An American in Europe

will still most certainly tune into CNN to check on what is happening in New Orleans. She — I — will try to cope with the choking feelings of the horror of post-Katrina when the levy broke and human beings suffered and died. The placid, soothing lake outside my window. Sunlight dappling. On holiday. If we are alive and not suffering, we must be both. We are obliged.

Because hiking in Marin County

is some of the best to be had. I mean, available to me here daily! Mt. Tam, the ocean. Coyote Canyon. Outside my door.

Hanging in the tree at the start of a trail head

Fortuitous or faulty?

Getting ready to toss some jeans into the washer, I came across two paper strips in the pocket I’d stuffed in there Sunday night at LitQuake’s Dirty Words, a Tribute to Smut. These two pieces of papers were inside fortune cookies that my companion and I had. They are identical, reading:

“My earliest fantasies revolved around being kidnapped by beautiful women and held hostage. – Stephen Elliott”

(Are these fortunes?)