A sign of this improvement is the fact I worked on an artandlife page for the first time in over a year today, a collection of Dykes on Bikes photographs from the recent San Francisco Gay Pride Parade. Looks funky, since the referenced page and the main page are the only two reflecting Rien's new design (sorry about that, old man, but I'll have it all converted in less than another, well, year), but a definite sign of increasing energy and a better attitude on my part. Maybe something is really happening.

I notice over these last two weeks a number of people - reporters, members of the Iraqi government - have said it's over in Iraq and the current civil war will be spilling outside its borders and trashing the rest of the region pretty quick. Add to this Afghanistan, which sounds like it's rapidly twisting itself into the ground and then combine it with the situation in Lebanon and you're well into the surreal. The Palestinians. Well yes, the Palestinians, and this is only the Middle East. South of the Middle East you find Africa, east of the Middle East you find North Korea. Do you really want to think in any clear sense about either one of them? I think not. What can you say about one's aching mouth when you read about this shit?

You're drifting again into areas you know nothing about.

Well, I'm sitting at a computer writing. Sometimes there's an occasional comment at work, but none of the Republicans (some of whom still support Bush) I know make comments about any of this anymore except among themselves and the Democrat - Independent - Anarchist - Socialist - Libertarians are way too depressed to bring the subject up. Nobody knows where this is going. Nobody in Washington knows where this is going. The Israelis have not a clue whether or not blowing up Lebanon is going to put their Chestnuts in the fire or pull them out. One hopes for a good resolution because one has this creepy feeling it will spill out of the newspapers one of these days and slosh down the streets of Oakland. There are many things that slosh down the streets of Oakland - they're described at length and in loving detail in the local papers day in and day out - we don't need to import anything from overseas even if we're the ones who made it.

Maybe it's the heat.

Could be. The building I live in has been absorbing the heat of the day over this last week and it doesn't come close to cooling off overnight windows wide open or not, so the mornings start out stuffy and warm, even though the outside air is usually reasonably cool. I have no idea what it's like east of here over the hills, but everybody (one hopes everybody) living over there has air conditioning (and four hundred dollar a month electric bills). I have been forced to crank my twenty year old trusty fan up to high, something I can't quite remember having done in the past, and it's still not doing the trick.

Awww.

Life is like that. Did I mention how well the aching head has been doing, even in the heat, and that life is good?

It isn't just the news from overseas that's surreal around here.