so much for New Year's resolutions

I can't believe it's been, what, ten days, since I last posted. Not even February yet, and my New Year's resolution is already frailing at the edges.

New Year, there's a thing. Why is the Chinese New Year and the Japanese New Year around the same time as our New Year? I reckon they must have shifted it, otherwise it's a pretty big coincidence, don't you think? Why do we celebrate the New Year on January 1, anyway? The Jews have theirs in September. The Maori have theirs in June. I mean, it's pretty arbitrary when you decide to start the year.

The beginning of spring seems logical to me. But then, I guess it depends whether you're looking at the sky or the earth around you.

Ok, I've just done a quick Google - what did people do before Google? And I found out I'm right - logical as ever. The Babylonians began their year with the first new moon after the spring equinox. The Maori, on the other hand, dated their year from the new moon after the Pleiades rises (above the horizon, I'm assuming). Except some Maori tribes used the rising of Rigel (a star in the constellation Orion).

Ok, that was more than anyone wanted to know. It's funny though, that everyone seems big on the moon (I'm pretty sure the timing of the Chinese New Year has something to do with the moon). And people dating things from the movement of different stars. I mean, it doesn't surprise me Mike's brothers know all that stuff, about the night sky, but they're always going on about people in olden times going to bed with the sun and getting up with the sun ... Just another of the zillion misconceptions about our ancestors, I guess. I collect those, too. Mike has a long list.

at least we ain't got locusts

There's an old cop show called Barney Miller. Not at all like today's cop shows. I don't think the location ever shifted from this one room, a run-down precinct somewhere. These guys sat in this room and talked. Not a lot of action, but plenty funny. Anyway, there was this detective, an Asian-American. He had this sort of Oriental shtick going. You know, fortune cookie wisdom, with a spin. So one time he said this thing I've always remembered, I don't know why, I guess it just really tickled me. What he said (as well as I can remember) was:

"Many things look bleak at the moment of occurrence, but at least we ain't got locusts."

I was thinking of that the other day, when I was reading in the paper about one of those huge locust plagues in Africa. I mean, the thing about locusts is the whole consume everything in their path thing. So, bad for crops. Which means famine. And they were reporting about how much bags of locusts were going for! That's not a bounty; that's because people were eating them. And before you feel too sorry for them, forced to such grossness, reflect on this: some woman was reported as saying how much her husband enjoyed snacking on crispy fried locusts as he watched TV.

I'm sorry, that just seems .... One of those cultural shock things, I guess. I mean on the one hand you've got eating locusts (you're thinking, primitive people, probably don't wear much clothes, sit on the dirt, right?), and on the other, you've got couch potato sitting in front of the box, beer in one hand ... locusts? in the other.

Okay, I'm weirded out.

Anyway, if you look at that in connection with the earlier quote about at least we ain't got locusts, then ... well, it says something good about the human spirit, don't you think? I sort of collect things like that. Under orders from Mike to feel better about the human race.

a toe in the water

Okay, here we go, dipping a toe in the water. I can always get out if I get in over my head, right?
Right.
I don't know if I'm talking to myself or to some hypothetical reader. And why should I worry anyway? It's not as if anyone's going to read this.
So why write here, on the web? Why not just keep a diary?
I guess it's the same reason writers write. I mean they're always saying they do it because they have to, and let's face it, apart from a few lucky sods, most of them don't make a living at it. So if they're not doing it for the money, and they're not doing it for the fame (I guess some of them are, but a lot of them claim to be really shy and hate all that publicity), so ... if they're not doing it for those reasons, why publish? Why not just stuff the pages in a drawer, or something?
I guess we all want to be heard. I mean, I would hate anyone I know to be listening (well, except Mike, obviously), but that doesn't mean I don't want someone to hear.
Is that screwed up?
Teenage angst. Got to get over that. Won't be a teenager much longer.

I didn't sit down to write any of that. Maybe it's true what they say.
Focus.
What I was going to talk about was the disaster. Well, not really the disaster. I mean, what can you say? So many people dead. So many people losing the people they love (which I think would be worse, because, you know, once you're dead, you're not going to be feeling anything, right?) But what gets me, what I want to talk about, is why, when something like this happens, you always get people coming out of the woodwork, ranting on about how it makes them doubt God. I mean, let's be logical, people die all the time. Sometimes huge numbers in a natural disaster like this. Why should you need a new one to happen before you start doubting God? I mean, either you believe he's there and he lets this stuff happen (moving in mysterious ways his wonders to perform, and all that), or you don't believe he's there. But you don't need to keep being hit on the head with it. WE ALREADY KNOW THIS STUFF HAPPENS. IT'S NOT NEW. So you don't need to have a crisis of faith, because you already considered this, right?
But people aren't logical. Not even me.