Good Omens by Gaiman and Pratchett

I finished reading Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett today. I've had it on my "to read" shelf for about six months now, I guess, bought sometime after I finished American Gods. With school finally being out, time to read things not related to teaching has returned, and I started it Saturday and finished it today. I loved it. As always, the writing was flawless, but as one might expect with the addition of Pratchett to the mix, the humor was even more present than usual. I frequently found myself laughing out loud, not something one would expect given the subject matter.

I read the articles at the end of the novel about how it was written, and I found myself thinking about how much fun the two of them must have had working together on the book. There are rare pairings in music and literature when really gifted people get together and just play for the love of it, just tinker around to entertain themselves, and sometimes we mere mortals down here on the ground get blessed with the results.

I'm not trying to romanticize authors and musicians; I know they are people who have to get up and deal with all the issues of life, mundane and serious, but they also do things the rest of us don't or can't. They create these wonderful pieces of beautiful stuff that they are then kind enough to share. I think that's a fabulous thing, personally, and I'm really grateful to them for taking the time and effort to do it, especially because I don't believe even for half a minute that creating the things they do, despite the fact that it may look effortless in the finished product, is an easy thing.

Good Omens is one of those lovely things Gaiman and Pratchett were nice enough to share with the rest of us. I know I'm going to reread it repeatedly, and I'm looking into getting it in my traveling library on Kindle. I don't know if I'll ever be able to present my copy to get it signed or if I'll ever have to hold it together with string, duct tape, or place the water-damaged pages in a large ziplock bag, but rest assured, it's loved nonetheless. If you haven't tried it yourself, find out more about it by clicking here.

School Supplies

Often, when I am reading a good book, I stop and thank my teacher. That is, I used to, until she got an unlisted number. ~Author Unknown

I have often thought that one of the key reasons I became a teacher is so I could keep buying notebooks, pens, pencil pouches, and other spiffy school tools every year. The beauty of the first clean page of a new notebook is a lovely sight to me. I have more colorful and decorative ring binders than even the most industrious of filers could fill.

There's just something cheering and somehow hopeful to me about walking down that aisle of unsharpened pencils and unbent folders. Each new eraser and sharp crayon is a wish for a good school year, for a student to find his or her path, for the love of knowledge to be kindled and fanned to flame. I guess that may be an awful lot to expect out of a plastic pencil bag or a package of pens, but from those small tools and symbols of my trade, I think great miracles can happen. Maybe it's a little like a magician and a wand....

Life Is a Highway

The car has become a secular sanctuary for the individual, his shrine to the self, his mobile Walden Pond. ~Edward McDonagh

I did my first driving over the past three days. Today was my first trip to town as I took myself in for therapy, and I felt as proud of that short jaunt as any teenager leaving the house without supervision for the first time. Two days ago, I got out in the late evening and drove around Podunk to test my reflexes and ability. I even drove over to a small town near here to get a fast food burger and enjoy the feel of the vehicle on the road again.

None of that compared with being independent in truth again today, though. I got up on my own schedule (and was, of course, almost late without the goad of making sure I wasn't keeping someone else waiting), and when I was ready, walked out, cranked up my own vehicle, and drove to the hospital. I found a parking place rather than being endlessly dropped off like an invalid, and walked in. I had a set of car keys to keep up with in a meaningful way instead of just to open the door when somebody else dropped me off home. It was good.

I had almost forgotten how much I enjoyed cranking up my stereo and turning the Cruiser into a flying karaoke machine. One of the local radio stations had a "Flashback Lunch" full of great old songs, and on the way home, I sang and sang. It's good that nobody could hear me, probably, but it was great fun. Most music is better when it's loud (at least when you're happy, I guess).

While it may seem like a lot to be placing on just being able to drive, it's amazing what just having that one thing back gives to my quality of life as a whole. Now I don't have to be such a burden to everybody else. If I need something, I can go get it. If I have an appointment, I can keep it without having to disrupt my entire family's day. It's nice to feel like a grownup again instead of like that hellish pseudo-preteen state I've been stuck in since I had to stop driving. It's reinvigorating.

Crutch-Free

I'm listening to the re-released Thriller album and getting ready to do some heavy-duty reading. Today is the day of MJ's memorial, which I totally missed seeing because I had PT this morning and spent the day in town. I guess I missed a landmark event for my generation, but I prefer to remember the music.

