Prepoceros

I’m feeling better than I was yesterday. This morning was awful, though. It took me almost four hours to get out of bed, then two more to get to the office. I cancelled all my morning appointments, which made me feel a little better.

There was only one thing I absolutely HAD to do today: get to my new class on time. I was going to get there fifteen minutes ahead of time, but I left fifteen minutes late, which would have been bad, but not terrible…except that I made a very bad traffic decision and lost ten more minutes. (Memo to the rest of Houston: What are you all doing on the West Loop at 3:00 in the afternoon? Go back to work and wait for rush hour; I have places to go.)

I was beating myself up about it pretty badly on the way there, and with good reason. If you only have one appointment to get to all day, and it’s in the afternoon, and you’re twenty-one years old, you have to be rather incompetent to screw that up. Hi, I’m Natalie. I’m always late to things. It’s the single biggest stressor in my life (besides the whole mortality thing). Nice to meet you.

Anyway, I taught the class, and whoo boy, were they ever a handful. They rather reminded me of this class, actually—half giggly and/or smart-assy, the other half rolling their eyes at the first half and wishing we could get on with the learning already. They finally calmed down a wee bit near the end of the class, and I left feeling happy. It was mostly adrenaline, I’m sure—trying to keep a class of high-schoolers under control is at least twelve times as energizing as lying on the couch wishing the world would go away and leave me alone.

Oh, and then when I got home I found waiting for me two packages of fun things which cheered me up and which I will show you later.

So for most of the day I did bad things and felt bad, then I did a very bad thing and felt very bad, then I did some good things and felt good, then I got packages. Hence the five.

I don’t feel like paragraphs. A list, in vaguely chronological order:

1. A long, complicated dream in which I was nearly run over by a train, nearly crushed between two steel beams wielded by angry construction workers, and nearly killed in a head-on spaceship collision. I was leading a team of girls who suddenly ganged up on me and mutinied, so I tried to join a commune, but I picked a blue flower and no one wanted to be my friend any more. I tried racing ice-carts (no, I don’t know what they are either), but I missed my exit, and everyone made fun of me because I didn’t know how to get to Wisconsin. Then I was a black man searching through a haunted house for bits of magazine cutouts that I could put together to solve a puzzle, but before I found them all a mafioso in an alligator suit shot me for being gay. I woke up when I was bleeding, but not quite dead yet. This was around 4 in the morning.
2. I woke up for real at 9:something when Wendy called to ask where my timesheet was. Hooray, I’ve neglected to do something important. Again.
3. Had things to do, but spent most of the morning obsessing over things I SHOULD NOT be obsessing over because I’ve DONE this before and I KNOW where it goes and it’s NOT PRETTY. Stop it stop it stop it.
4. The healthiest thing I ate today was a cup of yogurt. The second healthiest was a bag of fruit snacks.
5. Today’s Narnia class was nearly useless. The only thing I learned is that I become more defensive than I expected I would when “secular academia” is dismissed off-hand as a tyrannical, monolithic, closed-minded institution.
6. Having left class ten minutes late, I took a “shortcut” to make up the time, only to get my ass handed to me by traffic. I lost fifteen extra minutes trying to get around four exits of 59 and ended up *twenty* minutes late to my Kingwood class. I clawed my own arm hard enough to draw teeny tiny drops of blood. You might find this hard to believe, but I HATE being late to things. With a passion. It makes my chest twist up in knots.
7. Made a girl cry in class today. Not boo-hooing—I don’t think anyone else noticed—but still, I felt guilty. The reason won’t make sense unless you know a lot about the course to begin with, so I won’t bother trying to explain it, but this is the second time one of my students has cried during this particular lesson. I know what the problem is, but I haven’t found a way around it yet, so I always dread teaching it. I’m teaching the same lesson again tomorrow to 17 students I haven’t yet met. Fan-fucking-tastic.
8. The good thing about being able to switch into perky-fun teacher mode at the drop of a hat is that I can forget about the rest of the world for a few hours and concentrate all my energy on teaching. The bad thing is that when I snap back out of it, the weight of the real world seems extra-burdensome in comparison. It’s like Minesweeper, but slightly more fulfilling.
9. My entire life these last few days (weeks?) has been one big existentialist crisis. All of a sudden I find myself constantly reminded that one day I will DIE and then I will NOT EXIST and everything will be OVER and the world is RANDOM and MEANINGLESS and ARBITRARY and there are so many things that I don’t understand but none of it even MATTERS because it’s NOT REAL it’s all pretend and how can everyone go on living their lives and not be CRUSHED by the EMPTINESS of it all. I dare say there never has been a more depressing thought.
10. I’ve wasted a good chunk of yesterday and most of today, and now I have at least twice as much to do as time to do it. Same old same old. And now I’ve spent even more time writing this when I’d rather be asleep. And I feel like everyone’s stress level is running high right now, and there’s just tension tension tension, or maybe that’s just me, but anyway I don’t want to contribute to it but look at me I’m doing it right now.
11. Can the weekend be here now please? And by weekend, I mean two days in a row when I don’t have things to do. Or even one day in a row. One day? Maybe one day when I only have one thing to do?
12. This really isn’t a list of bad things about today any more. Now I’m just rambling. To think, I was happy(ish) this morning. (I didn’t remember the dream until right before I started typing this.) But somewhere along the way I got to feeling angry. Angry and sad. And if you know me, you know that I’m not an angry person. I hate anger; I think it’s pointless and only makes things worse. Like today. Ok, hush now. Go to sleep. You don’t have to type everything you think. Filter. Edit. Or they won’t come back. Ramble ramble ramble. Oh, I just remembered how I’d planned to end this post, but I’ve wandered so far off-topic that it doesn’t make sense any more. So I’ll stop here. Good night.

