This whole town and horse pastures and back roads and everything lost power for four hours on Sunday so, bored, we drove to the parking lot of the country club to watch the fireworks, the the only single thing going for entertainment except the amazing Mexican ice cream place and we were all full.
(And the fireworks were after a giant tree fell across the street from my dad's house--miracle no cars were underneath. You can only watch guys clearing the limbs away with chainsaws for about 45 minutes though--although it's interesting that whole time, I'll tell you that much.)
Shocked by lack of cable, during the fireworks next to the golf course I had this gripping paranoid fantasy to increase the drama: what if there was a big blackout and we found ourselves in a position of being grateful for the chance to move into a refugee camp at the country club with all the tennis people who dream about making out with Bill O'Reilly and don't have a thought in their heads and are completely irritating and apocalyptic and I hate them? And I was stuck sharing water rations and crab cakes and iceberg lettuce salads and gin and tonics with them in gratitude not to be stuck without amenities? And listen to them talk about their fucking Hummers and the south beach diet?
I was completely frozen in panic with this thought. It was the scariest thing I could think of. It is what the people who waitress there surely have to deal with and it is why I got fired from every single waitressing job I ever lied my way into.
And then when I was at the point of imagining that I'd just have to make friends with a leathery-tan older lady smoking Mores and get her to share her Xanaxes and Vicodans with me, I realized that I would just teach a writing class. In the imaginary hell of weeks at the country club refugee camp, if I teach a writing class I can get to the interesting bits of people no matter how much America in its current surface incarnation has obliterated their nuance. Fuck yes. (And I would definitely try to get the lady smoking the Mores in the writing class for sure.)
Hilarious. And I'm so thankful there was a way out of that worst case scenario! The challenge and amazing fun adventure of the idea totally buoyed my spirits and I felt really, really lucky.
Right now part of my meandering/composing day is reading Neko Case interviews. I like this one (and you have to kind of scroll down a bit to get to the best parts including the morning she woke up with gum stuck in her panties) but there are tons more