This is very cool.

[Via South Knox Bubba]

“You were coughing last night, dad.”
“I have to stop smoking.”
“You shouldn’t smoke at all.”
“You’re right.”
“Are there tornadoes in Austria?”
“Nope.”
“No volcanoes either?”
“Nope.”
“Good. Austria is my favorite place to live.”

I got Gamma off to school this morning. We had that conversation while getting her dressed and brushing her teeth.

I woke up with a headache this morning. I had been up late with Beta, watching “Underworld” (? Is that right? The one about the werewolves and vampires fighting?) and drinking wine (just me – she’s not interested in wine yet).

It was hard to tell who was who during most of the film. They all had long hair, most of them, but the vampires washed theirs. They all wore long leather coats. Up close, the lycans looked like bikers or heavy metal band members, whereas the vampires were more, what, Placebo-fan-looking or something. When they were battling, it was often hard to tell who was who.

The only sure way to tell was, if they’re smoking they’re a vampire. None of the lycans smoked. The entire movie, in fact, was an allegory about the ongoing battle between smokers and non-smokers.

Overall, the movie rocked: acting sucked, script sucked, photography sucked, costumes sucked, direction sucked, weapons sucked, cars sucked, it was eminently confusing but, you know, chick in tight shiny black outfit.

There was something about the Michael guy being important somehow, I’m not sure what, either the movie was confusing on that point or Alpha kept coming into the room talking to us or both. But he at some point or another, the beginning or the end, ends up combining lycan and vampire in a single person, which makes him stronger.

And it occurred to me that I, too, combine smoker and non-smoker in a single person. I detest smoking and what it does to the way I feel and the way I smell. I hate the way it tastes and I hate supplying money (indirectly, since I still bum all my smokes) to, doubtlessly, rich, powerful lying immoral monopolists.

On the other hand, I continue to smoke, off and on. Only in my case, I fear it doesn’t give me triple-celled platelets. Or maybe it does, but they don’t make me “stronger than both”.

Nice videos.

The President is not your daddy.

Because the light started being perfect on Monday morning.

If it was Monday, and if it was the light I remember. Because you know I am always mixing up events and properties, switching them, only it’s not mixing them up exactly, they’re just all equidistant in my memory. But this gentle, sweet light that morning just drew me out.

Light that is harsh you don’t want to view too closely, you stand back at the far wall, clear across the room, and look out the windows from fifteen feet away; this morning in question was just the opposite, with a blanket of fog over the river just thin enough so it could still reflect the pink and gold the sunrise stained the clouds with. More fog in the woods and fields, all full of deer. Sweet, gentle light that brings you across the room of your head until you’re right there, face pressed up against the glass of your eyeballs, not wanting to miss a single detail.

Light that says You must remember every single thing. Paint it if you can or take a picture of it or write it down if you like, but remember every little thing.

When I look at the webcam of the Internet’s biggest camgirl, Mt. St. Helens, I am reminded of the harshness of the light where I grew up, because I grew up just a few miles from that mountain. The light there, in the summers, in my memory, was too bright to look at without squinting and drove me far back into my skull.

No one can paint Greece. Correct me if I’m wrong. The say the light there is perfect, and it is bright and clear and unique, but I’m wondering whether the idea of it being perfect is influenced by it being Greek, as in, Here we are! Greece! Naked beaches! I’m going to try ouzo again, only not get sick this time! But if the light really were perfect, you’d think you could paint it.

Although, that reminds me of one sunrise many years ago: Alpha’s face golden sitting on a dock somewhere on Crete. Not just her face, the rest of my then-girlfriend too: faded blue teeshirt and jeans, long straight blond hair, golden in the sunrise, the most perfect moment I’ve ever seen. Even if I could paint, I’d still leave that image alone. Although, here I am, trying to describe it. We slept on the beach, which was made of stones and filthy with tar, and woke to that sunrise.

Maybe I just have a thing about sunrises, except this light here has been perfect ever since Monday. The sunsets driving home are just as fine, and the light in between as well: right there, face pressed up against my eyeballs is where you’ll find me. Taking it all in.

You forgot Poland.

[Probably distracted by Peacedividend.]