I saw Santa Paula Union High‘s production of “Diary of Anne Frank” last night. If you saw the production and liked the color pallette of the set, that was me! I had trouble settling down during the show. Annoyance at the tardiness of the first curtain; worry that the wall colors weren’t working; disbelief at the ringing cellphones and texting teens in the audience; distraction at the delivery choices of some of the actors, etc. etc. But ultimately the grinding “oh shit” juggernaut thundered through my head. This is real. This happened. Take the story of the Franks and multiply that by a number to high to absorb.

My father, still living and breathing, fought his way through Europe for four years before bearing witness to the liberation of a concentration camp at the age of 22. Oh shit. How did everyone get past that? I guess the US did by having lots of sex and babies and creating the suburbs. I mean, I still can’t think about 9/11 yet without wanting to shriek and flail.

I’ll return to previously-scheduled egocentric trivial flimflam tomorrow.