The road goes ever on and on.
This weather lately has been freaking me out a little. I mean, I know I totally whine about the snow and the cold, and I should be happy that it's going to hit 63°F (17° C) today, or that it hasn't really snowed yet (we've had one good snow in Providence but it didn't stick for more than a day, and there was one snow shower in Boston a couple of weeks ago that was just drizzle here)... but part of me knows this isn't normal. There's this whole awareness that we're supposed to be covered in snow, and snow reflects a lot more of the sun's heat back into space than the ground, and definitely asphalt, does, and if we go all winter never getting cold enough for snow to stick then it might be a really bad sign of how advanced global warming has gotten. There's a piece of my brain where it registers that this is more like a Texas winter than a Rhode Island winter, only I'm about 10° north of the part of Texas where I grew up. It feels like maybe we've hit a point of no return.
Meanwhile, Michael Crichton doesn't believe that global warming is actually happening, I recently learned. I was very disappointed. I really love some of his work (Timeline and Airframe stick out, as well as the nonfiction Travels, which was both very inspirational and kind of groundbreaking for me) but the last of his books that I actually bought and read, Prey, had a totally predictable plot and was a big step backward, and then he came out with State of Fear which apparently depicts environmentalists as terrorists. His latest book, Next, has an interesting minor character: a child molester that sodomized a two year old. The character is named after a journalist who ripped apart the "science" in State of Fear in a March 2006 cover story of the magazine New Republic (the journalist is named Michael Crowley, and the character is Mick Crowley). Until this little exchange, I really liked Crichton, admired him as a person (even if I thought his characterization was a little wooden most of the time; so he focuses on plot-driven stories rather than character-driven stories. Big deal) but now I learn that not only is he, a man with an unusual blend of science and metaphysics in his outlook, on the wrong side of a critical debate, he's also really petty.
In short: he's not living up to my expectations, and that's kind of a kick in the gut. It's almost like the moment in The Wizard of Oz where they pull back the curtain and see the little guy moving all the levers around. It's a huge disappointment to me, because whatever the flaws in his writing style, I always imagined Crichton to be a person I would love to meet, that would share a lot of common ground with me, and now I'm not so sure that I could even tolerate him. Not that it matters, not that I was actually planning on meeting him, but it's still kind of a blow to me.
Whatever. In any case: things seem off. The world isn't what I thought it was, and it's shifting into something new, and while I'm sure I'll adapt to whatever the new form might be, it's still throwing me off.
It's probably fitting that I noticed all of this going on yesterday, even though it's been going on (kind of in the background) for a while now. In fact, those two items were just supposed to supply a couple of short paragraphs in the way of introduction to the real subject, but (if you've been reading me for a while) you know how I am. Anyway, here's the big news: yesterday was the day that I saw Mom's death certificate. I actually have my own copy of it.
Mikki went to the TX DMV last week to get the title on Mom's car transferred to her name, so that she could sell it. She and I already talked about this, what we want to do with that money, how it makes perfect sense for Mikki to handle the transaction because, well, she's there, all of that. So she waited in line for an hour before getting to a clerk. They went through all the formal stuff, and the clerk was ready to sign it over to Mikki... but she had to ask Mikki are there any other heirs? and Mikki, of course, said yes without thinking.
Crap.
See, yeah technically it's a good thing to have it in writing that I'm an heir, I suppose, and if at some point someone in the state of TX had discovered that we hadn't filled out the appropriate paperwork I'm sure it could have spelled trouble. Still, though, I doubt that any of that would have become an issue. It's not like I'm going to go to TX and tell them, or dispute the sale of Mom's car, or raise a stink over how the money from the sale is distributed. She very easily could have said no and then the car might already have been sold.
