A Dark and Stormy Night...

I am so ridiculously glad it's Friday. It's been a long and strange week, one that I'm actually glad is going to be over. It started cold with snow and ice covering the ground and has ended almost springlike, warm temperatures taking me by the surprise.

I love the seasons. As I've said before, it's one of the reasons I'm happy to be back in the Midwest. Southern California has its beauty and if you like sunshine, it's a great place to live. Yet, if you're like me and you enjoy changing temperatures, vast differences in weather from day to day, it can get old really fast.

Not that Los Angeles doesn't have some weather. This is the time of year when the rains come and the city is drowning under heavy torrents. The streets flood, the water rushing with a furious current to the storm drains. Days like that remind me of Stephen King's novel/mini-series It ; I always half expected Pennywise the Clown to be peeking back at me from the grates under the street curbs. It's probably better that he doesn't. While I enjoy my active imagination and picturing Mr. Pennywise the Creepy Clown, actually seeing him would either completely terrify me or, instead, confirm that I am actually crazy instead of being a slight suspicion in the back of my mind. As you can imagine, neither alternative would be a good thing.

We had thunderstorms last night with the type of lashing rain that beats against the windows so hard that you feel like they're going to shatter. The wind howled through the tiny cracks between window and frame and the thunder rumbled in the distance. It was the type of night that made me glad to be inside yet a small part of me wondered how it would feel to be out in the night, the wind whipping my hair, the rain pelting me and soaking my face. The best part of being out in it is coming in. I love the feeling of changing out of wet clothes into try ones; clothes never quite feel as good as that moment unless they're coming straight from the clothes dryer. To me, that is a small slice of heaven.

I lay awake for a lot of the night. I had a lot on my mind which is probably why I woke up in the first place. Unfortunately, my upstairs neighbours- they whom have disturbed my peace before- were apparently having quite a raucous videogame party. Right above my room. They like to celebrate when they beat each other at the game up there. Trust me, I heard every word. Because I was in that mental place where I wasn't asleep yet wasn't fully coherant and awake, I didn't really know what to do. Trying to be fair, it's not their fault that the walls and ceilings of our apartment complex are thin. They really weren't being that loud but, because they were right above my head, I could still hear them. Of course, one might wonder why, at 4:30 a.m., they're STILL playing videogames but not everyone works 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. like me so maybe they don't get that some people do tend to sleep during the night.

The nice part about the storm was that it was a little noise blocker. The rain fell so heavily and the wind blew so furiously that it drowned them out and, eventually, lulled me back to sleep. I look forward to spring and summer because that's when the truly spectacular storms arrive. The only part that is a little worrying is the fear of tornandos. We have no basement in my building. I'm not quite sure where to go if we do have a tornado. Yet there's no point in worrying about that until it's time.

I'm glad it's the weekend. I'm going to visit my family which is always a good way to relax. I'm hoping to get a little more of my optimism back, to back up a little and not let the jading burn of rejection get to me so much. It should be about the love of writing more than the appreciation of it. I need to remember that because that's why I started writing in the first place. Hopefully next week, my spirits will be renewed and my positivity will return. Thanks, as always for reading.

Have a great weekend.

The Voice of a Possessed GPS...

It's sunny again today. The storm clouds have dissipated and the sky is the clear, cold blue of a chilly winter morning. We had a few storms yesterday including a flash of lightning that seemed to go in one window of our office and out the other. The electrical falsh was so intense that it almost felt tangible. Even when the thunder and lighting and rain left, the winds remained, howling and intense as it rattled at my window.

I walked outside in the wind. I was going for my weekly Lost viewing at my friend's house. She lives in the same apartment complex as me and it takes about five minutes to get there. The wind was so strong I had trouble standing up straight on the way there, it took my breath away literally. It's amazing how spooky a dark and stormy night really is. I tend to have an overactive imagination anyway and in the dark, shadowed, windswept world, there were plenty of scenerios that crossed my mind.

At one point, I passed a motorcycle. It's been covered harmlessly with a tarp everytime I've passed by before. Last night, however, that tarpaulin seemed alived, rattling and billowing and forming shapes that my mind decided should be alarming. At one point, out of the corner of my eye, it looked like a giant dark wolf was watching me.

There was a piece of overhang from the roof of one of the buildings I passed. It tapped at the building in the strong wind, threatening to be torn off and go sailing into the darkness. Because I've seen too many of those teenage horror movies in which someone inevitably gets decapitated by such debris, I was in quite a hurry to move past that, lest it come flying towards me.

After I'd watched Lost and was walking back to my building, the wind blew behind me. I felt as though an enormous hand were shoving me quickly towards my destination, urging me forward to get me out of the night. I wasn't about to argue. It was probably my imagination but I liked the idea of being assisted through the darkness, away from whatever twisted and turned in the wind. That piece of roofing was still tapping but seemed to be looser.

I let that giant hand of bluster push me home quickly. After witnessing my GPS seemingly become possessed by dark forces on Saturday of last week, I wasn't taking any chances.

I didn't tell you about that, did I? Last weekend, on my way to Jungle Jim's, I stopped at a carwash. It was a warm, clear day, the snow had all melted leaving a film of grime and salt on my car. I decided to clean Car off. The carwash was was about a mile from Jungle Jim's. Now, in my car, I have two of those cigarette lighter plug thingies. In one, I have an iPod transponder that allows me to play my iPod through my car stereo. In the other, located in my glove compartment, I have another, into which my GPS was plugged. My GPS has no connection to the outside, no antenna; nothing to get wet.

