out with the old

"life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well-preserved body--but rather to skid in sideways, champagne bottle in one hand, keyboard in the other. body thoroughly used up, totally worn out, yelling 'wow, what a ride'!"

2009 was a hell of a ride.

and while the tendency to focus on the bad is hardwired into our dna, there was plenty of good in 2009 as well. i'm almost sure of it.

one easy example--george bush was run out of washington, d.c. well, maybe "constitutionally mandated to leave office" is a slightly more accurate description. either way, he's out. that's good for everyone.

the corrolary to the fall of bush was the rise of obama. barry floated everyone's boat higher (even those who, like achors, prefer to sit in the silt at the bottom).

how about the hudson river landing of us air 1549? no matter what else happened in '09, those folks had a good year. i mean, even if they went on to lose jobs, break limbs or have dick cheney himself brush past them, they could say, "woohoo, it's all good!"

alex rodriguez was exposed as a-fraud, when it was revealed he used steroids to inflate his babe stats, er, baseball stats.

at the meeting of the g-20 in london, barack obama continued to rehabilitate the image of the u.s. by not massaging german chancellor angela merkel.

sarah palin resigned as alaska governor, halfway through her term. she told supporters that "she could do more for the state away from the office." no one in the state disagreed.

al franken went to washington. mark sanford went to argentina.

republicans protested the very idea of healthcare, and dubbed themselves "teabaggers." progressives smiled and snickered quietly.

tiger woods' salacious fall from the iconosphere caused a spike in the value of media stocks, and a simultaneous freefall in the value of his sponsors' stocks. woods shrugged and said, "that puts me at even par after 12 holes. given the playing conditions, i can't complain about that."

* * * * *

closer to home, there was plenty of good for the spaceneedls, as well. the missus and i stayed gainfully employed, when others around us were not so fortunate. we even got to take a couple vacations.

unless something goes seriously sideways in the waning hours, we avoided the h1n1 virus in 2009, and most of the family stayed healthy throughout the year. when i say "most of the family" i mean "not me." but that's good, too. better me than them. plus, i learned much from the experiences that will be increasingly valuable as i get increasingly old. if i'm fortunate enough to do so.

we added a canine family member, but lost a rodent family member. on balance, i'd say we came out ahead in that transaction.

there was some bad, reported here, some bad (not reported here); but the long view shows a huge preponderance of good (reported or not).

and so, we welcome 2010 with the same rum-soaked bravado that captain jack sparrow greeted the kraken: "hello, beastie."

"life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away."

dreams, redux

when you think of recurring anxiety dreams, what comes to mind?

i've heard lots of people say they're in college, and they've failed to study for the finals that are imminent. they forgot to drop the class, or they forgot to attend the class because it was a tuesday-thursday thing, or some variation thereof.

i've had those, and they're disquieting, in an "i don't know why" kind of way. i mean, i've been out of college far longer than i was in it.

regardless. those dreams don't hold a candle to the disturbing, inexplicable chimera i experienced again just last night. in it, i was (brace yourself...) golfing at pebble beach.

i know. i'm sorry to spring it on you like that. please take a moment and collect yourself. better? okay, let's get this over with.

we'll start with "why this is an anxiety dream." because in it, i haven't played or practiced in forever. i'm at the elysian fields of golf (a place millions of golfers better than i will never see in person), and i have no game whatsoever. i can barely swing the club without fearing i'll whiff completely. (those who've seen me play wonder how this dream differs from reality. to them i say, "ha. ha.")

more, it's getting dark, and the group i'm in is making no forward progress. we're losing daylight, and there are no refunds. i'm wasting my chance at pebble beach!

high-class anxiety dream, huh?

what does it mean?

that my life is pebble beach, and i'm frittering it away, ever ill-prepared? that there are a bunch of holes left to play, and darkness is approaching? that life, like pebble beach, doesn't give rain-checks?

great. couldn't i dream something more literal, like monsters chasing me? and for some reason my legs aren't working properly, and no matter how hard i try i can't get my feet up out of the concrete?