I am more than willing to have sacrificed my viewing time in any case because this morning my PT cleared me, albeit reluctantly, for walking without a crutch. For the very first time since mid-February, I don't have to have any form of support, no cane, no crutches, just me to walk around. It's intoxicating. I want to jump up and moonwalk around my living room, but that might be pushing it just a little bit right now.

My PT is picking up, too, exponentially. Today, the therapist put me on a rocker board as a new exercise, and I had to laugh a little privately. I think she and everyone else expected the big tall goofy girl to fall down with that, but it wasn't all that hard after doing tree pose on one foot for so long. I miss tree pose, too... Some of the other new exercises kicked my butt, though, and my knee is telling me about it now. I have new things to do at home, and I will keep working through.

Most importantly for me, though, is that I was also cleared to drive. I didn't jump off the table and turn cartwheels, but mentally, I was howling with unholy glee. Freedom, ladies and gentlemen. Sunday night trips to Newton for an unhealthy but delicious treat after playing the organ. Road trips to Jackson to see my best friend. For that matter, grocery runs to Meridian just to walk up and down the aisles of Wal-Mart and stare at plastic bottles of Diet Mountain Dew. Anything, anything, anything but being trapped here on the hill like a burden on others. Bring it. I've been more than ready for awhile now. I'm going to hook up my little iPod shuffle, crank my stereo and fly down the road like a bird rediscovering healed wings....

Well, MJ and I are going to have a night of reading as I await tomorrow to start all my new range of motion. I find myself much more patient now that I know I can do things. Just knowing the cage door is open is keeping me from throwing myself against the bars so much, I guess.

Things Not to Do

Restless, restless.... Midsummer is come and gone. The moon is almost full. I'm trapped again in this house waiting on clearance to be able to drive, and the joke of that, of course, is that even when it comes, there's nowhere to drive to anyway....

Schemes and ideas that certainly fall into the category of "Things I Shouldn't Do" flicker across my bored brain like flashes of heat lightning. I think about writing a letter to somebody I haven't written to in years, breaking that wall of conscious silence. I have an address; I just haven't felt compelled to use it. There hasn't been anything to say. Is there now, or is it just the humidity, the boredom, the almighty press of the living summer stirring the bottom of that settled pool up and muddying the waters? Leave it alone, leave it alone....

But what if I don't want to? What if I wanted to write that letter? What if I wanted to do one of the other things on that list of reckless things, too? Would the world grind to a halt, really? The simple truth of it is that not one other person in the entire universe would care, I might get an interesting story out of it, and at least I would feel like I had done something other than walk to the door looking north and stare, walk to the door looking south and stare, walk to the door looking east and stare.....

Restless, restless.... The moon will be up and full in a couple of hours. My satellite is out; the constant error message says it's looking for a signal. I am tired of reading. I guess I'll have to figure out something to distract myself with, or I really will wind up doing something unwise after all.

Longing

Spending last week in Washington has reawakened those longings I try so hard to keep dormant or dead. I really did like what I saw there, and I didn't expect to. The city felt livable, navigable, and the sheer luxury of being able to get on the Metro and arrive at the ridiculous wealth of one of the many free museums almost made me lightheaded. It was like a feast of fairy-tale proportions, and I've been starving for a long time now.

Just the architecture alone made it worth it. I could have taken my Nikon and spent days walking and shooting the details on common buildings without ever approaching anything like a national monument or historically-significant building. There was such a great blend of styles and a preservation of buildings that pleased me.

From the time I got off the plane, there was the wonderful sound of other languages everywhere. This, of course, is no surprise in the nation's capital, but it was wonderful to me to see other languages written, to hear them spoken, and to see restaurants and services catering to other cultures. I wanted to take time to quietly explore all of them and revel in it.

History, too, was an ever-present friend. It was impossible to turn the eyes or take a step without it tapping me on the shoulder or whispering in my ear. Things and places I'd heard about all my life suddenly were laid out before me like jewels on display. Again, there was far too much there to take in during a casual excursion such as mine. It needed a much deeper exploration.

And what shocked me, ultimately, as I got on the plane to leave, was how much I wanted that deeper exploration. I wanted very much not to be leaving Washington at all. I know that living in a place is never the same as vacationing in one, and I certainly heard enough "natives" complain about it while I was there, but I can't help but thinking that at least for a little while, I would have enough to dazzle me that no matter how bad it was, the positives would outweigh the rest.

A Song for the Fourth

I heard this song today in a mix of songs put together by NPR. It came from a Ken Burns documentary soundtrack, the one for The War. It is melodic and lovely, but the lyrics are what set it apart from the other songs I listened to today in the five-hour playlist. It is a powerfully thought-provoking song about what it means (or perhaps, should mean) to be an American.

