Caterwauling

Well. Never endured a Category 4 hurricane before. Sure I lost power for a week after Wilma. But it wasn’t 100 degrees out like it is here now, with 120 mph winds. 

Have plenty of food. And LED lights. And candles. And booze. Diet be damned. 

Didn’t shutter the windows. I’m not in the mandatory evacuation zone this year. But I am in the second zone, where it is strongly encouraged to GTFO. 

I’m sick of hearing from everyone who is prepared. How expensive their preparations were. How other people will die but they will be fine with their AC and gas grill. 

Meanwhile I’m in the Chinese drywall palace where our idiot management trimmed the trees and left the debris on the ground. You know, the better to impale people with. Or to go through the windows that have no screens, let alone shutters.  

And don’t get me started on how the pools are still full. Fools.

They chained up the clubhouse from the inside. I went to grab mail tonight and couldn’t get in. How da fuck will they get in to unlock the chains holding the doors together? Also there are “no exit” signs on the inside. How about “no entry” signs on the outside? Fools. 

This place will remain standing just like Trump’s empire and other shitty companies do. That is, despite themselves. So I should be more worried than I am.  But in a world where ineptitude is most richly rewarded, I am definitely in the right place. 

Lord please keep my coffeemaker running for the next four days. Or six, if this shit hooks around like it appears it will. 

Hey at least I’m getting two days off. Not the vacay I had planned for next week. But no long meetings while I’m under a time crunch? Greater joy than the hell any hurricane could inflict. 

Hurricane party!!!

There are people who annoy the crap out of me. To the point where all I need to do is hear a breath or some suck-ass comment out of them, and I want to stroke them lovingly with a shovel. 

Then there are the assholes who I choose to be around and they still disappoint me. You give them condolences on a death and they totally miss a passing that’s destroying you. But go on, keep posting political memes. 

Or now, with a hurricane the size of Arizona just 400 miles from my spindly house, by all means send me stupid shit or crack jokes if you even think of me at all. When I’m barely holding it together and having to step up/step in for people who can’t or won’t help me. 

I had no idea I had any friends left to lose at this point. I was wrong. 

Basically I need to hire friends and put them on my payroll so they are forced to choke down their ambivalence and shit out something helpful every now and then to prove they aren’t dead inside. Money talks, even if it’s full of it more often than not. And that’s ok enough. 

My favorite, favorite, favorite teacher passed away.

I’ve written about her often in these pages. Never by name though. I wish I had.

Loved everything about this woman. She would say “my poet” when she saw me. She kicked my ass and made me better.

I have yet to meet anyone so inspiring.

I wonder if people know how much they impact someone. Like, does she know the McKeesport graduating classes of the past 30 years are in tears today because this amazing woman is no longer on this earth?

Miss you so much, Madame. Thank you for everything you did for me, from our AP English classes, to French lessons, to personal growth exercises and private chats about being a gracious and graceful teenager/high schooler.

I hope I made you proud. I know you’d hate this blog, and I know you’ll see me now and want more for me than what I have now. But know that I wouldn’t have gotten this far without you.

My heart …

That moment when you can’t even “can’t even” anymore.