August 31: Still rising.

I know I get obsessed about big news events, and about big weather events, and...my god. When I finally left work last night I went to the Esquire, because I wanted to see some CNN or weather channel or something, and I knew they'd either have it on or be willing to turn one of the TVs. They had it one several. It's just astonishing. It just keeps going on and on. I left after an hour and a half, went to bed at midnight, and woke up at 4:00 a.m. all tensed up and obsessing. I kept imaging people sitting on their roofs, surrounded by water, with nothing to drink. Pregnant women. Diabetics with no insulin. By 6:00 I just gave up, got up, and went to work.


Morning Edition finally came on. Rescuers pushing aside bodies...stampede in Baghdad...and now we go to Ed Kieser at the Ag Expo! How's the weather over there, Ed? I turned on the TV while I was getting ready for work; the only station with news was the WB. How often can you say that? When they threw to their reporter in Mississippi, they greeted her with a cheery "Good morning, Jennifer!" She's standing in a foot of water in front of a disintigrating house; she hasn't had a shower in a couple of days; it's still dark; and she replies "Good morning!"

At work, I mention the hurricane tragedies to some of my coworkers. The uniform response: "Oh, I haven't really been following it. Is it really that bad?"

It makes me oddly angry that people don't seem troubled enough, even while I'm all too aware that obsessing over it does no good to anybody.

It's probably partly my own defensiveness as a Midwesterner. I think this would be received vastly differently if it were happening to the East or West coast. During the terrorist attacks--which I do not, in any way, mean to dismiss as a tragedy, or put up in some sort of hellish competition of horrors--during the terror attacks, at least there was still food and water in the area. There was electricity and phone service within walking distance. But the world sort of stopped; those images weren't followed by Letterman's Top Ten list. I know it's a different situation--it was completely unpredictable, and nobody knew what was coming next, and it was a planned attack. I'm just saying that if this had happened in DC, I don't think we'd be kicking it from "possibly thousands dead" to "now for some great barbecue recipes for your labor day cookout".

I keep thinking of all the things that are gone, that wouldn't have been removed from town for a hurricane. The books in the libraries. Art in museums. Every safe deposit box in every bank in town. What about the zoo animals? They'd have rounded them up for a hurricane, but they surely don't move them to other towns? I'm going to believe that they do.

August 30: Devastation and chaos

Sunday I was sitting in a hippie bar in Peoria, watching CNN with no sound, watching the Doppler images of Hurricane Katrina moving in. Monday I was half-joking that I wished I could be one of the reporters they send to go stand in the hurricane to show everybody "look! It's raining! And windy!" And then today, it's not exciting, or jokable. Or over.

CNN has a video clip of a man, crying, holding a little kid, talking about how he and his wife were in the attic when the house ripped apart, and he lost his grip on her, and she told him to look after the kids. He's saying "I can't find her body." I didn't watch the clip, which they linked to four times in one story (and again in pretty much every story on the hurricane they've got), but the text is everywhere.

My parents spend a week every summer in Biloxi. Spent, I guess I should say. It sounds like there's not much Biloxi left now. Reports are that one of the floating coastal casinos was swept out of the ocean, over the interstate, and is now sitting on what used to be houses.

If the news from resort towns like Biloxi and Gulfport is this bad, I can't even imagine what's become of the people who live in the shacks and trailer homes along the river, the people who don't have the money to flee and don't have the media looking for them.

The staff of the Times-Picayune was blogging from their bunker in their newsroom, running on reserve power throughout the hurricane. They've fled now, setting up a temporary newshub in a nearby newspaper's offices. They're committed to putting out a daily paper every day, by posting .PDFs at midnight. It's harrowing, but they're also still blogging: the police are asking for any boats to use for rescues. This hospital is closed. This hospital needs volunteer RNs. Heartbreaking, heartbreaking.

I know I have nothing to add to the commentary on a natural disaster that is, in no real way, affecting me personally. I'm just shocked--it seemed so recently like the damage wasn't going to be so bad. I keep thinking of our trip to New Orleans this past spring. The train went right along the path--New Orleans, east over the river, north up through Jackson, Mississippi--Katrina practically rode the rails on inland. I hope the second best bloody mary bartender in town took heed and headed up to Baton Rouge, or wherever it was he was from. I hope St. Peter's is still there. I hope they manage to keep the Superdome crowds under control. I hope it's still possible for the Big Easy to, someday, be easy again.

