Addlepated

Almost immediately after posting that last one, my power went out. It’s creeping up on four hours. I’ve got candles (although the flashlight in the house looks like it may not have much battery life left and I don’t have any more D batteries – there are a couple flashlights in the car if I get desperate). I’ve done some reading. I took a pretty solid nap (although it’s probably a sign you grind your teeth way too much when you dream about grinding your teeth and needing to put your mouth guard in).

And, it’s just getting on to sunset now. I’ve never really been afraid of the dark, but I realized this is the first sustained power outage I’ve had during waking hours – usually they’ve been late enough at night that I go to bed (or they’ve lasted less than three hours).

There was the time my last landlord didn’t pay the bill, so I went without electricity for two days – I spent those nights after work reading or using my work laptop and a neighbor’s unsecured wireless to check my email.

This time, I have my own laptop and no unsecured wireless in the vicinity. I’m typing this while I watch Serenity until the battery dies. I could work on the revisions I was supposed to do this weekend (I officially blew my first self-imposed revision deadline yesterday) but the wind and the darkness are making me anxious and distracted. The only way to deal with it is to make myself MORE distracted, hence movie time.

Plus, I have a splitting headache.

And, I’m missing my mom again. I’m missing the way she would check in before, during, after severe weather. How she would watch the weather channel obsessively and then call me and argue about what weather I was experiencing (even when I was looking out my own window) if I dared to contradict the weather forecast.

It’s officially four powerless hours now, which means I should probably throw out everything in my refrigerator as soon as the lights come back on.

I’d never really thought about the fact that we refer to electricity as “power” until just now. Because I DO feel powerless right now, more so than I have in a long time. Maybe because it’s dark or the wind is really something (although it seems to have calmed quite a bit) or because I’m alone and feel disconnected.

Less than a week ago, my office shook from an earthquake hundreds of miles away. It was a gentle rumbling – most people didn’t notice it – but it was enough to make me so dizzy I thought I might throw up for a few minutes there.

Today, I watched as the sea roiled and crashed into the rocks because of a hurricane that was still miles off. The wind tore two trees in half and left them in my driveway, knocked the power out for hours.

It’s scary to be reminded that we’re just tiny little beings on top of this spinning globe in the middle of space. It’s like how Kaylee just described the Reavers in Serenity: “They was men who reached the edge of space, saw a vasty nothingness and went bibbledy over it.”

***Power came back on about 7.25 hours after it went out. I'm still feeling pretty addlepated, though.