Today, Lilith pretended we were all camping at Mt. Vesuvius. It was the strangest thing. We were in the car, driving out to run errands after picking her up from school. She told us that she wanted to pretend we were camping, and for me to pull up the camping place on a map. (We zoom the nav to somewhere green when she asks for this; I usually choose Griffith Park.) Then she starts telling us that we’re camping in Mt. Vesuvius, and she describes it to us: there are statues everywhere, and the fountains are all black. There are butterflies, too. And caterpillars. And the flowers grow large and beautiful.

I’ve never mentioned Pompeii or Mt. Vesuvius, and I don’t imagine that she’s learned about this in preschool. I haven’t been watching much tv, so I don’t think she picked it up that way. It’s all very strange and weirdly lovely. At the risk of sounding goofy — is this a past life memory?

I read about Kirtan Kriya, and it seemed like this meditation might help me get my head on straight. Can’t hurt, amirite? I gave it a shot tonight, and… so far, so good. We’ll see how I feel after eight weeks of chanting!

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AND ONE MORE FUCKING THING, and I promise I’ll shut the hell up.

As Kate put it: ‘It doesn’t matter why the kids were at the movies in CO. Stop. Blaming. Victims.’

So fucking what if some parents took their kids to a midnight movie? Somehow it makes it /their/ fault that a lunatic gunman went berserk and shot at them? I reckon a movie theatre ranks pretty high up there in the list of Reasonably Safe Places to Take Your Children No Matter What Time It Is. Stop blaming victims.

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People of the Someone Should Have Shot Back mindset, are you saying that in a darkened theatre filled with smoke and an unidentifiable gas, hundreds of screaming, scrambling, panicking people, and gunfire, under the duress of unimaginable terror, adrenaline, and fight or flight, you would have had the presence of mind to pull out a gun, release the safety, take aim, and headshot a kevlar-armored moving target without injuring or (heaven forbid) killing a fair number of bystanders in the process? Are you confident that other law-abiding gun-toters in the theatre would be possessed of this same mystical composure?

It’s good to know that there are so many SWAT and Navy Seal-trained laymen out there ready to protect us at the drop of a hat.

What happened at the Batman premiere is horrible beyond comprehension. My heart goes out to everyone that is suffering because of that madman.

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I like magazines. Once in a while, I like to read news and opinion pieces that aren’t in binary format. I like the format of magazines, I like the feel of them, I like the relaxed, casual feeling that sitting on the couch with a goddamn magazine invokes.

I do not like the subscription forms that cascade out of them.

What periodicals you read regularly? Discuss.

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Today, Peter Beagle taught me a bit about Lilith and lullabies.

Damn fine Monday.

Today, we took Lilith to the movies for the first time. She’s been with Sue a couple of times, but was too little and too antsy to sit through an entire feature. On a whim, we took her to see Madagascar 3 this morning. We picked a super-early matinee, hoping for a sparsely packed theatre and sympathetic other-parents-of-preschoolers.

While we were in the parking garage, Lilith told me that she’s no longer afraid of the dark and that the movie will be fun. We bought her a humongous bag of popcorn, and settled in. In the flickering darkness of the previews, I looked over at Lilith and (it was so strange) tears sprang to my eyes. She was sitting in the dark between me and Ted, kinda lounging, tossing popcorn into her mouth. It was a strangely perfect moment, and I felt overwhelmed with a peculiar contented joy; I was completely overcome by the simple happiness of being with my family.

During a very strange fight scene in the movie, my mind wandered and a quote from Plato’s Republic floated through my head:

For tell me, do you agree that there is a kind of good which we would choose to possess, not from desire for its aftereffects, but welcoming it for its own sake? As, for example, joy and such pleasures that are harmless and nothing results from them afterwards save to have and hold enjoyment.

(In the interest of full disclosure, I’m currently reading the Hemlock Cup, so Socrates is on my mind a great deal lately.)

That was this perfect moment. Joy for joy’s sake, and nothing else at all mattered.

The past few years have been full of work, responsibility, and toil, and I think I lost sight for some time of the importance… of the necessity… of the quiet, elegantly simple pleasures that make life worth living. I have been so busy being busy, clogged by Type A insanity, and responsiblities and worries, both real and self-imposed.

Funny that a morning filled with Afro Circus would help me to see that.

In other less-navel-gazey news, both Afro Circus and Julius Fučík’s Entrance of the Gladiators are now stuck in my head.

On repeat.

Have I ever mentioned this? — in my will, I have requested that Entrance of the Gladiators be played at my funeral. (Trufax.) I’d like it to be played on a steam calliope if at all possible, but I’ll understand if it can’t be swung.

Oh, yeah. Here’s my review of the movie: it was pretty fucking funny. I laughed loads. You should go see it.

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I didn’t know much about the Girl Scouts before all the recent controversy. I bought cookies, and that’s pretty much it. (Mostly Thin Mints, for those of you who are curious.) Then comes all this controversy: first that rotten little bigot that wanted to instigate a boycott because the GS embrace transgender members, Indiana State Rep. Bob Morris accusing the Girl Scouts of promoting abortion and homosexuality, that they distribute pro-abortion sex pamphlets, and now this nonsense from the Cat’lics. So much nonsense and bullshit.

Well, I’ve learned a lot about the Girl Scouts ever since the screeching started. I’ve learned that they’re inclusive, open-minded, and philanthropic. I’ve learned that they really do a lot of good for their members and their communities.

Thank you, lunatics and bigots. I never would have bothered to research the Girl Scouts if you hadn’t bleated out your histrionics. I look forward to becoming a volunteer when I sign Lilith up to join the Daisies.

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Skeeters are very skilled at inversions.