Mush

I haven't been writing much on here because my post-Ike brain has turned into a large pile of mush. Immediately hitting publish on the, "When, for the love of God, are we going to get power?" post my Mom called and said that the power was on, but that I shouldn't get excited because it was on once before for a crushing 15 minutes of glory before it faded back into nothing.

The power has stayed on.

Every day I go home and revel in electricity. If it wouldn't be weird and slightly dangerous, I'd roll around in some electrical currents and declare myself part of the post-Industrial Age. I love it. Zac loves being able to watch Thomas the Tank Engine videos on the computer and I love DVRing all of the TV shows that I haven't been able to watch this week.

What I've realized is that there is a huge problem with prioritizing the restoration of residential power. The problem is that people go back to work without working stop lights. On Monday it took me an hour and a half to get to work, then almost two hours to get across town for a class I'm taking at Rice University, then an hour to get home at 8pm. That's over four hours in the car. Driving home from my class, I had a complete meltdown. As Oprah would call it, it was an ugly cry. It involved me sobbing in traffic with my eyes to bleary to count the number of electrical and semi-trucks that I passed on my way back to the house.

I'm not even sure that I want to take this class. The class is the second in a series of five classes to earn a credential for non-profit fundraising. I took the first class last spring when I only had one job and a firm knowledge of where to find a clean set of sheets. Now I have two jobs and a class that meets twice a week for two hours. Add in a heap of boxes from the upcoming move this Saturday and suddenly my stress level went from "noticeable, but tolerable" to "holy shit, my head is going to explode as I ram into the back of the SUV going 5mph on the freeway". I had to cancel my therapy appointment, that's how stressed I was. I couldn't imagine trying to go back out into traffic to meet with my therapist and discuss how stressed I was. Simple coping methods of lavender-scented baths and warm heating pads were not making the grade.

Enter a man that I'll call Dew, simply because the name "Frost Heaving" would be too long of a nickname, although I love a great double entendre. Dew and I met about three or four weeks ago. We've gone out on several dates and I've had a great time. Whenever he hears that I'm feeling stressed, his first question is always, "How can I help?" He's asked that a lot in the past month, particularly during the evacuation and week of indoor camping with no electricity. He came over to my parents' house on Tuesday for a frantic packing session that involved twenty cardboard boxes and a lot of children's toys. All of the boxes are now stacked in my parents' dining room, although with the furniture and boxes that I never unpacked that are in the garage.

As of Saturday, September 27th, I'll officially be living on my own again. Zac and I will be living with my parents part-time until the end of my class, but I'm excited and more than a little overwhelmed at being a lease-holder again. Electricity and cable bills are not something that I've missed having. Independence and the chance to walk around naked are though, so there is a positive side to everything.

If I could just get my brain to start working again, I'd be great. Until then, I have to deal with the feeling that I'm swimming through fog while trying to form a sentence. Fortunately, I have a lot of time on the road stuck in traffic to figure out what I want to say.