I swear to freaking lord almighty, September 2017 has taken more casualties than all of 2016.
I am all hurricaned out
Somebody in President Cheetose' backwater hillbilly cabinet should go up to Alaska, tell HAARP to knock the shit off with that damn weather machine. HEY, KNOCK IT OFF, ASSHOLES.Multiple hurricanes in one season is not a fluke, I mean, come the fuck on!
The most accurate forecast for hurricane Sandy
It seems even mother nature can stifle this writer's progress...with the exception of about 7 relatives, our entire family resides in the Carribean. We got in touch with them yesterday and 2 days ago, thank goodness. They were not hurt or suffered damages, but the entire island is without power, save for a few government run municipalities and buildings. Without electricity, the water pumps don't run, so nobody has potable water. That's scary.
When we got hit with Hurricane Sandy, we were without power for a week. Most of you bitch & moan about getting your wifi cut off in such an instance...oh noes, now you can't play Witcher 3 on PS4! Cry me a river, douchebag. Try going without HEAT in the month of November because electricity transformers got knocked out! I'm talking about me, mummyfying my elderly parents in every article of clothing I could find, making them look as ridiculous as that kid in A Christmas Story who couldn't fold his arms down from wearing too many clothes. We could see our breath indoors, and wore jeans to bed every miserable night. We let candles burn out overnight to move around freely. I listened to the radio powered with D-cell batteries for updates on which towns are getting their power turned back on. Inside our house it was averaging 35F every day, and the only bit of warmth came around 11am-2pm, at the height of the sun. Since the whole house ran on electricity, that meant no hot water, no heating elements, and the stoves were electric burners. Living on bread, saltines, and cold instant coffee sucked a big bag of dicks, lemme tell ya.
Also, we played the "Let's call someone who might have had their power turned back on" game. You know, so we could warm up a bit, and charge our phones! Yeah, everyone we knew lived in the blackout part of the electric grid. It was enfuriating to watch all the houses across the street get their power 3 days before we did. Fuck us for choosing the wrong side of the street, amirite? Jeez.
At least we didn't worry about our food spoiling. So there's that.
Texas, Florida, basically the whole Carribean...they now have to worry about damages, mosquitos, stagnant water spreading sewage and chemicals, the spread of diseases, heat and humidity, job loss, and loss of life for the unlucky few. I actually said prayers for all of the afflicted. Hope God heard me above all the noise of torrential downpour and gale winds ripping roofs off.
We went through our own flood a few years back and it amazes me how a few inches of water can do so much damage, to the tune of $13K+. (would've easily reached $25k but we had friends deeply discount us) It was about 2ft of water. It also happened in late August.
Our repairs took months. I remember spending hours looking for wholesale warehouses selling clearance rack appliances, of which we bought 3. Had 2 entire kitchens redone, 2 bedrooms redone, new circuit breaker put in, and an entire bathroom gutted. Renovations are emotional roller coasters on good days, and this was more than I could bear. The news reporters called it a freak 100 year flood. Clearing out all the wet damaged crap we had became my sole responsibility. I was beyond exhausted; a zombie by the end of it, lost weight and everything. I looked like I never discovered what sleep was.
God help the poor souls that now have to write off their entire homes as a total loss. :-P
But like anything else, loss of material possession are replaceable. Loss of life is immeasurable. Being the kind of person I am, I try to look for the positive in any situation of fuckery. So in our case, I said to myself, "Well, we needed a renovation badly. This flood set that in motion." I would say for those who lost everything, to use this as an opportunity to apply much needed change. Find work up north. Have your insurance co. give you brand new everything if it's covered in your clauses. Have your renter's insurance reimburse you for everything. Hire an insurance adjustor if the insurance co. tries to dick you out of payments. Sometimes these harsh changes help to knock us out of our stagnant comfort zones.
So there's the positive for ya.
I'll get off my podium now. But I do send well wishes to all citizens affected by these natural disasters, and a speedy recovery to those who need it the most.
My other ventures
In between this hurricane nonsense, I also managed to squeeze in time for my new foray into webcasting, podcasting, and youtubing. Cultivating audiences in other channels and genres is real fucking hard. I mean, it takes time.The real challenge was podcasting. It's not just recording and uploading. It's not as easy as that. I found it condescending of every youtube video narrator making it seem so, so easy. It's not, simply because of terms like 'metadata tags' 'enclosure tags' 'RSS Feed' and the difficulty and mystique of starting an iTunes account. Spoiler alert: It's tricky.
