It's Hot and There's No TV!

I always thought I was the type of person who could "roll with the punches" as they say (ever wonder who "they" is?), but Hurricane Rita has proven me a liar. Although I'm not living on the Gulf Coast of Texas or Louisiana, Rita decided to pay me and my little neighborhood a visit.

I woke up Friday night from a very vivid dream of someone stabbing me in the leg. As I pulled myself awake I felt my leg and found that it was wet. I thought "This can't be good." Either I have pissed myself through the thigh or someone had indeed stabbed me. I soon found that neither of the two was true, although I would have much rather had them happen. As the case may be, it was raining in my bedroom directly over my bed. We all know that is not a good thing. Rain belongs on the outside, not the inside. Coupled with the damage of indoor rain, the pain in my leg was terrible. I'm sure this was the ancient Chinese water torture I've heard about. No wonder it worked. I was ready to tell every secret I knew and even make some up if it would make my leg quit hurting. I counted myself lucky even if it was raining inside my house. I had electricity and I could always sleep on the floor in front of the air conditioner. Guess God heard me, because within an hour I was out of electricity. Let me tell you, it is hotter than six kinds of hell in Central Louisiana during a hurricane, and not in a good way.

My friend Davi (the refugee) and I learned that even the best of friends can grow to hate each other in 12 hours of stiffling heat, no tv or computer or music, no cold food, and in our case - no liquor or drugs. She wanted to drink and God help me, I wanted to dope. (Davi wants me to explain dope. For those of you who don't know what dope is, it is wonderful if taken in the right circumstances. Sometimes the only thing that will get you through a rough time is a handful of prescription drugs.) After about 10 hours of looking at each other, there was no tv to look at and listening to her breathe (that can be annoying) I was ready to jump on her. I could tell that the thought of knocking me in the back of the fucking head had crossed her mind a couple of times also. The only one who wasn't complaining was Amanda. Amanda is my very ugly dog. Everyone tells me she's not ugly, but I have eyes - I know she is. She is a rottweiler/schnauzer mix with a crooked foot and wirey hair that grows in circles on her back.

After thrashing around on my mattress that I had taken off the bed in the leaking room and put in the living room floor like white trash, Davi and I became kinda goofy. Well, I was goofy and she was humoring me. I was really missing my favorite cousin,Larry. Larry is a McGyver making fool. He can make a cell phone and air conditioner with a paper clip, a set of jumper cables, and a roll of duct tape. If he had been at the house, instead of in the "big house", I know he was have hooked up an extension cord to my truck battery and made electricity. If the world enters an appocolypse and modern civilization ends, I'm going with Larry. We both swore that as soon as we could we were buying generators, battery operated tv's, battery operated fans, battery operated refrigerators, and batteries.

I'm one of the lucky few in my neighborhood. My electricity came on last night (Sunday) around 11:30 pm. We had gone to my cousin's house to sleep in the air when I got the idea to call my house and see if the lights were on. When I did, the answer machine picked up. I hollered for Davi to pack her shit and let's git. As we approached my house I noticed everything was dark and either there were a lot of people mowing grass in the middle of the night or they were still running generators. If you have electricity, you don't need generators. When I turned on to my street, Davi muttered "I hope all your neighbors are either asleep or dead." "If they're asleep that explains the darkness and if they're dead they won't hear me cuss you." It was neither. As it turns out, only five houses in my neighborhood have power and I'm one of the lucky few. It goes without saying that I'm one of the most popular and hated people on my street. Popular because I can offer cool air and cold drinks to all who want them and hated because I have lights and they don't.

Oh, after thought - no school for two more days! That's a good thing.

I Must Be Stupid!

Have you ever had a moment in time when it seems that for all your intelligence, you may in fact be the stupidest person God ever created? I'm a resonably intelligent person. In fact I'm of above average intelligence. I did okay on the ACT test; graduated high school in three and a half years (and didn't have the greatest attendance record); graduated college on the Dean's List; aced the Praxis Exam for teachers; and even hold a job and manage to feed and clothe myself without too many fashion faux paus. But, today I'm seriously wondering about my intelligence level. I find that the older I get, the more of those moments I seem to have.
In fact, I just had one of these moments. I was on the phone with one of my oldest friends (old in the sense that we have been best buddies since the 7th grade & that was way back in 1973) and I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to set up a buddy notification system on my computer. I've noticed that whenever I'm on-line, everyone and their brother knows exactly when I signed on. I asked Debby (that's my bestest bud) how they know I'm on-line. She laughed and told me it was "magic." At first I laughed and said "yea, sure," but after our one-sided conversation maybe she was telling the truth and it is in deed magic. As she proceded to try and walk me through the process of setting up a buddy list and notification system, my mind went blank. I couldn't even understand the directions to get more help. As I stared at the screen like a dog watching a floating bone, I could hear Debby in the background laughing at me. She was telling me she couldn't help me if I didn't tell her what I was seeing on the screen. She kept saying she didn't have viewer phone and I would have to explain what was on the screen. I just stared at the screen like an idiot. Finally, she gave one final laugh and hung up the phone.
After trying to figure out this impossible task on my own, I finally gave up and decided maybe I didn't really need to know when my friends were on the computer. Maybe it's true that ignorance is bliss. If I don't know they're on-line, I don't have to defend my stupidity. I can only hope that I will not be called on to perform some exotic computer trick to save my life, because if that happens - I'm in some serious trouble.

Nursing Home

A poem for my father. I love and miss you Nick.

"Nursing Home"

My father is getting older
He was 78 years on his last birthday.
I find myself growing bolder
In what I do and what I say.
During the winder when outside it's cold,
He decides to work,
Forgetting he's old,
With no coat, in only a shirt.
We laugh and tell jokes,
Our relationship is good,
Over coffee and cokes,
Things are understood.
That it's off to Camelia Garden
When his arteries harden.
July 1998

Crazy Magnets

My father once made the comment that he was a crazy magnet. He always said if there were any crazy people with 20 miles of him, they would walk, run, crawl, or swim to get close to him. He was the type of man who loved to talk to any and every body he met. It goes without saying that if you talk to complete strangers, some of them are bound to be crazy. He should have known this because my Uncle Richard would talk to strangers at the Wal-Mart and he was crazy himself. I know my uncle was crazy because when I was old enough to drive, I would take him to the local mental health hospital each month to get his "crazy" shot. I didn't know it at the time, but he was on some heavy duty meds. Lithium & Thorazine were like Tylenol and Advil to him.
I would always laugh at Daddy when he talked about being a crazy magnet until the day I finally realized I was a crazy magnet also. Not only am I a crazy magnet, I'm a bum magnet. I figured this out when I noticed that my best friend was as crazy as the day is long and the love of my life was a no-working, ex-con, drug addict. Man oh man, do I know how to pick them or what. Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with crazy people or bums. I wouldn't trade my best friend for all the money in the world, well, maybe for "all" of it, but I would still call her on the sly and take her on fun vacations. As far as bums, I have no complaints about him either. There's just something about a tattooed, shaved head, ex-con that makes my heart go pitter patter.
I'm sure a lot of people who read this will think I'm probably as crazy as the people I attract. Well, that just goes without saying. Crazy knows crazy! Besides, crazy people have their purposes, how else would "normal" people know they were normal if it wasn't for all the crazies walking around on the street?