wait, i have those too. what i wouldn't give for the occasional flying dream. soaring around without the benefit of or need for wings. that sounds like fun.

but no. i get golf.

could be worse, i suppose. i could be dreaming about sleeping with tiger woods.

yoga party

"yoga...yoga...yoga..."

i'm as flexible as a steel bar. yes, i can bend, but it takes a long time and much effort.

which makes yoga a very good idea. for me, not for the steel, which is impervious to good ideas.

given my recent medical history, getting more flexible is more of a mandatory than an option. my meager efforts at stretching over the years have proven effective only in demonstrating my capacity for self-delusion. yes, i can touch my toes. no, i can't touch my hands behind my back. not without dislocating something.

the bad news is, i've attended two yoga classes in my life. the good news is, the second one was today. the second step in a long journey, and all that.

i was not specifically cleared by my surgeons to partake in this activity, but then again, they didn't say i shouldn't. what could possibly go wrong? yoga is as wholesome and holistic as exercise gets, isn't it?

i know what some of you are thinking. there's a perception out there that yoga is an unmanly pursuit, unsuitable for manly men. "go lift some weights, eat some steak, and drink some bud," you scoff.

and, you'd be wrong. you try doing some of these moves, without lots of padding. and a spotter. and a paramedic.

yoga is hard work. the entire class i was sweating and shaking and tipping over--often at the same time. good thing i'm not self-conscious about such things, or i might've had to rush out of the studio for an immediate ego-ectomy. i was saved from that by a newfound state of blissful self-unawareness, in which i'm conscious of the pain, but not how ridiculous i look. this has been a necessary adaptation in my rehab, and it has come in handy more often than i would've previously admitted.

the people who are good at this sort of thing are amazing to watch. anyone who can do this without needing emergency surgery must be in pretty good shape. for lots of things. who wouldn't want to emulate that?

and we haven't even mentioned the philosophical and spiritual benefits of the practice, which are many and ancient and ostensibly wise. i could use some more wisdom, ancient or otherwise, if that weren't already painfully obvious. trouble is, i'm not sure if i have time for the philosophical-meditation thing. it might cut into my crazed running about like a headless chicken, after all.

* * * * *

update: two days post-yoga, i'm sore all over. shoulders to hamstrings to feet. which theoretically means i did something right, workout-wise. i'm not sure that assessment synchs up spiritually. in fact, and i'm just guessing here, i'd say it doesn't. probably it means that in typical american haste and taste for excess, i overdid it.

so much to learn. so little aptitude for it. time for some stretching.

standing eight count

"fall seven times, stand up eight."

--japanese proverb

within the past week i've been cleared by two world-class surgeons.

cleared for what, exactly, is not exactly clear. but we'll figure that out later.

first the orthopod gave me permission to resume doing rehab-esque squats and dead lifts.

next, the neurosurgeon said i was fine to get back to my regular activities. "go wild," she said.

obviously she's not familiar with my regular activities. but that's not important right now.

what is important is that i've recovered sufficiently from my various maladies and surgeries to start doing something.

two pertinent points of order:
1. what am i capable of?
2. what do i have the latitude to do?

permissions notwithstanding, there's the little matter of conditioning to consider. i can run on the treadmill for, say, 15 minutes. after that i go all weeble-y. and in the weight room, strength is not a strong suit, currently. it's almost funny how quickly i lost the capacity to help iron resist gravity. the weights are taking a little too much pleasure in pushing me around, i think.

so, it appears i'm capable of remaining upright for brief intervals, if followed by frequent naps. upshot: lots of work must be done to make up for all the work that was undone, post-op.

as to the second variable, the answer is...variable. we'll stipulate the usual bucket list of living in an FLW-designed house, finding amelia earhart, and wiping the smirk off of wall street's face.

more immediately, i have a number of mandatories that require considerable time and energy. children, for two; dogs, cats, a house. and last but never least, mrs. spaceneedl. once their needs are met, there's this blog, and my job at spaceneedl sprockets. not necessarily in that order.

add up those committments, and i'm left with 43 minutes per week, free and clear. that should be more than enough time to get centered, recharge the batteries for the week ahead, and find a cure for picene flu.

or i could set those things aside and focus on the unread books piling up on the coffee table. not to read them, but to make room for more things.

or i could sit and read postsecret, because it really is that good.

what to do, what to do...

