The Ring of Fire

What an eventful time it has been since my last entry the passage of Proposition 8 (The feelings of alienation and for the first time in my life being a second class citizen are still there, but as my friend J said you just get use to it.). After this horrible realization I was looking forward to the weekend and my swimming class on Saturday morning. This Saturday the wind was strong and unpredictable even creating a current in the pool making swimming more laborious. This would be the day the wildfires would go out of control in Southern California. The class watched as the smoke gradually grew from a nearby city and we all thought the fire would just be put out (This is usually what happens). Driving home I began to realize it wasn’t a normal fire all the hills to the south of the road I drive home on were on fire with car loads of people pulled over to watch this surreal scene. Added to the dream likeness of this event I began to see news vans with satellite dishes. In the next few days friends, co-workers, and acquaintances would be evacuated and some would even lose their homes. The air would become so horrible it would hurt to breathe and the ash raining down was not just the small snow flake like stuff, but was heavy pieces of long black material. Roads and freeways would be shut down brining everything to a standstill. This is probably a little bit over dramatic, but I felt like I was getting a small glimpse of Armageddon. To further this dooms day type atmosphere my perfect niece (excellent student and soccer star) had some type of verbal altercation with another girl (stupid girl stuff) well this other girl has brought in her gang member cousins. So we now fear for my niece and she will most likely go to another school. An incident regarding this matter happened at school this week that resulted in some gang members being expelled and so the situation keeps on intensifying. So I and a lot of other people in California have been preoccupied and are minds have been taken off Proposition 8 which is probably not a good thing. Everything seems out of control lately.