inkgrrl's inkblog

As my sensei would say, frontin’ with the Celtitude… hoo-yah!

So Happy New Year and enjoy the twilight gloaming ‘twixt the living and the dead. There’s someone here at the office dressed up as a Christmas tree who makes me nervous every time she walks by. I’m not sure if it’s the clanking of the ornaments around her butt or the way the little angel perched on her head is watching me. I realized halfway to work this morning that it’s Halloween and I could have worn my BDUs and fluffy slippers to work today. Damn. ;-(

So, since it’s not just about me, despite what you readers-three might have been deluded into believing by the shiny thing hovering just at the outermost edge of your peripheral vision, here are some ways to contribute in the burgeoning aftermath of the California wildfires. The TV news stations are calling it Firestorm 2003 – for some reason they LOVE using the word *storm* in their taglines to make everything more dramatic, but in this case I have to agree. Drama, smoke, flames, death, angst, loss, and gratitude have broken over our heads in a storm that finally seems to be subsiding – it’s not over ’till it’s over, but I can see clearly now… (yeah, okay, so that was a gimme, whaddya want from me, original prose? I’m behind deadline and tuckered out, but at least I can breathe).

If any of you are local Californians who made it through, or just wish you were as hot and sexy and smoked out as we are, check out some of the groovy ways The Grand Poobah came up with that you can help the survivors:

• American Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund, or call 800-HELP NOW, (monetary donations only).

• Los Angeles Times Family Fund/KTLA-5 Charities Fire Relief Campaign, or call 800-284-5625. For every dollar donated up to $1 million, the McCormick Tribune Foundation will donate an additional 50 cents. Donations and matching funds go directly to organizations, such as the Red Cross and other agencies, providing disaster relief to fire victims.

• FOODShare of Ventura County, 4156 N. Southbank St., Oxnard, CA 93030, 805-983-7100. They need food donations and seek volunteers to help prepare food for evacuees.

• Catholic Charities of Los Angeles, Fire Disaster Aid, P.O. Box 15095, Los Angeles, CA 90015-0093, or call 213-251-3498.

• Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles Southern California Fire Emergency Relief Fund, 6505 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90048, or call 323-761-8200.

• Salvation Army California Wildfires, 900 W. James M. Wood Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90015. For in-kind donations, call 800-95TRUCK or http://www.satruck.com

• Community Foundation, 3880 Lemon St., Suite 300, Riverside, CA 92501, 909-684-4194. They are accepting monetary donations for victims in San Bernardino and Riverside counties.

• Fire Relief Fund, Society of St. Vincent de Paul, 210 N. Avenue 21, Los Angeles, CA 90031, 323-226-1762 or 323-855-0320. They are seeking monetary and in-kind donations.

If you can’t give money, how about an extra blanket, those sneakers you’ve gotten tired of because they’re the wrong color, or last year’s winter jacket? The folks who have lost their homes in the fires have lost everything but the clothes on their back – face it, despite what you told your mother when you were seven, nobody wants to wear the same pair of underwear for weeks at a time. We’ve all got something more than someone else, which means we’ve all got something we can give. Don’t wait until someone you know personally is in need – Blanche DuBois shouldn’t be the only one relying on the kindness of strangers.

So I log into my work email from home early this morning while I’m sipping my cuppa nectar o’life, and I see an email from the HR folk informing us of corporate policy on Halloween decorations – specifically titled (cover the childrens’ eyes) “Halloween Decoration Guidelines”. Immediately my brain goes into a stress-cortisol death spiral and the ferrets rejoice, shrieking in their ultra-sonic voices that I work for a company with a corporate policy on Halloween decorations. With a title and everything. There’s probably an actual document somewhere, with a cover and all three brads. I am in hell.

“But wait,” the newly fledged animus on my shoulder cries. “Hell is a place you can never get away from, never leave, never escape, even in your mind. This dayjob doojie is something you can walk away from after you’ve done your eight or nine hours, and with the amount of brainspace you’re actually using (or more accurately, not using) to get the job there done, you’ve got plenty of time left for mental escapism and the bolstering of a rich fantasy life. So technically you’re not in hell. Corporate heck, maybe, but only if you think about it during the hours of 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 a.m.”

By that definition writing is hell. I think my animus is conflicted. But the ferrets got quiet again, so I’ll take it.

Quoted from Baudelaire by Moxie, by way of Mays Newman (who’s also got some good stuff to say about passion):

Get Drunk

One should always be drunk. That’s the thing that matters. In order not to feel the horrible burden of Time, which breaks your shoulders and crushes you to the ground, one should be drunk without ceasing.

But on what? On wine, on poetry, or on virtue, as suits you. But get drunk.

And if sometimes, on the steps of the palace, on the green grass of a ditch, in the lonely gloom of your room, you wake up, the drunkenness already abated or completely gone, ask the wind, the wave, the star, the bird, the clock, everythi ng that flies or groans or rolls or sings or speaks, ask everything what time it is; and the wind, the wave, the star, the bird, the clock will answer: “Time to get drunk. In order not to be the martyred slaves of Time, get drunk. Get drunk ceaselessly. On wine, on poetry, or on virtue, as suits you.”

And I say this not only because I spent the entire weekend with a bunch of drunken, passionate artists at Artwalk, but because I really believe it.