"go wild," the doctor said.

good advice. i think i'll take it.

can i be franken with you?

if i haven't mentioned it before, al franken is my favorite senator.

p.s. ten years ago, if you had told me i'd one day type the phrase "my favorite senator," i'd have probably winced and felt a little ill.

see saw

the spaceneedls made great progress on a jigsaw puzzle today.

this unremarkable news is made remarkable by the fact that the puzzle had no electronic elements to it. it did not make noise or evolve or explode.

it's a simple 1,000 piece puzzle.

worked on diligently and quietly by the entire family.

remarkable.

dreamy

i have a bet to make with you.

i'm betting you've never had a dream in which a predator drone featured prominently.

do i win?

who dreams about predator drones? outside the people who make them, use them, and are targeted by them, i mean?

yeah, me. last night. i had forgotten all about it until this morning, when i was sitting here reading frank rich in today's new york times.

the column has nothing to do with war, unless you'd like to make the case that the ongoing destruction of america's middle class is a kind of insidious warfare. which you could, without argument from me.

rich frames this week's observations through the prism and premise of "up in the air," a movie in which the industry of slashing american jobs turns pink slips into gold. not for the newly jobless, of course, but why quibble? where else but in america could we not bat an eyelash at the prospect of supplanting jobs that produce something with those that kill production?

quoth barack obama, “Sometimes it’s hard to break out of the bubble here in Washington and remind ourselves that behind these statistics are people’s lives, their capacity to do right by their families.”

really, barry? that's one hell of an observation. would it be unprogressive of me to observe that it sounds like something george bush would've said? except from bush we expected rhetoric that was equal parts obvious and useless. from you, mr. change we can believe in, we expect more. and better. and smarter.

where was i?

oh, yes. predator drones. what do you suppose dream analysts say about those? particularly when one has no exposure to such things, except through distant, abstract accounts of collateral damage halfway around the world.

strangely, the "free online dream interpretation" sites are unhelpful. they offer nothing specifc about drones, nor anything but vague attack references: "a feeling or fear of persecution, hostility, aggression, etc., by another person; a situation where you feel your boundaries being crossed or your integrity compromised by someone else."

oh. thanks. that's helpful.

so, i'm left to my own interpretation, ephemera-wise: i'm in a strange place, amongst people i don't know, with the certainty of an imminent attack. we all scurry for cover below ground, where we are surrounded by an array of machinery and technology of indeterminate purpose.

there is much anxiety and running about to escape the expected explosions...then the scene shifts to something else, equally bizarre, equally non sequitur.

make of that what you will. i think it might be related to the recent acquisition of spaceneedl sprockets by a multi-billion dollar holding company, and the uncertainty that transaction has spawned. i'm betting it's definitely that.

unless it's something else entirely.

do i win?

cold call

it's cold, and ajax is old.

which is how i came to spend half the afternoon yesterday rearranging the garage for a cat.

ajax was banished to the garage three years ago for peeing all over the house. if you're not familiar with cat-peed things, they're ruined. the smell never goes away.

so when he peed on the recently reupholstered couch, he was out.

if that seems harsh, you should be apprised that we set him up in comfort. he has the entire space to himself. he has multi-level shelves to clamber around on, three beds in sunny spots, and his own litter box. he's away from the kids and the dogs and the other cat, and most of the time he seems very pleased with that arrangement.

over the weekend, however, i went out and found him shivering in his bed, which horrified me. the rotation of two space heaters wasn't doing its job, which meant i wasn't doing mine.

did i mention he's old? ajax is 18, near as we can figure. he's still pretty spry, but he doesn't get out and run around much any more. so, barring some immediate change in the weather, if he's cold, it's not like he's going to warm up without help.

