I am still in Kansas anymore.

I heard a train whistle a few nights ago, but it wasn’t a whistle. It was a tornado. It left a lot of my neighborhood jacked. It did nothing to me. I got up early in the morning and rode my bike to the gym. A lot of houses, cars, and electric wires were jacked all over the place. I didn’t think much of it. New Orleans baby. On my way back from the gym I saw all the repair crews, police, soldiers, and what not. “Holy shit” I thought.

I got home and realized we had no electricity. I went back to campus and found that they had no electricity. With all the wires out all over the place, they shut down part of the city grid. About six hours later the power came back on. For those of us whose houses weren’t jacked, life goes on without alteration. For those who lost their homes…well, they are good and fucked. At this point, to lose everything after going through the hurricane, it has got to hurt.

Anyway I went riding around that night in the darkness. I visited Duck Island: After Hours. It is not as erotic as you may think. The birds are all there, snuggled in together near the bike path, but the park is rather creepy. Without any overhead lights (some of the area was still without power) the shadows played tricks on me and I avoided potholes and declines that didn’t exist, and rode through potholes and declines that did. It reminded me of the long night marches I did back in the army: a constant hallucination of falling.