August 10: Tornadia Goes to Hooters

Our last softball game of the year, the game that most naturally should be followed by a rousing round of pitchers of the non-human variety, started at 9:20 on a Sunday night. Given the number of parents and complete roster of office workers in the mix, we decided to go out for pre-game beers, a concept I've been encouraging for about six years but which the more competitive members of the team have consistently eschewed. Until now. Until somebody gave our team a pass to free hot wings and sodas. And that somebody? Hooters.
I've never been a fan of the place, you could say, but I've kind of left it alone. In my more solipsistic moments, I can't sort out the who's-exploiting-whom, power-is-in-the-eye-of-the-beholder sort of thing. Having waited tables at a thoroughly benign chain restaurant, where I was required to wear not just long sleeves and long pants but also a necktie, I'm pretty confident in saying the customer-server relationship is always a bit Theater of Power. And pretty people get better tips, no matter what the uniform is.
Nonetheless, Hooters always left me feeling kind of ooked out, so I just stayed away from it. I could always play the "I haven't been there, so I can't really comment" card. But this was the last game of the last year of playing with a bunch of people I've played softball with for a long time, and I wanted to hang out. And besides, if I went, I could say I've been there, and then I have full right to say whatever I think, right? So. Here's what I think: I don't like Hooters.

I don't like Hooters because it is exploitative. Whether or not it's sexist, it definitely reinforces mainstream notions of ideal beauty, and women's worth being tied to their attractiveness, and attractiveness being legs and boobs and hair. And reinforces class notions of service workers being not quite people, really, so much as performers hired to be looked at. Imitation, kind of, like watching little kids play restaurant.

I don't like Hooters because it operates on a segregated business model--men in the kitchen, women on display. Hooters does not have male servers. Period. But men work. They get sweaty and hairy and grumpy and covered in barbecue sauce. Women work, but they mustn't look like they're working.

I don't like Hooters because it's ugly. I hate orange. The restaurant is oddly brightly lit and fake wood-sy.

I don't like Hooters because it takes local money and throws it to some home office somewhere.

I don't like Hooters because I don't eat wings or burgers and they don't have what you'd call an extensive menu.

I don't like Hooters because they try to play like they're a family restaurant ("it's the wings!"), which is odd and disingenuous. And if the wings were that good, they wouldn't need the gimmick.

But mostly I don't like Hooters because it's just weird. Like, they say a lot of business guys have lunch there, which I just do NOT get. If it's blatant untouchable sex you're after, why not go to a real strip club? Because people would think that's offensive. But if eyeballing real "adult shows" is a business no-no, why is ogling pretend ones okay? Where's the line? And what's the point? "We need to meet with the head of the Anderson account? Great! Let's all have a burger, get mildly aroused, and then head back to the office!"

Some people have theorized that it's supposed to be a bonding thing, but that doesn't really hold water. First off, sticking with the business lunch anyway, you're making some pretty huge assumptions about people, and definitely buying into the Mas Macho Manly Man, "I am SO not a homo" school of thought. Or you're one of those guys who flirts with waitresses competitively. Either way: outdated. And you're definitely risking making someone uncomfortable, which is a poor business strategy, I think.

So, Hooters. Not for me. I was only there about 15 minutes, and I didn't even get to sample their fine selection of sodas, so that's really all I have to say. Oh--except this: There's a giant vending machine on the bathroom wall of Hooter's ladies room. Do you know what it sells? Pantyhose. All in suntan, all in sizes B and C. For $4 bucks a pop. In case, I guess, in the course of her shift, a server gets a run in her nylons. Lord knows we wouldn't want a dangerous pantyhose snag to interfere with the serving of food and beverages.

I asked the guys on my team what was available for purchase in the men's room, but no one would answer. But one of them did say that my question made him "uncomfortable." Yes, good lord, by all means. What a tacky question! I do so hate when someone makes me feel all awkward about holding a co-ed team happy hour at a soft-core chain restaurant!


(We won the game, by the way. And the other team said we were "fucking annoying.")

August 4: Four things I am not

1. Jewish
2. Lesbian
3. "Rachael"
4. The Jewish, possibly lesbian Rachael who apparently hangs out everywhere I do, just not at the same time, leading to lots of confusing conversations wherein people think they've already met me, or wherein friends think I ignored them when they saw "me" last week

The Jewish question has come up three times in the last week. But it was just last night that I found out that my long hidden doppelganger might be the lovely Jewish woman people think I am.