so in a frenzy of cat hair, i pulled everything off the shelves, reconfigured the various beds and cushions and blankets, and repositioned the space heaters for maximum heatage.

now, even as the overnight temps have dipped into the teens at our house, ajax is much warmer.
and i feel much less guilty.

noteworthy

my daughter is walking around singing "ring of fire".

for the record, she's no johnny cash.

why she's singing "ring of fire" is anyone's guess. where she learned it is hard to imagine. it's not like we have old-school country stations teed up in the car. or on the itunes.

johnny cash was big at my parents' house back in the day. they had the albums (along with selections from frankie laine and glen campbell and, inexplicably, jim nabors) and the hi-fi console stereo to play them. so when i walked around singing those songs, one could at least see why. sort of.

* * * * *

the boy, meanwhile, has developed a taste for black sabbath and ac/dc. this is at least partly due to "rock band" on the wii at the neighbors' house. yesterday, driving to christmas festivities on bainbridge island, "highway to hell" came on the radio. the boy asked us to turn it up, and he sang along. he knew all the words.

i just shook my head and blinked, uncomprehendingly.

* * * * *

when did these children turn into real people with musical tastes (not to mention these particular tastes)? i mean, it wasn't that long ago they were singing "rubber duckie" and "C is for cookie" and "baby beluga". how do i reconcile the gap between elmo and ozzy osbourne when i'm just now having a post-headbanger phase of my own?

to recap, my daughter is serenading us with songs i sang when i was her age. my son and i are enjoying the same retro music, at the same time. we're all coming at this from directions and perspectives and generations that could not be more different and still be of the same species on the same planet. my head vibrates alarmingly at the mere thought, and i would not be at all surprised if it spontaneously combusted. poom. like a big ol' safety match.

* * * * *

does it sound like i'm vexed by this karmic confluence of musical musical chairs? i'm not. i'm merely befuddled. and consternation is standard operating procedure for a brow-furrowed parent still in his or her own evolving mode. processing this multiplicity of variables may require more brain cell coordination and metaphysical consciousness than i can muster. so i frown a lot, and people think i'm vexed. it's an easy mistake to make.

* * * * *

if, as some philosopher said, music is the universal language, then maybe it'll facilitate some intergenerational amity in the spaceneedl house. maybe this harmonic cross-current will bond us in a more meaningful way than the time-honored command to "turn that noise down!" it's hard to complain, after all, if i'm the one asking them to turn it up.

it's good not to be too predictable. to defy convention and not be bound to the norm, whatever that might be. especially in this country. in this case, at least, we have that going for us.

as long as the children don't tell me to turn down my music, we'll get along just fine.

we've reached that point

sometimes enough is enough.

thousands of calories at one sitting, for example.

not that we don't appreciate having enough to eat, mind you. we do. in fact, this year we had too much--at a time when too many have too little.

who steals from a food bank? and how incredibly deep will some dig to make sure that shortfall isn't felt by others?

sometimes, "you're kidding, right?" is enough.

tiger woods and sarah palin leap, unwelcome, to mind.

sometimes enough is too much.

a friend of mine in flagstaff, az, is battling leukemia. she is fighting it hard, with very mixed results. her blog is a mosaic of self-deprecating hilarity and heart-rending reversals. the accounts of her physical and emotional pain are impossible to read without feeling the hope, uncertainty, and fear she's coping with every day. she's afraid, she said, that she's not going to make it. at a time when things are at their worst, she just keeps putting it out there.

sometimes enough is still not enough.

another friend has a nephew who recently disappeared in germany. he's been missing, in frankfurt, for days. not a trace, not a word. significant resources--from the state department to the fbi to the german police to u.s. and german tv to the internet--have been brought to bear. with nothing to show for it thus far. the family is keeping the pedal down, because that's what's required.

five seattle-area police officers killed, execution-style, in the past five weeks is ghastly. it's too far beyond "enough" to even get a handle on.

