Fin

Done!

I can't believe it took me so long. In some way, I romanced myself (take that as you will) with the business of writing this thing up, with my attachment to the project - to such an extent that I didn't realize there would be other people fighting against the plant who would be happy to get information I could give them, who know other people, who had some idea what to do about it.

Today I just walked in to the office, call it office, of the Alliance for Survival. They're in an old house with the pillarpost porch just west and south of downtown. I made the requisite trip by bike without event. I didn't bother with the stupid tie or jacket; I didn't have to strap the stupid bookbag on the frame between my legs.

And I rode back with an empty pack, playing with traffic.

So, home free.

The kid behind the desk at the Alliance -- sneakers, T-shirt, all that -- said they had a lawsuit in progress about the very plant, seemed pleased. I left him the number at my dad's and an email, said I'd answer questions if there were any and apologised that the docs were pretty scattered and disordered since there didn't seem to be any one special way to order them, and walked out the door.

So, in net, I had earned a little over three thousand bucks. Voltage had called before I got back. I called Moneypenney, who seemed pained. Apparently LISA had called with the complaint that I had "simply not done the work." I pointed out that they might have noticed a complete absence of work before four months, particularly given that they had laid off over 90% of the people who started with me before they dropped me. She mentioned that LISA was "strange," and not for the first time, but seemed incompletely convinced.

I could read her reaction, and LISA's, in a lot of ways, I guess, but I doubt I'll need either. I'll pedal down the river to Seal Beach tomorrow, then call Carl and Colin and see who's renting out on the Westside. Rolling into summer Patrick will will have work on the trucks, so the next few months I can find money without temping. And whatever the Alliance finds to do with those docs, LISA isn't likely to have more on me than whatever they have now.

And if they do, I'm relieved to have nothing whatever that I can do but sleep.

Sensible | Sensate

A belated happy 267th to the Marquis de Sade; let's everyone go make sense:

IF the plant leaks once in a while,
THEN almost no one dies of it,
SO it happens once in a while,
SO it is news,
BUT it is not important.

IF the plant leaks every day,
THEN many die of it,
SO that is important,
BUT it is continuous and we cannot sort out which individuals die because of the plant,
SO that is not news
AND no one wants to know.

C'est logique, non? -- what we use whenever a thing does not make sense at all. And what's a few roentgens between consenting amis?

The majority of the scientists at Los Alamos signed a petition that bomb that landed on Hiroshima be detonated at an unpopulated site in Japan, to demonstrate it. With all the times I've heard people discuss Truman's decision to drop the bomb, the option has never been mentioned.

Rudy's planning his class action suit. He called to say first that he spoke to some lawyers, then that he's planning to. I sent him the email addresses, let him go. If he thrashes enough, maybe he'll kick up someone I can hand this stack of papers off to. But I'm not running interference -- have to work, I say.

"How are you going to take care of yourself while you're doing all this?"

"Oh, my old man's got a house he needs painted. I'll just live in it while I paint it and fix it up. I'll have to bring some birds across, too."

Birds?

"Tropical birds. They don't cost anything down there cause they flit through the trees. People pay big money. Pet stores and them."

I mention the little legal issue; he's not dissuaded.

"They're easier than people. A little tequila, they keep their mouths shut all the way across."

"The birds are mum."

"Yeah. I'ts great; you can't let them get too much, though. Then pull them out of the socks soon as you get good across."

"Socks?"

"I visit my cousins, then stop off in Rosarita on the way back. I sit on the beach with the birds and the laundry and give the birds a little tequila. When they fall over, I pop them in a sock, one by one."

"Yeah. That's a few thousand dollars in that basket if they're all still good. "

When I was a kid, our parakeet always looked a little glassy-eyed.