When the Levee Breaks, You Got No Place to Go

Oklahoma is a national disaster area as always this morning. It's raining for the first time in a billion years and the town resembles nothing so much as the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927. Our house is built on relatively lower ground, so every spring the rain puts us literally underwater. The backyard is completely submerged, despite the presence of ground-level drains that are supposed to alleviate this problem. I walked out barefoot into three inches of icy water on the patio to check on the drains. I reached into a sea of brown water in the vicinity of a drain to make sure it wasn't blocked. By the time I touched it, my elbow was submerged.

Spent the morning baling water off the patio like my name was Captain Ahab. I should check the real estate listing --  I thought I lived in a modest one-story ranch, not a damn whaling vessel. I won't miss doing this.

I blogged about this in a previous life, because it floods pretty much every year. Sometimes the water creeps over the patio and floods the dining room. I always get secretly angry at people when they wax poetic about how wonderful it was to sleep while listening to rain. I'm never bundled cozily in bed when it rains -- I'm sitting by the back door keeping a damn candlelight vigil against the destruction of our house. Having recently put down "wood" flooring to replace the ruined carpet, I can only assume, with our luck, it will flood again. What can I say? My life is like that.

I've put off writing for awhile because every time I try to describe what's going on at the current moment, I am sucked into a whirlpool of bitterness and anger that would put a Shakespearean villain to shame. Disposing of your childhood literary best friends and family-built furniture will do that to you. Some days you can't even afford your memories.

Outside, the rain wears on into hour twelve.

new adventures in the old west

(This post is ripped from a letter to CLB. Names have been changed, but only to protect the identity of the very, very guilty.)

So I’m sure you remember that when I come here I try to avoid everyone from high school, but particularly my old pal B. S**** who a) drove to Nash one summer to visit me without an invitation and embarrassed me hugely in front of the fam by doing so, and b) gave me that awk “I like you” letter and teddy bear two Xmases ago. So I never tell him when I’m in OK because, although I told him very firmly I was not interested, I’m still a little creeped out. There are other awk stories about him, but I think you get the picture.

Anyway, Mom came home sick around 10pm and we went out to get some drugs. I’m waiting in the car with the dog in the deserted Walgreen’s parking lot, when who pulls up to my window but a clown car full of S****s. Literally. B in the back and his twin and his wife (married 6 mos. after h.s. graduation) up front. I’m sure they recognized the car and pulled up. But instead of laying the seat down and playing dead til they went inside like a smarter person would’ve done, I waved. Idiot! So then of course we had to loiter on the sidewalk by the Redbox and talk… no sign of B yet but you know how he loves to show up at my house uninvited.

SF and I recently discovered a new way to exploit the college for our own gain: student movies and events. Like they did at our school, OU shows films in the union building for students pretty frequently, sometimes with events to go with. And they don’t check IDs. And BB borrows cuz’s on-campus parking permit, so we’re really living the high life for free. A couple days ago we went to an event called, wait for it, “Blood, Love, and Chocolate”. The highlights were a chocolate fountain, the latest Twilight movie, and lots of sad freshman girls. It was insane. I’ve only seen the 1^st Twilight film and this is like #4, but unfortunately I read all the books so I know what’s going on. Frankly, I think the whole TL franchise is a degrading, anti-feminist, racist, conservative nightmare, but I also don’t see how it could be so popular when the films suck so much.  I mean, people in the audience, lonely teenage girls who TL is aimed at were laughing at how crappy the film was! If I see another TL, I’ll make a bingo card/drinking game. Drink once every time an “actor” delivers a line like a robot, twice when a woman is willingly controlled by a man. Every time Native Americans are stereotyped or portrayed negatively, consult the actual Native American sitting next to you (SF) and make the :O face. 

As we were leaving, SF said “At least my boyfriend’s not a vampire.” To which I said, “Are you sure? He’s pretty old.”

In other news, I'm probably going to hell.