This 'n that

The rain has stopped, finally. Not that it was affecting me much; it would take a lot more water to flood an eighth floor apartment. But there is the wind. I have to keep all the windows (but one) closed because the moment I open them a crack, it's like I've let a typhoon into the house. Papers fly around, curtains billow dramatically, doors bang, empty water bottles get blown off kitchen counters. So I keep them closed, only, even though they're the sliding glass type windows, they're never *completely* closed. And you know what happens when gale force winds try to force their way through teeny tiny slots?

Banshee karaoke.

The first time I heard the wailing, I thought a bat had flown into the house. After a rather jittery search revealed that it was only the wind, I tried sealing off the windows by jamming in newspaper. It didn't work, at least not in the way I hoped. All it did was lower the pitch. So instead of soprano, my window banshees now wail in a soft contralto.

I should sell tickets or something.

***

On a completely unrelated note, a lovely poem I read over the weekend. Author Anne Lamott calls it a wonderful use of paranoia as material. I agree.

We Who Are Your Closest Friends

We who are
your closest friends
feel the time
has come to tell you
that every Thursday
we have been meeting,
as a group,
to devise ways
to keep you
in perpetual uncertainty
frustration
discontent and
torture
by neither loving you
as much as you want
nor cutting you adrift.
Your analyst is
in on it,
plus your boyfriend
and your ex-husband;
and we have pledged
to disappoint you
as long as you need us.
In announcing our
association
we realize we have
placed in your hands
a possible antidote
against uncertainty
indeed against ourselves.
But since our Thursday nights
have brought us
to a community
of purpose
rare in itself
with you as
the natural center,
we feel hopeful you
will continue to make unreasonable
demands for affection
if not as a consequence
of your disastrous personality
then for the good of the collective.

- Philip Lopate