Tomorrow Will Come
January 19, 2009 § Leave a comment
Philip is still sleeping, after getting up very early for therapy then coming back to bed, so I’m quietly drinking my coffee and watching the muted TV. Obamania without sound. The crawlies tell me what ‘service’ Barack and Michelle are performing today, and I can’t help but think they deserve to sleep late and take it easy. But that’s why being President never appealed to me. Bush took 77 vacations. I wonder if Barack will manage 7.
We were having a desultory conversation about which fate we would wish on our criminal soon to be ex President and when Philip suggested being eaten by a mountain lion it seemed exactly right. I had to think about why. After all, there are lots of nasty ways to go. I think it’s because mountain lions are our indigenous predator, as American as buffalo, resurgent and unafraid.
Because all wildlife was at risk from GW. And because while in the normal course of things one can’t imagine a mountain lion devouring an entire adult, Bush seems so lightweight now, such a shadow of a man, that I can picture him eaten to the last whisker and button, disappeared inside the lion without even a tummy bulge marring the sleek feline shape. “We couldn’t let anyone kill the lion,” I said. “No,” said Philip.”We’d put its head on a coin.” When he said that, I had such a vivid image of the coin; now it exists, even if all by itself in its own universe. And, of course, here.
Is it just me, or is Obama getting handsomer? Maybe I needed time off thinking about other things (Christmas, suicide) to fully appreciate him. Or maybe they just didn’t choose the right musicians–Garth Brooks and Beyonce just can’t match his star power. Only Herbie Hancock and Stevie Wonder came close. What we really needed was Ray Charles, back from Heaven for a visit. No, I’m not even going to imagine Ray Charles in Heaven. Somebody funnier than me would have to do a skit.
How anachronistic we will seem in 20 years! To have ever lived in a time when a black President seemed impossible.
Mostly in the Afternoon 
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