I'm a Survivor

So the past few days Knoxville has been under attack of bipolar storms. The initial storm, about two days ago, was unbelievably sudden, more so than the storm in Mary Poppins. I was at Trio, the restaurant at which I am employed, and I was making a salad right beside the window looking out to the square. I put some lettuce in the bowl and looked outside. The sun was shining, I could faintly hear birds chirping through the glass, children were running through the fountains, parents were eating ice cream on the benches. I looked down to add some cranberries to the bowl, and not three seconds later looked back up out the window. The atmosphere was a haunted gray shade; no sunlight, just the cold glow of the bright storm clouds above. Lakefuls of rain were blowing by---horizontally--by the second. Wet leaves flew around, smacking into windows and sticking to every surface, the entire square was covered in hundred of leafy twigs. The power went out, customers panicked. I had to avert my eyes from the monsoon outside to comfort everyone and help them find seats in the restaurant. After a few minutes of bright lightning and cracking thunder, the power returned and the rain slowed to a drizzle. Throughout the evening, storms exploded and drowned the square, then immediately disappeared again several times. By the end of the night, about twenty cars on campus had been damaged by fallen trees, four of them totaled. No lives lost.

...That was two days ago. Yesterday was mostly peaceful, then today happened.

Today, mother nature came back for round two. Unhappy with her lack of homicides, she returned with a vengeance, perhaps a jealous attempt to outshine Katrina. So, again I'm at work, storms attack, blah blah blah, crazy winds, golf-ball sized hailstones, my phone is blowing up with people telling me about their broken cars and windows and flooded houses. Around 9 or 10, whenever I got off work, the storm seemed gone; it was barely drizzling. So I decided to not make my sister drive 10 minutes to come pick me up, and I walked home (just two miles away.) Thankfully, I put all my stuff in a plastic ziplock bag before leaving just in case, because halfway through my walk--right after I crossed Chapman Highway, the storm picked up again. It grew slowly this time, gradually getting stronger and stronger until I had just entered the Fort area (the college neighborhood right outside campus) when the wind and rain were so crazy that I couldn't see anything. I walked into the wind, head down, leaves flying all around me, a gallon of water in each raindrop all smashing into my face. My glasses had fogged up as well, making me even more blind, but I kept struggling forward, darting away from tall trees and poles every time lightning struck, as if I could outrun the lightning should it decide to strike the object near me.

I could hear trees whooshing all around me, branches cracking and sticks breaking, then out of nowhere I hear a significantly louder gust of wind and a feel a sudden bang on the upper side of my forehead, just above my hairline. I am knocked to the ground, and I stay there on my hand and knees, hiding my head face down, and holding the spot where I had been struck. Upon impact, the pain was incredible, but almost immediately subsided to just a sharp burning. So I arose and continued walking, much faster now with my head even lower, and my hands tense and ready to protect my face from any other projectiles. The wound on my head felt warm and unusually tender, as if my hair had disappeared and my raw scalp was exposed. My entire head was dripping from the rain, but the upper right side of my face felt much warmer than the rest of me. I suspected I was bleeding, but I couldn't see enough be sure, and if I touched my head the waterfalls of rain would immediately rinse the blood from my hands before I could even bring them down to eye level. I was almost home and as I started running, the storm eased to just a heavy rain.

I ran through the lobby hiding my head in my hands, receiving a lot of rude looks I'm sure, and didn't check for blood on my hands until I was in the privacy of the stairwell. Yes, there was blood. A lot of it. Just touching my head covered my entire palm and dripped down my wrist. I don't know if I was actually wounded that terribly, or if my running increased my pulse, and combined with the rain, thinned the exposed blood. I ran into my room, luckily not encountering anyone else on the way. I immediately grabbed my roll of toilet paper and squashed three miles of it into a bunch upon my face, wiping as much blood as I could. By this point, my head was throbbing, and I could feel the blood pumping out of the gash in my head. I removed my wet clothes and continued removing as much blood as I could. The bleeding was slowing very quickly, probably a product of my fat-clogged veins, but nevertheless, I was healing already. Pacing around for a few seconds, I decided to check facebook, and in doing so noticed many people posting pictures and complaints of their broken cars. So I decided to join the fun and took a picture of my head. Then I ran to the shower and washed what I could out of my hair, and tied a towel around my head for the night, and returned to my computer to post the picture.

