The immensely damaging underocean earthquake that has taken so many lives and is causing much suffering has me saddened though I'm happy about other things; to be on winter break for a week, to have hiked to three amazing waterfalls yesterday, and that I'm planning to go to new year's fireworks tonight. (A hundred-and-eight of them will be sent up, a Buddhist related number representing the desires of humans). Since extreme disaster and climatic happenings are becoming more and more "usual," it really seems as though will be living differently in the near future. Something someone said to me a few months ago (we were talking about whether the choice to have children, not with each other just in general, in a world where the humans outnumber the wildlife in drastic proportions and where atmospheric and warming troubles are causing fish to get sunburns, is really a good idea, or what) was this: Children in Vietnam who lived during the war in places where, to get water and other necessities, had to cross continually shot-at areas, would make a game of avoiding the low-flying airplanes' gunfire. "So maybe," the reasoning followed, "it isn't so bad to grow up in a messed up place."

Finding things I didn't know about: Pitcairn Island, which has no port or landable beach, is inhabited by less than fifty people, the descendents of the mutinteers of the famed pirated ship Bounty, and of the Tahitian women who were with them. There is a town called Oh Dear, and a place called Break Inn Hip.
And, Dick Headley, not of Pitcairn island. Sometimes I keep clicking next blog and wade through them until I find something great, or cool or interesting. Today I next blogged only once, and arrived at what seemed like a joke: The Voyage of Dick Headley. A bad joke. I skimmed down the posts and read a few and looked at the pictures. Going by what he has written, he isn't someone I could call respectable, good at writing, or even mildly funny or perceptive. But I began to think, this person is being who he is, meaning he isn't being fake, and that's interesting. Not the kind of interesting that would cause repeat visits to his blog. Just an observation. It's at dickheadley.blogspot.com.