Just Say No

Not every day, nor not every week, but sometimes your brain just says "no" to just about anything you propose. The sandman pounds on your door at some strange time of the day.

It's enough to make one sympathize with those who do an occasional line of coke. I have never, ever tried it. Something deep inside me knee-jerks a "Just say no!" But logically, if it were legal, it would make a lot of sense for those times when your mind just isn't at your disposal.

Worried Myself Sick

My tongue turned white and my blood turned into acetone as I worried. There seemed to be no relief. I prayed. Perhaps it was by Divine intervention, then, that I finally achieved calm – a calm I haven't experienced since... since … since Reagan took office??? It seems like it. There have been times when I could relax, but only the way one might on a coffee break. Could that be right? Memories are tricky, but I think that's mostly right. So I wanted to write about this strange Nirvana lest I lose sight of it. It seems to be from God, a gift, a response to prayer. Strangely, those old sayings about how God doesn't promise a life free of calamity, but does offer to be present throughout any calamity, now ring true and are a comfort, whereas heretofore that kind of talk left me still shaking in my shoes. Life and happiness (to the extent I could consider myself happy) always seemed so precarious. It was like living on a decaying asteroid or something. By contrast, this calm was like living on Terra firma, in a house built on rock.

Another thing that characterizes this new calm is kinship with animals, wanting to take care of them and being happy when they are happy. I convinced someone to send money to the sea turtle eggs of the Gulf of Mexico, so that they could be rescued and swim away free and happy into the Atlantic while BP finished cleaning up their native Gulf. The thought of the happy, safe baby turtles was like insurance against any bad thing that might happen to me. I hope I don't fall into calamity; but if I do, the turtles are still safe and happy. Treasure in Heaven is safe. Treasure in the Gulf of Mexico may be a little precarious, but it's somehow a good metaphor and more than a metaphor, or at least that's how I feel.

All around me are people getting sick and being challenged to come up with impossible sums of money to protect what they have. It's a harrowing life if I let it get to me. When someone gets sick it's like a train wreck that I can't look away from. And people are just getting terribly sick. I think sometimes that if I were in their shoes I would totally freak out. But I don't know anymore. I pray that everyone gets well and that everyone be protected and kept safe, myself especially. I mean, I could cease to dwell on the thought of a sick neighbor or friend, but I can't even take a coffee break from myself. May God forgive me.

I thank God for the peace that passes all understanding, supposing that's really what I have.

Avatar Movie -- Pursuant to Previous Post

OK, sorry. That was lame. I don't need a second viewing to state the obvious. Avatar was building on the cowboys-and-indians theme; and it deliberately channeled Pocahontas right down to choreography. The scene where someone discovers his lover for the first time was done almost without words, but went through all the same material as usual. Jake was seeing this alien, his wife, for the first time through his own eyes and the audience followed his thoughts... I wish I had taken notes because it went by so fast.

And yet, all that being said, I'm sure there was more in the "old material" department that wasn't quite so obvious and which I have forgotten by now. I remember the tough, officious Marine and the corporate backer bullies...

Oh, here's one. This was probably intentional on somebody's part because so many people are involved in productions like this. Remember when Ernie swiped Burt's cowboy hat and ended up suggesting that Burt use a fishbowl instead of the hat so that he could play "cowboys and indians in outer space?" The hat fits. Ride-em cowboy! Why is the Burt and Ernie version not on YouTube? (BTW YouTube also has an incomplete set of Sesame Street Beatles videos.)