The Mall of Rome

We arrived at our grandparents' house in Kirkland (a nice little city right by Bellevue and Seattle--I've probably told you that before) for Thanksgiving. We took a few hours today to wander about Bellevue Square Mall. It was fun, but something that really struck me--and I don't know why it did this time; I must have been to the Square several dozen times in my life--was how incredibly rich and luxurious the place was. It's a really nice place and pleasant to wander about, but even so, its sheer opulence freaked me out a bit.
We've been studying ancient Rome in History class, and the subject has come up a couple of times of how much America resembles ancient Rome. We have conquered a massive chunk of land, we have a huge population, we are very rich and are overall one of the most (if not the most) powerful countries in the world. Well, we all know what happened to Rome, don't we?
It fell. Collapsed. Crashed 'n' burned. Went down in flames. And all that jazz. And wandering in a place like Bellevue Square, which is (one of) the epitome(s) of American wealth, opulence and, yes, decadence, one can't help wondering when the Great American Empire will fall.
An optimistic thought for your holiday weekend. I'm really not trying to be all gloom and doom, but that's how it is. Cheers. And a happy Thanksgiving to y'all.

Let's hear it for long weekends!

I don't know if I've ever had a weekend quite like this before. It was purty durn awesome. I'm sure a large part of it was having my gloriously "different" (as he would put it. He may also use "crazy") friend Randy over at my house for pretty much all of it. Among other things, he taught me how to do a (good) handstand--and I may eventually also learn to do a handspring from his tutelage--, he introduced me to the band Acceptance, which he is wild about, and he accompanied our family and several friends to a performance of Gaslight Girl, a very funny and random "melodrama".
And it's kind of weird. I've always heard about those "very very best friends" to whom a person can open up to and tell everyyyyyyyyyyythiiiing. But I've never really felt like I had one. Of course, I've had lots of friends, but I've never "spilled my guts", so to speak, to anyone else my age. That was until Wednesday night, when, for some reason, we stayed up talking about half a ton of stuff, from girls to bizarre dreams.
Overall, the weekend, especially that talking Wednesday night, seemed especially well summed up by part of the synopsis of a movie called Mindtrip, which went something like this:

You just start talking, and before you know it, it's one o' clock in the morning; the train/bus/plane has come and gone; the last waiter is about to leave is shooing you out: You've taken a Mindtrip, and you're a different person than you were before.

Yeah. Weird, long, but very fun weekend.

Another thing to forget to remember

I've always enjoyed making up stories, but many of them stay in my head because I can never write them. There are about 4 exceptions, two of which I have "published" (in the loosest sense of the word) on this snazzy site (look for me in the author directory--my name is "wallywuzhere", of all things).
Anyhoo, I recently came up with a spiffing idea for another story that I hopefully will take the time to actually write.
It's sort of a political dystopia sort of story, fairly brief, kind of the same type of story that people like George Orwell and Kurt Vonnegut liked to write. Probably not quite as intelligent or bitingly witty and ironic, though. Ah well.
It occured to me one day how truly ridiculous it is that abortion is legal. It is basically allowing one person to kill another simply because they are inconvenient. And then that got me thinking--what if we were allowed to have people (other than unborn babies) legally murdered simply because they are inconvenient? That's basically my premise.
Now I just have to remember to write the thing. Dang it.

Wohba

Duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuude!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I just realized! This blog just had its one year anniversary! Waui Zaui!

Anyhoo, just wanted to share that. Hopefully I'll get back here with something more serious later today or tomorrow.