It reminds me a little of Kennedy's famous "Ask Not" speech in its focus on giving back and giving of one's best to the nation. It's beautiful in the elevation of its sentiment. We live in times in desperate need of grand sentiment and of the fulfillment of and dedication to those noble ideals. What if we did all give our best to our nation, to our fellow man, to each other? Can you imagine what changes could happen here if we lived this way? It's something to consider as we celebrate the birth of our nation and its future.

Reading Of The Declaration Of Independence : NPR

How long has it been since you've really listened to or read the words of the Declaration of Independence? For me, I have to say that I haven't read it or paid much attention to it since whatever my last history or government class was ended. That's a shame. NPR has an annual tradition of reading it as the Fourth approaches, and I think this is a beautiful thing because it brings our attention back to those reasons why we became a nation, the very serious and dangerous issues the founders of our nation were willing to lay their lives on the line to fight against for us. If you haven't heard or read it lately, I encourage you to click the link below and take a moment on this holiday weekend to refresh your appreciation of our nation. Reading Of The Declaration Of Independence : NPR

National History

Today I saw the National Archives amongst other landmarks here in DC. I didn't expect to be all that impressed to tell you the truth, but I should have. After all, paper and the things that people are moved to put on them, the words that are the living avatars of ideas and emotions, are the foundation of what I am and do.

I wound up there almost accidentally. I got separated from the group I was traveling with early this morning. A communication error led me to believe that I had missed them in the hotel lobby, so I threw my crap in a sack, tucked my ubiquitous crutch under my arm, and hobbled to the Metro station, one of which is mercifully only steps from the hotel in which I'm staying.

The DC Metro is an absolute dream. After navigating the subways in Japan (in Japanese, I might add), these are so simple and easy! The Japanese subways were always convenient, too, but there was always the worry that I was going the wrong way because of my stupidity with the language. It happened on more than one occasion. These trains here, though, have provided me with a freedom I haven't had since before my knee surgery. It's pure heaven to be able to go and come as I please without having to wait for someone to drive me.

Once I got to the National Mall, I decided to go to the Archives instead of trying to meet my friends at the Washington Monument since a) I'd have to hike 100 miles to get there and b) there was already a mile-long line snaking its way around the base. It turned out my friends had the same idea, so we toured through the Archives together, seeing the foundational documents of our nation, bits and pieces of trivia and personal data from people who were never famous but who were important nonetheless, and a great many other interesting things.

The room everyone goes to the Archives for, though, is the room with the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. It's as solemn, dimly lit, cold, quiet, and ornate as any ancient temple. Maybe that's appropriate in its way. The items in their cases are large parchment squares, and most of them are so faded by time and wear that they are mostly illegible save for the flourishes of Hancock's showy J or the beautiful calligraphy of "We the People" atop a page. One can only trace some of the letters, and in places, imagination is called to replace what the naked eye cannot scan at all.

This in no way diminishes one fragment of their power. If anything, it only makes them stronger. Despite the ravages of time, ill care, and the elements, they have survived. They have endured. Now, with the best sciences possible, they are protected as well as or perhaps even better than the Crown Jewels. I think there's a very heavy-handed allegory here, or at least I'd like to think that we're bent on conserving more than just the paper form of those documents. I'd like to think that just as much care and concern was shown by every branch of our government, by every citizen in this land, that just as much pride and respect was given to the nation as to the paper symbol. Otherwise, I think our founding fathers would agree that their purpose has failed.

Eras Ending

Today both Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson died. With them goes a big piece of the 70s and the 80s pop culture. My friends on FB are buzzing about Michael Jackson. We all grew up with his many incarnations, and we're exchanging notes about the first time we saw Thriller or the sparkly glove. His personal life came to overshadow his music, and I think that's a real shame, because that early stuff was really good and continues to be so. I hope that in these days when he will be a media circus for the last time the networks will be respectful. I know that is to much to ask for, but it would be nice to allow some dignity to the dead in honor of that shared spark of humanity we all share regardless of what skeletons might be locked in the closet.

Not Enough

If you're going through hell, keep going. ~Winston Churchill

Since Saturday, things have just been insane. Dad has been in CCU since the heart attack, and we've been shuttling back and forth to visit him there, going to my PT, and trying to take care of the minutia of daily life. Mom and I are both at the breaking point with it all. It's too much.

