This morning I dropped off the rental car. I pulled it into the garage and a lady came out, and asked, would you like a receipt? I said no, and turned and left. "Was that the right thing to do?" I asked myself. Not about the receipt but about the damage, which occurred just after I left San Francisco, got on the 880 south and hit a scrap of tire that had been ejected from an 18 wheeler. I saw it ahead of me, and looked to go around it but I was blocked in by a car to my right. By the time I looked back to the road and to my left, I was upon it, and it thunked, and immediately a ticking and flapping sound started coming from the car. I slowed down and a mile later took the first exit off the highway, somewhere around Mountain View.

The piece of plastic that protected the undercarriage of the right front portion of the car, including the wheel well, about a square foot of it, had been torn. There was nothing damaged mechanically, but the plastic bolts that held this black piece of plastic to the bottom of the car had been sheered, and the flapping sound was the plastic getting chewed up as it was battered between the road and the rotating tire, like a can being dragged on a string. It was easy to see what had happened and it was a relief that the damage was not more serious. However I did not buy the insurance that covers this kind of damage. What will I say, and will they charge me eight hundred dollars to get it fixed? I don't know but I'd like to get going, and I picked up a couple of sticks from the ground, a little larger than the diameter of the missing bolts, and reconnected the protective piece to the chassis of the car. It held relatively firmly and I got back in the car and continued south.

The jerry-rig held until Sunday, and when it came undone we stopped at a truck stop, bought some duct tape and resecured the plastic in a way that did not show the silver sheen of the tape. I returned it this morning, bringing me back to the original question of reporting the damage or not. On the one hand it's possible that the rigging will hold for a while and nobody will notice it. The rental car company can afford to pay for it, and I cannot without putting it all on a close to maxed out credit card. On the other hand, it's "the right thing to do" to own up to a mistake, and possibly avoid any mishaps for future drivers. Obvioulsy I've made my choice, but there's the question of will they notice? Will they call? Will I end up paying for it anyway? If they ask will I say it was like that when I got it? Will I continue to lie? These questions have followed me around this morning and soon they will make a little nest somewhere in my body. And they will live inside of me until I am held responsible.

The Doppler Effect (Stephen Hawking Poem 2)

"This should not unduly worry us: by that time unless we have colonized beyond the solar system, mankind will long since have died out, extinguished along with our sun!"

Light emits waves. Shuttering
orgasmic pulses
of life. As light moves away from us
a red tint appears. As it moves closer
a dense, sucking blue. ____We find the truth
of these qualities by subtracting
our own experience. Our blazing sun
not in Heaven
but turning in abandon. Like Stephen Hawking
sorrow expands into the distance between us
______ the terminally dense blue
of night's approach.

Ahem. NICE WEATHER WE'RE HAVING ISN'T IT? Yes. It is nice weather. Sunny in Oakland. Temperate. Monday morning. Yesterday I watched the Japan/U.S. women's football match. DID YOU SEE IT? It was the first sporting event to bring tears of joy to my eyes. Maybe I've been strung out or maybe it was that book of Japanese stories during the second world war but I was so happy to see them win. It's been a difficult year in Japan, with the earthquake and the Fukushima nuclear plant, and the Japanese economy falling from the number two position, and the general loss of prestige that Japan has endured. It made me feel sooo happy. As happy as I felt watching Dallas beat Miami in the finals this year, to see the Japanese coach smiling and joking in the shootout huddle when the stakes were high, as if playing football could somehow compare to the life and death situations people find themselves in. “I feel we have given some kind of encouragement and joy to the people back in Japan,” said Ayumi Kaihori, the Japanese goal keeper. Can you imagine a player (or person) in the United States saying the same thing? To include everyone, and not just the people who agree with them? That is all. Have a fine Monday.

Stephen Hawking Poem

"What did god do before he created the universe?"

The universe has a beginning point.
We know this
because the sky does not shine
like stars. Light
travels and if it has been traveling
____ forever?
even the most distant stars
would emerge in the night sky.
(But there would be no
night sky.) Our world is split
because time projects
from a single point.
You could disprove this idea
if we could be here
enough
to prove forever.

Yesterday I got back from work around five thirty. Sat on the couch, took my shoes off, unbuttoned my work shirt and hung it up in the closet. Meanwhile the cats bumped their heads into my hands, walked across my lap, and we all went into the kitchen where I opened a can of food. I then switched into shorts and changed my t-shirt, put on tennis shoes and got my bike out of the closet and rode out to Sunset View Park, the south-western most corner of Oakland, down South Harbor Road past the car junkery, the train yard, and the many shipping operations punctuated by 24 story high great white cranes. A long, wide road with a slight incline and nobody on it.

I locked my bike to a pole and inspected the crane closest the park, watched the boat from Norfolk and the people on it for a while. I read a placard: the crane was built in Shanghai and it's controls were made in Sweden. One of the workers waved at me and I waved back. I walked to the end of the jetty, past the couple hanging out in the tower, pissed behind a bush, took a picture of some grafitti on a trash can and walked back to where my bike was parked. By then the crane had started to unload the cargo from the boat, and I sat down and watched them work.

Oakland dockworkers. It made me think of season 2 of The Wire, of the big military ships I've been reading about, the loud noises and steel and of teaching in comparison, what a different job unloading boats is. It looked fun, satisfying and probably paid well. I smoked a cigarette. Listened and watched and amazed at how accurate the crane operator was, moving rectangles around with such precision. I wondered if a good crane operator is slightly OCD, or develops a little bit of a natural OCD, trying to line things up just right. Drawing cubes in the margins of note pads. After a while I got back on the bike and rode home. Made a couple phone calls, made dinner, took a shower and got into bed. Read for an hour and went to sleep. Wednesday.

