I have the greatest respect for teachers. It’s a vital and noble profession. As employees of the public, they deserve job security. After they have served well, they should get it. And so should the lady who works in the school office, and the cooks in the cafeteria, and the bus drivers and the janitors.

While we’re at it, the private sector should make job security a priority too. I’m sick of the attitude in this so-called culture that makes people an expendable corporate asset.

The story I was writing, for which I blew off blogging a couple of nights, is finished. The title I settled on is Dream For No Reason At All. I was going to post it here, because it’s very short. Most of my stories are. But I think I’m going to try something different with this: not posting it.

I’m going to very carefully not post it, and see if that causes any sort of shift in the universe. If I could see the stars tonight, I could go out and watch after I don’t post it, and see if one of them maybe turns blue. Imagine that. But my sense is that absolutely nothing will be different.

If you want to read it, let me know. Because doggone it, life forms in the world are supposed to interact. No man is an island. The bell tolls for thee. Let profligate biology rise up and wave a misbegotten paw in the shril dialectic exhaust. Or something.

Mean time, here’s a little piece:

There is something he needs, must have. Something. Down there, where the night, blown black with rain and dripping darkness, disappears. He moves on. Can’t imagine what it could be. Must have it, though, and moves down the street, catching glimpses through the ash covered windows, of broken furniture caked in dust.

All you cat lovers out there gotta check out this amazing kitten video.

I found this at busymom.net.

I just sent this to Senator Boxer. Here’s a link to the news about this.

Dear Senator Boxer:

Thank you for joining Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs Jones in her objection to the electoral votes of her state. It means a great deal to me as a citizen that so many voters of Ohio have felt disenfranchised by the nefarious process of this election. And I am proud as a Californian that it is a senator of my state that joins in this rightful and honorable dissent. Thank you!

So I haven’t been writing much on the blog in the last few days. Guess I don’t have much to say right now. Sorry. I guess I’m assimilating, and hunkered down in the rain. We’re having a very wet winter here in the Santa Barbara area.

I like the rain. Don’t mind getting a little damp. It’s refreshing, and God knows we need the water. Our lakes and reservoirs were getting very low. I live in a top floor condo on a hill. I have a new roof. No need for concern about flooding or leaking. I can relax and enjoy the weather we’ll remember longingly this summer.

I used to live in a much different place, a guest house in a low area near the freeway. The neighbor’s land was higher. Of course, just some normal rain would soak in and drain away. But if we had heavy storms for a few days, then all the rain that fell on his lot drained to the back, and headed under the fence and right for my living room. It was a sunken living room, and the mud seal in the foundation was bad. In the 13 years I lived there, I think the place flooded about five times. There is nothing quite like getting up in the middle of the night of heavy rain and stepping barefoot into a carpet saturated with muddy water.

Eventually, the landlady spent a fortune on repairs and drainage, then sold the property. That was probably wise. And it gave me the nudge to get out. I’m warm and dry tonight, comfortable, and if forced to admit it, I’m not unhappy thank you.

I’m going to put a pin in this, for you to think about, and come back to it later:

A faith that cannot survive collision with the truth is not worth many regrets.

-Arthur C Clarke, science fiction writer (1917- )

I’ve been trying to write tonight. Had an idea for a rather strange short story – the opening, anyway. Also, I’ve been photoshopping old family photos — my time machine. So in my absence, here’s something to ponder:

The natural function of the wing is to soar upwards and carry that which is heavy up to the place where dwells the race of gods. More than any other thing that pertains to the body it partakes of the nature of the divine.

— Plato, ‘Phaedrus.’

What really knocks me out is a book that, when you’re all done reading it,you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it.

-J.D. Salinger,writer (1919- )

From time to time, I get the urge to remind my friends that Poetry Is the Art Of Not Succeeding by insisting they read this beautiful poem by Joe Salerno.

I spent several hours doing a little project for my Mom, sorting through a big box of family photos. They go back to about 1905, when my grandfather (“Papa”) was an infant. But most of them were taken in my lifetime. I’m 43. They’re photos of Papa who died two years ago, and Grandma who’s been with Jesus five months. Also my folks, brother, aunts and uncles, cousins and second cousins, here in California, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Texas. Dogs, cats, horses, birds, a turtle and a rat. We’re pretty handy with our cameras, I guess.

My point isn’t just the poignancy of looking through so many pictures of a world in the process of sliding away into tule fog. It’s sad, sure; it’s joyous too. But you get a balanced, regular died of poignancy on this blog, and I know it. My point is that something just a little strange happened in my mind while I was doing this task. That fog seemed to break up just a little.

After several hours mentally back in Grandma and Papa’s house in that hot, cold, foggy town, where vineyards and orchards stretch to every horizon, I stood up and walked away. And I had the idea that I should go and visit them right away. I had the greatest desire to hear their voices, hug them, turn out the lights and sleep in that place. Just for an instant it was possible, because part of me has refused to believe they’re gone; because in a sense I forgot; I was back in twenty years ago. It was a waking dream, I guess, and it was sweet.

Driving Down the San Joaquin

It is so hard to leave

the old ones alone

with their painkillers, tomatoes,

blocks of cheese

in the icebox, bread frozen

for later, canned fish.

The clock that no one

can wind anymore.

It is hard to leave, to back

down the driveway, turn

and look back, the house leaning

into October. And all

down the valley

of San Joaquin tonight,

the harvest moon is weak,

becoming blind.

The vineyards reach

into that blindness,

go on like headstones

to the feet of the hills.

Just yards from the edge

of the road, the ghosts of

coyotes pace back and forth

along the fence,

strange friends of your

longing, sympathetic and sad.

The old dog, deaf and blind, stirs

in her blanket on the seat,

says nothing, then sleeps.

And the moon is up

but shrinking as it climbs.

Kyle Kimberlin

October, 1999

We speak of life as an oboe

speaks, in Summer colors

stirring the orchards

playing the windchimes by the door.

You put the telephone down

and your voice hangs

a little cloud of new rain

over the cold and restless sea.

I cannot hope to disconnect.

How can a man admit he loves

so well, so hopelessly

these clouds that only turn

maybe hover

do not descend, never touch.

Now birds are rising in the dial tone

with a motion as still and breathless

as the respirations of a dying seal.

A squadron of great brown pelicans

is lifted from the harbor

to investigate the coming night.

If they will watch the sky for me

maybe I can sleep.

— Kyle Kimberlin

I wrote this love poem about 10 years ago. It was entirely uncalled for, but what the hell, it’s what I do. Can’t be helped.

Riverbend has posted her first missive on Baghdad Burning since December 18. You don’t want to miss what she has to say about the upcoming election.