Ring-a-ling-a-ling!*
Hello?
Good evening, this is somebody-or-other calling on behalf on TVMax.
Ok, hi.
This is in regards to your internet bill. Your credit card was declined.
It was? [pulls up bank website]
Yes. We tried to charge the card on 9-23-05, and it was declined. Do you have a date when the funds will be available?
It shouldn’t have been declined; there’s more than enough money in the account. My bank statement shows that you guys charged $104.24 to that card on 9-21-05.
Let me check. [type type type] Yes, that was for your cable TV service. This charge of $41.57 is for your cable internet service.
They’re different accounts?
Yes ma’am.
Wow, I didn’t know that. So can I cancel my TV service and keep the internet?
Um, sure.
Great! Let’s do that.
…

So, after spending well over a hundred dollars on a service I wasn’t even using, I’ve finally cancelled my cable TV. I had no idea that TV and internet were on two separate accounts—I just assumed that since they both came out of the same hole in the wall…

It’s probably my own fault for not ever opening all those silly bills they keep sending me, but I’d rather blame it on TVMax’s being a hack company in cahoots with my apartment complex to steal all my money. On their website they talk (vaguely and not-at-all clearly) about their television services and let you pay your bills online and all that jazz, but not once do they mention that they even offer internet. It’s the same company! Why does one half have an internet presence and the other have none? When you look at it in combination with all the hassle and incompetence I had to wade through to get either of these things set up in the first place (see the February/March archives somewhere, I don’t feel like looking it up), it’s easy to see how a person could get confused.

But that’s all in the past. Now I can finally get this hulking, heavy TV out of my apartment, which will free up a lovely bit of wall in my living room. My mom will be glad to have her bedroom TV and VCR back as well, I’m sure. Begone, you silly timesuck!
———
* My phone is adorable.

As you’ve probably inferred, the power at our house went out for good shortly after I put up that last post. I tried to stay up in case anything exciting happened, but staring into the pitch-darkness gets boring quickly, and I eventually fell asleep.