I'm already on episode 2 of my podcast, but as I was feeding it through my blog, my RSS feed picked up on incorrect 'enclosure tags'? It took a while to find out how to fix that, and it scrambled my channels for a while. Since I've been taking notes on all of these mishaps, I'm actually gonna write a book on how to podcast for free for newbies at a later date. Stay tuned!
Other things putting my writing on hold
Sheduling is goddamn hard for an unmedicated ADHD person such as myself. I'm struggling balancing those things with the writing career, the one that seems to continue taking a backseat lately. Hmm. Though there were other things keeping me preoccupied:
Like reapplying grout in the bathtub! First time doing it too.
Nice clean lines, just the way I likes 'em!
I had no choice, as the previous job had completely peeled the fuck away from the tiles, showing a quite visible gap into the darkness of what lies beyond the tiles into the darkness of it all. As mysterious as finding Pennywise inside a sewer grate, or finding cosmonaut Matthew McConaughey inside an alternative universe messaging us with wristwatches. Anyway, that gap would allow moisture to seep into the wall and I wasn't about to have mold & mildew growing in between, so here I go! The surprising thing I learned about this project, was that you must apply grout sealant after the grout dries in 72hrs. Interesting. And keep the mask on when spraying. I accidentally left it off on the 3rd application, inhaled some, and then felt dizzy and near vomiting for an agonizing hour.
Learning takes place when we immerse ourselves into projects, ladies and gentlemen!
Hmm, what else...
Oh yea, Wednesday morning I discovered the ceiling fell in, on my way to get the laundry from the previous day. Saw the rainfall dripping from the ceiling and light fixture:
The old refrigerator sat directly above that hole, the one I asked- nay, begged my father to replace since last we had it fixed, remained put. He spent the equivalent of a new fridge to fix it. In his defense, it was on Xmas Eve, so we had no choice. The repair guy recommended we replace it. But stubborn as a mule, he stayed his ground. This man had a 1985 car before it died on us on the way to surgery, and this was in 2015! He just keeps things until they actually DIE.
So this 28 year old fridge had a water line with a pinhole prick into it, that leaked for God knows how many months. Tuesday morning that ceiling was in tact, so damages happened overnight. We aired everything out, and I was tasked with the duty of cleaning up the giant puddle of water that formed in the kitchen area. And clean up all the soggy plaster, gypsum and soggy sheetrock too. For that, I had to put on a mask & gloves, 'cuz that shit is itchy as hell. Had to shower afterwards, and that debris went in the trash drum, and it was heavy to move. I had to get a luggage cart and haul it to the curb this morning. So yeah. What could've been a simple $400.00 replacement, is now looking like a $1200.00 project.
What have we learned folks? Be smart. Do it right the first time.
No right time
I was madder than hell about all of this. Right before this grisly discover, I had an entire conversation about selling the house with my mom for the umpteenth time (she has Alzheimers's and keeps forgetting) and about how I don't get a break from every ridiculous crisis that occurs lately. I squandered 4 hours one day just trying to fix the annoying robocallers inundating our phone lines!
Truth be told, I am tired. And my emotions have been out of wack too. I cannot reach any state of equilibrium and it's driving me crazy. At this point, I'd be happy if things were boring and I was neutral; I don't need to be happy, just calm. Been downing St. John's Wort ever since to calm my frayed nerves. Lack of sleep is killing me. I can only get my shit done at the wee hours of night, when nobody needs me. The witching hour is my only friend.
So I went to walk the dog, to walk off the anger. And the caloriffic cookies I made/ate. On my usual walk, I ran into a friend, whom I mistakenly thought was doxxing me the last 3 months. Turns out his family got hit with the cancer, and shit in his house got real. Christ on a cracker! I gave him a shoulder to lean on and let him know he can ask me for help if things get too heavy, and they most likely will. And that was the day before the big surgery, so I know I won't see him for a while. I may be an asshole, but cancer is a bitch!
Walking back home, I felt the weight of all things like bad news, and nonsense, just lift off of me. I felt so much sympathy for my buddy, and so my shit paled in comparison. Thinking of others takes the edge off, for reals. My dad shrugged off the hole in the ceiling and said "Well, what can we do? We get it fixed, end of story." 10, 20 years ago, he would've had a much different reaction, one full of panic and frustration. I believe living as an octogenarian has seriously mellowed him out. I am at that halfway mark, anxiety ridden as always, and have yet a lot more to learn.
Hey Onyx, chill da fuk out bro! And cuntinue writing. Yes, I provoked that typo. Deal with it.
