It's been raining a lot in Northwest Missouri recently. It didn't rain last night, but it rained the night before that. And maybe even the night before that, but I was asleep in Kansas City, so I'm not really sure.
And not just rain. It's been thunderstorming, which is apparently not one word, but because I want it to be I am not going to insert the "appropriate" spacing/hyphen.
I'm never going to be famous. And no, I'm not drunk. It's just something that I'm slowly coming to realize. I'm in the process of "applying for jobs" right now which means I spend a lot of time aimlessly looking at facebook, profiles of people I haven't seen or spoken to in years; scanning Twitter accounts of strangers and famous people; unnecessarily updating and re-updating any and all accounts' statuses; eating wasabi peas until my nose starts to run; looking at pictures of animals in awkward situations; watching hilarrrrrrious clips of "Portlandia". It's a wonder I'm single, I know.
I always wanted to be famous when I was a child - actually up until this point, but while there's a part of me still clinging onto the fact that people will shout my name in the future, and not in the sense of "Kate! Kate! Put down that bottle! Kate! Stop the car! Stop! The door is open. Kate. Put both hands on the wheel." Yeah, in my soon-to-be realized future the policemen will know me on a first-name basis, I'll be like the woman in this anti-drug commercial. Anyway, what I'm getting at is that when I was a kid I thought I'd be an over-night celebrity like John Travolta. (I remember a vision of him strutting down the street in that white suit from "Saturday Night Fever" and hearing a VH1 announcer's voice-over in the background talking about how John was just an average Joe slinging burgers at the local Tastee Freeze when his life changed in a single moment; chance encounter, the rest they say is history. The next thing America and John knew he was a celebrity of the rarest kind: overnight.) One day I would wake up and Barbara Walters would be calling to interview me, but I wouldn't be able to make it because I was having lunch with Steven Spielberg - who stopped me on the street the week before. He wanted to discuss my upcoming movie with my boyfriend, Johnathan Taylor Thomas - who pleaded with me to date him days prior. That dream died when I was 16 and driving a Hyundai Accent in St. Joseph, Missouri instead of a Ferrari with Tia and Tamara Mowry through Malibu, but I was still holding out that maybe, just maybe, I could make it on my own one day. Nope. I went to LA. I walked among the people, and nobody batted an eye. I'm average, and that's okay. Because when I die at the ripe old age of 104, instead of leaving behind a massive wealth, my lawyer's, as instructed by my will, will dole out millions of my words to my descendants - if I don't outlive them - and I will become posthumously famous and they will never have to work a day in the rest of their lives. This is my dream.
But oh, the thunderstorms are so lovely. I haven't experienced one of those in a long time. The smell of the earth and lava rocks moistening. The sound of the grass growing. Splish. Splash. I can bathe outside. But then the lightning strikes, and I'm forced inside to peer through the blinds as the flashes of white dance across the sky to nature's crashing cymbals.
The other night it sounded like legions of leprechauns were throwing rocks at my windows. It was hail. HAIL!! I haven't seen snow in over 14 months!! I felt like I was at the beginning of Garcia Marquez's 100 Years of Solitude! Cold to the touch. I wanted to gather a handful and put it in a glass of water to give someone (I prefer room temperature; I have sensitive teeth), but everyone was asleep. Sheets of rain and driving winds woke me up at 4am. It was either that, or my bladder. I stared into the darkness in between the flashes of light, watching the blinds clang angrily against the window. Worried. The window was open because I like falling asleep to the sound of nature, but in waking up in the middle of the night I convinced myself that it was an early warning system of sorts. I needed to be able to the hear sound of an approaching misplaced train - or tornado - over the thunder. First alert to holler to the family and run down into the cellar. Or basement, Dorothy.
Is that a green sky, or metallic blue? Pewter. Ochre. (That wouldn't be right. But at 4am when I wrote it, it made perfect sense, and the sailor's say to 'take warning' in the event of a red sky at night... oh wait, it's morning...) A flash of lightning simultaneously coupled with a crash of thunder, indicating the storm was directly overhead. I moved away from the window and back to my bed. As I drifted back into a fitful sleep I imagined downed trees and power lines, crushed roofs, ruined dreams, upon waking in the morning.
The sun shone slanted through the blinds the next morning as my mom's dog, Ditka (a Foxoodle - Fox Terrier/Toy Poodle mix) licked my face awake. I was still average, and all was well in the world. Except I was still unemployed.
***Do yourself a favor, and imagine the following story as if it were a Robert Stack "Unsolved Mysteries" narrative:
Did you know: Lightning can go inside houses. It doesn't even have to knock or be invited in, like the Land Shark or vampires, respectively. Well, a door or window has to be open, so maybe the thunder knocks and the next lightning comes in. My mom said it happened to her once when she was a small child in Lincoln, Nebraska. The front door and back door were both open, she and her siblings were playing a board game in the middle of the living room and her mother and father were on the couch, when BLAMO!! Lightning cut straight on through her house. My mom remembered being scared, and said that grandma ran to shut the doors and was very hesitant to have open doors in storms ever after that. Just another reason to close your windows, close your doors.