Strange dreams. They kind I was happy to wake up from. Not because they were scary, but uncomfortable. And boring. Dreams that seemed familiar, familiar places and scenarios and themes. Plus a heavy feeling like I was being pressed on. Physically. Something heavy was laying on top of me. Which probably relates directly to my body, how I was feeling, the fact that yesterday I walked three miles to class and back, stood for three hours in class, and then walked another three miles to my therapist and the grocery store. In my new work shoes, that are more like heavy boots, and aren't exactly made for walking long distances. Or maybe they are. I don't make boots. But they are heavy. On the last leg of the journey I walked slowly, like a caveman after a long day in the jungle. Sings Bill Callahan: "Peace on your hand / don't be silly. / Peace in my bah-dee / when I'm tired and beaten."

But it could be worse. Always. And actually yesterday was a good day. Just tiring. Though not tiring like the Japanese death march through New Guinea, as I continue to read accounts of the fighting on the Pacific islands during the second world war. Every time I put the book down, to go to sleep or get off the train, I say, either to myself or out loud, "this is the craziest shit I've ever read." And keep reading. One thing I'm learning from the Japanese perspective was how defeated they all were long before their government surrendered. Marching for a year, starving and sick with no food and no ammunition to fight a war, and no choice to surrender. If you refused to charge to your death you were shot anyway by your commanding officer. "My own company broke camp in Pusan with 261 men. I was the only one who boarded a transport ship bound for Japan and home after the war."

From the Marines' perspective, the Japanese were fearsome, self-less warriors, jumping bonzai style into their foxholes at night to stab a few Americans before blowing themselves up. Whereas from the Japanese perspective, those 'fearless' soldiers probably had no food or ammunition, and no option to surrender. A suicide attack was just about the only thing they could do asides from waiting to be killed. In many of the accounts by Japanese soldiers, there is a moment where, after seeing a fleet of American bulldozers or tanks or an airfield built in a day, or from the account of a film maker who spent time in the Hollywood, to witness the wealth and abundance of American resources, that many of these soldiers had the realization that victory was not possible. And not because of bogus ideas of national character or racial whatever, but because the Americans we're rich and could build thirty times as many planes, and can feed and clothe and provide their soldiers with ammunition. "The only one who wept at the actual news of Japan's defeat was the commander."

Happy 4th of July! It's hot in Oakland! Fireworks were canceled! Budget Cuts! So was summer school! At least they didn't shut down the libraries! They are staying open! Of course they're not open today it's a holiday! Independence day! We are free! No work! Last night I played virtual basketball with Bill until past midnight! Whoa! Whoa now hey! Hey now slow down! We sat at the bird sanctuary as it got dark and drank beers! Canada geese climbing out of the water and settling in for the night! A raccoon snuck into the fenced-in area! A dog bit a goose! Pelicans fish in groups! There's probably a name for a group of pelicans other than a "flock"! Sorry about these exclamation points!

Hope it's not annoying! We are free! Free to go watch fireworks somewhere else! Free to buy half priced coupons from the internet! Free to turn down invitations! Free to give up on our relationships! Free to read a book! Free to sit in the park! To watch the drunk couple go stand by the dumpster! Free to draw a cube! Free to have friends over it's my own goddamn apartment I can do whatever I want with it! Freedom! Free to afford freedom! Free to make circular statements! Free to read about enslaved Guatemalans picking flavorless tomatoes in Florida! Free to read the stories told by Japanese Kempeitei during the occupation of parts of China prior to American involvement in WWII! Free to share this quote completely out of context!: "It might sound extreme, but I can almost say that if more than two weeks went by without my taking a head, I didn't feel right."

Free to be like whoa! Free to say messed up things! Free to forgive! Free to forgive if that's at all possible! Free bird! Free to be told by a literate international student that they don't read American books! Free to wonder why! Free to speculate that it has something to do with the amount of insulation from the problems of the world our wealth provides us! Free to consider that a Westerner uses 300% more of the world's resources in a lifetime than a non-westerner! Free to be insulated even from ourselves! Free to commit ourselves to health! To stop smoking! To design iPhone apps that help us rent more movies! To write books about the future of cloud computing! Freedom! Yes! It's true! And it feels good! Most of the time!

On Tuesday it rained. Heavy all day and cleared up at night. My raincoat is good one, picked out specifically so I could ride my bike in the rain and stay perfectly dry. It works; or worked until the cuff of the right sleeve began to turn out. Maybe the glue stopped sticking or maybe it was a loose thread, but the rain runs down my right arm and somehow curls around to get up into the sleeve. By the end of the day, my arm was sopping wet and cold while the rest of me was dry.

I looked up the warranty policy and it sounds like they'll replace it, or fix it. The problem is that it'll take a little while, four weeks at least and I'm not sure how much I'll need it in the next couple months. When it's sunny out like it is today, hot and dry, it's hard to believe that it will ever rain again. It will, I know, but it's hard to imagine anything other than what's right in front of me. I want to send it off but experience tells me I'll be sorry.

**

This morning I came to the realization that the little bell that's been ringing in my head this last month is "morality." At least that's how she put it. Something to keep the clan from splitting apart, to let me know I'm putting the social order at risk. Thanks biology. I'm not going to get specific, but it's funny how things hang around until we notice them. Or are driven to drink. We're out of cat food. It's hot out. End of the second week of school. Is it just me or has the Huffington Post gotten less left and more something else since AOL bought it? Not that it isn't a free country.