Tshirt slogan: “I’m outraged by war, AND I VOTE.”

I’m sitting here wondering if I could possibly feel any worse about the world situation. I had a cathartic ‘Those motherfuckers are gonna do it!’ outrage last night, and here I sit tonight unable to go to bed even after three glasses of wine and re-runs of Conan O’Brien. I spent most of today in bed, trying to pretend I wasn’t awake.

Sometimes I think that I just take all this stuff too personally. Other times I think I’m some kind of emotional channel for the ambient emotional state of all humanity, bobbing around like a bouy in the waves of feeling. And still other times I’m able to detach myself from all of it, to a creepy, perhaps unhealthy degree.

When I say I want peace in the world, I’m not saying it because it’s some hippie idealism, I’m saying it because I want peace for me. I’ll feel the bombs hit, and I’ll feel the people die. The kind of ignorance required of soldiers to kill people because they were told to is an overwhelming, painful sensation to me. The kind of blind ideology and greed required to undo hundreds of years of American tradition and order an invasion of a country that hasn’t attacked us not only offends me as a patriot, but makes me nauseous. It also makes me wonder how they can stomach it.

Someone of the cowboy government persuasion might tell me to suck it in and deal, Mr. Crybaby liberal, and I might respond that they should grow up and join the human race.

I know that you, my loyal readers, are concerned about ordinary foodstuffs which are named after those traitorous French. You’d rather have a ‘freedom fry’ than a ‘French fry,’ wouldn’t you? You heard that the US congress lunch room has changed the names of some foods that reflect their shameful ‘Old Europe’ heritage, and you want to follow suit.

But how?

Don’t worry! Star Spangled Ice Cream is here! You can pay only $76 for four quarts of crappy ice cream with jingoistic logos printed right on the container! Updates of old favorites, such as ‘I Hate The French Vanilla,’ and ‘Iraqi Road’ won’t last long in your freezer, especially after the terrorist attacks!

Don’t delay. Order today.

Today’s music:

‘Proud To Be An American,’ by The Tubes, circa 1976.

No, it’s not the Lee Greenwood song.

Wanna read the lyrics? Well here they are.

I’ve been reading a book called ‘War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning,’ by Chris Hedges.

When I went to buy it, the cashier gave me a look, and said, ‘You mind if I read the dust jacket?’ See, she thought it was a book about how great and wonderful war is, from the title.

The title is a neutral statement of the book’s thesis, which just happens to be valid. There’s a certain kind of meaning that’s difficult to get out of life without fighting (or covering as a journalist, in Hedges’ case) a war.

He talks about how all war is inhuman and awful, and how it’s tremendously exciting and intoxicating.

I finished it about a week ago. I read it in the hopes that it would somehow innoculate me for the moment when war started. I don’t think it’ll work that way.

The problem with war isn’t that it’s horrible (though that’s certainly a problem). The problem with war is that it’s so easy for the human mind to accept. It’s easier for us to think of good guys and bad guys than it is to think in terms of how everyone could benefit.

The phone line is working. Try calling me.

(Email me if you want the number.)

High coincidence quotient of late. This is coupled with radically changing sleep patterns. O how the mind loves a pattern…

Woke up at 6:30 having gone to bed at 2. I was dreaming a recurring dream where I’m at this sort of abandoned gas station in the desert, only it’s not really abandoned (I’m there), and the desert is really only defined by steep sand dunes which surround the parking lot. If I could ever get over the dunes, I’d find the rest of the world.

These symbols make sense, but, as always, there are the few extra surreal (one might say ‘dream-like’) items in there. The most disturbing of these was the one that woke me up: A bird-like bicycle that hovers, not unlike a vulture.

I’m in a seriously sleep-dep frame of mind, and I’m at the library typing away. I’m thinking about how seriously I should take my worries that the people here would disapprove of my current mental state. The worry is real enough, but my attitude is constantly shifting.

Over the past week or so, my sleep schedule has changed to be exactly opposite of the daily cycle. The worst part isn’t that this occurred; I have no schedule so it doesn’t really matter except that it’s hard to get somewhere before 5pm when you just woke up. The worst part is that I ended up with this schedule because I like to watch the two daily re-runs of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine that come on at 10 and 11. And then I’m on the couch, so I watch TV until 4am, simultaneously hating the TV industry for it’s infomercials which corrall me into watching the umpteenth re-run of that Dinah Shore retro-mentary (is this truly why we’re supposed to have PBS?), and loving and cherishing the precious hypnogogic state my mind seems to crave.

I wish I could say I was up obsessing over some work of art or a programming project, or something halfway interesting. I’m trying not to be hard on myself, though, because it takes my mind forever to get used to a new living situation. I become more hermit than once was thought possible while the adjustment happens.

Today’s featured library branch: Seatttle Public Library’s Lake City Branch!

It’s a nuevo-spanish single-story building with no windows and a single gated arch entry. It looks like a munitions bunker. I didn’t even see it the first few times I drove by, much less identify it as a library.

A very helpful impatient man helped me get into the computer use queue. His impatience grew when I didn’t know my four-digit PIN number, and we had to go set it again.

Lots of people use computers at the library. It astonishes me, actually, how these people are clamoring for screen time. It makes me wonder why the cybercafe business model never took off; all these people will wait in line to use a computer if it’s free, but they won’t pay money to use one instantly. Maybe it’s a matter of feeling obligated to buy a latte, and not knowing how to order one.

Meanwhile, back at the branch… (The King County Library branch, that is)…

I’m at the Lake Forest Park Commons, which is about the best mall ever. The library’s in the mall which is, itself, built around a local bookstore as anchor store. No Barnes & Noble here, it’s Third Place Books.

I haven’t eaten much today, because taking care of such mundane things distract me from my Singularity Of Purpose, which is to go to some places and pay the bills I owe there.

Which I did. So now I can go to the food court and eat a nutritious meal of coffee and a donut.

In all honesty, I’m writing this because I forgot my email password and had to change it, though the changes won’t be in effect for 15 minutes. If I get up from this computer, I’ll have to wait much longer than 15 minutes, so I’m sitting here typing looking busy, trying not to arouse the ire of those who are waiting to use this machine.

Ah well. No luck hacking my own password. I think I’ll go drink that coffee and try again later.

I’m still alive, just without phone service and internet. It’s like being without water or electricity for me.

The library computer tells me I only have 2 minutes left before the branch closes. Wewp.