Amy's way or the highway

thunder and lightning

Overheard
"My wife is so scared of the thunder. I got to hold her whole night."
"My dog was shaking like a leaf. I had to drug him."
"This is not the kind of day for decaf."

What is it with thunder? And lightning? Why do I feel like I've survived a storm, even if I'm inside, under a roof, beneath a blanket?

Once, I was on a plane and the pilot told us to look West. There was a storm a couple miles away, in view. This little pocket in the sky was a funnel of weather. I saw the top of a lightning rod. Or did I? A birds eye view of a storm, solidifying for me what a birds eye view was.

I always wake up during storms. Especially when there's crackling like a hyperbolically large bowl of snap crackle pop cereal. I imagine the lightning rod hitting my roof. I turn on the light and read until my heart beat slows down. It's stolen time.

I see my neighbor kid, in the morning and ask, conspiratorially "were you scared or did you love it."
"a little scared," she says. Then she shows me her missing tooth. "It's gone," she says, sticking her tongue through.

I want the storm ot last all day, but it's already clearing. My lawn is happy about the downpoor because now it's seeds have gripped fully.

lightning strikes

Dogs freak out during lightning storms. Kids race into their parents bedrooms. Me and my sisters used to wash out hair in storms, in Indiana, at our dad's house. We also put raw sliced hotdogs into our chef boyardee. Jane Fonda was just becoming famous for the second time as a health guru.

A Canadian friend asked me why we care so much about the weather in Chicago. She lived here during grad school, and she was constantly amazed how Chicagoans approached her to talk about the weather. (she also rode a cops horse-talk about fish out of water.) She said Chicagoans talk about it being too hot, too cold, a perfect day, wish the sun would come out, wish this snow would let up. Some even get metaphoric. "Snow brushing the sidewalks like spirits,"-"So hot it's like walking into a hair dryer...

It's one of those extreme weather weeks. The gay games soccer match is on hold when the storms start. It's the lighning more than the rain. My first step outside is a timid one, an expectation to be assaulted. Last night, driving home late, there were too many lightning bolts. I cowered as I drove along Lake Shore. Where were they hitting, what were they connecting with? I looked at couples casually walking underneath that violent sky. They were braver than me. I tried to remember what the weather experts say about lightning and driving in a car. Was it the best place to be? Was it the worse place to be?
I had a good life yesterday, I told myself. I finished a great writing class. My last sketch went all right. I saw an excellent stand-up routine by a crazy wound man named Trent W. I could die now, right? What were my chances of getting hit by lightning compared to all those other people out there on the street, in their cars, up in trees? I remember that I bought my old pickup from a guy who'd been struck by lightning. He told me that lowered my odds of getting struck since I knew someone who had been. I still cowered the rest of the way home. I saw every tree traveling through my windshield. Oh well. Not a brave day