Anyway, nearly four hours later, here I am, tired and sore with a searing headache, appreciating my invincibility. Yes, God could end the life He gave me in an instant if He wanted to; but should He simply provide me with lethally dangerous surroundings, leaving my life to the chance of my own actions, with no intention of interfering Himself... well, let's just say I'm a survivor.

At last

...Or should I say, "Aaaaaaaaaaat Laaaaaaaaast!" After two years of obsessive anticipation, a hint of hope has presented itself. The Queen has returned. Considering today is Easter, Beyonce's return is a beautiful allusion to Jesus's resurrection--no blasphemy intended, I know B isn't X. But anyway, a few days ago a new Beyonce song leaked into the Internet: "Who Run the World (Girls)." At first the song was somewhat disappointing, entertaining of course, but it didn't showcase her incredible voice. Also she bought the music from a preexisting dance song, and I'm not huge on unoriginality or "sampling" (although this is not sampling, she literally took the entire dance song as-is, and sang over it.). I, at this point having no idea or assumption that a new album was on the way, thought to myself "I hope this is just some messing-around-experimenting-with-new-sound kind of thing and not representative of her next album." But it, of course, grew on me anyway and now I like it. This song was released officially some two days later, whether it was already planned to release then or if they had to release it because the song was already running on the internet, I don't know; but it was released as the opening single to Beyonce's NEW UPCOMING ALBUM.

WHAAAAT????! says I.
GoogleGoogleGoogleGoogleGoogle

Yes! So Beyonce--who is for some reason secretive about everything, never even mentioning that she had even begun to plan to think about planning to begin to think about beginning thinking about songs to plan to think about maybe recording--has already finished recording her entire album, which is set to release some time in June, which is aMAAAAAziiinng.
Anyway I have high hopes for this album. I won't hate the radio anymore because it'll be full of B. I can fill the last few megabytes of iPod space. And there had better be lots of songs with those incredible long vibrato "YOOoooOOooOOOoooOOooooOOoooOOOoooOOOoOOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOOUUU" notes.
And Grammys. lots and lots of Grammys. By the way erryone, she (by the age of 28) won the 3rd most grammys of any woman in the world ever of all time. Jus saying. Annnywaaays.


And lastly. New album=New tour. Which means I shall be going. BFFs invited.

Nothing much,

So it's been over two weeks since my last blog post. I just haven't been in the writing mood much lately, and whenever I can muster any enthusiasm to write at all, it is directed at one of the thousand essays I have been assigned the past two weeks. I've been really busy with school; all of my instructors are giving a lot of this "end-of-the-term-but-not-quite-finals" work. And on top of all that, I am now back at work, serving ungrateful lawyers and snobby architects and businesspeople who feel the need to complain if I treat them any less than royalty. "Oh I'm sorry, I missed a spot shining your shoes. Yes master, I understand, that's six lashes, I'll go fetch the whip."
Anyway, there's no legitimate blog post today; I'm just affirming the fact that I am not neglecting this. I actually do have a lot to write about, like work, outdoors, tennis, friend drama, sushi, prostitutes...unfortunately I'm just not feelin' it.
But anyway, school ends in about two weeks, so I should be alright after that. Ciao.

Ring the Alarm!