This is a season of trial, I suppose, but I don't feel like I can do enough to help out with it. I am trying to do what I can, but as I watch the toll it's taking on my mother, it seems woefully inadequate. I can only make calls, act as a communication center, deal with computer-related issues, and try to control my own reactions.

Tomorrow will be another surgery, another stressor, and there are a whole handful of things that need to be scheduled and taken care of by way of repairs, visits, and maintenance. If there were only three of me, and if at least one of them had healthy movement, maybe we could get some of these things taken care of.

Breaking Point

I try to take one day at a time, but sometimes several days attack me at once. ~Jennifer Yane

I'm humming like a high-tension power line, like a rubber band that is being pulled tighter and tighter. When the world starts falling in, it just keeps collapsing it seems.

The past two days have been difficult on so many levels and for so many reasons. The big obvious ones don't need explanation. Watching someone you love go through something like a heart attack is sufficient unto itself. The trivial crises of daily life, too, don't need explanation, the lost items, the broken appliances, the frustrations of injury or inability. All these things are pebbles in the pan of the scale, but not the things that cause it to tip.

Instead, the things that make that balance swing are feather-light, but unbearable all the same. It's watching perfect strangers being told that I'm unable to handle basic situations like I'm some sort of mental and emotional incompetent. It's having to pretend that I'm an absolutely solid rock of Gibraltar or have to be relegated to a corner like a crippled child for daring to show a shred of emotion. It's never being allowed to talk about any experience I've ever had without being told that I don't really know what that experience is because someone else has lived through that experience or something like it before and is therefore the undisputed expert nonpareil. These are the tiny moth-wing brushes that are destroying me.

So I swallow down my every response, something I swore long ago that I would never do again, and I go on. What else is there to do, really? I comfort myself with the knowledge that misconceptions of me don't have to become the realities of who I am. But all the time, I can hear the discordant sound of the strands of my soul tightening, tightening....

Heart Attack

My mother came in while I was participating in my favorite Saturday sport, couching, and said, "Don't go to pieces on me. Get up, get some shoes on, and come with me right now." No conversation that starts out that way can possibly preface anything good. Today was no exception. Today I saw one of the scariest things I've ever experienced in my whole life. I watched my father have a heart attack.

Dad was out in the van. I limped around the house in a moment of complete brain failure after Mom told me that he was having chest pains, but I managed to find my purse, my crutch, and my flip flops, put Roux in her crate, and get to the vehicle, flailing madly all the way. Dad was in such terrible pain. Mom drove like mad to get to the hospital, faster than I have ever seen, but I don't know that I have ever felt that short trip to town to be longer. We ran red lights, stop signs, and wove in and out of traffic like we were in a high-speed chase, and finally we wound up at the ER.

The next hours passed as if we were encased in amber. Time disappeared, but some of the strangest details are stuck with me. I can remember the bizarrely cheerful pattern on the curtain in the cardiac unit of the ER. I can remember the red rhinestone pin the cardiologist wore on her white coat when she came in, and I remember the black leather jacket and motorcycle helmet the CCU nurse had on over his scrubs as the team began to trickle in from wherever they were before they were called in to attend to Dad's emergency. Everything in the ER, of course, was blue. That observation struck me again. Blue gloves, blue gown for Dad, blue scrubs on every nurse and tech except the doctor herself, the CCU folk, and the phlebotomist.

Once they took Dad up for a heart cath, one of my very best friends and her husband along with my pastor came to sit with us. I don't know what I would have done without them there to distract me. In that timeless little waiting room stuck off in a silent back hall, I think Mom and I would have gone crazy without something to do other than stare at the walls and think.

Hours passed, and when the word came that they had restored blood flow to Dad's heart and stopped his pain, relief came for us, too. We got to see him in CCU during visiting hours, and that awful grey pallor had gone. He seemed to be much more comfortable.

We'll go back to see him tomorrow morning for the first visitation. I'm about as tired as I've ever been, but I am so grateful that he's still with us. It's such a blessing.

Learning to Walk

Wash out your ego every once in a while, as cleanliness is next to godliness not just in body but in humility as well. ~Abbe Yeux-verdi

Twice in my life, I've had to learn to walk again. The first time was in 2001 after a serious surgery. That was mostly a matter of abdominal stitches and feeling as though I was going to split in half everytime I stood up or took a step. This time has been a little bit different.

Since having my ACL replaced a month ago, I have literally been relearning how to place my foot and move my leg, consciously having to think about something most people take for granted in the same way as moving air in and out of their lungs. It's been a philosophical journey as well as a physical one.

