A few words about hurricanes:
As I was standing on the street a few days ago, beside some early-20-ish lad I'd never seen before who was holding a handgun, it occurred to me that having a hurricane hit your neighborhood is not unlike the apocalypse. I mean, on some kind of limited scale, it is the apocalypse, because everyone immediately starts acting like the Law is in suspension (which is why they walk around brandishing handguns). And that's funny, because in reality the Law wasn't in suspension. I've seen many, many more cops driving around the streets NOW than I have in the past. The Law is out in force more than usual (precisely because everyone doubts it, so now is the time it must show its strength). This all serves as a reminder of just how imaginary the cops are, in general. We don't break the law because we think they're around, which is an understanding of the world that has little to do with how much the cops are actually around.
Obviously, one of my points here is that I'm less afraid of looters--the supposed criminal "other" that will take my shit--than I am of 20-somethings walking around in the street with handguns. To put this another way, there are ALWAYS people around who can take my shit, but only after a hurricane are there packs of armed 20-somethings wandering the streets willy-nilly.
But, more seriously, when I think about the apocalypse, and the apparent absence of the Law which is the cornerstone of what that word represents, more questions come to mind. One of the troublesome things about this whole apocalypse coming to our world is that you'd think that once it arrived we could waste all our time and energy on procuring hookers and blow. That's what Prince's "1999" is about, right?--the apocalypse equals "the party space." It's the time when we know that all actions lead to death, hence no action is off limits. So, I'd like to register a complaint: hey, where's my party space? Because it turns out that actually getting hit by the hurricane has been no fun whatsoever. Maybe this is conservative of me, but I'm feeling disappointed and frustrated that I'm missing out on all the hookers and blow. In this all-too-quick post-apocalypse, everyone keeps trying to reestablish order, and, all hell has broken tight (as opposed to breaking loose). <--- joke not nearly as funny as I would have liked. Point being, it seems that now that Rita has come and gone, I'm still having to work math problems and spend money, but I did NOT get to party down, and break the law without the cops showing up. In fact, quite the opposite, because for the first time ever the cops DID show up at my house, to ask if we were all right, and make vague suggestions that we leave town for awhile. (I'm GLAD they showed up, yes, I'm just saying.)
So, here we've experienced the breakdown of the social order, but I didn't get to fulfill any large-scale libidinal impulses. In fact, not only did I not get to party like it's 1999, I'm also not even getting any of the conveniences that civilization is supposed to provide, like air conditioning, or those little machines that collect and whoosh-away my excrement. I liked those machines, dammit, even if I didn't think about them very often (in fact, their entire function was precisely to make it so I didn't have to think about them very often).
I think my whole point here (besides proclaiming that we all could use more sex and drugs), I hate to say it, is that I'm feeling very pro-civilization right now. I mean, okay, I'm still an anti-humanist, and I think identity is a lie, and American progress and satisfaction are myths that enslave and smother us: In short, yes, civilization still depresses the living crap out of me. But what this hurricane has done is reminded me just what a parasite I am, and how it's probably too late for me--I'm already to ensconced in the system, enjoying being enslaved and smothered, and any time civilization breaks down enough for me to get out from under its smothering pillow, any time I breathe the sweet air of real freedom, I'd better realize that the aforementioned air bears the stench of my own non-whooshed-away excrement within it. On a similar note, before this whole horrific-force-of-nature thing happened, I was getting pretty nonchalant about driving down to the supermarket repetitively, instead of having to hunt down area pets with a spear just to get my protein quotient for the day.
I'm not saying "give me cable tv or give me death," and it's not like I'm going to subscribe to People magazine and start obsessing about whether Jennifer Garner is having a boy or a girl (or twins, or the anti-christ, or whatever), but, I'll admit it, there are aspects of this civilization-thing that I'm willing to support.
I think maybe I'm saying that I'm a parasite who doesn't like his host, but like mitochondria, I'm far too bound up in the inner workings of the system to be able to separate and survive. It's not a good thing or a bad thing, that's just the way it is.
On the plus side, with all the time off from school that I have right now, I've been reading a lot of books.
