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We’re recuperating from the Wrath of Tropical Storm Isabel today.

About 11 p.m. yesterday, we set up shop on the back porch, ready for the show. Just as I was feeling especially idiotic for getting excited about My First Hurricane, Isabel delivered.

Several beers into the show, the transformer down the street took a hit, sending up rainbow-colored sparks and knocking out all our power. Every time the current tried to wriggle its way through it, a tremendous WHHRRRRM sound belted out, all the lights in all the apartments flickered, and the sky turned green.

It was better than the Fourth of July!

So Iain and I did a victory No Power dance and ran down the street to watch the sparks again. Of course, at that point we’re standing in a big fat puddle directly underneath the power lines. I evidently learned nothing from Louie The Lightning Bug.

From a New York Times op-ed piece on the completely misnamed “partial-birth abortion”:

It now looks likely that in the coming weeks, President Bush will sign into law a ban on so-called partial birth abortion, thereby culminating a long campaign of deception. The measure, which has been constantly misrepresented as limited to late-term abortions, would in fact ban common abortion procedures used after the first trimester of pregnancy but well before fetal viability.

This will be a substantial blow against women’s reproductive freedom, a clear contradiction of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision legalizing abortion. That is why the Supreme Court struck down a very similar law in Nebraska just three years ago. We can only hope this law will also be successfully challenged.[Emphasis mine].

What in the hell is this? If your goal is to stop abortions, this is the exact wrong way to go about it. Make it legal, make it safe, make it easy, make it accessible. Eliminate the bureacracy, the parental notification requirement, and the bullshit. Do these things, and late-term abortions won’t be as necessary. Early-term abortions — where the fetus is still only the size of a grain of rice — would be easier to acquire.

And if you really, really want to stop abortions, you educate your men, women and children about sexuality, planned parenthood, reproduction, and STDs. You enfranchise the people. Give them the tools to make informed decisions about their bodies. You most certainly don’t outlaw abortions and make Sex Ed an abstinence-only option.

And, additionally, this new legislation makes no provision whatsoever about the health of the mother.

I ask, again: What the hell is this?

Do something about it.

Thanks to Matt for the link.

Our apartment has a very interesting smell right now. It’s the delicious, homey smell of baked chicken combined with the vomity smell of the stanky mulch the yard rearrangers used to rearrange the landscape outside our building. We can smell the mulch because we had to open the windows and doors, because the chicken mysteriously burned, smoking up the place worse than usual, and setting off the smoke alarm, and generally causing problems.

So not only did the geniuses tear up all the trees, but they replaced them with shriveled plant matter that smells like an elementary school hallway. Lucky us.

But besides that, and the spidey I just saw crawling along the floor, it was a pretty good evening. Iain’s decided he should join a band. So we popped a few beers, and he busted out the guitar and the harmonica for a little jam session. I’m trying to cajole him into doing an Open Mic night somewhere; I’ve just got to find the right bar. Well, and blindfold him, drug him, drive him to said bar, sit him on a chair, put his guitar in his hands and hold a gun to his head. But — consider it done.

Oh well.

Oh! And though it doesn’t have the same cachet as, say, a Snow Day, Baltimore County Public Schools called a Hurricane Day, so school’s canceled tomorrow, and hence, Iain gets to sleep in and stay home. Score!

Transcontinental shout-out: So I says to Mabel, I says, “Mabel? Tell Jeffy it’s just jokes. He’ll understand. Damn him and his California ways.”

Now you’ve done it: OK, I know I totally dissed the hurricane, and she’s going to get all pissed and retaliate on me and strand me for days in my apartment, fending off flooding and locusts and whatever the hell a hurricane brings, but please, just let me wake up before she arrives and get some more cigarette filters, ‘cause I’m going to be hurting like hell if I have to stay holed up in here chewing on loose tobacco.

I’d like to thank the Academy: Supafine is Baltimore’s Best Local Online Addiction, sez The City Paper. Who knew?

Careful, now: Today’s post brought to you by You’re With Stupid Now from the album “You’re With Stupid” by Aimee Mann.