Apart from the power outage we had no real damage, just tree parts all over the place. Everyone I know is safe and sound. I’m back at my apartment, and I heard from my mom that our house got power back soon after I left, so it was only out for maybe 18 hours. People are beginning to trickle back in, and several businesses have announced that they’ll be reopening tomorrow. The office won’t open until at least Monday, and HBU is off until Tuesday, but I still have three lessons scheduled for tomorrow, so life is almost back to normal…except for all that lost time I (we) will have to scramble to make up for in the next week or two. But let’s not think about that right now. I only got five hours of sleep last night, so I’m going to bed.

The power has blinked off twice in the last half hour. The first time it happened I thought I heard a transformer blow, but that might have just been my imagination. Even though we haven’t had a measurable amount of rain yet, the gusty wind might cut out our power before the worst of the storm gets here.

Apart from the threat of losing my precious, precious internet, the storm is so far a few notches below an ordinary summer thunderstorm, as scariness goes.

The real excitement tonight has been on CNN. Look who’s in Beaumont:

Anderson Cooper, my favorite real* journalist, is less than 100 miles away from me! Not only is he reporting from a city directly in Rita’s path, but at the time we were watching he was ANCHORING THE NATIONAL NEWSCAST from a wind-battered sidewalk in Beaumont. Hard. Core.

How is this man still single, I ask you? HOW?
———
* a designation which excludes Tina Fey and Jon Stewart

Rita sure is taking her sweet time getting here. Up until about ten minutes ago, I wouldn’t have believed you if you’d told me a major hurricane was gonna blow through tonight. But now the trees whoosh around occasionally, so it’s getting a little more exciting.

One way we’ve been keeping ourselves entertained is by making fun of our least favorite news reporters.

“Field correspondent” on windy boardwalk: So, ma’am, you’ve decided to ride out the storm in your house?
Lady: Well, I tried to evacuate, but we moved 12.2 miles in 14 hours, so we turned around and came home.
FC: And where will you be sheltering during the storm?
Lady: In my house.
FC: …
Lady: In Kemah Oaks.
FC: No, I mean where in your house will you be sheltering?
———
My dad: You know that sofa? The green one? I thought I’d go sit on it.

Most of the newsanchors are doing a better-than-decent job, though, given the monotony of the task in front of them. Twenty-four-hour continuous coverage of *anything* has to be tough to keep up for more than three days. There are only so many different ways to describe the difference between the clean side and the dirty side, or emphasize the need for people in low-lying areas to evacuate, or sympathize with the folks stuck in their cars in triple-digit heat. We only turn the TV on for five or ten minutes every hour—any longer and your eyes glaze over.

Fun thing: One of my favorite news anchors from when I was little, Channel 13’s Shara Fryer, has come out of retirement to help cover the storm, and she’s rockin’ the newsdesk like she never left. (Wtg, Shara—make ‘em pity the day they let you go.) Ah, just like the good old days before all this internet stuff came around, when we could sit back and get all our news read to us from a TelePrompTer.

Still no rain, but we’re expecting it any minute now…

This morning one of our neighbors from down the street came by and told us they were having a quick five-minute communion at their house at 3. Well, my mom thought she said ‘communion,’ but I thought she said ‘meeting,’ so we went. Turns out Mom was right.

Not that I have anything against communion, but my family isn’t very religious. We only go to church on Christmas Eve, and even then it’s mostly for the sake of tradition. During the service my brother will sometimes go take communion…if he’s hungry. I personally am not at all religious, though I do spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about religion, mostly in the context of, “How can anyone seriously be religious at all when there are so many different flavors to choose from?”

But that’s a topic for another post, when there’s not a hurricane on its way. The point is that we went to this communion-thing. It was all very pleasant and friendly—reading some Bible verses, praying a little, eating Jesus crackers—and I haven’t seen most of my neighbors in a long, long time, so it wasn’t bad overall. I’m glad I went. It was a little eerie, though, when we all threw back the Dixie cups of wine in unison and I imagined that *this* must be what it was like to be in a cult.