I've been friends with two Rachaels, one in fourth grade and one in college. Both of them were redheads. I've gathered from this that all Rachaels are redheads, and it confuses me when people call me Rachael (which has also, come to think of it, happened three times in the last week, though only one of those was a known overlap).

But that's okay. It's kind of fun. I can tell myself that it's not that people don't remember my name, they just think I'm somebody else--which is kind of neat. Plus, I have a free pass to ignore people I don't want to talk to. That was Rachael! Not me! I would totally have said hello!

Here are four other random things I am not:
1. A fan of Fleetwood Mac. Or mushrooms.
2. A flautist, which, if my mail is to be believed, is no longer the preferred term, and if you want to know why you should see New Fowler's Third. I do not have one, so I can't tell you what that's about.
3. Someone who should be drinking whiskey on weeknights.
4. Looking forward to having lunch with my assistant boss tomorrow, so we can brainstorm about ways I can suck less at my job. Goodie!

ROCK REPORT: ROCK AND ROLLercoasters

RAWK!

You should post on this, too.

Rock and rollercoasters was awesome and heartbreaking and fun and exhausting and very, very loud. The highlights:

* St. Nehloiveht, the best band that never was. That was so, so nice to see. Everyone remembered her lyrics. Everyone faked remembering her instrumentals. But it also looked like y'all were really enjoying yourselves, which was just...awww. I'm tearing up over here.

* Fourth Rotor. Yow! They're so awesome, and so nice, and so scary, and I'm so glad they played Anti-building. I love Kami's deliberateness on that one. And Jake's baseline. And Douglas's scary, scary glaring. Fourth Rotor makes me want to jump up and down. And now I know that I should maybe avoid Finland and learn French.

* Terminus Victor. Victorious! Twice is nice. And loud. I don't think Scott will get over the Free Fall, though. The executioner hood on the one song in Champaign was awesomely crazy and TV-like.

* Mad Science Fair. Yay for the band that brought their own crowd! Huzzah!

* L'il Isaac. Not what I was expecting from their self description at all. Which is not to say that I didn't enjoy it, because they were very good. I didn't catch the calypso groove. Mighty fine dancers. Reminded us how lucky we are to be able to get Czeckoslovakian beer for $3.50, even while announcing that everyone should move to Chicago.

* Cameo Turret. Quite good, I thought. What I saw.

* Batman: Did not knock my glasses off, but provided enough of a possibility of glasses-flinging to completely distract novice riders. Thanks, Batman!

* American Eagle (the ride, not the store): Much like the original Psycho, proves that older and simpler can be just as scary. Especially when it won't let you out.

* Champaign music scene: Sucks, at the moment. We do need more sluts. I was thinking about that last week, and I see your point now. People are too closed up and they don't even bother talking to people. I was thinking about how we got random drinks in New Orleans and met Polish girls in New York and yeah, those are big cities, and those people weren't from those cities either, and we were traveling and maybe (for me, anyway) less closed off, myself, but...that just don't happen in Champaign. Is it because everybody's 20 and too green? Is it because bands aren't helping each other out? Where ARE people going these days? Are they all at the new Starbucks?
I did want to tell you that I went to see Jason Webley last Thursday, at the Channing Murray, and they promoted the hell out of that show. He got good write ups in the weeklies, they talked about him on WEFT and WPGU, good word of mouth...and there were maybe 20 people there. He was talking about the fact that he'd played at a house in Galesburg the night before that had been much more crowded and lively, and couldn't figure out why last time he was in town, the crowd was large and rowdy, and this time were not. I did not tell him it was because of music scene prudery.

* SuperSpence and The Van of Steel: Wow! Yay again to Spencer and his mobile transport unit. That neither van nor driver overheated as we sat on 90 is a testament to superhuman forebearance. Rounds of applause and cocktails to both.

* Speaking of cocktails...Russian Quaaludes.

* Cal's in Chicago, which is as grimy and tiny and beautiful as the Sears tower is shiny and tall and creepy.

* Meg, who earned tides of good karma for hosting four...no, five...no, six...okay, seven of us, and had the hives.

* And lastly, to the ostriches that will one day transport Great America VIPs at great speed past the dawdlers, the spatially unaware, and the zig-zagging Stroller Utility Vehicles.

Please add.