Oh No. Hurricane Isabel is coming. Boo Hoo. I’m scared. Wah.

Since when is wind and rain cause for alarm? I mean, shah, I would be a little concerned if I lived in the Outer Banks or whatever, but come on. We’re inland, dude. Chesapeake Bay, schmesapeake bay. The prediction so far — the honest-to-god weather forecast — calls for rain Thursday [the day Isabel is scheduled to tour Charm City] with gusts up to 30 mph. Last I heard, that ain’t hurricane weather. But the weathertainers on the news, and in the news, are calling for Apocalypse conditions and screaming warnings to anybody from Florida to Canada.

People are so damned eager for the next Storm Of The Freaking Century that they’ll latch on to anything, going nuts and stocking up on batteries and plywood and shit. Ridiculous. They’re talking about canceling school, for chrissakes.

Granted, I was a bit surprised when we got three feet of snow last February [the last Storm of the Freaking Century] … I was totally unprepared. But we survived being snowbound for three or four days. It’s a little thing I like to call “being chill.” And having many cans of soup and corn that we never eat except in weather emergencies.

I’m a firm believer in not being a wuss about the weather. A) I’m invincible and B) it’s not like we’re going to stop it. So there, Hurricane! Come and get me! Hah!

In other news: … Well, there’s really not any other news. Dubya said some dumb-ass stuff about the Clean Skies bill or whatever tripe it is he’s trying to push through Congress, and that’s about it. How come this guy sounds like a parody of himself even when it’s him speaking?

This post is, of course, brought to you by “No Rain,” by Blind Melon, off the album Blind Melon.

Three in the morning is a horrible time to be awake. Too many thoughts.

1. This blog is getting way too personal. Time to revert to hand-writing thoughts in my diary.
2. With the above noted, I just read Hey Nostradamus by Douglas Coupland and it’s freaking me out.
3. Are you there, God? It’s me, MB. What the fuck is this?
4. It’s at three in the morning that I get really bad feelings about things.
5. I should quit smoking.
6. I’ll never be on time for work if I don’t go to sleep soon.
7. When is that magical time when you stop being a kid and start being a grownup?
8. Who made the crop circles?
9. I have my father’s eyes. It’s strange, seeing features on your face that you recognize from someone else.
10. Why is my life so easy? Why was I born in the US in 1979, and not in, say, Bosnia in 1997?
11. I really ought to floss more.
12. I think I may redesign Supafine again.
13. What does it all mean?
14. Maybe I should move to Canada.

The world is not so scary when you can write it all down. I just wish I had a thought-transcription machine. That would make everything easier. Oh, and a dream-recording machine, too. Then I could know what the hell was up with my dream last night. It involved high-school basketball, embezzlement, and electroshock therapy.

I hope tonight’s dream is clearer and more upbeat.

Come on. We’re all sensitive people.

As Carole put it on Friday, “Marvin Gaye is God, isn’t he?”

Had a real blast this weekend. Had a Page Design department meeting Friday morning, and it included a delish turkey club sandwich. That sammich made my day, with all its bacon goodness. Plus we got to rehash the SND conference, and that’s always fun, to get all design-psyched and shit.

After that, Iain and I headed out to Rosedale Park — in the rain — for the high school’s annual Crab Feast. This is a Maryland thing I’m not yet accustomed to, but involves drinking large quantities of beer and getting barbaric on bucketloads of cooked arthropods. No plates, no silverware, just a mallet. People banging the shit out of these little crabs, these steamed Sebastians, and then sucking out the innards with glee.

I had a hot dog.

Anyway, we had a good time. Tom and Carole showed up, and the four of us agreed to meet at their house to continue the evening. We brought over “The Essential Johnny Cash,” and had an impromptu memorial service/music-swapping fest, in memory of the Man in Black.

