still here just barely

Nothing is slamming as far as the weather is concerned. Fay was a strong yawn and although Gustav is looking like a real jerk, I don't think the other hims and hers are planning to do much but weep and blow. That's cool. When it rains I just turn up my air conditioning, put on sweaters and pretend I'm on the west coast. Clarence likes to curl up on my lap during big clammy bouts and I enjoy telling him great stories about the untamed west. I feel like an immigrant, brimming with enhancements for the little ones about a place I'd rather be, full knowing that opportunities have a habit of taking people elsewhere. Sidenote: When I think "immigrant," the first thought I have is of the Irish family in "Titanic," last seen clutching their young as waters flooded the lower deck. Always. Every single time. Even when I browse google news and see something about the US/Mexican border. James Cameron is king of the leave behinds.

We stocked up, though. On dry goods and water jugs. Now that nothing's happened, I've taken to eating the hurricane supplies. In the long run, this could really shoot me in the foot but I can't help it. Hurricane supplies are better than regular food. There's a purposeful element to their existence and it makes everything taste like danger. Fruit cocktail is bunjee cord, spaghetti-os a shark cage. It's electric! Survival. It's like eating the relationship between Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock in "Speed."

So it's September? You're kidding me. Soon I'll head home for Britt's wedding. Then it's time for the holidays, then spring, then who the heck knows. 2009 is upon us like an unwanted Delorean. I can't believe a decade is flanking the memories I have of being 16. It's time, has been time, to plan great things and start saving and to grow old. I have problems with that. To me, thinking ahead involves smaller pieces. Like maybe being extra careful with the POM beaker glasses because they don't bottle POM juice in those anymore and I bet my kids will find them kitschy.

-savings
-investments
-property
-babies
-babies too expensive
-multi-vitamins

No POM glasses, these are the eventual big tickets, these should stand as my worry stones. Or not. Anyway, whenever it's too enormous, it's probably best to stare around the sky. My dad can read so many skies. We take walks at night and he shows me the formations and the stories. That will make you feel small again. Small but relaxed. When I was younger, he'd blow my mind away with all the information and the magnitude of everything. Once he told me that the world is so big, there's probably another father out there RIGHT NOW who's talking about the stars with his daughter RIGHT NOW. My head exploded. "Maybe they are blond?" I asked. "Yes." "Maybe they are at the beach?" I asked (we were at the beach). "Yes." "Maybe the girl has a blind right eye and the father is wearing a down vest and they just ate cornbread and their names are Sarah and Tom?" I desperately wondered. "Well," said my dad. "I don't know about all that." I always force things.

Update: Spaghetti-Os taste nothing like a shark cage. Or they might. If shark cages taste like squishy metallic poison. Which, hey? Perhaps? Developing.