Reminders, and what remains.
Tue 2005-08-30 21:22:23 (in context)
- 2,100 words (if poetry, lines) long
- 46,750 words (if poetry, lines) long
- 78.25 hrs. revised
Another word cut; got rid of some leftover Part 1 snippits that turned out not to have a place. Spent most of today reading the first half of Part 2 from the previous draft, reminding myself what I'd decided during the first read-through, deciding which decisions could still stand, and taking notes on how the chapters needed rearranging so that one thing leads to another.
Had a bit of a revelation about the Brian-Mike-Mrs. Windlow family dynamic. Revelations are good things. They make incidental supporting characters less villianous, and antagonists much, much more. Which is probably the way these things ought to be balanced.
Today was mostly an obsessive day. I spent pretty much my entire work session keeping WWL's live coverage of Hurricane Katrina's aftermath floating next to my MS Access window, gluing one eye on the arial footage, trying to find out just how bad things were now that the levee was broken.
It was a day of ups and downs. John and I almost didn't go to work after getting the news from Mom. He sat there, numb over his fried eggs, thinking about his sister; I sat there reading three different packagings of the same AP news story, intermittently breaking into tears. My home, my home is gone. Then got to work, watched the news, read the Nola.com Jefferson Parish Forum, and learned that Bonnabel Place might not be all that submerged after all. One person even reported dry streets at Wisner and Poplar, and having walked all the way from there to Causeway without trouble. Then I got home, and read that the sandbagging of the levee breach would be abandoned untried, the pumps left to fail, Metairie left to submerge itself as the lake poured in and sought sea level. I don't understand why. Apparently Mayor Nagin doesn't either; WWL reported him as being "unhappy" that the helicopters never dropped the sandbags. But then I called Mom to tell her (she hasn't access to Internet in her hotel room), and she said she'd heard from the St. Tammany Hospital contingent and they were all OK, they were all alive, unhurt, they were not in any way part of the four-person death toll reported from St. Tammany Parish this afternoon. And John's sister isn't in Covington after all; she's in Dallas. And my brother's in Little Rock. Everyone's safe.
Now WWL is no longer reporting that sandbagging will be abandoned; they're just repeating the stuff about Jefferson Parish residents to be allowed back in on Monday to recover their essentials before evacuating once more for a month.
It was a day of slim silver linings. I learned that The Rock Boat has no plans to cancel; they may, however, ship from Galveston or Mobile. Final decision still pending. I learned that it is too late to acquire trip insurance, as Katrina's damage is now a preexisting condition. But I also learned that American will let us change our flight reservation once without charge. So maybe we're not out a bunch of money after all.
But I was so looking forward to sailing from the Port of New Orleans to the Gulf of Mexico. I'd never done it before. It's a petty grief, but sometimes we cheer ourselves up with petty grievances. We use them to distract ourselves from great griefs, like the mental image of one's hometown sinking forever under brackish waves.
Not forever. New Orleans is too ornery not to recover and rebuild. And I want to be there. As soon as they say they can use physical volunteers, I want to go. What use calling myself a New Orleanian if I won't go help rebuild her?
But for now, of course, we have to stay out, out of the way and out of danger. For now, we get to donate money (and only money) to the Red Cross. We get to pray--or hope--or dream--or believe--as best as our personal convictions and suspensions of disbeliefs will allow.
And curse the damn opportunistic looters. There's a picture on the front of WWLTV.com that shows a man sitting in his driveway, and on his half-opened garage door is the spray-painted slogan, "Looters Will Be Shot." I am not generally fond of guns, but the crime of victimizing a fellow victim rates really high on my "kill 'em all and burn 'em in the innermost circle of Hell" list. And, as a practically card-carrying Wiccan, I'm obliged to admit I don't even believe in Hell.
Oh! Speaking of Wicca and such! Crow! This is me crowing! PanGaia's ish #42 is out. I'm in there. Crow! I'm in there with the most inoffensive yet unusual mispelling of my last name ever. I have to admit, while there are variations--my Mom and Dad typically put a space, whereas I somehow learned to run the whole thing together (as above)--I had never before seen the "Le" hyphenated to the "Boeuf" before. That gave me a giggle.
And today's in sore need of giggles, wouldn't you say? Damn straight I would.