h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Last night my inner levy broke. For two weeks now my mind has tossed through a hurricane, sometimes right in the middle of the eye where things are just as calm and clear and ... unsullied, I guess, by the surrounding chaos. Sometimes I'm beaten about by a rain band, reading articles about Katrina's effects on the cities, the victims, the governmental response (and lack of response), and the responses of people, like me, who are only periphally impacted by the devastation.

Sometimes I get too full, I go into the eye. I've been working on my movie soundtrack, messing with photos, painting. I've gotten more accomplished than I often do in months.

I've seen all these images, really horrible stuff. I read things that are like an icepick to the heart, but somehow I'm able to maintain a certain emotional distance. The stuff gets in, but through a filter. Hell, I *know* what it's like to walk out of the bedroom into a house that's partially rubbled, where the ceiling kinda does a slow-motion collapse and you watch it from across the room while drinking coffee. I know what it's like to walk two blocks from home and totally lose your bearings because there are no familiar landmarks left standing. I know how to live without electricity for extended periods of time, and how to function under martial law. I know how to tell looters to get the hell out of my neighborhood, at gunpoint. I know how to live like that. But I don't know how to live in rising water and watch helicopters fly overhead, to somewhere else. For days. Until you die of f*cking starvation or dehydration. Good job, Brownie! I don't know how to live while being shuffled around from one goddamn cardboard 'place of safety' to another, at gunpoint, because you've gained media attention and you're not the kind of news government officials want people to know about. I don't know how to live like that. But now I *know* that that's the kind of government we've created for ourselves, over here. Time to change some karma, maybe? I hope so, because it's not how I want to live. I still can't get my head around all the thousands of people who *do* know how to live like that, forever, or who've died like that. I'm glad that they're being relocated to communities all over the country, too. They're not going to be able to be swept under the rug as an 'isolated incident', I don't think.

So my levy broke, and it wasn't all the stuff I've seen and read that did it. It was an animated cartoon http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/09/08/opinion/main827633.shtml
and a bunch of pictures of what's happened to people's pets that finally penetrated my mental bubble. I wonder if there's something wrong with me.

Well, the last bit of that animated film was pretty heart-wrenching.

And the pet stories I read this morning really did me in too.


az

I need to stay away from the pet pics.

13 years ago I had this dog for a little while (what was left of home became a bit of a zoo--took care of 2 big birds, a snake, my own three mutts, and Eye.) Poor Eye was this big, black dog that wandered into my yard and settled in under one of the boats. She was nearly starved to death, giant head, big ol' paws, and evey rib and vertebra sticking out of a shrunken,skeletal body. I called her Eye because I guess she'd been locked in a closet, or a very tight space. She just kept walking in little, tight circles. So I took her to the animal care tent they'd set up, got her checked out. They gave me liquid vitamins to feed her, and a bunch of food. They told me she was a rottweiler. I couldn't tell. She was pretty distorted at first, but she put on some weight quickly. She was a total sweetie, and I was happy to give her a home. She always barked when people came around, and was waaaay more intimidating than the others. I had her for about a month, I guess. One day some people came by and said she was their dog. She went to them when they called her by another name, was bouncing around and happy to see them. She went home with them. I hope some of these new hurricane pets find a safe place to stay and then find their people again.