news – actuality.log

I’ve been spending these past days discussing art history and poetry, and I am now invited to a couple of art auctions? What the deuce?

A stranger I ran into on the street sounded remarkably similar to someone else I used to know. And I mean ridiculously, remarkably similar. The same mousy demeanour, the same accent, identical vocabulary, everything. So I did something a younger me wouldn’t have even contemplated: I rudely walked up to her and asked her if she knew this other woman.

Turns out she did; they were sisters! What the deuce?

A day or so before I left Oslo, my favourite pair of shoes completely fell apart. And I mean utterly, completely fell apart. The nature of the failure was very strange, but “No worries,” I told myself, and packed a pair of sturdy boots for my trip.

I show up here, and within a couple of days of walking around town, my “sturdy” boots fall apart too. Rubber and leather and metal (how the hell have I ever gotten on a plane with these things?) everywhere.

Has my gait changed so much these past days? What the deuce?

I don’t know what’s gotten into people around, but they keep trying to set me up with this Danish girl. Granted she’s really cute and fun to hang out with, but why are these guys pushing so hard? Is there something about turning older that brings out the inner matchmakers in women? What the deuce?

I wish I could be a little less self-centred and show some compassion toward the folks reeling after yesterday’s terrorist attacks in Bombay. But they’re not whom I am concerned about, it’s the rest of us I’m losing sleep over. I just hope that the people (government) don’t succumb to their understandably fear- and outrage-filled emotions and do anything rash. The last thing we need is the hasty passing of rules that invade civil liberties, amplify the fear-mongering allowing for few to profit from it, inconvenience and financially burden millions of regular people hoping to snare an errant handful, or start any unnecessary wars with anyone.

“No ma’am, you may not take that bottle of milk on the plane to feed your baby. No, it doesn’t matter that he’s already a little bit cranky. He just has to man up and deal with it like everybody else.”

Sound queasily familiar?

I am not what one would consider worldly, and I don’t claim to have any of the answers, but I think a valid approach to curb terrorism is to understand and reshape the sort of environment that leads people into thinking that blowing up buildings is the only way to have their voices heard.

People need to calm down and think about that a little.