Eff you for smoking

If you're a fan of weather with personality, Northern Nevada has been your kind of place this week.

You may know that much of the state of California is on fire even as we speak, including an impressive swath of Watsonville within yards of my old office. In spite of my shock and concern that my old photographer was going to get himself killed or arrested dashing through blazing neighborhoods in search of a shot, I've been walking around just this side of verdant with envy over the adventures I imagine my old buddies must be having this summer. If you're looking for someone to confirm that old-school print journalism is on the way out, I'll be the first guy in line. Even so, anyone still in the business will tell you that there are times when you find yourself backstage at a $100-per-seat concert, calling a politician on his nonsense or standing on the front lines of an historic public safety operation while all hell is breaking loose and you say to yourself, "Damn, I'm actually getting paid for this."

I've done plenty of all of that and look forward to doing more. But this time, I'm nowhere near any of the 800-plus California fires. Nope, Matt Farley is riding the pine (or whatever appalling Third World composite my desk is actually made from) here in beautiful downtown Carson City, where the action is minimal but the air will kill your ass.

See, by some trick of the atmosphere I don't fully understand but feel comfortable blaming on George Bush, the airborne product of several hundred of those fires has collected over the top third of Nevada.

If you aren't nearby, you won't believe me, but I'll try to explain what I'm seeing out my window right now. Brown. The air is literally brown. I don't mean stylish hipster smog like they have in Los Angeles, I mean the air is visibly brown and legally toxic. I can't see more than three blocks and I feel it in my chest when I try to walk that far.

Technically, we're in stage 2 of the 4-stage air pollution spectrum, which means old folks and anyone who attempts strenuous exercise outdoors are at risk of long-term cardiovascular problems. The state has recommended that residents stay inside and use filtration systems such as air conditioners to protect themselves, which is totally helpful to the 30 percent of taxpayers who don't have air conditioning, a figure which includes my 60-year-old parents. Awesome.

So as I rot in this poisonous suckscape of respiratory misery, running on a treadmill because I'm afraid to take my newborn running habit outdoors, I wonder: What the hell is going on? I'm not a superstitious guy, but in my life as well as in the world at large, these are strange days. From atmospherics to economics to politics to social dynamics, too many things that were never supposed to happen, or were only supposed to happen in the distant science fiction future, are happening now and demand attention. I worry constantly about our ability to juggle them all.

One assumes that young people felt this way during the Renaissance, the Industrial Revolution, World War II and the '60s. One assumes that to even consider the possibility that one's own lifetime is special, let alone the one in which civilization will finally crumble is pure arrogance. Things will be fine and we'll all get rich and laugh about this over expensive Scotches and fat retirement checks in 30 years.

Still, any time things wanted to ease back toward the baseline would be just fine with me.