Echoes in a Hollow Space

Random quote of the day:

“Saints should always be judged guilty until they are proved innocent.”

—George Orwell, “Reflections of Gandhi”



Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Lucy and Ethel, Justin Bieber, or the Kardashian Klan. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

In the early mornings these days, the light is heavy and gold—really quite beautiful—but it's a sign that the sun is fighting its way through a thick screen of particulates. By the time the sun is fully risen, the sky is a whitish pink wash. Occasionally, patches of clear blue peek through, but as the days and fires progress, that becomes a rarer sight.

This is the time of year in Southern California when I'm glad to be a Flatlander, as those in the hills like to refer to those of us who live inside the basin rather than on its rim or in the canyons further out from the area's cities. I'm not glad in a smug way. In fact, I feel a kind of mild variation on survivor's guilt—normalcy guilt. While everyone in the hill country all the way from Santa Clarita to San Diego is disrupted, some losing everything they have, my life goes on in a fairly routine manner. My experience of the fire is scraping the ash off my car's windshield in the morning so I can see to drive; stinging eyes and scratchy throat; and relatively light traffic—because those normally on the roads are watching out for their houses, or can't get through the fire areas to the basin.

I don't wish to be disrupted or lose everything myself, but my heart goes out to those who are experiencing these things. I appreciate how lucky I am, but I don't take anything for granted. In the early sixties, the entire LA basin almost burned. Fire ravaged through Brentwood, which is on the downward slope of the Santa Monica Mountains and close to the heart of West Los Angeles, adjacent to UCLA. If not for an incredibly courageous and tenacious stand by firefighters, that conflagration would have spread to West LA and across the basin—and nothing short of a miracle could have stopped it. But heroics, and a last minute weather miracle, did save that day. I'm not so foolish to think we might not be so lucky next time.

Firemen are the real deal. That's not a red state issue or a blue state issue, that's the truth. I'm not sure I'd want to have a discussion with someone who didn't recognize how gutsy they are.

Because fire is a fact of life in Southern California. Our environment evolved to take advantage of fire in the way it germinates its vegetation and the conditions are always favorable for flame in the fall. This year is just much worse than usual. I can't remember a time when I didn't get the occasional glimpse of flame peeking over the Santa Monica Mountains, when the smoke didn't choke the air in autumn. Not every autumn is like that, but enough so that it's a permanent part of the psyche of anyone who grew up here.

That and the normalcy guilt.

Ilona tagged me so I must obey. If I tagged you and you've already been tagged or don't wanna, I quite understand. If I haven't tagged you, consider yourself tagged.

Guilt	What is yours?	Explain yourself
Culinary:	What have you got?	Seriously, just about everything, but pastries and pasta and ice cream and steak and cheese feature prominently. And potatoes, and...
Literary:	Romance lit	Loretta Chase, Jennifer Crusie, the occasional Harlequin (that's ::real:: guilt and real rare). Sometimes it nice to just take a bubble bath of the mind.
Audiovisual:	Paranormal shows and serial killers shows.	Ghost Hunters, but anything ghosty or psychicy or weird; and yes, I like very dark, noir things, too. Booga booga! But the scariest show I seem to watch a lot of: Extreme Makeover Home Edition. I know, I know, totally sick.
Musical:	I don't have any.	Really, a person likes the music they like, and music is wonderful stuff, so enjoy! I have very eclectic taste anyway.
Celebrity:	Johnny Depp	Not really guilty about this one. I'll watch anything he's in, though, even 21 Jump Street, so that's pretty bad.

Now I tag:-

darkspires kmkibble75 makoiyi merebrillante and everyonesakitty


to complete this same Quiz, Its HERE.

Oh. My. God. I looked at chapter 18 today after not going near it since April. In one part of the chapter, the clichés were flying as fast as sparks from a grease fire. Once again, I am convinced that someone has snuck into my ms. and substituted bilge for my deathless prose. Or is that undead prose? At any rate, it stinks like a corpse. Although I think I cleaned up the worst of it, I'm not going to do a heavy fix on this--just post it to the 'shop, clichés and all, then move on.

The last two chapters have shown clear evidence, I think, of saggy middle fatigue.

Guilt of the day: I owe a ton of crits on OWW. Very sorry. I'm trying to rectify that.

Surreality of the day: Someone went over to the old building, the one we moved out of in October that they're just starting to knock down, and took pictures on the inside. It was disorienting--they'd knocked down walls, taken down doors and bulletin boards. Every once in a while I'd see something I recognized, but in a highly unrecognizable state. It was like looking at pictures of the Titanic wreck, hard to tell what was what.

By sheer accident, this person took pictures of the office suite I used to work in. It was a rather unusual configuration and there was a decal on one of the windows someone had stuck on in the misty days of yore. So amidst the carnage of collapsed walls and ceiling tiles, I recognized exactly where my desk used to be. Only it was one cavernous suite now, four offices with walls knocked down from one load-bearing wall to the next. Incredibly strange to think I'd spent so many years there and now it no longer existed. Talk about palimpsests...

That seems to be the metaphor that's gripped me hard this summer.

Over the weekend I was thinking about the strange little house I grew up in. I'll have to write about that one of these days. It no longer exists, either--but so much of my taste, my values, and personal metaphors came out of that space that as long as I'm here, as long as my writing exists, that place will never quite be gone.

I suppose that's true of all of us and the spaces we used to occupy.

Nay, never ask this week, fair lord,
Where they are gone, nor yet this year,
Except with this for an overword,--
But where are the snows of yester-year?

—from Dante Gabriel Rosetti's The Ballad of the Dead Ladies (after François Villon)

And it's a Friday night debauchery followed by Monday morning guilt kind of morning. I can't believe I bought that camera. It's impulse buying like that which is responsible for me being trapped in an apartment with exploding plumbing. What a schmendrick I am. I thought my apartment was $250 under market value, but I saw a housing report a couple of weeks ago that let me know it's closer to $450. I'm paying Inland Empire prices for an apartment on the Westside of L.A.

All right. Enough chest-beating. I'm a fool—but I'm going to enjoy the hell out of that camera. I already have.

Thanks to Jodi for pointing me to Photobucket. You can't blame her for the misuse I've made of her advice, though.

ETA: Happy birthday, Jodi!!

Some completely stupid pictures here.

These are completely stupid, but they're the only pix that are okay enough to post at this point.

[broken link]

This is my living room. Nobody wants to see my living room, but hey...it was there, so I photographed it. And carefully cropped out the clutter in front of the bookshelf in the foreground. All except the handle of the carpet cleaner which I forgot to move before madly snapping pix.

[broken link]

This is my lace fan from the Jane Austen Museum in Bath and a portrait of me done by my friend Francesca when I had a wild and luxuriant perm. God, can you stand the excitement?