First, a thank you note from Jenny- the girl I wrote about in this entry.

I wanted to thank everyone who took the time to write to me in the past few weeks since my mothers death. It is amazing to hear of personal stories like mine and people sympathetic to my situation that don’t even know me. Although this has been an extremely difficult time in my life it has been comforting to find support and love in my great friends, like Dusty. I have also been so touched by the love that you have all expressed. My mom wasn’t computer literate and the thought that people all over the world were talking about her and praying for us because of an online journal would have been very overwhelming to her. But she would have been flattered, as am I. I know that my family has been comforted by the prayers you offered on our behalf and for that I sincerely thank you.

Jenny

And I thank you as well, for helping her feel some mad Diaryland love.

I have been busy with work and studying, so while I have been making daily observations and philosophizing in my little head, I haven’t had the time/will/desire/need to write. Things happen, and I think, “that would be a good diary thingy”, and I write it down on something. Then I lose the thing I wrote it down on. It’s the creative process. If you don’t understand it, you are obviously not creative.

Creativity is intelligence with a boner.

In case you haven’t heard yet, Atlanta is in the midst of Armageddon. In the past four days, we’ve had hail, a tornado, and an earthquake. When the swarms of locusts move in, I’m finding God. Just to ask him “Hey man, what’s with the locusts? Not many farmers in Atlanta, you know, so umm…unless you just want to punish us by making us run out of windshield washer fluid, you might want to change tacks. I know it’s been done before, but you might try a fire or something.” He’d probably be like, “Dusty, give me one reason I should listen to you. I’ve read your diary, and you are an asshole.”

“Good point, God.”, I’d say, but then I’d show him the cool airbrushed license plate I got him that says “I am my co-pilot”, and he’d see the humor in that (God has a sense of humor- look at a giraffe sometime and tell me he doesn’t), and he’d end up probably still sending me to hell, but maybe the locusts would be gone in favor of a good old fashioned burnin’.

Atlanta sucks when weather strikes. Even if it rains, people suddenly forget how to drive. They just creep down an eight lane highway at 45 mph until they find a good place to spin into the retaining wall and abandon their car. Anyone with an SUV seems well aware of the fact that the “4WD” emblem on the dash makes them invulnerable, so they drive about 90 mph just to rub it in. They are usually found in ditches after the rain clears.

In the early 90’s we had a “winter storm” that dumped an astounding 9” of snow in some areas. With a total of one snowplow in the city, things were pretty messed up for a while. Since then, it has snowed a few times, but the first storm gave the entire population a license to overreact from that point on. Now if snow is even forecast, the news stations send reporters on assignment to be embedded with any business that sells kerosene heaters. Rednecks from everywhere buy them by the dozen, in preparation for what is sure to be widespread chaos and famine. The news reporters stand outside and film the weather, and they interrupt television shows every 15 minutes for a “Severe weather update”, complete with 3D graphics and dramatic opening music. Then cut to Missy Karlson, who is “on the scene”, where snow was reported to have been seen.

–Missy, how’s it looking out there?—

“well Mark, the snow isn’t actually falling yet, but there is some water on the ground, so I drove my car into a telephone pole. People are thinking about snow, and that has caused massive traffic problems throughout metro Atlanta. The man standing next to me said that he saw snow particles falling only a few minutes ago.”

(pans over to man on the street)

“uhh…yeah. I’z jes walkin down here not fiddeen minutes ago, and I saw these flakey thangs coming down, so I ran for shelter in the Sears at the end of the block. Luckily, I didn’t get any on me. I hear it makes your skin boil.”

(back to Missy)

“Well, there you have it. Snow will kill you if it touches you, and if it touches the ground then that ground is unuseable until the snow goes away. We are now advising everyone to seek shelter and eat their children rather than let them suffer. I’ll be back in fifteen minutes for another update, assuming I live that long.”

Ignorance is dangerous.

On Friday, we had a storm of massive proportions move across town. This was actually a real live tornado-breeding hail producing bad sumbitch. I don’t get scared of weather unless I think it poses a very real threat to my person. Friday was just such a day. Winds on the ground were clocked at 60 mph in some areas of the city, and golf balls the size of hailstones were falling out of the sky. The Ladyfriend and I parked our cars under a bridge on the way home and watched the fury unfold. The winds inside that cloud were over 200 mph, and the whole thing was glowing green. It was certifiably wrong. It was moving really fast and cleared out of town in an hour or so, but it was quite a ride.

