Thoughts

"You never had control--that's the illusion!"

-- Dr. Elle Sattler, Jurassic Park

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I've come up with a response to the question, "Why doesn't God just fix everything if he's all-powerful and all-knowing?"

Simply: Because God isn't a control freak, and he isn't a know-it-all. If he fixed everything for us, he would be one annoying fucking god, wouldn't he? Think about it. You try to run a red light because you're late to work, and an invisible foot hits the brake pedal. You buy a cookie even though you're on a diet, and an invisible hand slaps it from yours. You try to download some porn, and an invisible parent control keeps interrupting your connection.

It would be like replacing God with Windows Vista.

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I've learned a lot about my (former) boss this last week. On Monday, she had me come into the office for some on-the-job training. I looked around at neat piles of paper, the picture frames taken down from the shelves, and the inner bare walls of the cubicle by the window. She was getting ready for the move.

One in, one out.

Then, I gave her a ring while we were on the road somewhere and she sounded tired. "I'm putting everything in boxes," she said. She was at home, getting ready for the move.

And yesterday, we moved that one-third of my stuff up the stairs into the loft above her house. On the way, we saw in her rooms giant piles of cardboard boxes filled to splitting, mattresses leaning on walls like bizarrely uprooted trees, tables taken apart, cabinets open and empty, etc. She was too dehydrated from sweating to cry as she told us about trouble with the basement doors, how the pantry door creaks unless you open it just so, and other bits of knowledge you'd only know if you had lived in a place long enough to care about its condition.

Today, the truck has come at noon and strangers are toting her things away. The bikes are still in her basement, and she doesn't know what she'll do with them yet.

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My boss-turned-landlord has lent me some of her things so she doesn't have to move them. Among the finds are a Dali print, a dining table, a lamp and a side table, and a painting a friend gave her a few years ago. She describes this painting as "weird," and she never displayed it in her own house. We found it in the basement.

It bears uncanny resemblance to the "Get Crunk" walrus picture. Photos forthcoming.