I didn't sleep really well last night, and I've been in a bad mood most of the day, which is compounded by the fact that today is the first lunch meeting of the fall semester and so I have to deal with ordering lunch and again showing my boss how to work the projector in the conference room, and going out in choking humidity to fetch the undelivered salad that the professor who ordered it didn't even eat and the phone that will not stop ringing. And it occurred to me over lunch that the reason it's all bothering me so much is I feel like it shouldn't be bothering me, considering I still have an apartment and a job and clothes, and there are at least two entire cities in the southern part of this country that effectively do not exist anymore.

Or at the very least that's why I didn't sleep well last night, and it all sort of snowballed from there.

Now I've made Katrina all about me, which was not what I meant at all. What I meant is that it feels incredibly weird to be going on about my normal routine with everyone else when at the very least there should be radios on to the news and people discussing it like after September 11 (note that I was not in NY then, so for me it was a similar situation, being far enough away that life could proceed with minimal disruption). It's a natural disaster, not a terrorist attack, but in terms of rebuilding the lives that have been destroyed, this is going to be much, much worse.

So, before my subconcious need to rant took over, I meant to note that Sarah Bunting (she of The Vine) has a new essay [link disabled for archival purposes] up about the subway and it made me laugh. I have it on good authority that she once lived near my very own D line subway stop, so I'm a little disappointed that she did not mention the D train at all, but everything else is right on the money -- except that express trains like the D haven't been nearly as empty this week as her local R. Anyway, it made me laugh when I really needed it.