We had a earthquake this morning. It was a 4.3, centered about 5 miles ESE of here, at 5:55am. It was in the hills right behind the little town of La Conchita, which suffered a major, home-destroying mudslide several years back.

It woke me up. I thought, “aw shit,” which I quess means something like, “Gee I hope this isn’t a big earthquake somewhere distant, doing much damage, causing pain, grief and untold suffering.” Then I went back to sleep.

It was a nice little ride, if you’re into that sort of thing.

“I am wary of a lot of things, such as … time clocks, newspapers, mortgages, sermons, miracle fabrics, deodorants … pageants, progress, and manifest destiny.”

So I’m sitting here at the end of a long summer day, looking at all the cute and subtly intuitive buttons on the Word toolbars, and wondering what I should write about. My mind is a small orchestra, tuning up as a troop of clowns on bicycles crashes through a crowded Chinatown restaurant. So many recent immigrants are being scalded by flying pots of steaming egg drop soup. And as the last team of paramedics clears the scene, a soggy, scrotish fortune cookie ponders the folly of too much concern for fleeting love.

It can’t be helped. Call it the pratfalls of unremitting sobriety.

It was a quiet day. J detailed his car, as the dogs moved from place to place throughout the house, looking for a cool, soft place to doze. I worried about my nerves, which have been on high voltage lately.

Sometimes, when it’s like that, I get alone and make a stupid face. It’s a relaxation technique, taught to me by a psychotherapist a few years back. You breathe slowly in and out, and with each exhale, allow the face to fall more slack, like the uncomprehending features of an idiot. Let the jaw hang loose like laundry on the line. When the face is totally limp – which takes me 20 or 30 slow, deep breaths – work on down the body from the ears to the toes.

It just doesn’t matter. Whatever’s making you crazy, spend your day dreaming about getting drunk into a warm darkness, or eating to the point of paralysis, it doesn’t matter. Not in 40 years or 50, not to the lawnmower, weed whacker, reaper … sssshh. Shantih.

I was neither

This prayer is one that means a lot to me.

My buddy Pete raises the issue of the top 10 things to do/see before you die.  He asks his readers how many of the 10 they’ve seen.  I’ll offer a different list — things I’ve already seen myself.  These are in no particular order and just off the top of my head.  Some of them have passed into memory, and cannot be seen again.

1.  The Pieta, in St. Peters, Rome.

2.  The tomb of Napoleon.

3.  Poets’ Corner, Westminster Abbey.

4.  Giant Redwoods, northwestern coast of California.

5.  Red salmon and Rainbow trout in a cold creek, eastern sierras.

6.  Even a bad football game, if watched with my Dad and either of my grandpas.

7.  Bald eagle taking a dump while taking flight, Mt. Lassen.

8.  Mir-streaming icon of the Mother of God, Santa Barbara and Los Angeles.

9.  My family, any time they happen to be smiling. 

10.  Thanksgiving dinner, and something to be thankful for. 

And a bonus item:

11.  My parents, with my nephew, and their joy.

After a long walk I come down to the shore.

A cottonwood tree lies stretched out in the grass.

This tree knocked down by lightning —

and a hollow the owls made open now to the rain.

Disasters are all right, if they teach

men and women

to turn their hollow places up.

The tree lies stretched out

where it fell in the grass.

It is so mysterious, waters below, waters above,

so little of it we can ever know!

–Robert Bly

Thanks to my buds at OCofftopic.

Go watch Saddam doin’ a little of the ol’ Roshambo. Pretty funny stuff, dude.

Rock, Paper, Saddam!

Thanks to Sarah.

Here’s something for my buddy Erik, whose taste in books is impeccable.  It’s an article from Time about trashy summer reading.  

Me?   I’m going to heave up from the desk and amble off to bed with a little Bill Faulkner. 

I’m posting this tonight for Joe. 

Lament for My Brother on a Hayrake

Cool with the touch of autumn, waters break

Out of the pump at dawn to clear my eyes;

I leave the house, to face the sacrifice

Of hay, the drag and death.

By day, by moon, I have seen my younger brother wipe his face

And heave his arm on steel. He need not pass

Under the blade to waste his life and break;

The hunching of the body is enough

To violate his bones. That bright machine

Strips the revolving earth of more than grass;

Powered by the fire of summer, bundles fall

Folded to die beside a burlap shroud;

And so my broken brother may lie mown

Out of the wasted fallows, winds return,

Corn-yellow tassels of his hair blow down,

The summer bear him sideways in a bale

Of darkness to October’s mow of cloud. 

 

                 — James Wright

Hey, this is cool.  Blogger’s new editor has all sorts of new features, e.g., fonts, colors and keyboard shortcuts for publishing functions.  Sweet.

I don’t feel like goin’ to school today. How ’bout you, Spanky? Let’s just blow ourselves up instead, and become martyrs!

“It’s not suicide, it’s martyrdom. I would become a martyr and go to my God. It’s better than being a singer or a footballer. It’s better than anything.”

I didn’t always like going to school. I was a good student, not great. It was sometimes tedious, stressful, shameful. Also often fun and interesting. I had mixed feelings; on the whole, vacation was better. But I must say there were few days when I would have preferred being blown to shredded chunks.

We need to find the psychos who are spewing this twisted vision of “martyrdom,” and help them with an attitude adjustment. A martyr may be called on to die for his people, but he’d much rather live for them. He lays down his life as a last resort, not as a pitiful, useless, misbegotten waste.

Link – BBC