Monday, October 29, 2012

The Waiting is the Hardest Part

I can't believe I've gotten to the point in this blog where I am quoting Tom Petty songs as my subject, that's pretty hacky is it not? Sigh. My mind is a little preoccupied right now as I have a big date tonight with a vicious little minx named Sandy.

Yep. I've been on the east coast for a month and the powers that be have already decided to send a hurricane directly at me. If I was a crackpot or a moron I would take this as some sort of sign that God is trying to punish me for pursuing a decadent lifestyle or some crap like that. Or possibly it's Chicago making a last ditch effort to convince me to come back and stay in the land of Italian Beef and deep dish. Whatever the motivations for Sandy coming to pay me a visit is irrelevant now cause she's coming regardless. Here's the one thing that is abundantly clear to me: hurricanes suck.

I'm from California where our preferred form of natural disaster is the earthquake. I love earthquakes. Now, don't get me wrong, they are horrible and cause terrible destruction. I don't like that. What I love is that when an earthquake hits you have no idea that it's coming and if you're still standing 15 seconds later you know that you're going to be fine. I can't even remember how many times that the earthquake was over before I even began to duck and cover. Not so with hurricanes.

We've known that Sandy was headed this way for the at least the last 4 days. Do you know what that kind of advance notice does to a horrible neurotic like me? I'm a mess. I'm like Jessie Spano on caffeine pills right now. I'm so excited about experiencing my first hurricane, so excited, so excited. . . I'M SO SCARED. I've tried to put up a brave front. I bought a lot of booze and Jesus candles (as well as water and food) and made jokes about it. I told friends that it was nice knowing them when I left the bar after football today. As long as you can joke about something it can't be that bad, right?

Yet inside I'm so afraid that Sandy is going to wreak havoc on everything and my brand new apartment that I haven't even moved into yet will be underwater by tomorrow night. All of the horrible thoughts are in the back of my mind festering. All I keep thinking right now is that I've been super nervous for 2 days already and the damn storm hasn't even shown up yet. Once it hits it will just go on and on for what will seem like forever. I flip out when I don't have a solid internet connection for 20 minutes, I'll be certifiable if there is no power for days on end.

The thing that galls me to my core is that I have all of this time to get upset about Sandy. Why can't it just show up out of the blue like an earthquake or a tornado? Watching the weather channel and waiting for things to hit the fan  is the absolute worst. Of course I'll gladly keep waiting forever if the storm wants to change the direction and leave me alone. So, how about it Sandy? I promise I won't hold it against you if you stand me up and head back to sea.


(Serious note: I'm totally prepared and I'm going to be fine. If things get bad I have friends at higher ground who can take me in. I got this.)

1 comment:

  1. "As long as you can joke about something, it can't be that bad" is pretty much my motto for getting through 2012 alive.

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