"I'm Okay . . . "

That's what I just said out my window after knocking over a couple things with a crash. "I'm okay." I live in a hotel and there's a window well. It's 11:00 p.m.

I can't even read like some detective novels where the ex-cop or P.I. just goes around thinking clever put-downs about every person or group he encounters. It's a style but not one I like to read. You can pretty much always come up with something snide to say in most any situation, but so what. However, it's really hard not to think rude thoughts when it comes to how TV reporters are covering the prevailing economic situation. They're "Shocked, shocked I say!" that this sudden evaporation of a standard of living for so many could happen, and with absolutely no warning. And all they interview is whiners. This might be the perfect time to chart a new course, not fight to get back on the old one. (That's called "Change", isn't it?)

There's a big ad on some of the buses here in L.A. It's for two cable shows that I'm amazed and happy to see be on TV, and those large pictures about marijuana and a prostitute are just so cool. It's pretty darned hard to get any type of advertising that's favorable to weed. And with a prostitute next to all those marijuana leaves--on a big bus!--I'm thrilled. Sex and drugs. The Evil Duo. "The wars against . . . " The Righteous Gang fears these two pleasures so much, they go so far as to have police decoys do undercover sting operations to trap and cage anybody seeking them. I know, I know, it's crazy, but though misguided, they are still very rich and powerful, so super kudos to the bus company and the TV station.

I passed a house where a workman and his young helper were just finishing replacing a section of sidewalk, had just stood up from smoothing out the cement. I stopped and picked up an old popsicle stick and asked, "What's today's date?" When the kid told me, the boss slapped him on the back of the head. I grinned as I watched the helper slowly realize my plan with the stick and his near accessory-before-the-fact role, then went on my way. Cheap thrills.

It's now Saturday, and Big Brown didn't do it. Everything I heard before, during, and after the race reminded me of the Tyson/Douglas major-upset heavyweight prizefight. It was so for sure who was going to win--Tyson/Big Brown--it seemed silly to delay the presentation of the trophy with the actual contest. And not that long ago at the Oscars, "And the winner for Best Picture of this year is . . . oh!" Let's hear it for bird dogs, mad dogs, lazy dogs, corn dogs, road dogs, guard dogs, hot dogs, wild dogs, lucky dogs, show dogs and especially . . . underdogs.

When I was on the road, my motto was, "I'd rather be hungry than bored." If life wasn't being a rush, regardless of my "standard of living", I'd just take off, stick out my thumb, and see what the world presented next. I was never able to work and make enough money to have as much fun as even just the WAITING to see what came along. The anticipation standing along the highway was an adventure in itself, before anybody even stopped. It was always good. One time to get away from a work situation that was really seductive, good work and money, but out in the middle of nowhere, I bought a one-way bus ticket from San Francisco to Nashville so I'd be far enough away that I couldn't just hitchhike back to that job I didn't want when I ran out of cash. I had to give running into something new to do time to happen. (I stayed right downtown Nashville for three great years, but couldn't handle the summer weather, so I headed back West.) On the road hitchhiking I carried a sleeping bag and a suitcase and had no place to go but forward for twenty-two years. Then I hung up my thumbs and went to Nashville in 1992. I really miss sleeping under the stars.

On Janet E. Morris's planet Silistra, the surface got so uninhabitable, the people had to live underground for generations before above ground would support life again. During that time the Silistrans devised a whole civilazation that totally rejected computers or any type of machines at all. Right in the middle of a modern universe. Could it come to that here, on Planet Earth? Would there be time to get the tunnels through committee and the digging started? I always figured our End would just be--Zip!--and all the Earth's air just shoots out into space. (There's a story idea for somebody. All life on Earth comes to an instant end. Cut to the folks in the International Space Station.) (A colony on Mars or even the Moon would give a sequel a shot.)

Now tonight on the news I saw that somewhere the alligators are all starting to go blind. Fa-la, fa-la.