Yes, I'm alive and kicking, and, now, updating.

As you may have heard (or maybe not), two days ago, parts of North Carolina got about an inch of snow (or less), and everybody freaked out. I dropped Janet off Wednesday morning, then went to a dentist appointment/cleaning. My teeth looked pretty good (except for inbetween; need to floss more), and I even sold a copy of the anthology to my hygienist. When leaving, I noticed that it had started snowing, and was happy to see the white stuff coming down. Falling snow always puts a smile on my face. A quick trip over to Barnes & Noble (where I got the new issue of Amazing Stories with Greg's cool story "Authorwerx"), and during my fifteen-minute perusal of the store, the accumulation was such that I almost busted my ass when walking to my car. Luckily, my cat-like reflexes saved me from an ass-busting, but as I was driving the short way home, my car was sliding all over the road.

I got home safely, and sat, open-jawed, in front of the telly for the rest of the afternoon. The area had only gotten a dusting of snow, but it almost immediately froze on the roads, causing pileup after pileup; there were over five hundred accidents in total that day. I-40 quickly became a parking lot. Western Boulevard (which runs on the back side of campus) was a nightmare. People were abandoning their cars by the dozens. The beltline that I take to Janet's office looked bad, though it was still moving. I usually leave at 5:15 so that I can pick her up at 5:45, but I decided to leave at 4:30 to allow extra time.

At 10:30 p.m., six hours after I left, I finally reached her office. I think my top speed may have been 5 mph, if that. Cars were abandoned on the sides of the road, but also sometimes right in the middle of the road. I was lucky enough to be able to pull into a CVS pharmacy about halfway through, to stretch my cramped legs, use the bathroom (my kidneys were screaming by that point) and buy some provisions for the road. This was somewhere around 8:00, and I hadn't had dinner yet. I stayed in contact with Janet and my mom when I could get through on my cell phone (the lines were jammed from so many gridlocked people either calling police and EMS, or, like me, trying to keep my loved ones updated). Since there was no way we'd be getting back to Cary that night, Janet checked all of the hotels around her office, and all of them had been booked up. So we resigned ourselves to sleeping on the floor of her cubicle.

I found it interesting that the night before, I had been reading the section in The Art of Happiness that talks about patience. The Dalai Lama talks in that section about the value of learning true patience, and seeing obstacles in your life not as hindrances that might ruin your day and make you crazy, but as tests of your patience. So, keeping that in mind, I didn't freak out, or yell at other drivers, or curse the universe for putting me through this ordeal, but realized that there was nothing I could really do about the situation until I got to her office, and to just try to roll with the situation. When I got tired of listening to the radio, I turned on my iPod (which I'd luckily thought to bring with me), and listened to downloaded NPR interviews I hadn't gotten to yet, with Eddie Izzard and with Graham Joyce. I also put on Izzard's comedy album Circle, so that I'd have something to laugh at while stuck in the car. And always in the back of my mind was Things could be so much worse. You could have flipped your car over and be freezing to death. Or you could have been vacationing in Sumatra when the tsunami hit. This really isn't that bad. I felt very much the Buddhist then.

So yeah, I finally made it to Janet's office, and met some of her other coworkers who'd been stranded there. I was greeted with a hero's welcome, and it was nice. As everyone else was discussing when they were going to attempt to get back out on the road, I hugged Janet, and plied her with cookies and Gatorade, and checked my email (I was having internet service withdrawal symptoms). Janet's supervisors, Todd and Stormi, mentioned that their house wasn't too far away, and they had a guest room with a private bathroom where we could stay for the night. If I hadn't just met them, I would've kissed them on the lips.

The roads to their place were fairly clear, and we made the trip in half an hour in Todd's all-wheel drive SUV. They have two big boxers, a male and a female with the saddest doggie faces I've ever seen, who greeted us, after a brief trepidation, with sniffs and licks and not-so-subtle hints to be petted. None of us had had dinner, so Stormi put a pizza in the oven, and we munched on it while watching The Daily Show (which is my one major regret in not having cable). Janet and I went upstairs to bed, and were asleep in seconds.

Yesterday (Thursday) morning, we all drove to their offices at 10:00, and after a quick kiss goodbye to Janet, I got in my car (which I'd left there the night before) and drove home. By that point, it had warmed up enough that most of the ice and wetness on the roads had evaporated, leaving behind vasts swaths of whiteness from salt and other road gunk. The roads were clear, and it only took me 40 minutes to get home. I fed the hamsters, called Janet and then my mom to announce I'd gotten home safe, then crashed into bed. I slept until 2 p.m.

They're still trying to figure out what happened. I've never in my life seen gridlock that bad, even when driving through Washington, D.C., or on the New Jersey Turnpike. I don't know if people saw the snow and rushed out to get somewhere, to pick up a child at school, or to leave work, before it supposedly got too bad, and ended up hitting all the slick spots. And then when rush hour hit, everything got exponentially worse. I didn't realize Raleigh had so many cars. And Janet repeated her observation that this is one of the worst areas to get around, that you're absolutely dependent on a car to get anywhere. Added to that is the people who simply turn off their brains when bad weather hits, and they suddenly have no idea how to drive.

But it could have been so much worse. I didn't slide into a ditch. I didn't collide with any other cars. I made it there and back safely. I never panicked.

Patience. It has taken on a whole new meaning for me now.

Now Reading:
The Art of Happiness by His Holiness the Dalai Lama
and Howard C. Cutler

Stories Out to Publishers:
9

Books Read This Year:
2

Zines/Graphic Novels/Fiction Mags Read This Year:
1