happy inevitable passing of time.

if you can't beat them,
stab them, or try poison. what?
that's how it goes, right?





my country has spent something like two hundred billion dollars on a vague and underhanded "regime change" but couldn't spare more than $35 million on the 1.8 million people in need of assistance after the tsunami. actually, they aren't sure, now that they've promised it, that they'll even be able to offer that. i don't know how funds are allotted or what other nations have been able to provide. i do know that $35 million is slightly less than one-fifth of oprah winfrey's annual salary.

i can't envision 1.8 million people. i have no idea what that crowd looks like, how much space it occupies. can you imagine them? can you now also accept that each person in that crowd is homeless and starving? this is an isolated tragedy that is currently holding our attention, but there are places in the world where this crowd is the norm, the standard population. and then there are places like america, where lousy actresses like cameron diaz make $20 million per film. what does she do with that money? what could she possibly do with it? at my current rate of pay it would take me 741 years to make that much money, and i already have everything that i need and then some. i suppose i would enjoy a bit more free time, but that's the sort of selfish desire a person like me might entertain, having never lost my home and my entire family in an unforeseen flash flood.

i can't imagine it. you can't imagine it. none of us can, and so we don't think about it, but that's not the way to deal with things. you should think about nothing but that unimaginable thing until it's all you understand, and then try and go back to wanting what you had wanted before. when it doesn't work, when you can't remember why you wanted those things, you'll be at the beginning of getting it right.

i, myself, am not doing nearly enough thinking these days. but i'm sick to death of my life, of the dullness and smallness of it, of the pettiness and navel-gazing and irrelevant tantrums that i am constantly indulging in or bearing witness to. our days, for the most part, are not made up of important things. i don't know your life, you might be doing something beautiful, but mine is a mute parade of thoughtless machination, and i absolutely despise it.

on new year's eve i was at home alone, because that was where i had chosen to be. i gathered up everything that was connected to my past but not my present, and i put it in a plastic bag. at midnight i took the bag outside, threw it in the trash, came back in, washed my hands. i haven't made any resolutions. what are we celebrating on new year's, anyway? the potential of the coming one, or our relief at the end of the last one? because i didn't think to myself, "everything will be different this time"; i thought, "well, at least that's done with."

but again, i'm just prattling on about me. back to someone else:

we promised 1.8 million people approximately $17.50 each to help them rebuild their lives from nothing. and that, vows the president, is only the beginning.

i've never been a starry-eyed optimist, but come on. i thought we were better than this.