And not just rain. It's been thunderstorming, which is apparently not one word, but because I want it to be I am not going to insert the "appropriate" spacing/hyphen.
I'm never going to be famous. And no, I'm not drunk. It's just something that I'm slowly coming to realize. I'm in the process of "applying for jobs" right now which means I spend a lot of time aimlessly looking at facebook, profiles of people I haven't seen or spoken to in years; scanning Twitter accounts of strangers and famous people; unnecessarily updating and re-updating any and all accounts' statuses; eating wasabi peas until my nose starts to run; looking at pictures of animals in awkward situations; watching hilarrrrrrious clips of "Portlandia". It's a wonder I'm single, I know.
I always wanted to be famous when I was a child - actually up until this point, but while there's a part of me still clinging onto the fact that people will shout my name in the future, and not in the sense of "Kate! Kate! Put down that bottle! Kate! Stop the car! Stop! The door is open. Kate. Put both hands on the wheel." Yeah, in my soon-to-be realized future the policemen will know me on a first-name basis, I'll be like the woman in this anti-drug commercial. Anyway, what I'm getting at is that when I was a kid I thought I'd be an over-night celebrity like John Travolta. (I remember a vision of him strutting down the street in that white suit from "Saturday Night Fever" and hearing a VH1 announcer's voice-over in the background talking about how John was just an average Joe slinging burgers at the local Tastee Freeze when his life changed in a single moment; chance encounter, the rest they say is history. The next thing America and John knew he was a celebrity of the rarest kind: overnight.) One day I would wake up and Barbara Walters would be calling to interview me, but I wouldn't be able to make it because I was having lunch with Steven Spielberg - who stopped me on the street the week before. He wanted to discuss my upcoming movie with my boyfriend, Johnathan Taylor Thomas - who pleaded with me to date him days prior. That dream died when I was 16 and driving a Hyundai Accent in St. Joseph, Missouri instead of a Ferrari with Tia and Tamara Mowry through Malibu, but I was still holding out that maybe, just maybe, I could make it on my own one day. Nope. I went to LA. I walked among the people, and nobody batted an eye. I'm average, and that's okay. Because when I die at the ripe old age of 104, instead of leaving behind a massive wealth, my lawyer's, as instructed by my will, will dole out millions of my words to my descendants - if I don't outlive them - and I will become posthumously famous and they will never have to work a day in the rest of their lives. This is my dream.
But oh, the thunderstorms are so lovely. I haven't experienced one of those in a long time. The smell of the earth and lava rocks moistening. The sound of the grass growing. Splish. Splash. I can bathe outside. But then the lightning strikes, and I'm forced inside to peer through the blinds as the flashes of white dance across the sky to nature's crashing cymbals.
The other night it sounded like legions of leprechauns were throwing rocks at my windows. It was hail. HAIL!! I haven't seen snow in over 14 months!! I felt like I was at the beginning of Garcia Marquez's 100 Years of Solitude! Cold to the touch. I wanted to gather a handful and put it in a glass of water to give someone (I prefer room temperature; I have sensitive teeth), but everyone was asleep. Sheets of rain and driving winds woke me up at 4am. It was either that, or my bladder. I stared into the darkness in between the flashes of light, watching the blinds clang angrily against the window. Worried. The window was open because I like falling asleep to the sound of nature, but in waking up in the middle of the night I convinced myself that it was an early warning system of sorts. I needed to be able to the hear sound of an approaching misplaced train - or tornado - over the thunder. First alert to holler to the family and run down into the cellar. Or basement, Dorothy.
Is that a green sky, or metallic blue? Pewter. Ochre. (That wouldn't be right. But at 4am when I wrote it, it made perfect sense, and the sailor's say to 'take warning' in the event of a red sky at night... oh wait, it's morning...) A flash of lightning simultaneously coupled with a crash of thunder, indicating the storm was directly overhead. I moved away from the window and back to my bed. As I drifted back into a fitful sleep I imagined downed trees and power lines, crushed roofs, ruined dreams, upon waking in the morning.
The sun shone slanted through the blinds the next morning as my mom's dog, Ditka (a Foxoodle - Fox Terrier/Toy Poodle mix) licked my face awake. I was still average, and all was well in the world. Except I was still unemployed.
***Do yourself a favor, and imagine the following story as if it were a Robert Stack "Unsolved Mysteries" narrative:
Did you know: Lightning can go inside houses. It doesn't even have to knock or be invited in, like the Land Shark or vampires, respectively. Well, a door or window has to be open, so maybe the thunder knocks and the next lightning comes in. My mom said it happened to her once when she was a small child in Lincoln, Nebraska. The front door and back door were both open, she and her siblings were playing a board game in the middle of the living room and her mother and father were on the couch, when BLAMO!! Lightning cut straight on through her house. My mom remembered being scared, and said that grandma ran to shut the doors and was very hesitant to have open doors in storms ever after that. Just another reason to close your windows, close your doors.
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