junebug versus hurricane
Tuesday 30 August 2005 | I like a cookie
I just killed a gnat unintentionally by brushing at, as I thought, a speck of dirt on the screen. But didn’t I know inside it was a gnat, and just not care? Certainly there was a nanosecond when I had just begun to crush and smudge its tiny body across the monitor when I realized, this isn’t dust. But I kept on anyway, or my reptilian brain couldn’t stop my hands from moving by that point. Intentionality is a funny thing.
They keep flying up, attracted to the light from the screen, and I think they came in because the window was open a crack to foster the egress and ingress of one Miss Weasel.
And as I type “Weasel” I suddenly think fiercely (so put your fingers in your ears): I DON’T WANT TO KNOW IF IT’S WEASELY OR HERMIONE WHO DIES! DON’T EVEN LOOK AT ME AND SMIRK AS IF YOU KNOW, OKAY? BECAUSE IF YOU DO I MIGHT HAVE TO TACKLE YOU AND POKE YOU REPEATEDLY IN THE EYE WITH MY PELIKANO UNTIL YOU TELL ME, AND I DON’T EVEN WANT TO KNOW! [And, after all that, the Brujo blurted it out and it was neither….]
Okay, so that gnat I killed on purpose. That one wasn’t so hard to figure out.
Speaking of how small life is and how lightly taken, the Edimatrix stood briefly for a moment by my desk today as we both spluttered in horror over Hurricane Katrina, seen by a foolhardy NOAA cameraman, from her centre:
I glued myself to the BBC and CNN websites for an additional hour and could barely tear myself away from the SFR to go home, even though no one else was there but the lone staff writer, wearing headphones, diligently typing away (his strength is as the strength of two, because his heart is pure). Whenever I talk to him about the difficulties inherent in being a lone staff writer, I find myself feeling a little sad that I can’t apply for the job. But then I come to my senses and realize that I’d be miserable and weeping and pulling out my thin brown tresses over at least two-thirds of the assignments, if that is I could even get myself to do them, and furthermore I’d probably wander off mentallly during some crucial city council, school board or state legislature moment and then jerk back into reality, saying aloud “I’ll have pancakes, please!” like Grandpa Simpson. Embarrass myself by referring to the mayor of Santa Fe as Tom Menino. Have to ask rudimentary questions that real staff journalists probably learn in real journalism school, like, how do you interview reluctant people? How do you get them to talk to you? And humiliating political common-knowledge things—I can just picture the scene, in some basketball court or school classroom where the high-powered meetings that affect Santa Feans are being held, and it’s my job to understand all the sides of this complicated issue so I can report it accurately to the public of northern New Mexico. And then before five minutes have passed I raise my hand like a third-grader and ask something so basic everyone falls completely silent and just gapes at me, not even knowing where to start, in disbelief that anyone could be SO RUDDY STUPID. Like, I don’t know, “Well if it’s so dry then why don’t we just buy a lot of bottled water and ship it here?”
[My fake dumb question was going to be something like, “If New Mexico’s such a poor state and depends almost entirely on a tourism economy, why can’t we force people to buy things before they leave?” but then I decided that, so far from being a dumb question, it’s actually the driving meme behind Indian and Spanish Markets, a squillion unaffordable retailers (particularly those ringing the Plaza like soap scum around the coriolis-swirled drain) and the upcoming travesty of an historical occasion, ¡Viva las Fiestas!]
No, I’d better just stay meekly in my movie-geek corner and write about things I understand, like Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo and Supercross: The Movie.
[But why? to distinguish it from Supercross: The Book? Supercross: The Miniseries? Supercross: One of the Stupidest Ways to Squander Fossil Fuel outside of Monster Trucks Squashing Cars Like Bugs?]
I’m surprised by how horror-stricken I am about what’s happening in New Orleans. The Young Monk asked me why it was any different from any other of a number of natural disasters happening all over the world all the time, and I didn’t have any explanation other than the obvious, unoriginal one of how it’s different because it’s someplace I’ve been. I had a friend who’d been to Phuket and some other Thai islands right before the tsunami and her favorite one, where she’d spent a couple of weeks and gotten to know many of the sixty or seventy people who lived there—a few days after she came back to the States, bam. Gone. No more island. And the idea that Pontchartrain is now actually in New Orleans is too weird. I feel indignant, along with millions of others, that the US infrastructure can’t support relief efforts more effectively. Texas Governor Rick Perry and the Houston mayor look like heroes, kind of like Rudy Giuliani after 9.11. Houston is fricking saving lives with this crappy Astrodome scheme of theirs. And Jesus, even DFW is taking in refugees. But why can’t every bloody helicopter in the US military drop whatever its pilots are doing and get its ass down there and rescue some goddamn victims?
I say all this, and deep down what it means is that I don’t like the thought that it’s night, and someone somewhere is cold and wet and too exhausted and hungry and bereaved to cry or shout any more for help which never comes, and his family members have all drifted away and drowned or just vanished before his eyes, and she’s just so tired, and maybe he could just let go for a while, and sleep, that wouldn’t be so bad, she’ll wake up and mama will be there with blueberry muffins and they can go to the zoo.
I’ll have pancakes, please.
This morning I looked at my pills on my desk—an Effexor, a Wellbutrin, and three yin chiao or whatever this Chinese miracle herb echinacea-equivalent is supposed to be. I laughed out loud and was glad no one heard me: All I could think was, The pink ones keep you from screaming!
It’s been a long day. Week. Month. Year.
I just want to write, by myself, in the dark, in the light, at my desk, on my computer, with three colors of blue/turquoise/violet ink, under the covers, at the breakfast table with milk and toast and honey / and a bowl of oranges too.
post your glowing encomium (or bitter philippic) »
Follow this heated, lively discussion through its very own feed; also, you can pingback or trackback from your own doubtlessly much more interesting site.