Each day I go to PT, my therapist has me take a couple of laps around the gym, simply focusing on the mechanics of walking. The good foot takes its step; then my injured leg must strongly snap forward both from the hip and from the knee. The knee itself must go straight, something that has been a long time coming, and when the foot lands, it must roll from the heel to the ball of the foot before the good foot can take its stride. The toes need to be pointed forward, turned neither too far in nor too far out. All these myriad adjustments are things that I never thought of at all prior to the 19th of May, but are now a part of my every step.

It's amazing to me how complex our smallest motions and everyday processes are. It's humbling how hard it is to reteach myself those most basic of things. As I make my trips around the gym concentrating on straightening the knee and planting my heels firmly, I almost feel like it's a meditation like yoga. It's good sometimes to bring intense focus to simple things.

Lost iPod

Music produces a kind of pleasure which human nature cannot do without. ~Confucius

So once I started moving around again and trying to gather things together for short trips around town, I began looking for my iPod. I think I was going to put the Wood Bros. album on it, in fact, when I realized that it wasn't in my purse. I went to my bigger purse and dug in it. No small black case. Unfazed, I turned to the large green L.L. Bean messenger bag that had been my lifeline during the last few weeks of school and started looking through the vast wreckage of paperwork and other debris from my last day moving out of my classroom. Nada. Zip. Zero. The first trickles of alarm started to make themselves felt. I tottered around my house, and with the help of my mother, proceeded to to generally destroy my kitchen, go through every box I brought home, contort into impossible positions to explore the vehicles, look under and behind all the major pieces of furniture, and peer into all the containers or bags that might have possibly held my iPod. It was a completely fruitless search.

I don't know where it is. My parents speculate that we somehow managed to pack and tape it up in one of the 22 boxes currently in storage at school. I am praying that this is the case. That iPod, as silly as this will sound, is special to me.

It's not the thing itself so much as what it represents to me. Dad gave me the money to buy it. I had been wanting one for a long time, but coming up with big chunks of money to blow on electronic gadgets, as much as I do love them, is not something I can do very often. Dad had gotten an annual bonus at work, and he gave me part of it with very specific instructions to spend it on something I wanted, not on a bill, household repairs, or anything like that. I sat and thought about it, probably far longer than the situation warranted, and I decided that an iPod was the thing I most wanted.

I went to the online Apple Store, and I ordered the Product Red edition Nano. I even had it engraved on the back. I loved it from the moment I took it out of the box. It wasn't just the sleekness of the design and the fact that, at last, I had such a huge chunk of my music with me. I could feel that same happy surprise and that same loved feeling I felt when Dad gave me the money for it each time I used it.

Hopefully, when the boxes are all opened and my room is restored to whatever configuration the 2009-2010 school year will have, I'll find that small black case amongst all the binder clips and hanging file folders. It will be a wonderful small miracle with which to start the year. In the meanwhile, I went to amazon and found a 2nd generation refurbished Shuffle for about $20 so I'll have something to take on a trip later this month and to use throughout the months to come. It won't begin to take the place of my beloved Nano, but maybe it can be a substitute for the time being.

Incentive to Learn Another Language

Learn a new language and get a new soul. ~Czech Proverb

Into Which Camp Do I Fall?

"Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something." -- Plato

Well, the answer to that is all too clear....

Things I Wish I'd Said

My best friend recently did something which still leaves me in awe at her bravery. She, after being put back in touch with a high school romance, asked a question that had bothered her for a long time. She said a thing she needed to say, and while she hadn't been brooding over it for years or anything Lifetime-esque like that, she had the satisfaction of saying that thing. How brave she is!

I never do that. Put me in any situation requiring any sort of expression of emotion, and I will always put on my smoothest mask, a slightly distant smile, and retreat inward. Blame it on my Aquarian nature, blame it on growing up an only child, blame it on whatever you like, but I've never had the satisfaction of saying the things I wanted to say. Only in retrospection do the right things or the true things come to me sometimes. Other times, I know what I want to say, but my reserve keeps the words trapped inside, beating against the walls of my heart like a panicked bird longing for freedom.

This, then, is a little exercise in fantasy. What would I have said, should I have said, or did I indeed long to say in some of life's small and large moments? Some of these are big deals and some of these are trivialities. These apply to different situations which I may or may not elaborate on.

1) Goodbye. -- to A. leaving Japan since I didn't know I was never going to see her again.

