Current Status / Fires

As you can see by the postings everything is still A-OK. For now.

I ended up getting sick around Monday, possibly mild covid or something else since it never really hit my respiratory system, just a terrible headache and really tired out. Then the winds came. They were scaring the cat so I spent a lot of time in bed just comforting him while listening to podcasts, random YouTubing and just drifting in and out. So I ended up not listening to much after all. It was only yesterday I realized not continuing with the anticipated anniversary posts might cause some concern. He is still a little rattled. He can still sense the danger.

I am about a mile from the nearest volatile hillside. Never considered myself too much at risk but with these crazy winds ... Entire major cities have burned up in centuries past so you never know. However I would prioritize trying to save the cat I am long term fostering over the music collection, even if I am hobbling out of here with an hurt foot and back, no vehicle, cat carrier and backpack of cat food and water. A cat, who isn't really my cat who I would rather go up in flames with than abandon though feeling the rising heat of the flames might override any rational thought on the matter.

Used to think in the event I lost it all, it would not be survivable. It's not just a collection and a hobby but nearly the entirety of my identity. Losing the collection was always a greater fear than losing myself. I would rather die with my collection than lose it. You see, this has traditionally not been just love of music but escapism. Until about ten years ago I was chronically impoverished and depressed. Or maybe the other way around. It was also as a very tenuous connection to the outside world as I was mainly a self-isolating loner. It was my biggest fear living on the edge of poverty. Not just at risk of falling to natural disasters but personal ones as well. Now I am no longer prisoner to a life I feel a need to escape from.

In recent years I have began to ponder how I would react to such a situation and more recently I have started to think of how liberating it would be. Not having to worry about paying rent on it, packing it up and moving it from place to place. Having it all on hard drives or optical discs makes just owning it a bit more harrowing in itself. Not to mention any possible legal and financial consequences.

So if the collection permanently disappears, just remember I have offered to copy it out whole. But I know few people are going to want to spend $300-500 in one pop either even if we spent far more than that in a year on blanks and postage in a previous era. The offer is possibly still valid but also may soon be revoked. And I am sure if a worst case scenario happened, the completely orphaned blog would still be getting re-re-repost requests right under the announcement.

My girlfriend may disagree with this line of thought so perhaps I should think of her when trapped in the cycle of constant catastrophizing while pondering my inevitible mortality and how I might eventually exit. Speaking of which I never had any issue with aging or didn't see 50 as a particularly significant milestone yet my childlike mind is loathe to adapt to my aging and degrading body.

Later on I am going to have to post about venturing out when the winds were at their strongest to help a friend procure some collectibles from a location he is banned from because "I promised." But the mission was a failure so I will have to wait until it's completed to say any more. Yes, I risked my life for someone else's OCD when I won't do it for my own.

I truly feel for those who lost everything including at least one friend from the local music scene but probably others. And of course the slightly selfish thought of how this will affect housing availability and prices, placing my own housing at risk due to more sociological and capitalistic disasters as a result of a natural one.

Southern California may be Heaven On Earth, but it's is only artificially habitable at this level, and artifices crumble easily.

That's all there is to say for now. Perhaps I will have more posts in coming days or more transfers next Friday. Right now Vegas Anonymous is more active than I am but when this feels like a chore I am a lot less likely to engage. It's only 5:55pm but I am going to get back in bed and pull up some more YouTube and kick it with the cat. As always, thanks for reading.