But the bacteria are coming
to take us down
that’s my prediction
it’s the answer to this culture
of the quick-fix prescription.
-Ani DiFranco, “Garden of Simple”
I think I have a staff infection.
No, not a staph infection. I’m fond of plays on words. People are freaking out about something that resists drugs, because it’s what people themselves can’t do. Drugs are almost universal, they infect almost everyone. Something that can resist drugs is the scariest thing we can fathom. No wonder I’ve always been interpreted as intimidating.
Yeah, it’s that kind of mood today. I’m torn asunder somewhere between righteous fury and complete apathy. Between leading a rally of one into the center of the earth and demanding to speak to the “leader” and crawling into a hole with water, a book, and a prayer of survival. Everything seems stark and vivid, like a world of sharp high-contrast shadows. Not a form in sight. Not a shade of gray. Someone flipped the scanner setting from grayscale to monochrome.
I initially couldn’t think of anything to write about this morning, but it seemed there was nothing more important I could do with my time. I took a shower, hoping for inspiration. All I found was the same self-inflicted diatribe on leadership, the lack of it, and how the natural traps of age and capitalism combine to imprison us all. We should try twenty years where all the Presidential candidates have to be under 35 years old and see where we get. Or have to act like it. This isn’t about straight-line age, any more than it’s about anything else simple. I know 20-somethings who act like they’re 60. I’ve met at least a few people over 70 who think they’re 25.
I like scary movies. It’s October, after all. A couple weeks ago, before all the good movies came out, I dragged Emily to “The Last Winter”. It was terrible (though not, as she dubbed it, “the worst movie ever”). The central issue causing the horror was the issue of the Earth fighting back and expunging the human virus. It would’ve been a lot scarier if they hadn’t manifested this desire through the form of ethereal ghost-caribou whose most fearsome weapons were snarling and pointing their antlers.
But apparently the planet is fighting back with resistance that would make the Democrats look strong. 18 inches of ocean in 93 years! It’s going to be really hard to adjust to that. A veritable tsunami. Somehow, I don’t think that was quite the nature of Noah’s flood of legend. Fearsome retribution comes for all those who stand in the same place for a long lifetime.
And maybe that’s the lesson, and the only metaphor we can hope to grab here. Don’t stand in the same damn place. Don’t stand in the doorways, don’t block up the halls. Maybe we won’t be drenched to the bone, but I guess our knees could get wet. What does it take to make people take themselves, each other, some sort of composite reality seriously? Allegedly a bunch of millionaires are coming together in a stadium in San Diego, uniting in the common bond of their losses. I suppose it’s a start.
The BART train is whistling down from Richmond, calling me to another day of head-butting walls as hard as I can. My only regret is that I have but one skull to give for this lifetime. If anyone has a helmet, drop me a line.
