Hurricane Aphasia

Today The phone rings. I say "Hello" because I don’t feel professional enough yet to answer more authoritatively. Besides, few people call me. Mark, Shin, and the people in the hospital who dial my extension because they want to get rid of someone who called them.

Lady: Who is this?
Me: Sara.
Lady: This is V____. How are you?
Me: Good.
Lady: Good. I’ve got a patient on the line who used to be a patient of Dr. (doctor I ain’t never heard of), and she needs to (Sara’s zoning out because she knows nothing here). I’m trying to get through to B____ and—
Me: I am an editorial assistant here and have no patient information—
Lady: I know. I’m trying to get through to B____ and want to transfer this person to a live person because she’s testy—
(Me thinking: So why the fuck do you want to transfer some testy lady to me whom you know is an editorial assistant who knows nothing of what to do with or how to respond to patients? Then she will be more testy and still will not have gotten anywhere.)
Me: I'll get you the extension to a real person.

And so I did. Lady won't be dumping on me, nope.

Yesterday I got my monthly issue of Scientific American in the mail. The cover article is on hurricanes. I picked it up just before I left for the library to tutor some poetry. While driving there, I had a thought: Hurricanes, a force that can't be controlled, which is infinitely and ultimately scary and I love that part of being alive here on the planet. I got to the libarary a little early, so I opened the magazine to the article on hurricanes. There are researchers working to control The Hurricane. Good chance it'll be possible in a decade or two. While I don't like to see coast-dwellers suffer or lose their homes, I do like the idea of there being god-like forces that ultimately control things. Genetic manipulation, it creeps me out. I presume there is a reason some of us humans are coming to figure out how to harness such god-like controls, a thought which runs opposite yet parallel to my being creeped out by it. I prefer to think that we and our things are just illusion and even though it might appear we're learning how to genetically devise our children, clone our pet puppies, and control hurricanes, we're really the same speck-sized fools we've always been (and more so?). I'm having a good laugh about it right now, that sounds like thunder.

Today I forgot to put on deodorant. I'm not foul yet. Yesterday I shaved only my right leg. Tomorrow I will not forget to put pants on.