"Maybe A Little Heat Isn't So Bad","Getting Away", "The Very Next Instant"

August 21, 1999

"Maybe A Little Heat Isn't So Bad"

Another of my favorite journallers has packed his aetherial bags and quit. I enjoyed his 'nice and cosy place' where he raised his words and pictures. But he 'can't get past the anonymity thing'. His cover was blown and he didn't feel free to express himself freely any longer. It does no good if a writer feels his style is cramped.

Anonymity has never been an issue with me. My real name and face, along with those of my family, are there for the multitudes, should they care, to see. My only guideline is to never say something I wouldn't say to anyone's face about them. Because, as Steve discovered, you just never know who's reading. Well, if you have those trackers, I guess you do. I kind of like the mystery of NOT knowing. I can imagine legions tromping through my little pages, and there's no evidence to tell me otherwise.

Anyway, I will miss this journaller's thoughtful reflections, and beautiful pictures.

In other happier journal news, see the fine set of links Nancy Birnes of Perforated Lines has gathered. Scroll down a little ways, and see YOURS TRULY in there, as one of the 'thoughtful people, full of insight'. I'm so proud!

And now to other matters beyond the cyber world in which I roam. While at the health club, after I'd done twenty minutes on the treadmill and swam (dogpaddled and backstroked) in the pool a bit, I sat down at the table where some newspapers were and read the headlines. Just the other day I spoke of how vulnerable our planet is. I did not know then of the earthquake 7.4 points on the Richter scale in Turkey that just tore that land apart. Because it occurred nearly a heavily populated area, the death toll has risen to more than 12,000. But, according to a Reuters article, "The United Nations says the final death toll could reach around 40,000.".

The BBC assembled e-mails from people in Turkey who have survived. One person wrote:

You are all alive enjoying your cup of tea on a nice summer night, and the next few seconds you are buried under a huge rubble begging for a piece of air to survive. As we are unable to sign a contract with nature to predict when and where the earthquake will hit next, there is no solution other than just to surrender and to live with this devastating experience.

Nihat Ozen, Ankara/Turkey

Surrender is NOT the answer. It's too late for this week's tragedy. But it isn't for the future. Architects in other earthquake vulnerable regions have researched ways of making buildings more resilent to shocks from tremors. Turkish architects should study their results and adapt them to their buildings. But apparently this will need goverment intervention:

. . .Our anger and frustration lies with those contractors and engineers - military included - who get away with their acts of thievery by constructing illegal substandard buildings, and with the local governments who turn a blind eye or an open hand to their criminal deeds. Their crimes are the sole cause of such a high death toll. So long as all these people remain unaccountable for their acts, I fear we shall read about more sad earthquake stories in the future.

Ahmet Acet, Turkey

Not only that, there's another reason why the Turks feel so helpless. They still haven't got over the last earthquake, which only happened a year ago!

I feel fortunate that Arizona isn't near any fault lines. We also don't have to worry about tornadoes or typhoons. Maybe a little heat isn't such a bad deal, after all.

August 22, 1999

"Getting Away"

On Laura's and mine special day for alone time, at first we napped together on the sofa. Then Laura awoke with a spontaneous idea, and told me to get dressed, we were going somewhere!

I wasted no time, and soon we were off to spend the day in Flagstaff, about four hours drive north of here. I grabbed the camera, and the battery charger, for it was somewhat low. I could charge them if we took a room in a motel there.

It was so relaxing, just getting on the path to adventure. It was relaxing, like when I float in the shaded area of the pool. I let loose anything bothersome, took deep breaths and just floated mentally.

We stopped at Sunset Point a scenic rest area, enroute. After a bathroom visit, I pulled the camera out, and learned there were only five minutes left on the battery. I used them up:

Lady caught contemplating the vastness

 

I'll have to content myself with pictures we took on an earlier trip up there. The rural serenity has been perserved. But, oh, I'd have liked more pictures of those beautiful San Francisco mountains.

We took a cheap motel. The lamp on the table was broken, and it was hard to find an outlet that worked. A strong smell of disinfectant filled the air. But we opened the window to air it out while we went out to eat. The naturally pine scented air would replace it.

For lunch we went to a Sizzler. I had a baked potato with butter, lots of ham with pineapple chunks, a tiny chicken wing, two small wedges canteloupe, small cinnamon muffin, two chocolate chip cookies, and a swallow of Laura's ice cream. The architecture is different than that in the lowlands. This restaurant s had huge tall windows on one side, which framed white, puffy clouds filling the otherwise clear sky. The coolness of the climate allows them to have such large, uncovered windows. Even the Safeway supermarket, where we bought water, juice and chips, featured the sky through tall windows.

Later, we returned to our peaceful 'cave' for a nap and much needed intimacy. An unexpected gentle rain soothed us. Laura showed me some more lessons in GO, some of which I may actually have grasped.

We'd planned to sleep the night, but as the air became cooler and the sky darker, Laura had trouble breathing. All the lovely trees were now giving out carbon dioxide instead of oxygen, so we needed to get ourselves to lower elevation.

Fortunately by 8:55pm, the time we encountered a massive traffic slowing on I-17 around exit 240, we were out of the worst heights. We passed a group of distressed people by the left side of the road. A red truck was overturned on its side. Laura turned the radio on, to hear the DJ asking for those with cell phones to call in about their experiences of the traffic jam. At the worst of it, twenty five minutes passed while we crawled only one mile.

red lights as far as the eye could see

Once through that, we caught the end of a storm in Phoenix. Strangely, Casa Grande was dry when we got home. Storms of another nature awaited us.

