17:07.05 :: cindy and dennis and emily, oh my!

well, unless you've been living under a rock for the last few weeks, you've probably heard that the 2005 hurricane season is well under way, and it's starting out with a real kick this year.

from the first few storms of the season, houston has gotten away with mostly just heavy rain. it's been raining for weeks, in fact. [sidenote: some smart-assed idiot at work placed a sign up last week right outside the front of the main office door that said, "weather update: rain." it was one of those signs that you see at fast-food joints, with the movable letters. when i left work on friday, i felt like rearranging the letters to read, "wet diarrhea: up neat." (it works out -- try it for yourself). but then i thought that my prank would upset someone at the office on monday and that someone would figure out it was me who switched the lettering, so i left the sign as is. i'm such a pussy.]

anyway, i've been keeping up with the news about 2-3 times a day lately to see just where they expect the latest named storm, emily, to make landfall in the u.s. the latest forecasts have her making her way into the gulf of mexico as a category 4 storm, with windspeeds topping out at near 135 mph. she already has brushed jamaica and the cayman islands and by tonight or early tomorrow, she will slam into mexico's yucatan peninsula.

all i have to say is this: if emily fucks with my plans to leave this one-horse town next saturday for my 10-day vacation in the outer banks of north carolina, she better have more than a stiff wind to protect herself. there's nothing worse than a bitter old queen being deprived of her much-deserved and long-anticipated break from reality.

sheesh.

posted by lonestarsteve on sun 17.07.05 11:44 PM

i'm reading specimen days, michael cunningham's latest offering since the hours. i'd started reading it a few weeks ago and was going to save the rest for my upcoming vacation, but i've picked it up again and will probably finish it before leaving on the 23rd.

as with the hours, this novel is in three parts. i'm through the first part already. and instead of using virginia woolf as his inspiration, cunningham looks to walt whitman for structure and language. and like with the hours, the parts are tied together with loose threads of familiarity: common characters, imagery, etc.

the novel's reviews have been mixed. i'm going to read it anyway. cunningham is one of my favorite novelists, and i know that he researches the shit out of his writing topics. the hours had to have taken him years to write with all the reading to be done on woolf's life and times.

i have plenty of other books to take along on my trip. more than enough, actually. i'm looking forward to leaving this one-horse town for a while, plopping myself down on the beach to read, while the atlantic ocean laps at my feet, browning in the north carolina sun...

posted by lonestarsteve on mon 11.07.05 7:48 AM

well, i gave it a shot. i quit smoking...for exactly 57 hours. now i'm smoking like a french whore again. i was really disappointed in myself at first. i couldn't believe my lack of will-power. i was wearing a patch, for christ's sake. i just couldn't fathom that this drug -- these tobacco sticks -- had such an incredible hold on me. i thought to myself that i had a better chance of quitting a crack cocaine habit. i felt utterly defeated.

then, after talking about it with a few of my addict friends, i felt better about myself. they comforted me. they reassured me. they told me, "but sweetie, you are a whore."

so i forgave myself, and decided to smoke for a while longer. when i'm ready to give it up, i will do just that. until then, does anyone have a light?

in other news -- and i hate to be such a pussy about this -- but it's too fucking hot outside. june's sweltering heat nearly killed me, and july isn't turning out to be much cooler. i mean, i moved to the south from the bitterly cold northeast to get warm and all, but this is just insane! my car registered 104° over the weekend. i really shouldn't complain, however, because at night it does cool down to a chilly 95°. and what a relief that is...

i'm just sayin'.

posted by lonestarsteve on thu 07.07.05 7:14 AM