of the English laguage (LOL 4 rl, U no grl, ttyl). But equally am I slightly frustrated that sadly, when it comes to this linguistic development, I will have to remain emoticonfounded.
NOTE: Since writing this entry, I seem to have manifested my worst nightmare, and "Smileygate" is now concluded with this e-mail in my inbox today from the Godaddy folks:
"Our Advanced Technical Support has examined your issue and have
determined that currently, emoticon settings are not recognized in the
write and edit entry pages of Quick Blog. Our development team has been
made aware of this and it will be addressed in a future release. We
apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.
; simply leave the emoticon up against the closing parenthesis, ignoring the the bizarre visual effect of the doubled closing parenthesis (as I am doing here, producing a double-chin effect