While we were parked, a bum approached the Ladyfriend’s car and started knocking on her window. I was more afraid for him than her, as she seems to like bums even less than I do, and could very well stab him in his homeless eye with a pen. I opened my door and told him to leave her alone. It seems that “leave her alone and get away from her car, you piece of shit” translates in bumspeak to “come over to my car, I love your scent and have gifts of alcohol and cash for more alcohol to bestow upon you”. He came to my car to tell me that he was just checking to see if she was okay, which translates to workingmanspeak as “I was harassing her because I am a stinky bastard who goes around begging for money and making up stories about how I’m between jobs”. I told him very loudly that I didn’t give a shit, and he’d better stay well clear of my car and the car in front of me. He does have some sense, because he left us alone instead of being hate-crimed.

This morning at 5:00, I was jolted awake by an earthquake. Okay, it was a tremor, but when you are dead asleep, it’s an earthquake. Ladyfriend and I woke up at the exact same moment, and as I was about to apologize for farting, she said “it was a tremor”. I started to thank her, but then realized she was talking about actual seismic activity. Turned out to be better than blaming it on the dog we don’t have. I still wasn’t fully awake or aware of what was going on, but my body was reacting the best it could, and I involuntarily got up and went into the kitchen, I guess because can openers can stop earthquakes, and at a primal level I understand that. I was pretty wide awake by then, so we turned on the picture tube to have a look-see at how the local news was going to make this into a drama fest. It proved hilarious.

This kind of coverage is not going to go far in the effort of the “new south” to portray its residents as anything other than inbred yokels. The stations already had a snazzy graphic that said “NEWS ALERT: EARTHQUAKE STRIKES ATLANTA”, and were taking calls from viewers. They did a great job screening the calls, because not a single intelligent person got on the air.

“Hello, Fern from Keeserville, welcome to Atlanta morning.”

(Dog barking in background) “hello? Am I on TV? HEY MOMMA! I’m talkin’ on the teevee!!”

“yes sir, please, tell us about your experience this morning.”

“well, I uz gittin up ta’ dig some night crawlers on account a’ me and clem’s goin’ fishin’ later, and I heard my dawg skeeter start howlin’ like he got a burr in his ass. I found him all honkered down under the house, twixt the lawn mower and where I buried diddy. He only goes there when he’s real skeered- like when we start the camaro or I come home drunk and ready ta’ beat on him, so I knowed sumpthin weren’t right. Wasn’t two minutes later then evathang dun got ta’ shiverin. My sons Twig and Kid come outside hollerin bout a tornado, but I knowed it wuz a quake, cause we wasn’t getting’ rained on.

“wow. Quite a harrowing experience. So the dog seemed to know it was coming?”

“yup. Skeeter’s real smart. He knows when we’s gunna feed him just by the sound of the bag.”

“Okay, Mr…Fern. Glad everyone’s okay. Thanks for the call.”

After that, they had a reporter (who HAD to have been the most junior member of the team and just wanted to keep her job) go to a coffee shop close to where I work and interview people about what happened just an hour earlier. Trying desperately to make an uninteresting event as intriguing as possible, she asked such probing questions as “Was anything in your house damaged?” and “So how are you feeling now that it is over?”

She got lukewarm answers, and I was very tempted to go down there and volunteer to answer, since it was live and they couldn’t edit my answers.

“I am standing here with Mister Pork Tornado, seeker of justice, who was awakened from a really rad dream about skateboarding with a bear when the quake of 2003 struck. Tell us about what you went through, mister Tornado.”

(Trying to sound choked up)”Well, I was on a halfpipe with a 400 pound grizzly, doing a really kickass rail slide double fakey mute fishgrab, when…*sniff*…it started.”

“Sounds like you went through some pretty scary stuff, mister ‘nado.”

“No, I’m just pissed my dream got cut short. I’ll never know what the skateboard judges thought of me and the bear. Plus, How often do you have a dream that good?!”

“So what was the quake like?”

“At first I thought I farted. Then I thought someone had crashed their truck into my apartment building to get my model airplanes.”

“Was there any damage?”

“No. The place just kind of shuddered a little bit, like when my Ladyfriend’s vampire neighbors decide to spawn at three in the morning. I think it scared my fish. My cat turned over, but I don’t think she actually woke up.”

“So how are you feeling now that it is over?”

“Well, it was only like four seconds long, and most people don’t even know it happened except for the news telling them…errr…I mean…if we band together as a community and stay strong through this horrible disaster, we can come out of it a stronger Atlanta…errr…umm…It sounded just like a freight train! I jumped up and put on my earthquake pants and checked ta’ make sure the trailer wasn’t gonna fall off the blocks…what exactly are you looking for here? IT WAS NO BIG DEAL.”

Here’s my prediction. “Watch The Daily Show” tonight. If they bother to mention anything about our pansy little 4.1 earthquake, the on-screen graphic will be a fat guy in overalls and a straw hat with a piece of wheat sticking out of his mouth running comically away from a trailer that is about to fall on him.

Let me know if I’m right.

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