I still have a pen that I suppose I got from when I worked at the L.O.C. (for you non-D.C. types that is the Library of Congress). It was a retirement gift, actually. Everyone gets them. That was 1983 and the pen still works. That is to say, the government pen has not shut down. It is possible that it was not used for many years. It might have been shut away in a desk for a long time, so maybe no one used it. And maybe the desk was in a humid climate, that is to say not here where I live in the Mojave Desert, so the ink did not dry up. There was a period of time when I didn't have a place to live and I stayed at my mother's apartment in D.C. I was working at the L.O.C. I don't remember where my mother was, but she was not using her apartment. She was teaching elsewhere. And I was moving to New Orleans. It was a time of change in my life and in hers as well. So I guess I left the pen there when I went to New Orleans and only found it again when Amy and I packed up my mother's things so she could move into an assisted living facility in Rochester, New York.
Another thing that is not shut down is the Marine Base here in Twentynine Palms. Yesterday morning they were blowing shit up "out in the field" as usual. It reminded me of the Newt Gingrich shutdown, when I tried to show an Australian friend around a bit and we drove out from L.A. to Joshua Tree Park. Well of course it was closed. So we went to a nearby state park, Saddleback Butte State Park. I think I still have the photo I snapped of the stealth bomber that flew over while we were hiking around out there. It is so interesting to take note of what shuts down and what does not shut down.