the good earth

I recently saw a music video (on TV in a nice hotel) where the artists were standing in an empty corn field somewhere in middle America, and the earth looked shockingly black. It could have been a film saturation technique, but the colors were just different, and the earth was black. It was kind of startling how foreign my own country looked to me in pictures. And it was kind of nice to see it again.
I keep noticing things around here, things I've become so accustomed to, like the fact that the earth here is light and dusty and sometimes reddish. The total stench of the market, the constant noise levels everywhere you go, the unbearable sweetness of the fruits, the shapes of the houses and buildings and people. Everything takes on a new meaning when you know you won't have it very long. I'm eating all my favorite foods as often as I can, spending more time than ever talking to my neighbors, trying to get to know my co-workers well, spending time with friends and learning the words to songs I've heard a mililion times, just so I can know them when I get home and never hear them again. I saw an orange orange the other day, and it looked strange; the oranges here are really tangerines and the skins are deep green.
Traveling the other day through a monsoon deluge and watching the rice fields fill up, I got sad. I wondered when my last bus trip will be, and where it will take me. Probably Bangkok, but I'll sleep through that one.
It amazes me how adaptable humans can be when they choose to be.
I'm starting to give some serious thought to exactly what I want to do when this is over, and where I want to go.
Loveys!

Speaking of the earth, here's a hilarious article my friend sent me:
Why we're more scared of gay marriage and terrorism than a much deadlier threat
By Daniel GilbertDaniel Gilbert is a professor of psychology at Harvard University and the author of "Stumbling on Happiness," published in May by Knopf.
NO ONE seems to care about the upcoming attack on the World Trade Center site. Why? Because it won't involve villains with box cutters. Instead, it will involve melting ice sheets that swell the oceans and turn that particular block of lower Manhattan into an aquarium.
The complete article can be viewed at:
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-op-gilbert2jul02,0,4766998.story