Everything seemed normal. I love carwashes and this was one of those nifty ones with a track that takes you through without you having to drive. That was fun. When I drove out of the carwash, I turned towards Jungle Jims. And that's when I heard it, the dark voice of a possessed GPS.

You know those reel-to-reel tape things they had back in 'the old days'? And how you could speed them up so that everyone sounded like Alvin and his chipmunks or slow them down so Satan himself seemed to be speaking to you? Yes, the latter is exactly how my GPS sounded. Suddenly, the simple directions of "turn left onto Dixie Highway" sounded significantly less like directions and much more like a threat.

You might think I was alarmed. Well, actually....yes, I was. However, I decided to try to take control of the situation. After all, I was driving a car. Panic would have been bad. Instead, I talked to GPS and said something along the lines of, "um, Satan? Is that you? Would you mind giving me my GPS lady back?" GPS did not obey. The super-slowed, deep and ominous tones of my new GPS guide continued to try to guide me. He's a bit hard to understand, actually. He sounds like he's got an entire set of pool balls in his mouth. I knew where Jungle Jim's was at this point but I wasn't about to have my GPS lady taken down by this odd newcomer.

So I did the only thing I could think of. I unplugged my GPS and turned it on and off. After a few moments, my GPS lady was back. I don't know if I managed to banish the demonic posessor but he seemed to have gone. I won't say that I'm not wary of him coming back but at least I can understand my GPS now and I don't feel...wrong for listening to it giving me directions.

Of course, it did make my drive more interesting, I will say that. I think it might be fun to actually program GPS units to have different voices. I know some of them can do different accents and speak in different languages but it might be fun to have, say, Batman give you directions. Better yet, it'd fun to program personalities into them so that maybe if you went the wrong way, Christian Bale could yell at you and tell you that taking a wrong turn was f***ing distracting. Now THAT would be awesome.

But I digress. What's new? Anyway, back to my original musings. It's still windy this morning but it's just strong gusts, not a howling windstorm. We lost power for about a minute, long enough to make me have to reset my clocks but no long enough to be more than a nuisance. Even with all the rain we had yesterday, my GPS is sounding like her old self which is interesting given that the last time my car was that wet, she, um, went away. She's been back for a while but I tell you, the next time a demon takes over my GPS, I'm recording it somehow, just to prove I'm not crazy.

I always need a little proof of that.

Happy Thursday.

These Boots are Made for Walking...on snow...

It's freezing outside last night. When I went to bed, the wind was howling around my apartment building, rapping at the windows and generally just making a lot of noise. It was a nice night to sleep. It had snowed earlier in the day. It was the perfect snow that makes the ground and trees white but miraculously doesn't stick to the roads. That's the best snow.

My feet are cold now even though I have my furry boots on under my jeans. I bought my boots this year realizing that my nice skate shoes, flipflops and heels from California weren't exactly going to cut it in the midwest when it's icy and snowy. The boots I bought are comfy. They're mostly warm, very waterproof and are great on snow. On ice, however, it's another matter. I know, aside from spikes, there's not much that will grip on ice. Yet I do think there are degrees of grippage. My boots are at a zero degree of grippage. If they so much as see ice, they start slipping. It's a little like ice-skating. If I get out of my car after a bout of freezing rain, I have learned that unless I grip onto my car for dear life and then slowly make my way across the parking lot by gripping other cars, I'm fine.

You might wonder why I don't just walk slowly. Well, I can't make any sudden movements in my boots. I tried that once. Let's just say I came microscopacally close to falling down, my legs in the air, resembling a fly in its last minutes of life. If I were braver, I'd go ice-skating in my boots but since ice-skating to me is a bad idea, I think I'll leave that to my stray. My idea of ice-skating is clinging to the rail of the rink, slowly getting up enough balance and courage to move away. I can usually make it round the rink after about half an hour as long as I don't stay too far from the edge. I still end up falling down but it's still quite fun.

You're probably laughing at me now, and my desire to live in a place that actually has snow. Whatever. I still love snow. It's ice I'm not a fan of. Ice is mean. It hides. You can be looking at the snow around you, ambling slowly along and admiring it's beauty and then, boom! you hit a hidden patch of ice, concealed by the snow and then, hey, look- pretty sky! No...ice is too sneaky for me. It's also a lot more brutal. The ice storm I mentioned a few weeks ago in Indiana was brutal. Beautiful, yes but also much crueler than snow. Snow falls, landing softly, a soft coating of cold whiteness. Ice....ice comes down in the guise of rain, harmless, wet, gloomy and cleansing rain. When it hits the frigid landscape, it changes form, forming a hard coat of ice on everything. The more the rain falls, the thicker the ice gets. It's heavy stuff- tree branches that are tired to begin with can't withstand the weight and they crack, hurling downwoods until there's nothing but a pile of wood on the ground.

No, ice is nasty stuff. It makes roads impassable, takes out power lines and still makes for a breathtakingly beautiful sight with its crystaline glaze.

My boots don't like this ice. They like the snow. Yes, that's probably projection. By now, you're probably thinking I lost my mind- writing an entire blog about my boots. All I have to say to that is you're just now thinking I lost my mind, I'm highly flattered. I can assure you, it's been gone for a while. Probably somewhere around the time I wished George Michael would propose to me.

It's suppose to rain this weekend. I hope it remains rain and doesn't turn into sleet or freezing rain. It's my birthday this weekend and I'm really looking forward to actually be able to spend it with my family. It's been a very long time since I had a birthday with them and it would be lovely to be able to drive the two hours north without worrying about sliding off the road. I'll be wearing my boots, just in case though.

Happy Thursday.