Los Lobos -- Sabor a Mi

I am so out of it today! I slept well, work is fine, but I am just not connecting with things that well. I am not sure if it's accident-related or just something that happens when one turns 40. But I feel well.

This weekend my girlfriend and I did my idea of a perfect weekend --we lazed about in bed (well, we didn't really laze), walked along the beach, watched movies, picked out a gorgeous dress for her to wear at her daughter's bat miztvah, and ate wonderful food at a Mexican restaurant. It was a great weekend.

We saw Fight Club. How did I miss that movie before? It was an amazing movie and very eerily dealt with issues I've been complaining about for years -- the dehumanization of modern life, the remaking of Americans into simple consumers, our identification of ourselves with our possessions. The idea that we suffer a spiritual crisis. And the places that the movie goes are places I tend to go in my simplistic fantasies. So for the last six years, my societal and political ramblings have been unwittingly echoing Chuck Palahniuk's 1996 book, and poorly at that? That's a depressing realization. All this time I thought I was unique, but it turns out I really am an easily identified and targeted demographic. Also, the movie puts the logical result of my ideals and prejudices into an unflattering light. I don't like my tendency to see the world as being primarily a matter of money that can only be put right by means of violent revolution. It's something I have been working on for years, but still struggle with. It's like my kneejerk response to any problem, my fight or flight instinct, is wrapped up in revolution. I feel a kinship with Emma Goldman, both in her young and naive idealistic phase, and in her later mature and disaffected rejection of every regime that claimed to put these ideals into practice.

Walking along the beach was great -- right at sunset-- the tide was out, and these large jellyfish, around 1' in diameter, were washed ashore. I flicked one back into the sea with a bamboo stick I found, but I'm not sure if the jellyfish was even alive, or if I injured it flicking it back in.

We get quite a bit of bamboo driftwood on the Santa Monica beaches, and I wonder if it comes all the way from Asia or if there are stands of bamboo in Central and South America -- I guess if I read this book I'd find out, but it seems a bit complicated and in-depth, even for me.

I am leaving here in a bit to take my daughter to the dentist for her checkup. This is a normal thing, but until a couple years ago, getting my daughter to let a dentist look at her, let alone touch her teeth, was a major struggle that entailed many tears and knotted tummies -- mostly mine! So while it's a boring and normal thing to take one's kid to the dentist, I am thankful to God that my daughter is now able to go and have her teeth checked and worked on without having a panic attack.