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You and me, we got a whole world to key
Jul. 19th, 2007 07:55 pmIt has been dead at work. Practically silent, every night. Usually my only task is to send one letter, perhaps scan one document. Then the halls clear out and for the last two hours I am alone. It's not bad, I've been planning accordingly and getting other random isht done. But there have certainly been times where I thought, this would be the perfect night for me to leave early, to go do [X] which I would much rather be doing. Except, when I leave, I don't get paid, and I need to get paid, because of my ten day vacation in San Francisco when not only did I not get paid, but I was spending money at an exponentially higher rate. So I sit here in the quiet cubicle hum and get lots of reading done and don't mind too terribly much.
Last night there was a phenomenal thunderstorm in Chicago, and I stood in a bus shelter for ten minutes in the middle of it, feeling completely protected and not getting more than an occasional misting on my legs and face. I could just take in the curtains of water wave about, the screaming teenagers flee to a parking garage, the constant rumbling of thunder above that echoed off the skyscrapes so the sounds were amplified and chaotic as they bounced down to me on the sidewalk. And the lightning...the lightning! It was spectacular. Most of that I saw on the bus, safe on the other side of glass and metal and trying not to think about recent headlines of people listening to ipods getting struck by it. I am not normally one to worry about every possibility, particularly the statistically less likely ones, but I have my moments.
When I got home, the rain has mostly let up, I walked the last two blocks in a bare drizzle, though the streets were still empty after having been cleared out by the hard rain. The apartment was dark and silent and I thought at first the power was out, except the people below us had lights on. Then I thought perhaps someone was waiting for me in a candlelit room to watch the storm (and other things), but when I opened the bedroom, the lights were out there too and I could make out the curled figure under the blankets, already beathing deeply to approach sleep. I took out the dog and did the bedtime rituals, and when I came back, I noticed she had pulled the blinds all the way open, so I did watch the storm for awhile after all.
I only dislike cold rain. Summer rain, I am used to, though in the south it would tend to be more the daily afternoon shower that would last 20 minutes then clear away. Maybe that's why the back and forth weather of this week amused me so much, going from blue sky to rain to blue sky. It was feeling something familiar that had been forgotten.
Last night there was a phenomenal thunderstorm in Chicago, and I stood in a bus shelter for ten minutes in the middle of it, feeling completely protected and not getting more than an occasional misting on my legs and face. I could just take in the curtains of water wave about, the screaming teenagers flee to a parking garage, the constant rumbling of thunder above that echoed off the skyscrapes so the sounds were amplified and chaotic as they bounced down to me on the sidewalk. And the lightning...the lightning! It was spectacular. Most of that I saw on the bus, safe on the other side of glass and metal and trying not to think about recent headlines of people listening to ipods getting struck by it. I am not normally one to worry about every possibility, particularly the statistically less likely ones, but I have my moments.
When I got home, the rain has mostly let up, I walked the last two blocks in a bare drizzle, though the streets were still empty after having been cleared out by the hard rain. The apartment was dark and silent and I thought at first the power was out, except the people below us had lights on. Then I thought perhaps someone was waiting for me in a candlelit room to watch the storm (and other things), but when I opened the bedroom, the lights were out there too and I could make out the curled figure under the blankets, already beathing deeply to approach sleep. I took out the dog and did the bedtime rituals, and when I came back, I noticed she had pulled the blinds all the way open, so I did watch the storm for awhile after all.
I only dislike cold rain. Summer rain, I am used to, though in the south it would tend to be more the daily afternoon shower that would last 20 minutes then clear away. Maybe that's why the back and forth weather of this week amused me so much, going from blue sky to rain to blue sky. It was feeling something familiar that had been forgotten.
