Wind wind more wind

The sea animals are probably getting buffeted by waves, but in slow motion, more an annoyance to flipper around in than truly scary. I think especially of the two animals I saw when I was in Key West: a nurse shark and a sea turtle. I hope they are well.

The rain bands come marching in. Alone in one's room at the very outer reaches of tropical storm Rita is not a bad place to be, particularly if one isn't truly alone, because one is accompanied by tortilla chips. Alone + tortilla chips at the edge of Rita is the experience of a very small moon orbiting a large but invisible planet, whose physical forces manage to exert themselves in a number of Newtonian equations without revealing their progenitor's looming presence. Like: the little trees trying to protect their hairdos in the wind.

It is a busy time to think about animals underwater, and have a funeral for the baby lizard that you apparently rolled over on in your sleep last night, which in spite of being fully intact and having little, perfectly-formed feet had very much ended its time on Earth.

USPS

I haven't gotten my mail properly since I moved into my latest apartment, no New Yorker, no phone bill; but today, I received a book called "National Sunday Law: A Shocking Glimpse Behind the Scenes, Forces Unite for a Stupendous Crisis..." There are lots of line drawings of animals with fangs inside. A whole herd of them in fact, lions and snakes and whatnot, baring their fangs. And an illustration open to the book of Revelations with a telescope lying on it. And one of a mushroom cloud billowing into an enormous, light-reflecting eyeball. That one's the best. And the first sentence: "The nation trembles..."

Bah. I'm going to go see Seu Jorge in a minute.

Punch somebody in the face

That Bush has the gall to pretend like nobody knew the levees would break (when that was the media refrain prior to the actual hurricane) is an obscene and despicable attitude, as if the whole affair hasn't already proven a severe impairment in how America treats its less fortunate. How vile, how telling of our lack of goodwill, how self-centered... to pretend it was a surprise. Here's my dad's opinion in the Atlanta Journal Constitution.