sometimes "you can't be serious" is enough.

barack obama, the "change we can believe in" candidate, seems poised to escalate a war that's been going nowhere for eight years. by all accounts, obama is a brilliant man. i respect this, and still have high hopes for his presidency. but it's hard to reconcile those things with an epically bad idea. afghanistan, as one historian noted, is where empires go to die. the former-soviets would concur, one imagines.

on an unrelated-but-related note, what is wrong with the secret service? do they not take their job seriously, or do they just not like this president?

every day, even a holiday, it's always something. enough, demonstrated time and again, is never enough.

and tomorrow is monday.

so it goes.

hysterical footnote

'bin laden was within our grasp.'

thanks, W. heck of a job! again.

you'd almost think capturing bin laden was never really part of the plan.

because then who would've played the role of boogeyman for the rest of the bush administration? besides the hapless saddam hussein, that is.

the little things

avery got a lesson in life, and death, today.

one of her hamsters, never very healthy, took its last spin on the hamster wheel.

to her credit, she was very pragmatic about arranging a funeral back behind the garage. she even made sure her brother attended the service. we supplied the little tin, wrapped in a pink bow, and dug the hole. she put the tin in the ground, and covered it with dirt. she picked some hydrangeas and carefully put them in place. then she cried.

i was sad, and i didn't even like the little rat.

apparently i'm moved by the rituals of mortality, no matter who they're for.

hard day's night

nov. 21, 2009
seattle, wa
sunrise: 7:24 a.m.
sunset: 4:26 p.m.
* * * * *

we've become nocturnal.

we get up in the dark, go to work in the dark, come home in the dark.

i walk kate in the dark, throw the ball for her in the dark, pick up poop in the dark. (public hygeine note: i take along a flashlight for that.)

around here, when daylight savings time turns into left coast standard time, it's like someone threw a switch. suddenly we're all creatures of the night. (on the upside, this does cut down on UV-related skin damage.)

the change also seems to trigger the return of winter storms. siberian pacific fronts, wave after relentless wave. lowering, ominous events in their own right. which means there are afternoons when you look out the window at 3:30, and darkness is already upon the land.

science is still trying to explain how seattle can remain so green this time of year, given the total absence of light for photosynthesis.

on the first work day following the time change, people instantly forget how to drive. a predictable hour-long commute suddenly takes an hour and 20 minutes. or more. if a snowflake is spotted, anywhere, add another 20 minutes. or more.

sales of vitamin d spike, as folks try to ward off seasonal affective disorder, cardiac events and spontaneous cases of rickets. we're fortunate to have a medic one paramedic just down the block. you never know when you're going to need resuscitation from a spontaneous case of rickets.

ever heard of human hibernation syndrome? yeah, i hadn't either. we've got that here, too. lots of it. people wandering between cubicles, eyes vacant, no purpose evident. then again, maybe they're just zombies at home in their natural environment.

good news note: werewolf attacks go way down, november through march, probably because the impenetrable cloud cover obscures every full moon.

could be worse, you say? yes, we could be living in alaska. that would be darkness on a whole 'nother order of magnitude.

then again, it could be better.

homeless woman, super-villian

i gave five bucks to a homeless woman yesterday.

as i was walking away, someone heading the same direction said, "giving them money just encourages them."

i made an ugly face at him. "yes," i said, "she looked real encouraged, didn't she?"

he shook his head at me and walked on.

seattle in november is a lousy place to be homeless. it's cold and wet and dreary. that combination has to weigh particularly heavy on someone in an already-precarious mental state.

did you know that up to 25% of homeless people are seriously mentally ill? i'm no psychiatrist, but i'd bet real money that "serious mental illness" makes it difficult for one to participate in the american dream. even if they're not mentally ill, i'd bet that going to sleep under a bridge and waking up in a dumpster makes it difficult to interview for a job.

