2009-05-26 - 9:35 a.m.
I recently saw a summer thunderstorm described as "rip-snorting" and that's what I saw yesterday. I was sitting at my desk, windows wide open, when the warm air turned cooler and, as soon as the first drops hit the fire-escape landing, it turned electric, metal, alive. Then came the rip-snorting part and when I went to get a drink of water, I saw that the dog was shivering. He must've known what was coming, because after I sat down, I was typing the phrase "... the men wore aprons..." but I only got to "... the men wore apr" because then this gigantic, titanic, motherfucking rip-snorting bolt of lightning hit very, very close to me, perhaps striking one of the taller apartment buildings nearby. No distance of any kind between the bright white flash and the smack-crack of thunder. It was so loud and sudden that it took my breath away. It felt as if my heartbeat were reset, rebooted. I took a look at the dog and I'd never seen an animal so obviously scared before: ears up at strange angles, eyes wide open, his body frozen but trembling just a little, all of it shocked by this terrible and huge thing that must be, to such eyes, something like an awful, uncontrollable god.
This morning, upon walking the two blocks to my car, I rounded the corner on Guilford and saw three cops standing around one of those boxy Scions, parked at a meter on the corner. I saw, through the dark-uniformed bodies, that the driver's-side window had been smashed. The youngest cop asked me if I knew who the car belonged to, and I said sorry, but I didn't. Then I saw that the two cars in front of it had also had their driver's-side windows smashed. They are nondescript sedans: Honda Accords, or something like that. So, three cars in a row. My truck was the fourth. I kept walking, scared to see the jagged blue-green edges of glass, but I got a little closer and saw that, no, all four windows were in tact. The two cars in front of mine were a new-looking, sleek Porsche, and then a sleek, silver Mercedes-Benz (very odd for my neighborhood, and especially for that street, which is not the safest around). I've often wondered if my truck--gray, scratched, dented tailgate and grill, completely unremarkable--hasn't been window-smashed because it looks unpromising to smash-and-grab guys.
Memorial Day Cookout Note: Three or four of my close friends have recently quit smoking. And that's great and wise and all of that. Here's something I've noticed, however, about addictions and quitting them: they tend to make those addicted intensely self-centered. Or maybe it just sounds that way because everything they say is centered around this act of quitting smoking, or maybe we're all self-centered anyway and these folks are just the worst at hiding it. Suffice it to say that I've heard plenty about giving up cigarettes lately.
Good news: I'm going to Park City, Utah, in June, for a week, expenses paid. I won a writing competition. Every now and then, the view from the quiet desk, the one with the cup jammed full with oddball pens and pencils, gets bright, bright.
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