Today a few friends and I were "working" in the little study room around the corner of my dorm's hall, when I decided a bag of popcorn would be the perfect addition to our little group. So I round the corner, go to my room, put a bag in the microwave, and set the timer to four and a half minutes. That seems long for popcorn, but my nine-watt cardboard microwave was assembled with Scotch tape circa 1957, so it's not quite as fast as the technologically advanced microwaves of the past lifetime. I didn't want to sit alone in my room, waiting for each kernel to individually burst into blossom while all my friends were watching hilarious Family Guy clips, so I figured it wouldn't hurt if I left and came back when I thought the popcorn was done--even if I was a few minutes late; what harm is there in cold popcorn?

A few minutes after returning to the study room , I decided the popcorn had more than enough time to finish, so I return to my room. I twist the doorknob, push on the door, and for a split second there was silence...then suddenly the piercing wail of an alarm stabs my eardrums, penetrating into the depths of my cerebellum! No light shone in the room except the small illuminated window of my Precambrian microwave displaying a black bag revolving in a cloud of smoke. I slap on the lightswitch to see the same gray smoke filling every crevice of my room, expanding slowly--too calmly for the panic at hand. In swift motions I open the microwave, almost ripping off its cardstock door, and both windows: giant panes of glass consuming the majority of my wall, yet prison-like restraints prevent them from opening beyond a two-inch crack. Then I grab a handful of ashes from the open microwave and rush out of the room.

Alarm still wailing, everyone in my hall stands on their threshold holding their door open looking left and right in confusion, all wondering whether or not to heed the shrieking warning and follow the fire exits to wait outside in their underwear, enduring the unseasonably cold night till the fire marshal decides the halls are safe to enter. Walking as fast as I can, breaking into small bursts of running, breathless from panic, I'm panting to everyone "It's okay! No fire, just burnt popcorn, relax!" Upon seeing the black fistful of smoke, their confused expressions quickly turn to smirks and relived chuckles, and as they retreat into their rooms, their hesitantly-closing doors allow to be heard the sound of their chuckles increasing to outright laughter.

I continued with my panicked run-walk, all the way to the end of the hall, flying down the stairs, managing to stub every one of my toes separately on each individual stair, and collide into the door blocking the bottom of the staircase with enough force to spring the air-pressure-slowed slab of metal against the opposite wall fast enough for it to bounce back and fracture my left elbow. I continued down the next hall, still motivated by the murderous screams of the alarm to go even faster than the light-speed at which I was already projecting myself. I finally arrived at the lobby where a dozen or so residents of my dorm were hesitantly approaching the exit doors in their sweats and slippers, dreading waiting in the arctic air for a safety approval. I slammed into the front desk, wedging myself between two inquiring students to explain the lack of danger to the dorm's authorities.

The obese deskman made a show of deliberately trudging to the alarm control box, pausing to sway his head around like a concussed owl and ensure he had the undivided attention of every student on campus, then slowly--ever so slowly--fingered each one of the switches, pausing between each one of course, before the alarm finally silenced. Its echo continued to resonate painfully in my ears, slowly transforming into Beyonce's "Ring the Alarm!"

What was once a lump of blackened, flaking popcorn bag was now just a gray stain on my hand and an incriminating trail of charcoal powder, leading all the way through the lobby, down the hall, up the stairs, through the other hall, and turning sharply under the door into my room. The residents in the lobby, whose numbers had multiplied during the fat man's long journey to the control box, all eyed me scornfully. They waited around awkwardly for some official release or announcement, till the manatee behind the desk slowly lifted his blubbery head and waited for all the cellulite in his neck to stop dancing. After that unbearably long period of time, he bellowed to the whole city that everything was in order, the misfit who burned his popcorn has confessed his retardation, and everyone could go back to their rooms and stop disturbing his McDonald's feast. Their scornful looks changed to sneers and sighs of relief. So, with my head down, I followed the masses back up the stairs hearing echoes of whispered profanities at the "dumbass" who can't even microwave popcorn.

I think it would indeed be worthwhile for me to take up the sport of manatee hunting.