people are crazy. the whole world’s gone crazy. we’ve got war in this corner and the Olympics in that. we’re fighting for the gold over here and fighting for our lives over there. pick a spot. there is triumph and joy and hatred and murder going on there.

africa is starving to death and we did it. they have rich, fertile ground and life-giving rain and still they are burying their babies with distended bellies and wailing “Allahu akbar” while wringing their hands. it’s like feeding the wild animals. if you feed them, they stop looking for ways to feed themselves. i’m going to get letters for comparing the people in africa to wild animals. but so are we all. not getting letters i mean, but wild animals. we’re just a different species. still feral. still driven by base instincts. still uncivilized. i read it today. not the animals part, but the part about africa. a bunch of celebrities who hate themselves decided in the eighties to end world hunger and in doing so they sang some crappy songs and damned africa to a life (and death) of dependency. it’s ironic. don’t you think?

i’m in california and i want to go home. i don’t like it here. it’s ugly and people don’t know how to drive and i don’t get why everything is called rancho something something or canyon something drive. everything. even the deadend streets sound like gated communities. there are lawn chairs and sleeping bags and clothes strewn about the freeway. just forgotten items left by the side of the road. no one is interested in claiming them. or cleaning them up. i saw a babyseat. a car seat? for a baby? it was sitting beside the freeway. melting in the sun. there was no baby in it. just the seat. though it would not have surprised me. there is trash and ugly, scorched, brown earth everywhere. there are no speed limit signs that read anything under 45mph and in spite of that people either drive 5 MPH or 100 MPH. there is no happy medium. you take your life into your own hands. it is understood.

if you hold the door for someone or let them in in traffic they stare at you like a lunatic, trying to figure your angle. they are angry at you for it. be predictable. don’t be human. that makes them uncomfortable.

the women wear hardly any clothes. no matter the age. and they are all suntanned to the color of burnt cornflakes. i worry about their health. people aren’t supposed to be that color. it isn’t natural. i’ve seen more 50-something year old cougars wearing spandex and short shorts and halter tops than it is reasonable to see in one lifetime and yet i am the only one nonplussed by it.

russia and georgia can’t play nice. i read a forum thread where a guy in georgia expressed his fear at being bombed. he could find no news on the invasion. why is the media keeping this quiet? he lived in atlanta, georgia. not the other georgia. but he knows of nothing outside of himself. then they pounced on him, the other forum visitors. they called him every name in the book and then some. they figuratively ripped him limb from limb. no one stopped and said, “comfort, brother. peace. be still. you are simply confused. and on the wrong continent.”

being hateful is easier. and more en vogue. speaking comfort is not.

construction in california is like the setting of the sun. constant and predictable. you cannot get here from there. the road no longer exists. it is now rancho canyon verde copper hill cliffside drive and it will be finished in a hundred years from now when you no longer need to go that way anymore.

there are health signs everywhere. they won’t clean up the streets or do anything about the death trap highways and the lunatic people who drive on them but they will post a sticker, a placard, a warning over every possible surface reminding you that cigarette smoking causes cancer, lead is deadly and most likely in your drinking water, trans fats are used in the recipes served in the kitchen of the dining establishment in which you are about to dine, recycling is good for the planet and the consumption of alcohol will most likely lead to birth defects and low birth weight and mental retardation and possibly government office. don’t worry. you may get shot on the freeway. you may strangle on the fumes of the pollution. you may melt in the unforgiving sun and you may develop ten kinds of skin cancer, but you will never, never be able to say they didn’t warn you not to eat at marie callenders, you fat, stupid human. read the signs. it’s all they got. it’s the only idea they got.

i have heard three different mothers tell their children to shut up. i saw one mother slap her toddler in the department store. i saw one boy, aged 6 or 7, so incredibly hyper and over-stimulated that he literally seemed to be having some kind of fit. i was genuinely concerned for his safety. and the safety of the ten year old brother who was trying to hold him on his lap while mom and dad stood outside and leisurely talked and unloaded the car into the hotel and — you know, just generally ignored the ear-shattering screams and wails of their child who was obviously in need of attention. or ritalin. or a sedative of some sort.

i am in the depths of despair.

i miss my boys. jacob is starting high school next month and i am too young and he is too young and time is getting away from me. it is fucking me without the benefit of dinner and dessert first. i look at him and i cannot see a high schooler. i still see disney and spongebob and movies rated G. i still see power rangers and hot wheels and a sippie cup full of milk. i cannot fathom the acne or facial hair making their first appearances. i cannot wrap my head around him being a teenager. i have to shut that one out.

i am working too much and missing too much and i want to go home. i hate hotels and i hate the road and i hate, i hate, i hate giving up precious time with them to earn a buck. i want to go home. i don’t want to be here. i want to go home.