2) What is it, exactly, that you want from me and that you see in me? Why am I not enough for you, but you always seem to wind up on my doorstep when it all falls down? Was there ever anything at all? -- to the one I spent most of my undergrad confused over.

3) Go straight to hell. Don't think you didn't hurt me, but don't think for a minute that I won't rise from these ashes and be stronger for it. You won't win. -- to T. after Indiana.

4) Is there any more room on that trip? I'm changing my flight date by a couple of days, and I'd like to see that World Heritage Site. -- to D. and crew as they headed to Cambodia

5) Tell me more about our family. -- to my Nana before she was gone.

6) God, you're adorable. -- to I. in Ireland.

7) If you can't be a positive, hands-on part of the solution, then please shut up and get out. -- too many times and places to specify.

8) How am I today? Well, actually, I hurt like the hounds of hell are clawing their way out slowly while little men with sledgehammers are smashing my skull into fragments from the inside. I want to curl into the fetal position in a dark, cool, quiet place and whimper, gibber, or scream until merciful Death takes me. That's how I am. How about you? -- again, too many times and places to specify.

9) You know what? I will put in my application for that job. -- to M. in Korea.

10) Yes, yes...you're frightfully clever. Good for you. Yes, I AM from the South. Aren't you a clever linguist to have figured that out and to have "tricked" me into having run through that sentence so I'd pronounce all my diphthong vowels for you. Yankee Schmuck. -- to unknown linguist in Japan.

11) Sure, I'll dance with you. And give me a pina colada, too. -- to G. in Costa Rica.

I think eleven is a good stopping place. There are some trends that are beginning to emerge, I think. Interesting. Well, that's one thing a blog is for, after all, personal reflection.

Bad Dreams

I have been having bad dreams lately. I don't know what's triggered them, but I hope they dissolve soon. They're the kind that hover around even after waking, leaving a trace on the day like the smell of burnt toast.

It may be because I've felt so bad physically the past two days with headaches, etc. That should be done, now, though, and tomorrow should get me back into whatever passes for "healthy" for me. Some of that residue of discomfort may be bleeding into my nighttime world.

Normally the Topamax keeps me from remembering anything whatsoever about my dreams. Before I started taking it, I always had vivid and bizarre dreams fit for sci-fi movie scripts, sometimes good, sometimes bad, but always detailed and rich. This is just another thing along with precision in language that Topamax strips away.

Right now, I don't know whether this dream muting is a blessing or a curse. The pieces I recall include the usual gamut of daily life fragments being filed -- people I know, events and objects of the day -- but also things, people, and places I know nothing of bathed in that golden slant of light that's only seen in dreams. That unknown guy with the intense blue eyes and the long-fingered hands is back lurking in the corners again, not really menacing, but a confusing stock character who shows up like someone I'm supposed to recognize. Sometimes I almost think I do. I am probably a Freudian delight if somebody with some expertise in dream interpretation cared to sit down and analyze this crap.

Of course, all of this unrest (literally) is most probably because I have no schedule and because I feel so useless right now in my activities. I hope soon I'll be able to get out of the house and do more on my own. This constant dependency on others is taking its toll. Not all the happy readings, comedies, or songs in the world can make up for the feeling of independence.

Depressing News

I never read the news or watch it on TV. Maybe that seems like the "ostrich with its head in the sand" approach to life, but every time I do read a newspaper, go online and scan the events of the day, or God forbid, get trapped in a place with either FoxNews or CNN blasting their conflicting breeds of propaganda, I always feel so bad when I'm done that it's an amazing incentive to prolong the time between exposures.

Take today for example. I do have the CNN breaking news email feature activated so if the world ends, I will at least get a message on my BlackBerry, so when the shootings at the Holocaust Museum occurred, I found out about it. That event hit one of the NYT columnists I follow on Twitter about that time, and I followed a link to learn more. What I found there made me want to cry, as such things always do: hate, paranoia, racism bearing their deadly fruit in a place that should stand as a warning of what those worst of human traits can do to humanity.

Another comment later on from someone else directed me to a local paper, and there of course, the news continued to deteriorate. Jackson, our vaunted state capital, is now 4th in the nation as far as the murder rate goes; it's second only to Flint, MI for armed robbery. How does that even happen? If you're not from here, you may never have been to Jackson. When I think about how much smaller it is than cities it's beaten for this most dubious of crowns, it completely boggles the mind....

I'm going back on a news blackout, I think. I can't stand it. It's too depressing. There is never any good mixed in with the bad, and I don't want to have to feel more anxiety about this world that I live in than I already do. Ostriches, prepare your heads....