Drip Drip Drip
I'm in a pretty good mood this morning. I feel like I've shed a hundred pounds. It's not just my new high-fiber diet kicking in either, it's more of an emotional weight I feel has been lifted.

All this time I've wasted sweating, wondering, worrying, hording newspaper so that I might dampen it and then cover myself with it, all in preparation for the imminent End of the World. All this consternation and perturbation because we never knew when, we just knew it was coming. Now, finally, I know. I have to tell you, it's quite a relief.

I realize every generation in human history has believed theirs would be the last to grace the face of the planet. But for the most part we're talking about pre-modern civilizations built around ridiculous superstitions. I mean, they'd freak out and throw a really great party complete with orgies and a dead virgin at the end just because they saw a comet streaking across the sky. We modern humans, who live in the age of science, know that comets streaking across the sky away from you portend the End of the World much less than a comet staying at a fixed point in the sky and steadily getting larger.

We're so advanced now that parties with orgies and dead virgins can be had by any-ole-body with a rock-n-roll band.

Now we have satellites and space-ships and the technology even to stage pretend landings on the moon. We have NyQuil and x-rays and penicillin, which is great because everyone knows it's easier to think clearly when you know your gonorrhea is only temporary.

No, we've evolved well past the days of astronomical and astrological simplicity and fear and moved on to more sophisticated modes of thought and expression that allow us to better understand the workings of the various systems that make up our precious Earth and to observe it all with a cool, detached eye.*

So I'm happy now. I'm happy now because all my worries are at an end, right along with everything else on the planet between the stratosphere and the core. I didn't think I'd be this relieved, but I am.

Everyone look at your calendars. Go on, I'll wait. Got 'em? OK. What day does Fall start? That's right! It starts on Thursday, which is two days from now.

If Fall starts Thursday, that means right now it is still technically Summer, yes? Yes. Good.

And yet somehow, it's been raining for a whole day in southern California.

Yep, you heard me right. It's raining. In the summertime. There's even lightning and thunder and everything.

We're all so obviously dead.

You thought President Bush looked bad after the hurricane wiped out New Orleans. You should see what happens to his poll numbers once the whole of reality collapses in on itself until all matter is condensed into a single, infinitely heavy point hovering in the void left by the absence of space, outside of time. He's lucky he doesn't have to run again because that kind of thing will put voters right off a candidate.

He'll probably still get around 25% approval from his strong Christian Right supporters who will blame the End of Existence on illegal immigrants or Hollywood or terrorists or gays, but still, I wouldn't want to be President right now.

Rain. In southern California. In the Summer.

Doomed, all of us.

The animals can always smell it coming first. Look at this from the front page of my local paper** right alongside Iraq and Hurricane Katrina:

See how this tortoise is dragging a half-unconscious woman away to its lair in the deserts of eastern Riverside County so that it might ravish and then devour her. All bets are off, people. The beasts are taking the opportunity to try things they've always wanted to try. If you wake up tomorrow and your dog has eaten all the chocolate in your house, run. You're next.

That's it. Good night. I have to go squeeze every drop of the sweet nectar of life from this imperilled existence while I still can. I've got a long day of not cleaning the house ahead of me.



This post on the Narcissus Scale: 0.1 (this is obviously of interest to everyone)


Pops


PS: I would be remiss if I didn't point out how funny it is that the latest hurricane bearing down on America shares its name with a prominent original Bucketeer, the lovely and talented Rita. Here's hoping this storm does for you what the last one did for Katrina vanden Heuvel.

*= By the way, that's my Halloween costume this year, the Cool Detached Eye. It doesn't see very well, but all the ladies love him.

**= that really is from the front page of my local paper. We're trying to develop an image of a more urbane, cosmopolitan setting and they put a story on the front page about a woman who lost her giant turtle. Christ.
- posted by Pops @ 9:49 AM