Living as an Ewok

August 26th. It’s been about a week since I’ve had regular access to the Internet, and nearly a month since we’ve had TV. All this moving certainly has the unanticipated effect of cutting one off from real life, huh? You feel like everyone else is building death stars and communicating by hologram, while you're stuck cooking by fire and tying sticks together to throw at Stormtroopers. Having no Internet or TV forces one into a dreamscape of fantasy and surrealism. Life with no Internet: You have to read. You have to talk. You have to study the shapes and textures of the leaves on the trees swaying off the deck as you sip your morning coffee. You have to explore the neighborhood, and walk along the beach with no destination, the shadows of pelicans startling you as they cross your path. You watch how the surfers mount their boards, how the children expect the sea to fill the moats in their sand castles. Life with no TV: You have to listen to the voices of the children at the pre-school across the street. You have to be quiet while a hummingbird does what he does in the flowers along the sidewalk. You learn to jump at the right moment to catch the crest of a wave and body surf to the sand, and to walk on the rocks around a tide pool without disturbing the crabs and starfish. You have to watch as a seabird floats over the ocean, dive-bombing suddenly, drawing other seabirds to the newly plundered feast. You have to listen to music, not as an accompaniment in the background as you do something else, but as something interesting and profound in its own right. If you’re reading this, of course, we are back online. It’s August 31st now, and finally we can get back to real life: Facebook arguments, You Tube videos of one-hit-wonders from the 60s, cats driving cars. Back to the harsh realities of house hunting in Ceylon, living with Bruce Jenner, managing an aristocratic estate in 1920’s England. It was a trying few weeks with no TV or Internet, but I’m sure we will be better people for having endured it. Whew!

Welcome Back!

It's been some three years since I've used Blogger, and I'd like to take this opportunity to welcome me back. Welcome back, me! I now live in Southern California. Well, "live" is an exaggeration, if by :live" we mean "have an address". My family got here Monday, dropped Samie off at Soka University of America on Tuesday, and are now sleeping poolside in a vacation rental in Santa Ana. At any rate, I no longer ride the bus to work, or make random book purchases at Goodwill, so the original purpose of the blog is out the window - perhaps it got loose and flew out as we drove past the sign for the restaurant offering "American and New Mexico Cuisine", or the one promising "No Phony Discounts". Whatever the case, it's gone. Gone also is my job as the Omaha Liberal Examiner. I will not become the "Orange County Liberal Examiner". Yet I must write, and I have this self-created marketplace, and so I will write. But . . . what about? The thought has occurred to me that I am in California a mere 40 or 50 years behind schedule, so I could just pretend it's 1963 or 1965 and post pictures from that era (, and link to songs about California, and write as if nothing has changed (e.g., "Saw The Men at the Troubadour last night"). Or, I could use it to pontificate, a la The Examiner. Or something else entirely. Right now, I just want to see how Blogger works these days. The draft I'm writing looks pretty bad, so I'm just gonna post it to see if it turns out okay. Here goes...Welcome back!!