a little more of the same

i've picked up swearing this month. to understand the magnanimity of this issue, you have to understand: i made it 21 years without swearing. not once, i promise you. and then i turned 22, and i think i swore twice in the 2 years between then and now, and then suddenly, this month, sandwiched somewhere between 2 hurricanes and a failed pseudo-relationship (with emphasis on the "pseudo," which is all we need to know really), profanity has found its fodder.
i'm a little disturbed.
today, the day before hurricane rita, i keep calling my friends, but i can't get through. and i'm not worried, but disturbed, again with this strange sense of "disturbed." there is, oddly, exactly one cell phone, owned by a child named jarad (poor jarad), that consistently picks up my cell phone, and so it is on this one soul whom i pour all my strange disturbance--about hurricanes and such. and yet, i rarely refer to the hurricane. instead, our conversation, as he and his roommate sat in their traffic on 290 and i sat in my traffic between rice village and spring, went something like

jarad: we're passing a street called kickapoo. haha.
me: why must you hate on the american indians? haven't they had enough. leave 'em alone.
jarad: (not quite sure if i'm joking, which i was, for the record) I was just saying that i have a simple mind, and that it makes me laugh.
me: it makes me laugh too.
jarad: shame on your for pointing a finger at me
me: what?!!
jarad: yeah, you just totally told me off. and then you agreed with me. you hypocrite.
me: what?!!
jarad: you heard me!
me: i was JOKING!
jarad: what is that saying, about how if it's true, people protest even more?
me: i was JOKING!
jarad: you know, my grandmother was native american.
me: um, i didn't know that.
jarad: yeah, i have native american...really, i have a little of everything, except asian.
me: well, i guess we'll have to fix that.
jarad: right, so when are we going to make babies?
me: (snort) i could just drop you off with a sign in chinatown
jarad: nah.
me: no, it would work! you know, give you a sign. "please register here...submit blood test here." it would work, I'm telling you."
jarad: you're crazy, joy.
me: i know
jarad: but you're funny.
me: i aim to please

i might have made this conversation a little catchier than it was...which is sad, if you think about it, but that is the nature of reconstructing conversations...and the point, the ever-elusive point, is that THIS is what i talked about in the middle of the greatest metropolitan evacuation in the history of the United States. yes. in fact, we went on to talk about

jarad: you know, they say that humans involuntarily eat 8 spiders in their lifetimes?
me: i had heard that. you know what? you should write a grant. you should write a grant and study the 8-Spider-Diet
jarad: um, no.
me: why NOT?
jarad: because it doesn't exist.
me: wait, you just told me that it did exist
jarad: no, i never said that.
me: no, you JUST did.
jarad: no
me: yes!
jarad: no, it's not like Atkins or something crazy like that. people don't actually have this diet.
me: i'm not saying to MAKE it a diet. i'm saying to study the phenomenon. it'd be great.
jarad: why don't you study it.
me: nono, this is all you.
jarad: well, then we should at least call it "the arachnid diet"
me: no.
jarad: why?
me: because then that's saying that you're going to study people eating flies because that's what spiders eat...
jarad: noooooooooo

and so, once again. THIS is what we talked about in the middle of the greatest evacuation of a metropolitan area in the history of the United States.

i suppose this is my way of keeping disturbances at bay. already in daily life, i almost never call except to talk nonsense (and only in its purest form), and now i have this need to laugh, and a need to focus on details. but, i'm home now. and i can't turn off the news, and every hour or so, i disappear into a back room and dial phone numbers, only to get busy signals. and this i suppose doesn't really matter. yet still

me: hi
jarad: joy? (this is about the fifth time i've called him today)
me: i'm sorry. i'm sorry i call so much. but i keep watching the news and i worry about you guys on the road. i mean...
jarad: we're here
me: you're there?
jarad: yeah, we just got in.
me: oh good. you never ran out of gas?
jarad: no, no. we're fine.
me: ok.
jarad: listen, i'm going to eat. i'll call you later?
me: no, you don't have to call. i just wanted to know you guys were there. say hi to mark (his roommate) for me.
jarad: will do.

i prefer to talk about spiders. and asian babies. or anything really, rather than what's on my mind. people don't know this about me...moving on...

they forecast that we won't be in the eye of the storm, so it is doubtful that rita will truly "devastate" (everyone's favorite word) houston. it's just that there's been so much lately.
my heart hurts.
who says that?
this probably has something to do with the cursing.