Cry yourself a river, it won't take much to drown.

When my good buddy was here a couple weeks ago we went to the movies and saw a trailer for ATL. We had initially bonded, all those punk rock years ago, because of a shared love and respect of 'urban'--you know what I mean--culture and music, amidst the white belts and zines attacking white belts and all that hoopla in Columbus, Ohio, 1997-ish. So after the trailer he, once a poor righteous teacher, now a not-as-poor-nor-as-righteous-administrator, leaned to me conspiratorially and said "How many kids do you think will get shot outside of that movie?" It had that icky stick to it, something wrong, but I wouldn't define it, because this is my friend, and why am I so self-righteous all the time?

Dammit, a boy died at Ford City this Saturday, after seeing ATL. Not like in the Ring, where the movie killed him. He was shot, by a person. My Girl was there, too, had a gun stuck in her face and confronted her own death. As a child rape victim she has experience with confronting death. Rape has that effect on people; it is a physiological fact, which is why the term 'survivor,' when used about abuse or rape, is genius on all sorts of levels. I personally think the whole gun-in-face thing is why she wigged out today, with some street fighting and talking crazy. This wigging out led me to sacrifice what I am certain was a good dessert, probably some nice wine, and certainly good conversation at book club tonight. She probably sacrificed another foster placement.

I am ill suited to crisis management. I react like a poorly-trained, clumsy, and sissy Marine, because I'm all like "I validate your feelings" and "I just want to know that everyone is safe" and since I am a hippie I don't have my own car so I do crisis work on the train home when in the end, I didn't have to drive all over the South Side looking for my Girl at all. I just had to listen, listen, listen. I also took some of this pain into my head, where it is lodged behind my right eye. Which, I believe, is the Drama Chakra.

I am so sad for this and yet not sad enough that I am going to DO anything, like chain myself to her in order to stop the adolescence fueled train to trauma that she is riding. Part of me wants to be so sad that I just die from it: not just her, because she is actually pretty funny and adorable most of the time, but from the aggregate of hurt in the world, beautifully represented by Chicago foster kids. I am a bit disgusted by my vibrant joyfulness. It is vulgar and undeserved.

I have to remember all the time that I am not really going to save anyone but myself, and probably not even that. It is a difficult balance to strike, and not helped at all by an agency with the motto "To Save the Life of a Child...Whatever it Takes" stamped on the mugs. Actually, it's not stamped on the new mugs, so I got one of the old mugs special, because I want to remember the impossible goal that I tell myself I am not even trying to reach. In this way, the mug holds both coffee and spiritual confusion. It is also kitschy.

So Bill Moyer says to Joseph Campbell: "Unlike the classical heroes, we're not going on our journeys to save the world, but to save ourselves." And Joseph Campbell, in his tweed and warm respectability, says: "And in doing that, you save the world. I mean, you do. The influence of a vital person vitalizes. There's no doubt about it. The world is a wasteland. People have the notion of saving the world by shifting it around and changing the rules and so forth...the thing is to bring it to life. And the way to bring it to life is to find in your own case where your life is and be alive yourself, it seems to me."

Will do, Joseph Campbell.