Too late, though. Of course, the clerk said that I had to sign some form giving Mikki permission to take the car, and it has to be notarized. Fine. So Mikki mailed me the form, along with a copy of Mom's death certificate, just in case the notary wanted to see it. It arrived on Wednesday, I think, but I didn't get around to opening it until yesterday. On a conscious level, yesterday was just the first day that I'd had an opening to take care of the whole notary thing. On a deeper level, though, I think that somehow I knew that seeing the death certificate would have an impact. In a sense, it's just another layer of the onion, but strangely this makes her death more real to me than anything else has so far, even touching her foot (through a blanket) at her funeral.
I could probably ramble about it for a few more paragraphs, but really there's nothing else to say.
Meanwhile, Michael Crichton doesn't believe that global warming is actually happening, I recently learned. I was very disappointed. I really love some of his work (Timeline and Airframe stick out, as well as the nonfiction Travels, which was both very inspirational and kind of groundbreaking for me) but the last of his books that I actually bought and read, Prey, had a totally predictable plot and was a big step backward, and then he came out with State of Fear which apparently depicts environmentalists as terrorists. His latest book, Next, has an interesting minor character: a child molester that sodomized a two year old. The character is named after a journalist who ripped apart the "science" in State of Fear in a March 2006 cover story of the magazine New Republic (the journalist is named Michael Crowley, and the character is Mick Crowley). Until this little exchange, I really liked Crichton, admired him as a person (even if I thought his characterization was a little wooden most of the time; so he focuses on plot-driven stories rather than character-driven stories. Big deal) but now I learn that not only is he, a man with an unusual blend of science and metaphysics in his outlook, on the wrong side of a critical debate, he's also really petty.
In short: he's not living up to my expectations, and that's kind of a kick in the gut. It's almost like the moment in The Wizard of Oz where they pull back the curtain and see the little guy moving all the levers around. It's a huge disappointment to me, because whatever the flaws in his writing style, I always imagined Crichton to be a person I would love to meet, that would share a lot of common ground with me, and now I'm not so sure that I could even tolerate him. Not that it matters, not that I was actually planning on meeting him, but it's still kind of a blow to me.
Whatever. In any case: things seem off. The world isn't what I thought it was, and it's shifting into something new, and while I'm sure I'll adapt to whatever the new form might be, it's still throwing me off.
It's probably fitting that I noticed all of this going on yesterday, even though it's been going on (kind of in the background) for a while now. In fact, those two items were just supposed to supply a couple of short paragraphs in the way of introduction to the real subject, but (if you've been reading me for a while) you know how I am. Anyway, here's the big news: yesterday was the day that I saw Mom's death certificate. I actually have my own copy of it.
Mikki went to the TX DMV last week to get the title on Mom's car transferred to her name, so that she could sell it. She and I already talked about this, what we want to do with that money, how it makes perfect sense for Mikki to handle the transaction because, well, she's there, all of that. So she waited in line for an hour before getting to a clerk. They went through all the formal stuff, and the clerk was ready to sign it over to Mikki... but she had to ask Mikki are there any other heirs? and Mikki, of course, said yes without thinking.
Crap.
See, yeah technically it's a good thing to have it in writing that I'm an heir, I suppose, and if at some point someone in the state of TX had discovered that we hadn't filled out the appropriate paperwork I'm sure it could have spelled trouble. Still, though, I doubt that any of that would have become an issue. It's not like I'm going to go to TX and tell them, or dispute the sale of Mom's car, or raise a stink over how the money from the sale is distributed. She very easily could have said no and then the car might already have been sold.
Too late, though. Of course, the clerk said that I had to sign some form giving Mikki permission to take the car, and it has to be notarized. Fine. So Mikki mailed me the form, along with a copy of Mom's death certificate, just in case the notary wanted to see it. It arrived on Wednesday, I think, but I didn't get around to opening it until yesterday. On a conscious level, yesterday was just the first day that I'd had an opening to take care of the whole notary thing. On a deeper level, though, I think that somehow I knew that seeing the death certificate would have an impact. In a sense, it's just another layer of the onion, but strangely this makes her death more real to me than anything else has so far, even touching her foot (through a blanket) at her funeral.
I could probably ramble about it for a few more paragraphs, but really there's nothing else to say.