I'm not a political creature. I don't have the news-junky disease, and I find it effortful at times to keep up with current events. Most of it just makes me anxious and depressed, and I feel like most of the time, I'm serving the world more efficiently by going about the daily business of extracting my head from my ass.

But even if you're a navel-blogger like myself, if you do this blogging thing with even a dim awareness of the world around you, it's hard sometimes to go about business as usual without a small sidebar...a tip of the hat to the horrors around you. And it's getting a little hard to avoid talking about the latest crisis in the Middle East.

A small disclosure: I made my peace with death four years ago when it looked like I might be headed down that path, and not only am I fine with it personally, I'm pretty sanguine about it in general. I mean, let's face it, if everyone decided to stick around forever, the 405 N would get even more crowded than it is now.

I am terribly, terribly afraid of lingering death, though: death by fear, death by lingering disease or maltreatment, death by watching everything around you that you love die slowly or quickly. I've yet to reach the Buddhic level of detachment that has me maintaining an implacable half-smile of calm during the end times as a marauding band of thieves rape me, my entire family and the dog before killing us for the gallon of gas left in our car. Hell, watching the Wal-Mart movie upset me.

But today, I can't complain about the heat or my inability to get things done or my wondering why this summer feels kind of hinky just yet. And I can't put my dismay into words yet, either; it feels like more of a thing for Poetry Thursday, both timing- and format-wise.

In the meantime, I will just send you over to James Kunstler, whose semi-detached, crisp take on events has rung truest to me so far.

And for my part, I will try to be nicer to people on the road today, even if it is hot as hell...

xxx c

Photo by ahhyeah via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license