August 23, 1999

"From Afar"

Those 'storms', flurries of the emotional sort, are slowly simmering down. This morning, I awoke with deep thoughts. Out came the paper and pen:

From Afar Through the forest of untried 'whys' lies an inestimable burden. Even if you forced your way through those thick trees, each question a branch that scrapes with its unanswerability, at the end of all this, tired, beaten, aching with the effort, you will know no more than you did before. Ahead of you, past the plain, lies yet again another thicket. Some things are best admired from afar. JAL, 8-23-99

Some things it's just pointless to wonder about.

~ ~~ ~~~ ~~ ~

One of the fun things we did in Flagstaff was visiting their local Bookman's, the small Arizona chain which among its new offerings, has used book, CD, computer games and other such entertainments. This branch features a cyber cafe. Computers can be rented by the minute or by the hour. We took a few minutes to see what our pages looked like on their set up and to leave an e-mail message for Julia, who would be surely enjoying the uninterrupted computer time. The pages came up quickly, but all were in the Verdana font type. Apparently, if one doesn't specify a particular font, all text comes up in the browsers predetermined font preferance. So if I want to be sure the viewer sees them in the Times New Roman I see them in, I must tell the browser that. All my attempts to set certain text apart by making it Verdana are pointless, if the viewer is seeing everything in Verdana. If all of a sudden this page looks different than what you've been seeing it as, you'll know why.

August 24, 1999

"Tummy Ache"

I didn't eat very much yesterday. I'd seen the movie everyone was watching last night. After a bit of web surfing, I was going to play Might and Magic VII. But after putting my nightgown on and setting out Laura's meds for the next day, I noticed my tummy was queasy. At 7:30pm, I went to bed early. I woke up at 5:30am, still tired. I got up because logically, I've had enough sleep. But I don't feel so good. The tummy is still off, along with some other loose side (end) effects. Otherwise, I'd be more chatty. I'll talk to you later.

August 25, 1999

"A Sense of Evolving"

I'm feeling lots better today. The above is a crop from the source of a lovely get well card I got yesterday.

By noon, my tummy riot had eased off, and lunch was happily received. In the evening, while Julia answered her e-mail, and Laura was reading old MAD cartoons, we have a boxed set of them, 1952 - 1998, all on disk, I kept the little computer busy as I worked up an illustration for a poem. I'd made an earlier attempt at illustrating it, but wasn't happy with the results. I originally had the poem sitting on a gray table centered on that tidal background. It was blah and had not enough dimension. Hence, I only now have added it to the poetry pages. You'll recognize the original picture source, from just the other day. I combined it with parts of an ocean picture from our San Diego trip, to capture a sense of evolving, which I think I did.

Oh, such fun to be bad! I haven't done any sewing today. Instead I took my troop of four Might and Magic heroes through the Red Dwarf Mines, and rescued the seven poor dwarves who'd been turned to stone, got my reward, and got the lamp I'm supposed to return to someone in Harmondale, my 'home' castle town, after I got across the Shade and Gogling infested fields.

I don't feel guilty at all. I know I'll return to my tasks tomorrow much happier, and refreshed for a bit of 'adventuring'.

August 26, 1999

"Laziness Continues"

Now I started early, early, early in the sewing room. The sky had not yet lost its gray before I sat down to sew. I wasn't slack there, today. But I find myself oddly taciturn here in the journal. Tomorrow I could make up for it and upload huge chunks of my cogitations several times through out the day. We'll just wait and see.

(that WAS upload huge chunks, NOT upchuck huge chunks. For some reason, I felt like clarifying...)

Quote of the Day
(from Julia):

"I've reduced my mistakes at work by 50% . . .

by cutting the workload 50%!"

(just kidding, she says, in case her boss is reading!)

ANOTHER Quote of the Day
( from Michel Eyquem De Montaigne - whoever he is, I just found his quote somewhere...):

"The greatest thing in the world is to know how to be one's own self."

For one thing, it's the only thing no one else CAN do!

August 27, 1999

"The Very Next Instant"

Montaigne

I'd not heard of Michel Eyquem De Montaigne, but Julia has. He was some French philosopher and fablist back in the 15th century. A little web search revealed he was one of "Les grandes figures intellectuelles du monde moderne" - the great intellectual figures of the modern world. (How is MODERN being defined these days? He was born in 1533 and passed on in 1592.) Doesn't sound 'modern' to me. But he's been often quoted.

Here are a couple more I like:

Self-confidence

"True it is that she who escapeth safe and unpolluted from out the school of freedom, giveth more confidence of herself than she who cometh sound out of the school of severity and restraint."

He's another fellow who would have loved the web.

Communication

"There is no pleasure to me without communication: there is not so much as a sprightly thought comes into my mind that it does not grieve me to have produced alone, and that I have no one to tell it to."

Why he'd of no doubt had himself a home page, possibly even an online journal! For the instant the 'sprightly thought' came to him, the very next instant, he'd be typing and FTP-ing, he would.

~ ~~ ~~~ ~~ ~

As I was putting snaps in some shirts I'm making, I was listening to popular, somewhat folksy songs (the soundtrack to Dawson's Creek) and feeling delightfully sensual. "What an interesting time to visit with the muse," I thought. The results were unexpected, but rather intrigue me.

Surprising things come up in those visits. I learn things about myself, things I didn't know. For the conscious mind can be blind. So often when I read the poem, after the 'dictation' is finished, an'ow-wow' of realization occurs. And yes, as today's poem says, I do feel pricked more aware, more alive.

August 28, 1999

"No Entry, Just Food Report"

7:30am - small glass grape juice

8:00am - two fried eggs, small amount french fries

2:30pm - mug of water

5:00pm - mug cranberry juice

8:30pm - wedge of watermelon - I wasn't eating this little ON PURPOSE, read on: