Prepoceros

Yes, yes, it’s a cliche, but it really is strangely calm around here. The weather was gorgeous today—blue skies, little puffy clouds—and unless you got near a freeway, there didn’t seem to be a whole lot going on. It’s strange to think that in 24 hours or so things will begin to look a lot different…more hellish, perhaps.

So far, I’m glad I stayed. I’ve had a relatively uneventful day (and even taught a lesson!), spent mostly in the air conditioning taking care of a few last-minute things and relaxing. Many of the people evacuating, on the other hand, are having a rough time of it. The ones who left early yesterday are mostly to their destinations by now, but people are running out of gas all over the place. TXDOT has said that they’ll only be able to get fuel trucks out to people on the “recommended” evacuation routes (I-45 and I-10), so anyone else who runs out of gas is basically screwed.

Hurricane Rita is definitely tracking to the east of the city now, which is good for us, but bad for Beaumont (where it appears to be headed now) and Louisiana. I imagine the folks from further down the coast, where the storm was originally predicted to make landfall, the people who gutted their homes in preparation for a direct hit and have been sitting in traffic for the last 24 hours, are getting mighty pissed right about now. Or maybe they’re happy their homes won’t get blown over. All I know is that when it’s all said and done and everyone’s got their blame-fingers out, evacuation-route management is going to be our levee-maintenance.

My parents were supposed to fly out of IAH at 7:30 tomorrow, but Continental cancelled their flight. My dad wanted to try and drive to Nashville, or maybe drive to Dallas and catch a plane to Nashville, but my mom wasn’t so keen on sitting in traffic, so it looks like they’ll be riding out the storm here with me.

I’ve been fiddling with this computer thingy for a while, and I still haven’t figured out where WordPress is keeping my images after I upload them, so I’ve put them all on my Flickr account (which I should really be using more anyway). You can see my pre-Rita photoset here.

My next computer will be a laptop.

I made it…in just under two hours for a 25-mile trip. Well over an hour of that time was spent travelling three excruciating miles. But I shouldn’t complain; those poor folks out on the highways have it much, much worse.

I ran in and took pictures of our neighborhood grocery store before it closed at 4:00 today—it was a madhouse in there. As soon as I figure out where to find the pictures I’ve uploaded, I’ll show you.

Listening to the stories of evacuees makes me glad I decided to stay. Yes, there’s a hurricane coming, but right now a little wind and rain doesn’t seem like much bother compared to the frustration of sitting in your car in the heat for hours on end, going nowhere. If I were to leave now and head for any decent-sized city, I’d probably be on the road for 12 hours or more.

The biggest problem is gas. Specifically, there isn’t any, and people are burning up what’s left real quick. Some folks are pushing their cars, not because they’re out of gas, but because it’s not worth it to fire up the engine every fifteen minutes to move three car-lengths. Personally, I’d rather ride out the storm in my house than spend the weekend in my car, possibly still in the hurricane’s path.

The latest news is that Rita is tracking farther to the east than previously expected, which is both good and bad. The current track has it making landfall slightly east of Houston, which would put most of the city on the “clean side” of the storm. If it swings back west, of course, we’ll be taking a direct hit. And it’s definitely bad news for Louisiana, which is on the “dirty side” and facing stronger winds as the hurricane turns north.

I’m just about packed and ready to leave my apartment. I know I said I was going to leave early in the morning, but really, any plan that requires me to wake up before dawn is wishful thinking at best. Bye, apartment, and good luck! Hope you’re still here when I get back!

Fifth Third most intense storm in US history—looks like Rita isn’t kidding around. But we’ve learned our lesson, and Houston isn’t kidding around either. We’ve been evacuating hardcore since very early this morning, starting with Galveston and the other barrier islands and moving inland. All three “storm zones” down by the coast are under mandatory evacuations, and the mayor is strongly encouraging the rest of the city to get the hell out of Dodge.

It seems that most people are listening: the grocery stores are empty, gas stations are either out of gas or sporting lines around the block, and all the highways have turned to parking lots. I obviously haven’t been out along the evacuation routes, but I get the impression that the general mood is still positive despite the heavy congestion.

The radio stations and local websites have been yammering about the fine points of exactly how strong Rita will be when it gets here. It’s a Category 5 storm, BUT it will probably weaken as it gets close to land, BUT the storm surge will still be enormous, BUT it’s set to hit south of here, BUT that will put us on the “dirty side” of the storm, with the highest winds, etc.

So it’s a little uncertain. What we know for sure is that it *will* be an awful storm, but that most of Houston will still be standing after it all blows over.

Nearly everyone I know is on their way out of town. As for me, I was planning to ride it out in my apartment, but I’ve been convinced to head up to my parents’ house instead. They’re leaving Friday morning to visit my brother in Nashville, but we’ve got a big, sturdy, comfy house on the NW side of the city. Rita is supposed to be a combination of the winds of Alicia and the flooding of TS Allison, and this house has withstood both, so I’m feeling pretty confident about its structural integrity.

A little poking around on the internet revealed that my apartment complex, just north of Brays Bayou, is in the 100-year flood plain, while my house, a little farther south of Cypress Creek, is not. Good to know. I’ll be watching the BayouCam from my house.

I’m impressed at how far in advance of the storm the evacuations have begun, and how well organized they are. Everything’s running on a schedule, and as far as I know it’s all going as planned. Just over an hour ago the police reversed the southbound lanes of the Gulf Freeway and locked down many of the evacuation routes by blocking most of the on- and off-ramps. In the next two days, I believe most of the major freeways will be converted to one-way streets to keep things moving. All the tolls on the outbound tollways have been lifted, and the HOV restrictions will be lifted started tomorrow morning. All very calm and orderly.

I bought all my storm groceries this morning while I was marketing in Katy, a small town west of Houston along I-10 (and thus relatively far out of Rita’s way), and even THEY were out of bottled water and batteries. Thank goodness I remembered to fill up on gas while I was out there and gas was still $2.69 with no lines—some of the stations in my part of town were already out of gas YESTERDAY.

Tonight I’ll gather up all my stuff worth keeping and cover it with garbage bags, pack, take out the trash, and try to get to bed early so that I can wake up ass-early tomorrow. The radio is saying that the traffic is thinning slightly, so hopefully it’ll be passable by 4 or 5 in the morning. Still, I’m planning to have to dodge along the back roads to avoid the evacuating hordes. Normally the trip takes 40 or 45 minutes; I think I’ll be lucky to get there in under two hours. I’ll let you know how it goes.

So this hurricane thing, it’s the talk of the town. I vaguely remember hearing something about China in my class this morning, but after that it’s been Rita, Rita, Rita. Will it hit us? When? Are you leaving? What will they do with the evacuees? Will we ever see Galveston again?

And so on and so forth. Not to rub salt in New Orleans’ wounds, but I have to admit that I’m pretty excited. I love a good storm, especially one with major flood potential. Oh, the drama! (The concomitant tornadoes, on the other hand, I’m less-than-thrilled about, but let’s pretend they don’t exist and keep our fingers crossed.)

Barring any dramatic change in the forecast, I’m going to stick around and ride the storm out. Though I am on the south side of Houston, I’m not particularly close to the coast. If the predictions looked dire, I could always head up to my parents’ house, which is about twice as far inland. My apartment complex is new and sturdily built, and I live on the third floor, so I’m not overly worried about either the wind or the inevitable flooding.

There’s a good chance we’ll lose power, but hopefully not for too long, especially since the hurricane is supposed to make landfall during the night. That’s the one thing I don’t like about this hurricane—that I won’t be getting much sleep Friday night. It’s much more fun when the power goes out during the day; at night it’s just spooky.

Whether it smacks into Houston directly or hits somewhere else along the coast, this will surely be the biggest hurricane I’ve ever experienced. The last big’un to blow through here was Alicia in 1983, before I was born. Wooo-eee!

This double dose of Wellbutrin is kicking. my. ass.

I started it yesterday, right in the middle of my all-tutoring-all-the-time weekend (which netted me about $300, btw…not bad for two days’ work). Initially I didn’t notice much of a difference, except that I felt strangely calm and at peace with myself, as well as surprisingly not-at-all tired of talking about the SAT, even after teaching the same lessons over and over and over again.

I also felt that, curiously, each day seemed exactly as long as it was. That is to say, precisely one day long. This may not sound surprising, but usually, when you have a day with a schedule that diverges wildy from your average day’s, you tend to say either, “Wow, the time just flew by,” or, “Man, today kept dragging on—I thought it would never end.” But this time, 12 hours felt like *exactly* 12 hours, down to the minute.

Last night when I got home I puttered around on the interweb for a while, then flopped down on the couch and slept for SIXTEEN HOURS. Um, brain? Wtf? I had things to do today, I’ll have you know. I kind of have this job, see, and they expect me to show up at the office more days than not.

At least I managed not to sleep through my 4:00 class, which would have been ridiculous (well, more ridiculous). While I *have* been a little short on sleep lately, it’s nothing too extreme—I’ve been averaging probably six or seven hours a night—so I’m going have to blame the meds for this one. Sixteen hours. Christ.

In class I was mostly okay, except for the mysterious vanishing of my short-term memory. I was listening carefully—I don’t think my attention wandered off even once over the whole two hours—but every time I went to take notes, I found that I couldn’t remember what it was that I’d wanted to write down, or indeed anything at all the prof had just said. Fabulous.

I drove home, feeling a little spaced out but otherwise okay, ate dinner, and did a whole lot of nothing for a while, until all of sudden it dawned on me that I felt sick. Really, really sick. My head was spinning, my ears were ringing, and I felt horribly nauseous. My vision went all sparkly and I broke out in a sweat. More than a wee bit frightening.

It wasn’t quite scary enough to start me thinking about a hospital visit, but I decided that if I *were* about to pass out or have a seizure or whatever, I’d rather not be sitting alone in my apartment, so I went outside to wander around. It took a while, but eventually I ended up at Barnes&Noble, where there was air-conditioning and people and places to sit down. I sat still for a while, and the no-I’m-not-ok feeling slowly faded. My parents called to make sure I was alright. My mom offered to come spend the night, but I told her not to worry about it, that I was doing better.

Now I’m more or less fine. I still have a bit of a headache, and there’s a fuzzy feeling somewhere behind my eyes, but I expect it’ll calm down over time. I could do without the sixteen-hour snooze tonight, though, seeing as how I’ve got class in nine hours.

My shrink said that if the double dose felt like too much, I could do 1.5 instead. That’s definitely the plan for tomorrow—I’d like to be awake long enough to get some work done without feeling like I’ve been poisoned, thanks.

I’ve been lucky with the meds so far. The documentation warns about all these possible side effects, but I’ve been thinking…side effects? What side effects? Now it’s…oh. THOSE side effects. Gotcha.

Didn’t weekends used to be for taking time off, sleeping in…? I think I remember something like that, a very long time ago.

This weekend I have six lessons. I’m also proctoring my class’s exam tomorrow morning. When you add it all up, including drive-time, it comes out to something like 18 hours.

At least I have four hours during the exam to work on homework and whatnot. I think next week is actually some sort of no-homework week at HBU, though…whatever ‘SEW’ stands for. The workload there is light anyway. I’m taking a history class and an english class, and between them I have to write all of FIVE PAGES over the entire quarter: one three-page paper and one two-page book report. They even break it down for you: “Your essay must be about this. Make sure you consider this, this, and this, and answer these four questions. Paragraph 1: blah-di blah….” It’s like middle school, but without all those rowdy, hormonal middle-schoolers. I think there are a couple of tests in each class, and an oral report or two and a few quizzes, but none of those look like they’ll be too difficult.

Anyway, I have to be up at 7:00 tomorrow, so I’m off to bed. Today was a much better day, as far as work and focus go. I saw my shrink yesterday and we doubled my dose of Wellbutrin, so that should give me a boost for a while. Hopefully it’ll stick.

If you have only one safety pin, and you hope to ever find it again, you should not keep it in the paperclip jar.

I got home at 8:00. It is now 1:38. I have done no work. It’s not that I couldn’t finish, that I ran out of time, that I had too much to do—it’s that all I’ve done today is gone to class, worked in the office, and taught a lesson. Maybe six hours total.

Homework? Timesheet? Writing assignment? Haven’t touched ‘em. In fact, now that I think about it, I don’t think my ass has left this chair since 8:01. I’ve probably noticed the room around me twice in all of those however-many hours. The rest of the time, I was busy burning out my retinas staring at this here computer screen.

I don’t even remember much of what I did, really. Nothing interesting or productive, just things that could be done for a long, long time without a break in concentration, because then I don’t have to think. I don’t have any responsibilities. I don’t have to be me any more.

I know this feeling; I’ve been here before. Many, many times. I don’t claim to have a monopoly on this mood–everyone probably feels this way sometimes, or else we wouldn’t have Minesweeper, video games, recreational drugs, etc.—but I’m sure I’ve allowed it to dominate my life more than most people have.

I don’t like this feeling. Well, I do, but when I “come out of it,” I feel worse than I did to start with. In that way, it’s very much like an addiction—I’m addicted to not-working. I don’t mean to make light of addiction, as I know it’s a terrible thing. I’ve never been addicted to anything (sugar doesn’t count, I’m sure), so I can’t say that I’ve struggled with the pain and the crushing weight of a “real” addiction. Still, I see where addicts are coming from. It’s good, but it’s bad. And it’s bad precisely because it is so, so good.

[Rereading this, it sounds vague, but I didn’t mean it that way. I’ve tried to fix it, and this is the clearest description I’ve come up with of what’s muddling around in my head. If it sounds like I’m hinting at something and purposely talking around it and obscuring the details…I’m not. I mean what I say, straight up.]

Anyway, like I was saying, this is the bad place, this place I’m at now. The place you’re probably sick of hearing me prattle on about from back when I was at Mudd (if you’ve been around that long). Since I’ve been on leave, I’ve only had to deal with the not-working thing occasionally, mostly because I haven’t had much unstructured, unscheduled work to do. But now that I’m back in school it seems like I’ve picked up right where November left off.

I can NOT be crashing this soon. It’s the SECOND WEEK of school, for crying out loud. Usually this crap takes a month or so to kick in. Well, it used to take a whole semester back in high school, then a couple months, then a month…and now a week, apparently.

I must not be fighting hard enough, because that’s ridiculous. A week? I can’t hold my shit together for a week? I’m twenty-one years old, for gosh sakes; time to get with the program.

But I know I shouldn’t be angry with myself. I’ve tried that before, and it’s not productive. I’ll just try again—this quarter’s still plenty salvageable. Look, there I go again. Second week, and already I’m planning to fail. How is that helping?

I wish I could unplug my computer and channel the wild success (77 days and counting) of my TV-unplugging project (no pun intended). Maybe I’ll experiment with unplugging the cable box every now and then, as most of what I need to do doesn’t require internet access. Hmmm.

On the bright side, however, as I type this I’m feeling pretty fucking beautiful. This may or may not have something to do with my having spent the last hour or so (the hour before the hour I spent writing this post, rather) at SuicideGirls. Looking at pretty people makes me feel pretty, too.

I’m glad this isn’t livejournal because I bet they don’t have one of those mood smileys that means “frustrated and quietly despairing…but damn sexy.”