Random Thoughts and Also Japan

Have you ever had a time in your life where everything was going reasonably well, except things having to do with blogging?

No? Well it goes something like this:

Your computer quits working…

You have no camera or photography skills…

You try to post and wordpress won’t let you link anything…

You haven’t posted in a while and so you start to avoid your blog because it makes you feel guilty….

Yeah. In other exciting news, Friday night I slept for sixteen hours. It was an accident and I woke up feeling disoriented. And my new-for-me computer wouldn’t turn on. It wasn’t a very cheery morning.

I would post pictures of some of the room projects I’m working on, except, oh wait…my room is a terrible wreck right now. It’s not my fault. I mean, if you live in a super-tiny room and want to paint two of the walls you sort of have to shove everything else into one corner.

I could put up before and after pictures of my newly-spackled wall.

Or not.

In other news, this whole business with Japan has me feeling somewhat like I did when I was twelve and 9/11 happened.

Confused.

Yes, confused. Like, something so horrible has happened and I just can’t get my mind around it cause it’s so BIG, and there are so many factors to the problem. So I end up feeling more bewildered than sad.

Pictures, I think, are best. Not big before and after shots of the landscape, or pictures of indistinguishable rubble, but one of people in the grocery store, looking for food, while the shelves stand empty.

I think pictures like this touch me most. Ones that shows what life is like in these terrible frantic days where everything is in disarray.

Can you imagine going into Safeway and seeing all those empty shelves?

You might get a basket full of stuff…and then have to haul it over wrecked cars.

If I was a journalist covering the disaster in Japan, I would explore what the typical day is like for those who’s lives were effected by the tsunami.

Like, work for instance. Would you go to work the day after a tsunami hit? My first thought is, “of course not,” but what if you worked in a grocery store? You know? Maybe they’d want you to come in even if it was your day off, because they knew everyone was going to be rushing in and buying food, and they needed every employee they could get their hands on.

Would your boss be able to contact you? Would your cell phone work?

So your job is ten miles away and your car is destroyed. What do you do all day? Look for missing family members? Move cars off the road? Salvage as much as you can from your house? Try to keep your things from being stolen?

I wonder about this guy, salvaging his beautiful pottery. Will anyone buy pottery at a time like this? And also, if someone did want pottery, what would keep them from just walking in and taking it?

These pictures, somehow, make me sadder than a headline stating that tens of thousands are dead.

It’s not really the dead ones I’m sad for, but the people who are trying to deal with dead family and friends, while going to the grocery store and finding no food on the shelves.

(All photos from MSN)