Of course, every good wake requires a toast, so we walked over — in the rain! — to Jerry’s Friendly Belvedere. For those of you who are familiar with BG: Picture a blend of Howard’s Club H and the Brathaus, and you’ll get the gist of this bar. We headed straight to the basement, where we laid claim to one of the two pool tables and monopolized the jukebox [“Never Been to Spain,” by Three Dog Night]. I had to add my graffiti to the library of information on the wall: “Westminster Pride In the Hizhouse!”(sic), “Johnny Is Gay!”, “For A Good Time, Call Paul! Or His Mom! They’re In The Book!” I think I wrote somethin’ about Supa MB, but I don’t remember.

Events got pretty fuzzy after Tom scratched on the eight ball, and Carole and I won the Boys Against Girls round.

By the end of the evening, I found myself impressing this old guy with my knowledge of “the old cowboys,” Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, David Allan Coe. He evidently didn’t expect a wee little girl like me to know who those old/dead farts were. But I did. We all had a good laugh.

We left sometime after that, and I do remember Iain pushing me around in an abandoned shopping cart. Fortunately, no one was injured. Next thing I know, I’m declining an offer of reheated fried chicken and crawling into bed.

So that was Friday. Good times. We don’t get out much, so I treasure those evenings. Saturday was super low-key. We laid around, bein’ lazy, and watched “Signs,” which I never saw before and which scared the shit out of me, in a good way. And today, which is Sunday, we cleaned the house. And sorted our CDs. And burned some CDs. And re-watched the juicy parts from “Signs.”

Boring! I know! But so fun!

Jesus, who put the X in my drink today? I’m so in love with everything and everybody [as evidenced by my posts below]. Sigh. I take these days when they come, though. No complaints here.

Do you want to find something worth saving?
The change would do me right.
I’ve been just waiting and hesitating
with this heart of mine

Still a mystery,
but there somethin’ so easy
in how you’re sweet to me.
I feel completed,
like it’s something I needed
for this heart of mine
“Heart of Mine” by Peter Salett

I know, I know, enough with the lyrics. I can’t help it. I made Iain watch “Keeping the Faith” yesterday because Ed Norton is too freaking adorable as a priest. Our buddy Clint’s working on his second year in seminary, and he’s going to be every ounce as cool and cute and helpful and God Squad as Ed Norton is in this movie.

Anyway, because Iain’s such a good man he watched it with me.

I don’t post a whole lot about him, and us, and marriage and all that. Mostly because what’s suitable for public consumption is boring: We Went To The Grocery Store. We Read The Paper. We Cleaned The House. Et cetera.

And of course the private stuff, the inside jokes, the routines and rituals, nobody else would even get. You know how it is.

But sometimes, it’s just so good, it’s so happy, that I have to spill a little of that happiness out or I’ll just burst.

It’s true that our life is very predictable. Hardly anything new and exciting happens. We don’t have drama. We don’t have calamity striking all the time. We do our thing, and stay in on the weekends, and do boring old-people stuff like read books or sort our CD collections.

It’s also true that I really don’t want to be That Girl … the one who’s so sunshiny with love and happiness that you just want to knock her upside the head because her contentment is so annoying.

But .. I am. So knock me upside the head, already, and let’s get it out of the way.

I am, as a friend described it, “ridiculously in love.”

I feel the way I imagine really attractive people must feel. Or really rich people. The whole “Don’t hate me ‘cause I’m beautiful” — I was born this way, and I can’t help it, so don’t make me feel guilty. Or “Hey, Mom and Dad played the right stocks in the ’80s, so here we are, I can’t help it, so don’t make me feel guilty.”

Even writing that sounds obnoxious. And I know, I know that it’s not everybody’s dream to find the Right Person and settle down.

But part of me does feel like I have to downplay how content I am, how happy I am with the way things worked out, because otherwise I’d just be gloating … and no one likes a gloater.

Ridiculous, isn’t it? Ah, yes. The intricacies of modern friendships and acquaintances. The intrigue of life as a 20-something … sure is interesting.

And also, just goes to show you how paranoid I can get about things … but we knew that. Overanalyze, that’s my motto.

Anyway, consider this a kind of shout-out to Weeb-dog, The Skootch-meister, King of the Mixed Tape, Champion of the Hamburger Helper, Watcher of Girly Movies and Defender Against The Scary Bad Guys.

I couldn’t have hoped for a better first year.