(Perforated Lines--you can't resist 'em)

(girls of mars!)

(left arrow) Wednesday, January 31, 2001 (right arrow)

 

11:55 p.m. I'll end this month's entries with another nice cover from the past that depicts The Future as we'll never know it. If aliens land and destroy us, at least we won't be wearing those '50s peasant blouses and those black cinch belts and those bad-girl "tight" skirts. And we won't be crawling along the parched earth and pausing for portraits in a provocative, sweaty pose ... longing, waiting, hoping for that big guy to come along and scoop us up and out of harm's way.

I used to have a much better handle on the future than I do right now. This is probably a feature of my encroaching decrepitude, but I've been averting my eyes lately. I just don't know what's going to happen. I used to know. Now, I don't know. I used to be sure of my way. Now, I'm not so sure.

I used to think I had a career -- now, I'm not so sure. I used to think I was a writer. Now, ditto. I used to think I wanted success, acclaim, money ... now, I'm sure I don't know how to handle those shiny globes. I've bought the '50s myth that shiny things bring you nothing but misery and a longing for cigarettes and gin in the middle of the night.

Black and white lugubrious futures stuck somewhere in the past. A Star is Born and somewhere else a star goes nova and somewhere else a star winks back and there are so many many stars and so little time to study their trajectories.

So it's 2001. We still don't have hover cars. Or video phones. We didn't even bother going back to the moon, let alone the planets, let alone the stars. There are no handy home replicators and most of the people on this earth are hungry and many more are unloved and it's still a crime to sleep in the street.

But we have each other. People continue to share recipes and secrets and blueprints.

The Future is still under construction, I guess. On the back burner. In dreams.

I'm sad tonight, but that will pass. Into the past. Forward the future.

 

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(spinning balls)

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