The Nothing

Everybody loves the internet. Except really old people, or really rich people that didn't earn their money using computers so they have always paid someone else to use the internet for them, thus never learning, thus never loving. I don't have the internet at home, but that doesn't mean I can't love it. The same does NOT hold true with cell phones. I don't love cell phones, I just use them because since everyone else does, the inconvenience of not having one outweighs not paying $60 a month to talk on the phone. When I started college, we had a land line that we split four or five ways depending on how many roommates we were. We'd each pay like eight bucks a month. There were enough of us holding out, avoiding the mobile revolution, to still feasibly keep the land line. But man cannot outrun machine, and one by one we were overtaken by the rolling charge. Like The Nothing from Neverending Story, which had a scary cover-my-eyes-and-tell-me-when-it's-over wolf scene. By the end of college, EVERYONE had cell phones, so people weren't willing to pay for a land line on top of their cell bill. I still cringe every time I get my phone bill and see how much money I am spending to be able to talk on the phone. But here I am, spending most my lives living in a gangster's paradise. With a cell phone.

Red Recess Warning

On the radio this morning there was a RED burn day warning issued. Don't drive if you don't have to, don't light anything on fire, don't let the kids go out to recess, don't leave your home unless you absolutely have to, and don't do anything without your S.A.R.S. mask.
No recess?! What deep sickness have we spiraled down into to arrive at the point where we prohibit our children from playing outside? That sounds like something from a futuristic movie depicting society as dark and deteriorated, like Terminator or Soylent Green. One of the common signs of failed civilizations (the Anasazi, the Aztecs, Grunge, Roseanne Barr) is that just before their demise they instigated a ban on recess for their kids. And then they fell, and fell hard. We have willingly created a society that produces such harmful chemical air and water pollution that it is unsafe for children to go outside. Yet we somehow aren't spurred to any action towards change. We don't even think we need to change anything. It reminds me of the old The Ten Commandments movie and NASCAR. Not sure why. But I do know that during the chariot race scene in Ben Hur an actor was killed when he crashed in his chariot and was trampled by horses pulling men. Horses pulling men! Can you believe it? Next thing you know we'll have horses giving men pedicures and vice versa.
But back to recess. Kids are too young to stage a protest, even when they are living in a dirty, unhealthy, lung cancer causing environment. They deserve recess, it is in the U.S. Constitution. It's in one of the amendments. "Congress shall make no Law prohibiting the Practise of Recess. Any Action against Recess or the Practise thereof shall be Ceased and Tried by a federal Court of the People." Our actions have acted against recess. We are in direct violation of the Founding Fathers, Democracy in general, and the band Depeche Mode (who has been fighting for recess rights ever since they wrote the greatest mod love song of all time--Somebody, which talks about the world we live in, and life in general, obviously a direct reference to recess). Kids are too young to stage a protest so it is up to us, the beneficiaries of recess. We must unite in one voice, hopefully the beautiful voice of Celine Dion, and let our movie star leaders know that we're not gonna take it. No, we ain't gonna take it. We're not gonna take it anymore. Our kids are more important than us driving everywhere all the time, and they are more important than the weather phenomenon known as inversion that holds the bad air in and lets the good air out. And our kids are more important than other people's kids. So let Lady Liberty wrap us in her arms and breathe the clean fresh breath of democracy into our kids' lungs via mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. She will hear me scream through my megaphone, distorted by smog and smut but loud nonetheless. And maybe she will think I'm crazy just like my last three girlfriends did and their families and my family did. But she'll at least hear me out. And to finish quoting Depeche Mode's Somebody,
She'll hear me out
And won't easily be converted
To my way of thinking
In fact she'll often disagree
But at the end of it all
She will understand me
Aaaahhhhh....

On a Yoga Ball

I've recently started using a yoga ball instead of a chair at work. I thought it could help strengthen my abdomen and back muscles since I was injured in a skiing accident and needed some self-administered rehabilitation. I also thought it could help improve my posture, since I have always had the posture of a mound of Jell-O. I didn't start using it to achieve a higher level of Eastern clarity and eventually have a zen-gasm. Now I find myself slouching all over it like chocolate syrup on vanilla ice cream. But it's bouncy and I can also do this really cool trick where I set the ball in an open path and run and dive at it, rolling all the way across it from my fingertips, down my extended arms, across my straightened body to the tips of tippy-toes. For a brief moment it feels like I am flying. On a yoga ball.