peaceful is in the eye of the beholder.

i'll never cease to be amazed by how many different types of people there are. spending memorial day weekend in the south, the real true dirty hospitable south, reminded me that what is homey and charming to one may be a panic attack to another.

i'll never know what it is that makes me a city girl. i find electricity, eccentricity, and millions of people crammed into each other's living space to be comforting, i go to the country and, though i'm able to enjoy moments of wildlife and stars and down home-iness, it mostly feels like a foreign, dangerous place that could leave me stranded at any time.

ironically, it was LA i was stranded in when i flew home and my car wouldn't start. yet, i had options. aaa, airport shuttles, buses and taxis and people. i was still back in my living room within a couple hours ordering gyros to be delivered at midnight. things like that make me smile.

but i do understand the comfort that the simple love of a community can provide. i had around 30 people come to share a drink and a moment of life thursday night in memphis, and i realized how much i've been missing that love and friendship that can only be built in little layers over time. in LA, other than my jonny, i am somewhat alone, the friendships that are blossoming here are still in the infantile stages. but blossom they will. i pride myself on surrounding myself with people who are genuine. that's really my only requirement for friendship, because i can appreciate and understand anyone who bothers to honestly share.

two of my best friends married each other this weekend. i felt so honored to be there, a part of this special corner of their lives. their big melty cheesy romantic grins were infectious, their love big enough to fill the delta. for them, i wish for their love to stay strong, for them to comfort and cherish each other and never lose sight of the treasure they've found. for myself, i wish those layers of friendly insulation to keep on piling, keeping my heart nestled in love in the middle of my big, bright, boisterous, soothing city.

of course i have something to say.

i spent the day at magic mountain. i rode coasters that were designed to take the world we perceive, our physical experience of being, and put it in a blender. i adore scary rides, i love the adrenaline that starts to flow when we hear other people scream and see how we're about to have our world flipped around. while we were driving home, news was spreading that osama bin laden had been killed. and my mind caught up to my physical disorientation. something seems not quite right about this. it seems staged. five days ago several news sites reported that al-qaeda threatened a 'nuclear hellstorm' if osama were ever killed or caught. i don't recall hearing anything about this five days ago, but of course, that doesn't mean it didn't happen. this just seems like a very convenient ruse if one had a nuclear weapon one was dying to try out. al-qaeda, for all their (it's?) hatred and flaws, does make a darn good scapegoat. i'm not saying... i'm just saying.

and ok, this is conspiracy theorish to say the least, but i do think that, considering some of the biggest news lately has been the astronomical, ridiculous price of gas, big oil needed us to get distracted and americans all needed a breath of unity. something to celebrate. what if it WAS a ridiculous stunt to make us forget the 'investigation' into the oil companies' business practices and bin laden is still alive? again, this is pure speculation folks. these are simply just things that crossed my mind.

i also think it's very possible that bin laden died naturally, or was killed by another group. in this scenario, it would make sense for an obama under fire to deliver america the ultimate peace offering. i DO understand that if even the barest facts of his 'we got him' speech were true, things had to be kept very hush hush. but in this age of technological connection, i find it hard to believe it took so long to make a smarmy statement about empty spaces at the dinner table, with so little attention paid to telling us what the hell happened, and so much attention paid to making sure we knew that the US and particularly obama were the ones to thank. even if it was a perfectly legit operation, the victory speech was so bereft of relevant facts that i found it borderline offensive.

so for years we've been saying this is the ultimate goal, right? to kill osama so we can all sleep easier. i for one am not sleeping easier. if anything i've realized how hard it is to believe anyone in a world where money is the ultimate motivator and if you have the cash, you can change the truth. 1984 is frighteningly realistic to me today, and i wonder which stories (and reporters) are being killed right now to advance this story. maybe none. maybe i'm just a paranoid person who read too much as a kid and was taught too early to think for myself. maybe i've had my trust broken too many times to truly believe anything anyone says, ever. maybe US forces did covertly hunt bin laden for a week, and then successfully take him down, and now the world is safe and gas prices will go down but we won't need it to because we'll each have our very own flying unicorn (government issued of course). but who can say for sure?