The Deal

Last night my lap-top - the helm of this blog - crashed...into the fiery depths of Hell. Know what's interesting about Hell, though? A lot of people don't know this - Hell is an ancient mythical place - the Underworld - whose origins lie in Norse mythology. Yup, Ye Olde Aryans came up with that one. It wasn't until a few thousand years later that, via processes of mythological hodgepodgery, Hell was imbued with the characteristic of a "Place Where Satan (the fallen angel, another mythological staple all over the world) Dwells" and a "Place Of Eternal Torment." To the ancient Icelanders, Hell ("Hel," actually) was simply the underworld. But anyway, that's where my laptop is now. It's in the underworld.

Luckily, The Missus boasts her own laptop, which she's more than willing to lend. And, yea, it was she who took this very snapshot last summer. I was with her when she photographed this mushroom. She went to great lengths, as I recall, gently batting leaves away from the stem, finding the perfect vantage, then nearly lying down on the forest floor to get this shot. What a great mushroom picture it turned out to be. I have no idea what variety it claims, or what family it comes from. Maybe you do. In the old days, people were classified according to their families, same as mushrooms. It's not like that anymore, though. These days, nobody cares about your great uncle who earned a bunch of purple hearts or your great grandmother the midwife. Nothing special about it.

If I had to choose a Hell, I'd choose the Tibetan Buddhist Hell. In Buddhist Hell, you suffer - but not eternally. You suffer (a) because you did a bunch of nasty things and earned "negative karma" for yourself and (b) for a limited time. In Buddhist Hell you only have to stick around until you've paid your debt. Like a prison sentence. And once you get out, you're better off...which is both like and unlike a prison sentence, I guess. In any case, you're your only judge- but once the Deal goes down, that's saying quite a lot.