Hello dear readers! Mr. GD is back and eager to share her hurricane Rita experiences with you. Did you miss me? No? Okay…

Mem’ries…like the corners of my mind…

After all the hurricane evacuation rigmarole I now understand why people never want to do it. When you watch it on the television of course there is always the obligatory, toothless, doublewide dwelling, hillbilly steadfast in their determination to stay put and you think, are these people insane? No they aren’t insane and those of us who would even consider not leaving are not all toothless, doublewide dwelling, hillbillies. I didn’t want to leave either and for a multitude of reasons but I think the most important one was that leaving my home was just too depressing a thought to contemplate.

It’s very easy to sit back and play armchair FEMA Director but only when you are faced with [un]certain annihilation can you comprehended the amount of emotion that creeps into a person’s mind at that time. Do I stay and tough it out? Do I flee and spend every waking moment worrying about my home?

Home. House. My home. My house. We use those words interchangeable but there is a difference. A house is a tangible item but a home is more abstract. I remember a joke by one of my favorite comedian’s, George Carlin. He was talking about the plight of the homeless and he said that the term homeless is actually a misnomer. What these people should be called is “houseless” or “permanent shelter impaired”; anything but homeless. After the events of the past weekend I tend to agree with him. I was concerned about the structure but not in and of itself. What troubled me about it not being there anymore were all of the memories both good and not so good, associated with that structure.

I’m a member of a very small minority. I’ve lived in the same state, in the same city, in the same house all of my life. That’s right, from my birth to this very day I have called the same structure home. And not only that, but the house has been in my family for almost 40 years. The Fair Housing Act of 1968 allowed my grandparents to buy a well made home in nice (read: crime free “white neighborhood” near excellent schools with trees and room for the kiddies to run around, yadda, yadda, yadda) area. When my grandparents where no longer able to manage a large house my parents took over the note and now that house belongs to me.

How could I leave all those family dinners? What about my brother breaking his arm falling from one of our trees and my frightened cousins tucking him in bed instead of telling a grownup that he was hurt? What about my sister almost having her first baby on our living room sofa? Or me on Christmas Eve after Midnight Mass opening my first grown-up record album, Michael Jackson’s Off The Wall? Screw the damn TV, my DVDs, cool retro bike, massive shoe collection, and spoiling food in the fridge! With time I can replace those things but I can’t replace the memories.

The great advantage of living in a large family is that early lesson
of life's essential unfairness. ~ Nancy Mitford

At any rate; my mother chose to flee…to my aunt’s house about 40 miles away…dragging me kicking and screaming. Now I love my family but I’d rather die in a hurricane then be locked up in a house all weekend long with them (No I really mean it!). God must have heard my wails of agony and despair because while I slept it was decided that I should be sent away from the bosom of my loving family to stay with my cousin’s friend Ms. X. Thank the Lord for X! I’ve never had so much fun in a hurricane! She had her godson staying with her so we played board games, watched movies, ate junk food and giggled all damn weekend. No one pestered me about what I was going to do with my life, whom I was dating, and when I was going to get my shit together. No one dredged up painful memories from the past or blamed me for past painful memories. In short there were no mothers, aunts, sisters, brothers, or cousins to peck at my head like chickens at an ear of corn!

I know I shouldn’t be so catty but I laughed LOUDLY when I found out that while X and I passed a pleasant weekend together my loving family spent the last day of their exile in complete darkness when the power went out. That’ll teach them to send me away! [Evil Laugh]

Don't laugh at a youth for his affectations; he is only trying on
one face after another to find a face of his own. ~ Logan Pearsall Smith, Age and Death, Afterthoughts, 1931

One funny note – X’s godson (we’ll call him “Spike” as he’s still a minor and doesn’t deserve the humiliation I’m about to dump on him) was a little too interested in yours truly. Now while I’m used to being ogled by grown men it was an entirely new experience to be ogled by a pubescent youngin’. I kept noticing his little sidelong glances but I just thought he was shy around new people. It wasn’t until he told me that he was thirteen that it all made sense. I swear he didn’t look a day over 9 years old! When he first told me I didn’t believe him so I asked X and she verified that he is in fact thirteen. He was so cute! By the time he’d warmed up to me it was almost time for me to leave. I remember I was using X’s computer to check my email and he stood right there next to me switching his attention (which was no easy feat mind you) from my cleavage to my personal email.

Little boys…gotta love’em right? Sometimes I wonder how they even make it to adulthood. They’re just like men but with half the self-control. Wait, is that even possible? That would be like a negative amount right?

Home again, home again, jiggety-jog…

Well we made it back in one piece. My house was thankfully left undamaged, except for one of my twin crepe myrtle trees. My neighbor’s tree was completely uprooted by the high winds and fell across the street and into my front yard, shaving off the top half of one of the trees. It also whacked a fair amount of my next-door neighbor’s shrubbery. While I hate that another one of my neighborhood’s beautiful old tress had to bite the dust I’m happy no one was injured and that there was no significant property damage.

Once the city gets the power running again I will move back home, away from my mother’s beak, er…I mean loving arms. Solitude is a beautiful thing…and so is being left to watch Prison Break in silence and to drool over Wentworth Miller (I die! I die!) and Dominic Purcell (Even sexier speaking in his natural Australian accent) in the privacy of my own home.

My own home. Sigh!

Next hurricane I will not leave my house unless Hill Harper, Michael Phelps, Sean Paul and Wentworth Miller come to personally escort me to higher ground! - GD