The View from the Tube

A day of jury duty has left me staggered. I am happy I wasn't called to help decide anyone's fate.

Yesterday I rebuilt my garden fence, all by myself. Happy Earth Day!

Three good reads:

--Wells Tower attempts to recreate a sort of redneck version of Cheever's The Swimmer in a pimped out inner-tube on the rivers of North Florida. It had me on the floor laughing, it was so true of North Florida (and hoping I can get my daughter onto the Ichetucknee before you can't see clear through to the bottom anymore). And it reminded me how much I liked an older story about him traveling with his father after his father beat cancer and decided he had to see the world.

--John Goodman takes on Godot and his demons.

--And a horror story. There isn't enough money in the world to pay your debt if you have a catastrophic health crisis, by the way. You will never, never, pay it off, no matter how rich you are. You will sink completely if you have a catastrophic illness or accident:

"If there is an upside to the country's healthcare crisis, it is that the problem is hurtling toward a point at which it absolutely cannot be ignored without immediate and disastrous consequences. If there is an upside for me, it is this: returning to those difficult days of poverty and fear in 1969 also means returning to a place where anger inspires activism. I was a young woman then, of course, with a lifetime of battles ahead. I am not so young now. But I have enough years left to have one more fight in me. Healthcare is it."

Then go back and start over again with Wells Tower. Fear about health insurance is still not a good enough reason not to seize the opportunity to sit in a pimped-out inner tube in alligator-filled waters. Sometimes you have to put your butt into a slightly dangerous situation in order to feel alive. Just ask the guy with the whip.

Photo: Burt Lancaster is The Swimmer.