" i'm okay, although that's relative to what?: a mass email "

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dear everyone,

i woke up late today, so this is why the urgency that is "emails as a tool for relief," did not come earlier, and i apologize. i'm not going to say that the armageddon is here, or that this is indicative of man's wrongdoings and god is sending a warning. no.

the earth took a deep breath and we shifted. a man on the news said that the rotation of the earth was disrupted. what does that mean? like in superman, where he got all crazy over the loss of lois lane and turned back time? okay, no. but still. damn.

i am still in bangkok which is on the bottom of the main body of the nation, and situated on the right-hand side of the country. geographically, both bangkok and the bulk of all of my relatives are on the right-hand side. the tsunamis hit the left hand side.

...

i just heard from the thai news here, that scientists speculate that similar tsunamis will hit india in under two days.

so what's better, having been caught at unawares, or having the chance to make arrangements to flee, only to not clearly be able to gauge the immensity of the waves.

and how does one fight nature? it's not anything that humans at the moment can stop. you're standing against a sheer wall of water moving at you at an indeterminable ground speed. what the hell do you do?

i heard that sunbathers and people resting in their bungalows were completely swept away; there was a moment when someone was relaxing or brushing their hair, and then they were just within the earth's womb. that's frightening.

i was imaging bush not giving a shit and stroking his horses off on his ranch chuckling. that bastard. if the waves hit in america, i bet he would've called an immediate offensive on the entire ocean, all smaller supportive and connective bodies of water, then try and hold lakes, rivers, deltas, ponds, and puddles for questioning, but not before threatening them with drying them up or peeing in them.

and i don't mean to stray off topic, or belittle the pain of people that have the task of walking the long lines of bodies to find relatives. these are real people dealing in a brief intensely affecting moment, all of the pain of the world.

i'm so overwhelmed by the immediacy of the event myself, that it's hard to remain focused on the actual facts of it. whenever any occurrence happens where the body count just rises rapidly, reaching ridiculously surreal numbers, it's hard to really gauge how to feel.

you start to detach yourself from everything that causes pain, in an attempt to remain calm, and is that really fair. for some reason, you start to feel guilty, like really guilty, for still being alive, while all around this part of the world, it's a communal disaster.

i'm staring at the work at hand, and i'm just staring into the pixels flickerings trying to make heads or tails of everything.

so i am safe, but i'm still trying to be fine. take care of yourself and those you love.

in bangkok this new year's,

bay

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http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/asiapcf/12/26/asia.quake/index.html

because we cannot help but read

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L26127109.htm

snapshot of events

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/asiapcf/12/26/email.replies/index.html

emails from here and there

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/asiapcf/12/26/quake.bush.ap/index.html

i hate that he says he cares

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