Clichèd brush-with-death-bringing-on-various-forms-of-introspection-and-appreciation moment:

I can't believe how lucky I am to be alive after all the shit that's been thrown my way these last few years. It's fucking nuts; it's amazing. I've had--still have--serious health problems, a fair amount of blinding depression, bouts of awful stuff.

I am endlessly amazed that I have not been completely killed or immobilized by my illnesses, that I haven't killed myself with drinking or any various and sundry other ways one can consciously or unconsciously end their life, that I haven't been hit, with my luck, by a fucking meteorite or something, sizzling the tail end of an interstellar trajectory right through me.

I often announce loudly--as if that might get his attention--that if I were to meet God on the street I'd knock him one squarely to the jaw, I'd take the fucker on after all the sadistic and malevolent shit he's put me and everyone else through.

And yet he hasn't completely had me taken out yet. His reasoning for this course of action, is, of course, completely unfathomable. After all, he IS god. Unknowable and all that.


It was a windy day today when I walked out of the building. I love rainy days and the way the sky falls down on you. And then I got hit, and after the accident I clunked the poor car home, sat in the dark in my apartment, numbly changed the dishwasher contents, and sat in the dark some more.

Then Joe came over and told me everything would be okay and that I looked nice, and the world brightened a lot.

I sat in the dark a little longer after he left, and then remembered too late that it was Monday which means street-cleaning tickets would be administered exactly where I'd parked--and I should have moved my car forty-five minutes ago. The parking enforcement people wait in their little Hyundais right there 'til 12 noon and ticket every loser who's still there. It was 12:45.

I ran out to see that I was the only car still parked on that side. One of the big reasons I'd freaked out so completely and begun sobbing when that guy slammed into me from behind was the money issue; I am so broke, I can't afford repairs! Even if insurance pays, I'll inevitably have to shell out for something. And here I am getting a goddamn parking ticket.

So I run across the street, and because I live on a hill I could stop and look out and see the whole los angeles basin there, glittering post-rain, wet-diamond buildings and the wind upwelling into my face an icy blowback, oxygenating every cell in my blood; and the green looking so deep and bright and emerald, the air smelling green also, with thunderhead-induced ozone, which is the smell of lightening that got dissolved, and the clouds looking for all the world like heaven, so heavy and full, with blue sky pouring through where rain had been just an hour ago.

And I hadn't gotten a ticket.

:)