2007-01-17 - 12:37 a.m.
"Good things come to those who wait," was that Arby's or Wendy's? I lived by this motto for years and years, really internalized it until the price of the chicken patty (which only faintly resembles its ancestors) went beyond my broken balance. Patty had some special importance last week but at this moment, it's just a girl from a high school and the shape of sundry meats.
The good thing about carving out a home down south is that when the temperature dips near freezing, the whole city shuts down. There was a mad rush at the grocery store and no bread to be found, after such apolitical and ahistorical people had struggled to emerge from their compact cars. They were pushing their plastic and cardboard shelves of bottled water into their carts, readying the units for the always shining aisles. The store smelled like oranges, Curve and onions and all of the the fake firewood was rapidly disappearing. Was this my own personal version of hell?
If this is how people will prepare for the apocolypse, then if it ever happens, which it of course will, for it must because God needs a nucular stage (why bother to spell it correctly when you have the authorization code?)to separate the wheat from the chaff (Read The Bell Curve and follow it up with The End of History and the Last Man and then some Revelations). Ice is like a divine substance down here, one of those little sure signs of end times, but on the positive side, it turns the most hardened newsman into a giddy child again, everybody is bubbling over with their enthusiasm.
The day started out with what was called an "Arctic Blast" but within a few hours the local news began to refer to it as a "Winter Wallop." They stuck with the alliterate appeal of the Wallop for the rest of the day. The Wallop left I think a few icy bridges and yeah it was cold but I'm not sure if it was really a wallop, but then again maybe I am just accustomed to blustery days, maybe I judge the wallop from a blustery days perspective. "How do I rid myself of subjectivity?" "Write a Bestselling book!" "What else?"
The illusiion that some comforting little secret is being slowly revealed purchase by purchase. Maybe that's the attraction to ice, it's free, how can something so beautiful still not be on the market? Oh wait...
