so cold outside
Now before I complain about how hot I am, I will remember that everyone is either hot or getting bombed.
Last week was kind of a weird week. I had two nights of consulting, a short turn at the tables at Andrew’s residency at Barcopa in Santa Monica and...well, tons of other stuff. Just a long week, replete with allergies and other things that are so boring to talk about I will just shut up about it.
We did have a nice book club meeting in Dori and Michele’s pool, discussing This Boy’s Life by Tobias Wolff, which is really the only way to spend a sweltering day. Good conversation, great food...and even ended nicely with a viewing of The Big Sleep at the Hollywood Forever cemetery that night. There must have been 1500 people there at least--at least. Whit and I had been vowing to go for awhile now, it was nice to actually DO it.
Throughout it all, all of last week, really, there was this dullness, a rounding off of edges on everything I discussed, experienced...this whole thing happening with Israel, this eruption of violence--this continuation, really, of the violence all around that area...it’s starting to suck the life out of things, somehow. Nothing seems really that important, when compared to the fact that people need to take a step back and really, really work on peace right now. I know, it’s very easy for me to type this from my cube at work, but I dunno--it’s just more apparent than ever that business as usual just does not work. I was talking with Zak and it’s like all of the countries in the world are stuck on a very crowded #6 subway train going from East 103rd to Canal Street without air conditioning and people are just looking for the slightest provocation to start bashing on someone. Open the windows, get off the damn subway. Walk. Do something different. Juan Williams did a nice job of confronting William Kristol on Fox News on Sunday, asking, basically, hey you just want more and more war, “Where has it gotten us, Bill?” and Kristol just kinds off shrugs his hands and doesn’t reply.
It’s not getting us anywhere. This has all the makings of a US/Iran war by proxy, obviously, and really, it’s just a scary situation. But what to do? Protest? Didn’t do us any good in Iraq. Hate to sound so cynical, but jeez. With more and more people ignoring primary elections, it’s hard to know what to think. All this violence and despair makes everything I am doing, everything I want from life, seem kinda trivial. How do you work for peace, really?
Ugh. Anyway.
Back to the trivial. My highlights for the week:
• Going to Comic-Con this weekend, which should be a lot of fun. Trying to hook up with my parents on the way down to say hello.
• Seeing the dentist tomorrow which will no doubt result in some kind of furrowed brow and whispering. I hope I don’t need to get more x-rays. I have had more damn head x-rays than I care to make a joke about.
Okay, world. Hang in there.
Monday, July 17, 2006