The guy at the car dealership, the guy in the back who knows his way around engines and the inner workings of such things the way Fess Parker knew his way to the MGM commissary from the farthest reaches of the back lots, that guy told me I am lucky to be alive today. Apparently, when the chunk of firewood bounced off the roadway on Highway 101 Tuesday afternoon and punctured the inside rim of the tire on the driver’s side the rim should’ve blown the tire and sent me careening across several lanes and maybe going upside-down as well, which is not inviting anytime and certainly not in a ragtop sportscar. “It’s a miracle,” he said.

I’m all for miracles these days, especially anything which keeps me from flying through space in a rush toward conclusively demonstrating my own mortality.

I am so grateful in fact that my mood remains upbeat despite my insurance company – soon to be ex-insurance company – refusing to pay for at least most of the damage, and despite the fact that the Mazda dealer tried to tell me I wouldn’t get my MX5 back for at least a month because the tire was a unique size, only obtainable through Mazda, and was on back order for thirty days. The latter situation has apparently changed since I mentioned that the local press would love a story about how if you were stupid enough to buy a Mazda you could find yourself without a vehicle if a tire should blow. We’ll see. He says he’s found a tire and will have it in a few more days.

I’ve been thinking about mortality increasingly in recent years, no surprise I guess. People do that as it seems to become more real. Friends get sick. Shit happens. This is not, evidently, the fun part.

I live in Marin County, a beautiful community if you ignore the mess made by the influx of rich assholes from elsewhere who can afford million-dollar homes with the money their parents gave them. Marin is also afflicted by the terminally healthy, the folks who take it as an article of faith that their healthy lifestyles, their bike-riding, tofu gobbling, no smoking, pilates (or whatever is the latest cool thing) exercising have rendered them immortal.

A woman I once knew said she didn’t want to stick around because she’d have to care for me when – not if – I got sick. Thing is, pretty much everyone who doesn’t get killed in a blowout eventually gets sick. Things go haywire. The body, at some point, as healthy as we can keep it, wears out. Saroyan is said to have said he always knew that people had to die but thought that in his own case God would make an exception.

Marin is overrun by the folks on bikes wearing those spandex racing colors, whizzing alongside auto traffic (and flying through stop signs because they’re special). These are people who do not smoke; they may not even eat meat. They do, however, inhale more carbon monoxide by riding their bikes on city streets than they would otherwise do by lying down in a barcalounger and smoking half a pack of Camels every day.

As Dylan once said, and I’m sure he wasn’t the first, every hair is numbered like every grain of sand. When my time comes, I hope I’m with someone who loves me enough not to feel like running away. Hope you are, too.

Today the sun’s shining. Going to sit on my deck, think about real friends.

This is only a test. If it had been an actual alert, it would certainly be much too late. The crazies' last wet dream would've dematerialized pretty much everything including your computer, your video library, your Mercedes, your dog and, of course, you.
Expect no alerts. What you'll get are observations and commentary, news snippets weird enough or hopeful enough to warrant wider dissemination, occasional jokes, and a screed or two when screeds seem called for.
For several years, I have had conversations with friends about the state of things in America, specifically whether there might arise a movement to restore what was once the best in us and whether that movement could really succeed. The only thing which is evident to me is that the internet, the sudden possibility that for the first time every living person, every living cell in the collective human mind, could communicate with every other: the internet, for reasons ranging from evolutionary theory to spiritual inevitability, will be central to any answer.
If this is the mechanism, the trim tab which, when turned however slightly might actually save the world, at least give us a chance, then at least I can offer my very small hands.
I welcome your responses.