Oh, not because of school. It was my first relief night on Dorm Duty, and that was fun. To get ready for it, I drove down to Ames and bought a thermos, picking up a fillup of decaffeinated coffee on the way back. I wasn't sure about decaffeinated coffee, but heck -- it was worth the try. I like having warm liquids and I sure didn't need to drink a quart of normal caffeine coffee from eight to ten last night.

Dorm Duty is actually "Structured Study Time." You see, the students who achieve John Brewster Scholar status don't have mandated study hall, they have 'quiet hours' in the Dorm, instead. They can do what they want, so long as it's quiet. It's assumed that if you have JBS, you're able to do what you have to to succeed.

And it worked, truth be told. The three JBS students we had all worked on their homework diligently last night. As did the one 'Citizen.' Citizenship is the next level down -- they don't have the ability to go wandering off like the JBS do, except for one night a week, but they get to study in their dorm rooms instead of study hall.

I'm there to make certain the students are keeping quiet, and to keep an eye on them and make sure that if they elect to leave, they sign out with me first. We need to know where they're going, of course. It's not the hardest job on Earth. Well, not yet. As more students in my dorms make JBS and citizenship, and as they get stroppier, there might be a night or two where it's a problem.

But mostly I read e-mail, listened to RealAudio and sipped decaf, which itself wasn't as bad as I expected.

The fun parts of the evening came after. Oh, did they ever.

First was my evening drive. In the driving rain and wind of once-Hurricane Floyd.

Now, I'm like my father. When there's a terrible storm... I like to go driving. It's exciting and fun to watch. But, neither my father nor I are stupid. When its pouring, and the wind makes it hard to drive, and the water makes you hydroplane... well, there's not much fun about that. However, I had run out of toilet paper. There are some necessities of life that make the risk worth it.

The going was slow. It really wasn't that bad -- I was kind of enjoying it.

Then I had to stop suddenly, because there was a tree blocking three quarters of the road. It's impressive to watch a tree fall, especially when you're moving towards it at thirty miles an hour on rain-slick roads. As I said, impressive.

Well, I didn't hit it. I managed to stop (bless my Saturn) and move around it. Not long afterward, I found another tree on the road, which I avoided. And I found a good number of branches blown down too.

The Christy's -- the only 24 hour place in the area -- was packed. Lots of people seemed to be just out, and every one of them was talking about how only an idiot was on the road tonight. They didn't seem to make the logical connection. I certainly did -- I felt that special brand of idiocy called "coming down off of adrenaline."

I got toilet paper. I got into my car. I drove back, with one long moment of waiting behind a line of cars, with a police officer guiding traffic around one of the trees while a road crew pulled it off the road. The next tree down the line had no officer.

There is, however, something universally comforting about a police officer in that blue/black trenchcoat and hat. It's like a jungian symbol for our soul. Someone is watching out for us here. It will be all right. There's a Police Officer present.

And there is something beautiful about rain in a wind, reflected through a streetlight. Or bubbles of air cascading over the pavement, like diamonds or snowflakes, sliding along a frictionless surface. The air and rain and light play off each other, and you can see the fight of the wind off of different surfaces, with the rain being pushed in patterns, left and right, and somewhat down.

But it's a beauty I don't need to see again anytime soon.

Once home, I jumped online, tired but wired. It was dear toilet paper at that point.

I received a couple of draining phone calls almost immediately. Family matters, that don't need much elaboration here (and I doubt they'd be of much interest). But, they took a lot out of me on a stormy night, and that's no fun.

About one-thirty in the morning, I got a call from a girl I know somewhat name of Deb. She's a friend I met at Lunacon last year, through my friend Jon Lennox. She had had car trouble and I'd helped her out, so we had some connection and every now and again we talk on the phone.

She likes calling late at night, but she knows I work. One-thirty would usually mean 'problem she needs to talk about.' And probably a serious one.

Oooooh yeah.

Deb lives just outside New York City, which got nailed with Floyd far harder than we did. To the point that her house flooded. Three to four feet of water on their first floor, with Deb running through desperately trying to recover valuables before they were destroyed. Computers. Books. Mementos. The couch, she reported, was floating.

I felt impotent and helpless, listening to a person who had lived through what they so cheerfully call an Act of God. She's afraid that the insurance will refuse to pay for the damage on those grounds, even.

An interruption of the world at 9:46 AM. The Harbor alert is sounding in the rain right now. Which means there's probably a boat in serious trouble. Someone may be dying even as I type. A sobering thought.

I listened until two-thirty, though I knew it would mean being exhausted today. It's what I could do. I could listen, and empathize, and let her be upset and frightened and angry.

That's the problem with Acts of God or whoever's responsible. They reach up and wrench your world and expectations and comfortable life apart, and you don't get to go back to before them. You don't get to call 'do-over.' You don't get to sue. You don't get to win. You only get to endure.

My friend Gail, who writes Quiddity, is without power. I have a couple of Florida friends who got to feel the panic but not the Hurricane. The same with a Georgia friend. Even I came close to doing damage to the car with a tree. (Hitting it at thirty miles an hour wearing a seatbelt in a car with airbags would have sucked for my car and probably been painful but not deadly to me. The car would have suffered far more than I would.) This is the power of raw, untamed nature. I wonder how many people would have died of Floyd in the days before doppler radar and a week's warning.

So today I'm tired, and there's dorm duty tonight, and no rest for the wicked. And I've got a thing or three I need to do, so I'll talk more later.