I am tired of this

I have a vision of each shooting incident like a flame, a small deep whoosh like when the paper in the back ignites, before you can feel the heat or see anything; the soundless eating lip against the newspaper more blue than orange, blackening, hot but not dangerous until it reaches your fingers; spurts on this side and that side and in the middle and at the south and north and east and west until sparks fly from sea to shining sea and it all alights, combustion unstoppable then, even wet wood will catch and sizzle and dead matter will fly up the chimney and then nothing will remain, cinders, smoke, no living leaping flame, no spark, soot and ash waiting to be cleaned until spring comes and birds nest in the flue.

I have a vision of this place in flames.

McDonald's signs cracked and half-fallen. Starved Calvin Klein models graffitied and torn. Statues muscling each other out of city blocks, until their foundations decay and they topple.

Topple, Rome. Burn. All cities burn, eventually. I wrote that once.

Yesterday's heroes tomorrow's enemies today's talking heads. Flap flap flap flap flap. Birds nest in the flue.

Put your hands over your face before the camera snaps a picture. Open your mouth in a wail. Learn to do this before you are seventeen. Later, but not too much later, look for your open mouth on CNN. Look for it every two or three days. Look for it on routine anniversaries. Silver and gold. Carbon steel, the anniversary metal for these occasions. A common amalgam. Melted together and left to set in a mold, which is then shattered to create a death-object.

I have a vision.

It is kinder than the truth.

(Melo)drama in Three Acts

This morning I learned that one of Matt's uncles has passed away. He's not someone that Matt and I were close to at all, but it's still a sad surprise for us, and plain awful for some of his family. Whenever something like this happens - whenever I know that people close to me are mourning or troubled - I never know what to do with myself, publicly or privately. I had written a good portion of a silly blog post about movies and opera before I heard about the death, and when I went to work on it some more after I knew about Uncle Dave, my subject seemed trivial to the point where it would be insulting to post it.

On September 11, 2002 I was a college student, a senior. I'm not sure if anybody had really assimilated the impact of 9/11 only a year later, but I was not quite 21 and was only just learning how big and unimpressible history was compared to any one event in history. The point is, I wore all black that day, mourning, and when I went to the student union around lunchtime, I saw a woman wearing rather outlandish flowered shoes and brightly colored ribbons in her hair.

At the time, I was disgusted. I thought she was extremely disrespectful for not sticking to muted colors on that day. I had a conversation with someone about this - I can't remember who - and the someone disagreed with me. A decade later, I disagree with myself. Sort of. I still think it's a good idea to show respect for what we lost that day, but I also think that if we tamp down any signs that life goes on, if we only allow for ONE reaction and ONE appropriate mode of dress on that day or any day, we lose something important as a nation and as a species. That woman might have just been oblivious to the anniversary of 9/11 and wore what she would have worn any day, but I'm going to choose to believe she dressed brightly on purpose. She was a flower growing out of blackened rubble.

This might partially be justification for not wanting to trash a post about fucking Twilight that I worked hard to make entertaining, but I do believe every word. And I mean no disrespect when getting on with my life, even when people I love are hurting. I want to do what I can, but when I don't know what to do, I'm going to do what I always do. Freezing everything I do so as not to be perceived as a jerk seems mostly like it's just paralyzing, rather than helpful at all.

So.