time flies

I'm old.

As I munched on my raisin bran this morning, perched on the edge of the ottoman in the living room (you can't sit on the couches before work, lest you leave covered in dog hair), I was enraptured by this stylized kid, Justin Beiber, dancing and singing on the Today show, with hoards of prepubescent girls crammed behind danger-orange barriers, all mouthing the words of the song with a glazed-over look in their eyes, only their lips and pupils moving, not even blinking in the flashes of cameras, following him around the stage with the ferocity of a hawk glaring down a field mouse.

Joey, my favorite, on the far right. And yes, he looks like a child.

I was reminded of New Kids on the Block. Remember them, the five boys who brought back boy bands in the 80s, with hits like "Hangin' Tough" and "Step by Step." I was the perfect age for New Kids-mania, and I even had a night shirt with Joey's face printed as big as my 9-year-old body.

Now I don't even know who these teen heart-throbs are. Justin Beiber? He looks like a baby. He can't be older than 14? Did Joey look like that to my parents? The Jonas Brothers, all those kids from High School Musical (which I thought was an actual play and not a movie for the longest time), Hannah Montana, who apparently is also Miley Cyrus... all these pseudo-famous children. Where do they come from? Who are their parents? It amazes me. Go, be children, play in the mud, do your homework, grow up in a small town under oak trees and loving families, not in Hollywood's bright and aging lights.

I felt sorry for his backup dancers and singers, all men in their 20s and 30s. What a life-- to have worked so hard on your craft, be it singing or dancing, just to be backup to a child, a child who is already more famous than you will ever be and already has more money than you will ever have. Well, at least you get the use of his stylist and are briefly on camera on the Today show. At least your mom saw you as you were dancing your heart out behind the short kid with the overly-coiffed blown-front hair and tight white jeans (that no 14-year-old boy in his right mind would ever actually wear on a normal basis), and she got to point you out to all her friends. "Look! That's my baby in the red hoodie! Behind that smarmy kid." It's better than a lot of people do.

It was like watching a train wreck. Repulsed but also amazed, I couldn't look away.

I find it sad that Justin Beiber brought me back to my blog. I needed some time away, time to gather my thoughts. I've been dreaming a lot lately, which is weird for me, but always by the time I get to a notebook or a computer they've faded into the haze and I can't recall anything but the outer-edge feeling of them, like something just beyond my reach, like a lingering taste on the back of my tongue. My headaches have come back after a very quiet winter. Down here, rain storms pop up for no reason and without notice, and it seems that every time one blows through, it rests a little too heavy on my eyelids.

I've been appalled by the oil spill that's threatening the beaches on which I spent a good deal of my childhood. Humans screw up everything we touch. We think we're gods among animals, that we can do no wrong, and even if we do, who is there to punish us? An egret can exact no justice, fish can't sue, and pelicans don't know the meaning of litigation. They suffer at our foolish hands, the hands more interested in Beiber fever and commercialism than preserving our one home planet. Mother Earth, though, she'll get her revenge in the end, when the world is so destroyed that not even us humans can stand to live here. We'll exterminate ourselves, but the rest of the world-- plants, bugs, sea life, animals-- will all come back and thrive when we're gone. They don't need us like we need them.

My first tomato... see it?

There has been much for which to be grateful in the last few weeks as well. Fun times with family and friends, beautiful weather, growing plants in my yard, my first home-grown tomato, a more reliable car purchased, the woman who pulled over and helped me save a lost dog wandering down the highway. Life carries on whether I'd like it to or not. I can't pause it the way I can pause this blog.

That said, I don't know how often I'll be posting now. I enjoyed letting my thoughts build up before finally putting them down. We'll see.