Q: if a mentally sound person is scrounging for food and sleeping outdoors every day, how long do you think it'll be before they're mentally unsound?
A: not long, i bet.

did you know that about 25% of the homeless are u.s. military veterans? we make a big show of supporting the troops and honoring veterans, and yet somehow tens of thousands of them end up on the street, holding a sign asking for spare change. i'd bet that the reason they do this has nothing to do with them being "too lazy to work."

did you know there are 1.3 million homeless children in this great nation of ours? that's bad, right? but wait, there's more. almost half of those kids are under five years old. how do you suppose life is going to work out for those kids? not a lot of harvard grads in their ranks, i bet. maybe, if they're really lucky, they'll end up in the u.s. military, emptily patronized, and kicked to the curb. again.

assuming they live that long.

more times than i care to count, i've heard otherwise intelligent people sneer at a homeless person, as if their homelessness were actually a clever disguise for indolence and treachery. as if the guy sitting on the corner in the rain were saying, "ha ha, you have to go to work and i don't, and when you're out of sight i'm going to take the money suckers like you have given me and go buy a fucking yacht."

why otherwise-intelligent people equate homelessness with "a great scam" is hard to fathom. it makes me wonder whose side they'd be on if they came across someone kicking a litter of homeless puppies.

(i mean, you people would defend the puppies, wouldn't you?)

* * * * *

i wasn't thinking about any of these things when i handed five bucks to a homeless woman yesterday. i was just thinking she looked exhausted and miserable and hopeless. i felt bad for her, knowing five bucks would change her circumstance not one iota. probably i could've handed her five hundred bucks, with the same net result.

maybe she took that money to the grocery store and bought as big a fortified beer as she could afford (because that's what all those lazy bums do, right?).

i wouldn't have blamed her one bit.

dick redux

liz cheney thinks her dad should run for president in 2012.

dear god, yes. please let the gop run that murderous fuck out there one more time.

run, dick. run.

* * * * *

while we're at it, let them run palin. or gingrich. or pawlenty. or rush. democrats would love several more seats and a lockdown majority for a few more years.

* * * * *

david brooks, who seems to be a "moderate republican," doesn't think much of sarah palin. doesn't he know moderate republicans are passe? shush, david. palin is the future of the gop.

another shot, please...

i got a flu shot at work last week.

the next day, it was announced that the company had been sold.

the next day, the u.s. house passed an historic healthcare reform bill.

these things are all connected.

ordinarily i wouldn't have bothered with the shot, because i'm not in a high-risk group and i'm not fond of shots.

but mrs. spaceneedl has asthma, and if she gets the flu the repercussions could be very bad, indeed. "but if she gets a shot, shouldn't that obviate the need for you to get one?"

you might think so. but you'd be wrong. because the shots don't cover all the permutations of the flu. and even if you get the shot, you still might get the flu, and pass it along. and if someone near you gets it, your odds of getting it go up.

so to minimize the chance that the missus might contract this year's version of a seasonal virus, i got the shot. it was free, sponsored by my employer.

but as we've all learned during the recent "discussions" of healthcare, costs are rising exponentially every second. in the time it takes you to read this sentence, the cost of a simple flu shot has gone up an order of magnitude. don't trouble yourself with the math: no one really knows how to calculate it. but rest assured, it's a lot.

project that cost over a company's entire employee population, and suddenly it becomes prohibitively expensive to stay in business.

to avoid the inevitable severe losses, the only prudent option is to sell the venture to a much larger conglomerate.

the reason this makes sense is that the really large interests can better afford to absorb mind-numbing losses. for those interests of a certain size, if the decline gets too steep the government steps in and declares them "too big to fail." the losses are subsidized with taxpayer money, and everyone goes home happy. because as dick cheney famously opined, "deficits don't matter."

where was i?

a shot of capital. that's what businesses, trying to do the right thing by their employees, require in a world of healthcare costs run amok. and that's what leads some to "wholly owned subsidiary" status.

so on thursday, the shots. on friday, the announcement. we'd been bought, lock, stock and needl. if only someone, or several someones, in a position to make a difference, could have done something to turn the tide of history in another direction. some body like...the democrat-controlled congress, for example.