Most of the people on our street are staying. A few tried to leave but got nowhere, so they gave up and came home. We’re mostly out of the storm’s way (see below), so I’m expecting all of our houses to survive with minimal damage. I heard that when Alicia came through, our neighborhood didn’t get power back for seven days, and needless to say I’m hoping Rita won’t repeat that performance.

Anyway, five minutes turned into forty-five, and by the end of the party I was wishing they’d given out refills. Making small talk with people I barely know is NOT my idea of good time. But we’re home now, and we’re finally seeing some cloud cover. No rain yet.

Our water district sent out an email this morning instructing us to limit non-essential water use after 6:00 this evening in case the power goes out and they have to turn on their backup pump. Mkay. We’ve still got power, and water, and cable, and I’ll be here blogging until the lights go out (after which I’ll grab pen and paper and go old-school). I’m a little bummed that Rita keeps getting weaker, but still…isn’t this exciting?! Yeehaw!

I thought you might like to see a map of the places I’m talking about, especially if you’re not familiar with the Houston area. My apartment is near Rice Village/West U/Reliant Park, and my parents’ house (where I am now) is in the Champions area, just north of 1960.

If you’ve been anywhere near a television in the last three days, especially if you live in SE Texas, you’ve probably heard all you want to hear about this damn hurricane. All the same, here are a few other local blogs I found on Technorati as examples of some other Houstonians’ perspectives on Rita.

• Linen Rose — Tried to evacuate but turned around
• Amp’d Up — Evacuated, but only got as far as Sugar Land
• Jonathan Watmough — Staying in Spring, near me
• Rita from Pearland — Sheltering in place in their pantry
• abc13.com — Local reporters’ hurricane blogs

As for me, the wind is picking up a tiny bit around the house, but it’s still mostly sunny. The biggest difference is that the temperature has dropped to 87 (from 100 yesterday), which is lovely.

The storm is weakening, but this evacuation is quickly turning disastrous. Early this morning a bus carrying evacuees from a nursing home in Bellaire caught fire and exploded on the way to Dallas, shutting down I-45.

Not that there are many people still trying to get through. Most of the people on 45 have run out of gas and pulled off the freeway to ride out the storm wherever they are. The state is sending fuel trucks around to all the shelters, escorted by police and National Guardsmen who “are armed and will shoot.”

One of my mom’s friends in The Woodlands, north of Houston along 45, says that the (enormous) mall parking lot is completely full. The mall itself is closed, but everyone who ran out of gas nearby has pulled into the parking lot to camp out.

Meanwhile, the weatherfolks are predicting that Hurricane Rita, which has dropped almost to a Cat 3, is still on track to make landfall around Beaumont, near the Texas-Louisiana border. Many of the coastal communities further south have learned from New Orleans and are already implementing curfews to protect their mostly deserted communities from looters.

Overall, it seems that all the hype and overreaction of the last three days has been just that. The politicians, in their hourly press conferences, have changed their message from “Get out right now unless you are living in a bomb shelter and/or are crazy,” to “If you’re still home, don’t leave unless you’re in a mobile home on the beach.” I exaggerate, of course, but the change has indeed been dramatic.

It’s safe to say that most of this mess was caused (or at least worsened) by Katrina. The officials are attempting to avoid the criticism that has plagued the NO, LA, and federal leaders by urging everyone to leave, and the people themselves are panicking slightly more than necessary and exacerbating the shortages of food, fuel, and roadspace. You can hardly blame them—Katrina’s impact on NO was terrible, and we want to learn from our mistakes.

Climatologists are warning that global warming will make violent hurricane seasons like this one increasingly common. If their dire predictions come true, the monster stormclouds set to devastate the Gulf Coast may have a silver lining: with any luck, we’ll be able to Goldilocks our way to an effective disaster-mitigation plan. Katrina’s evacuation was too lackadaisical, and Rita’s is too frenzied, but Alpha’s may be juuuuuust right.