Sandy

A storm is coming. 

It's kind of scary and exhilarating at the same time to wait on Sandy--the storm of the century. As a hurricane and a tropical storm, Sandy is slated to be  a massive monster. Already "hundreds of thousands" have evacuated along the eastern seaboard.

I've never been in a hurricane or a typhoon or anything before. I'm nervous. We are well stocked. I've been buying supplies for the last week--ever since this storm hit Cuba. The only thing that I'm really worried about is the power going out, well that and Natalie having to go to work downtown. Even if schools close, I guess the corporate world doesn't shut down. Go figure.

I hope this isn't when the cities of New York and Boston are supposed to fall into the ocean. Really hope not. We've got so much more to live for. Heck, we don't even have kids yet.

Noisy Neighbors

Is it bad to hope for a terrible calamity or disaster to befall your neighbors that keep you up at night? No? Great. Thanks.

The Menacing Walk of the Villain

Ever notice that when a good guy and bad guy are fighting, the bad guy only has to walk slowly, menacingly towards the good guys. I mean the good guy will be running, full sprint away from the bad guy, and the bad guy just walks slowly towards them. Somehow bad guys defy the laws of physics and end up in front of the good guy and ambushes them. How do they do that? Do they just burst into a full sprint when the camera is off them?

9/11/01

Michael walked into the Seminary room late. The lesson had just begun, and we all kind of looked up wearily when he said, "A plane crashed into the World Trade Center. We were watching it on TV, that's why we're late."

When I heard that I thought he was talking about a small personal plane--not a big deal. When I got home at around 730, my dad called for me to come over to the TV in the family room. On the screen I saw huge plumes of smoke coming from one of the towers. We stared, fixed on the image of smoke pouring from the tallest building in New York. Minutes later, another plane slammed into the building--live on international TV. A stunned reporter at a loss for words filled the airwaves with silence. Our horror grew as the first one building, then another slowly peeled downward, tumbling tons of concrete a hundred stories down to the ground below. On another channel a fire raged in the ruins of a section of the Pentagon.

I was in 9th grade. It was one of those defining moments in history were everyone remembers where they were when it happened. How our world has changed since then. It used to be easy to travel. Now it's a pain.  We still live in the shadow of what happened, even 11 years after the event. Hard to imagine what our world would have been like without it.

The Pool

Eight days since the pool closed and the water is already starting to turn green. Last time it took management until November before they cleaned and drained it. The pool was a mass of green water, algae climbing up the concrete edges. For some reason it was oddly satisfying to see how dirty it got before they cleaned up. I wonder how green this pool will get before it's drained.

Equivalent Exchange

"Human kind cannot gain anything without first giving something in return. To attain, something of equal value must be lost."

So that's the mantra of Fullmetal Alchemist--an anime I've been watching lately. Kind of a true statement. It doesn't matter what you want, you have to give something up for it. Everything in this world has a price tag, even if it's something as simple as that ever present, ever elusive commodity: time. Even forming relationships with other people requires a sacrifice of time.

On another note, I just love starting new anime adventures. There is something exciting about starting a new anime.

Total geek moment, sorry. Haha.

One Year

Today marks the one year anniversary of our move to Boston. After nearly dying in one of the city's infamous rotaries (grrrrrrrr), driving past our apartment complex and having to circle around, we pulled into Overlook Ridge--our new home for the next year. After unloading all of the stuff that was in the car (I'm still amazed that all of that fit in our car. I mean look at it!) we drove to Target, not knowing it would be one of a few scarring moments of driving in Boston. I think I'm finally used to it. Scarring things tend to happen to me on my first day in new places. Here I tried to make a left turn at an intersection and while I was patiently waiting, some lady in a BMW decided that she was going to pass me on the left. THE LEFT on a one lane road! I'm still not over it, but I've seen it happen a lot here. Stupid drivers.

When I first got to Rexburg, oh so many years ago, I sat outside of my apartment feeling sorry for myself. I was alone in Rexburg. All of my friends were back in Canada. As I thought about how I was marooned in some kind of forsaken wilderness, a tumble weed rolled past my apartment, bumping along every crack in the asphalt and brushing along the bushes by Days Inn. God, I thought, had a wicked sense of humor. At that point in my life I thought that tumbleweeds and cowboys were stereotypes, or costumes that people wore on Halloween or in old episodes of Looney Toons. Shows what I knew.

In the year since moving to Boston I've been through a lot of perspective changes. There are days where I don't recognize myself. There are days where there is a great disparity between the person I am now, and the person I was back when I first met Nat--all fire and passion. I think I've mellowed out after life has finally started. At times it's been a trying year, but I think it would have been harder if I didn't have Natalie there for me. She keeps me going, gives me a sense of emotional stability that I've never known in my life. Things that would have really discouraged me before, don't really faze me anymore.


What will next year bring? I'm hoping a renewed sense of purpose. Children?

Ha. Maybe not quite yet.