in classic fashion, these well-meaning souls rode over the hill hoisting the banner of healthcare reform. one day late.

well, one day late for the wholly pwned spaceneedl sprockets, that is -- sold into subsidiary-hood.

so what's the the takeaway here?

it's all mrs. spaceneedl's fault. if she were more discriminating about her pre-existing conditions, none of this would have been necessary. for want of some non-inflamed bronchial passages, a company was sold.

and somewhere a butterfly fluttered by, unperturbed.

soccer? i don't even know her!

i used to be indifferent to soccer.

suddenly, i love it.



or, maybe it's just elizabeth lambert i'm enamored with.

"don't elbow me."

"don't pull on my shorts."

"in fact, let's just stipulate if you're anywhere near me, you're in a high-contact zone."

* * * * *

update: liz has been suspended from the team. "This is in no way indicative of my character or the soccer player I am," Lambert said in a statement.

it's not? i mean, how do you figure? it's totally indicative.

no apology necessary.

healthcare reform? why? the old way is working out just fine!

how are you feeling? pretty good?

excellent. see to it you stay that way.

if you don't, the u.s. healthcare industry has lots of ways to make you feel even worse.

let's review a few, just for fun.

did you know that over 60% of the bankruptcies in this country are healthcare-related? which is to say, if you or someone in your family gets whacked with the sickness stick, there's a very real chance you'll go bankrupt. this is true -- even if you have health insurance!

i know, hilarious, right?

no, seriously: almost 80% of the folks who go bankrupt for health reasons had health insurance.

check out the business model. your customers pay you for a product that you promise to deliver "someday" when they need it most. they pay you and pay you and pay you. for years, or longer. one day they come in to your store and say, "hi, i need that product i've been paying for."

and at that point, you get to say, "mmm, maybe. or maybe i'll just deliver part of that product. or maybe i won't deliver any of it at all. i'll let you know what i decide, um, later."

is that brilliant, or what? you get the money and they get screwed. you get to invest the cash and get fabulously wealthy. and even if you make stupid, irresponsible business decisions, the government will bail you out. not to worry, though, you can still pay yourself huge bonuses.

and best of all, lots of your loyal customers actually like this arrangement. they don't don't want to change a thing! they like bankruptcy. and they call people who want a more equitable deal "socialists" or "commies" or "hitler".

truly an ingenious, uniquely american model. so tres free-market.

still, any health insurance is better than no health insurance. that's what forty-seven million americans have. zero health coverage. that's a lot of people walking around uncovered -- most of whom have no business walking around that way, if you know what i mean, and i think you do. this uncoveredness can lead to a chill, and all the bad things that invariably follow.

like death.

did you know 45,000 americans die every year because they lack health insurance? 45,000!

remember how exorcised everyone got when 2,400 americans died at pearl harbor, or when 3,000 died on 9/11? those events were appallingly bad, but check my math here: 45,000 is a lot more that 2,400 or 3,000. in fact, it's a lot more than 2,400 + 3,000.

to recap, that's 45,000 per year.

but if you put your ear to the wind, you'll hear a decided lack of howling outrage over the 45,000.

why is that, do you suppose?

because that's the way we roll. we're americans, by god, and we're fiercely independent. we pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps. and we defend those who screw us over, generation after generation because, well, that's just what we do, no matter how cliched and foolish it makes us.

don't ask why, because asking why is just plain unamerican.

there's not a thing wrong with the way we do things. if people get sick, they can go to the emergency room, where they can join the countless millions too lazy to, um, stay healthy.

swine flu, anyone?

time munch

with everyone increasingly pressed for time, it's obvious that 60-second movies are the future.

here's "jaws"...

it was twenty years ago today...

it's been twenty years since the loma prieta earthquake rocked the san francisco bay area.

i was there, sitting at my desk when the noise started.

the next fifteen seconds went on and on and on -- far longer than the time on the clock.

the shaking started just a heartbeat after the basso rumbling, and it still took a moment to register. no, it wasn't an 18-wheeler going by. this was something much bigger. then came the sound of a heavy filing cabinet hitting the floor above our heads.

my next thought was to get out of the building.

* * *

mrs. spaceneedl and i lived in the marina district in 1989. we had a great apartment at the corner of chestnut and broderick -- right on the tour bus route. that part wasn't so great. when the buses went by we couldn't hear a thing above the roar. we'd have to stop conversations, rewind whatever movie we were watching, and wait for quiet to return. until the next bus.

still, it was an ideal location, in a world-class city. it was minutes away from my job at an ad agency south of market, and a hub for the missus' job, which required her to travel to hospitals around the bay area.

on her rounds she regularly drove the cypress street viaduct in oakland, an elevated, multi-level section of freeway (almost identical to the alaskan way viaduct in seattle). the structure collapsed in the quake, crushing cars between its tiers.

i didn't think about that, and what might have happened to her, because she was out of town that day. it was close, though. her flight back to sfo was already in the air, and returned to minneapolis when the quake hit. she didn't learn whether i was safe or otherwise until three days later.

* * *

a colleague and i made it as far as my office doorway. at that point the shaking was so intense it was all we could do to hold onto the doorframe. from throughout the building, over the roar of the quake, we heard heavy crashes as bookshelves and cabinets and other furniture was thrown around.

the 15 seconds finally ended, the shaking stopped, and the noise subsided. the adrenaline rush continued for hours.

the yelling began immediately as we checked on each other. miraculously, no one in our office was hurt. the power was out, obviously, but the land-line phones still worked and someone had a battery-powered radio. the early reports said the bay bridge had collapsed and the marina was on fire.

for while, no one ventured out of the building. it was as if we weren't sure what to do next, how we'd get home, or what we'd find when we got there.

around the corner from our office a brick facade had collapsed, killing five people. the damage looked so minor, compared to the rest of the bay area. in all, 67 people died that day. given the scale of the destruction, it's a wonder there weren't more.

* * *

it seemed like a long time before we finally ventured out. dusk was falling, and the radio reports kept getting worse. some folks had gotten ahold of loved ones, who passed along exaggerated rumors of damage and death. the reality was bad enough.

i'm not sure how i got back to the marina that evening. i vaguely recall making my way along the damaged embarcadero freeway for a stretch, then heading west. it was full-on dark by the time i reached an entrance to the neighborhood, which was barricaded and guarded. i showed my driver's license and was waved in. our building was still standing, and people with flashlights were going in and out. i found the owner and borrowed a flashlight. i was expecting the worst as the two of us entered the apartment, and...it wasn't so bad. one of our TVs was face-down on the floor, there were cracks in the walls and random debris was scattered about.

but the fact that we could get in at all was fortuitous, as there were buildings burning or down in the street all around us.

i numbly grabbed some clothes and some of our valuables (which in retrospect weren't particularly valuable), and threw them all in the car. i headed north across the golden gate bridge toward a cousin's house in novato.

they never even lost power.

* * *

mrs. spaceneedl arrived home several days later -- in the meantime, i looked for a new place to live. our apartment building was habitable, but was going to be without power, water or gas for 16 weeks. the owner agreed to cancel the lease of anyone who asked.

it was blind luck that i quickly found a condo in mill valley, on the tiburon side of 101. it was on the edge of the ring mountain preserve, and was only slightly more expensive than our place in the marina. it even had views of the city across san francisco bay.

the earthquake dreams began shortly thereafter. at least once a week i'd wake up sure we'd just had a major aftershock, though that never turned out to be the case. the dreams, startlingly vivid, continued until we moved to minneapolis a couple years later.

* * *

twenty years on, stories of the loma prieta quake resonate in me. i read the accounts of the survivors, and the remembrances of those who died, and it stirs deep, dark emotions that i'm not sure i felt at the time.

in the end, my wife, my friends and family who lived there...we lost nothing of any real importance in the quake.

so i wonder why i react so strongly -- and if they feel the same way -- when these anniversaries roll around.