A WINTER STORM WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM 6 AM WEDNESDAY TO 6 PM CST THURSDAY.
* TIMING... THE WINTRY PRECIPITATION IS EXPECTED TO DEVELOP WEDNESDAY MORNING AND CONTINUE THROUGH THURSDAY. THE HEAVIEST PRECIPITATION WILL LIKELY OCCUR WEDNESDAY NIGHT THROUGH THURSDAY MORNING.
* SNOW AND SLEET ACCUMULATIONS... FROM WEDNESDAY MORNING THROUGH THURSDAY WILL RANGE FROM 8 TO 14 INCHES OVER CENTRAL KANSAS... WITH LOCALLY HIGHER AMOUNTS POSSIBLE GENERALLY NORTH OF INTERSTATE 70. AMOUNTS OVER SOUTH CENTRAL KANSAS WILL RANGE FROM 1 TO 6 INCHES... WITH THE LESSER AMOUNTS NEAR THE OKLAHOMA BORDER.
* ICE ACCUMULATIONS... EXCEEDING ONE-QUARTER INCH WILL BE POSSIBLE GENERALLY ALONG AND SOUTH OF THE HIGHWAY 54 CORRIDOR.
This. Is not good. This is accurate as of about an hour ago (9:17 PM), when it was last updated.
Let's recap, shall we?
Last night's prediction: 4-9 inches.
This morning's prediction: 6-10 inches.
Tonight's prediction: 8-14 inches.
It keeps going up.
I told my students in no uncertain terms this morning to be checking their emails and Blackboard around 6-8PM tomorrow night, as I would know by that time if I was going to be able to hold my classes on Thursday -- a scenario that, by the hour, looks less and less likely to happen. I also told them that they may want to keep an eye on it anyway, as there is the distinct possibility that the university as a whole may be closed on Thursday -- I've been told by a few higher-ups on campus that whenever any ice is involved with heavy snowfall, as is expected with this storm, as soon as people start slipping/sliding around, they shut the place down if they can.
I have, likewise, heard varying reports on how much snow I myself will get here, as I am right on that "heaviest snowfall" line here in Newton. The Weather Channel's detailed forecast says 1-2 inches tomorrow during the day, and then 5-8 more overnight Wednesday, and 3-5 more on Thursday. That would bring my total expected snowfall here at my house to anywhere between 9 and 15 inches. Which is ridiculous, frankly, as two days ago it was seventy degrees.
There are varying reports about Wichita proper as well; as you can see above, the NWS is calling for 1-6 inches there with more ice, while the Weather Channel is calling for 6-12 inches of actual snow for the Wichita area based on their projection maps. Regardless, nobody in this area is getting out of any of this mess easily. The last time Wichita got a foot of snow, they closed down the university for two days running -- in January 2011, as I mentioned in this morning's post. Even Daisy, in Omaha, won't escape this storm; Omaha is supposed to get, at latest estimates, 8-10 inches themselves on Thursday as the storm moves further north and east. Luckily, Daisy and her mother arrived safely home this morning from her sister's place.
My students, needless to say, are thrilled -- not just at the prospect of me and many other professors who will more than likely be canceling classes, but because the last time most of them witnessed a storm like this, they were in high school. They still have a childlike fascination with nasty winter weather since it happens oh-so-rarely out here. They're also excited at the possibility that the university may close down for a day or two. Most large state universities don't do this, but as Flat State University is primarily a "commuter school" where most of its students live off-campus, that factors heavily into closures and class cancellations. Again, I don't usually cancel classes, but as fifteen inches of snow would be close to the top of the tires of my car, well...
When I returned home from campus this evening I put the car in the garage. I've already pretty much decided that I'm canceling my classes on Thursday, but I have not officially told my students yet -- I'll wait to make said announcement until tomorrow evening, as promised. No reason to be premature on things like that, even if we all know what's coming. Putting the car in the garage also allows me to do a bit of maintenance on it without being out in the cold, anyway -- tonight on the way home, after two months, the "low oil" light kicked on (right on schedule, really). That means in the interim while I'm hunkered down here in the house, I can add oil and check/refill all of the car's important fluids, adding a little Marvel Mystery Oil here and there, topping off the antifreeze, etc. On a car as old as mine, it requires me to do these sorts of things every two or three months anyhow. Preventative maintenance, really -- my Monte Carlo has been running and driving like a champ since I had it worked on last fall, and I intend to keep it that way as long as I can.
The cats seem to know some sort of bad weather is coming -- up until about an hour ago, they haven't wanted to leave my side or let me out of their sight. All three of them have now curled up tightly together on the old couch in the living room, as if they're bracing for impact. My only real worry is that I might lose power for an extended period of time if we get a bunch of ice -- my house is all-electric. That would mean no furnace, no stove, no hot water, computer, or internet. It would also mean very little natural light, and as most of my comps readings I have already are electronic in PDF form, I couldn't even do any of that. I could, well, sleep I suppose. That's about it. Play my DS until the battery dies, something like that. It's not like I could leave the house without great difficulty, so it would be a sort of...mini-vacation.
I could -- as amusing as it may however be -- still make coffee.
Many years ago, an ex purchased a no-electricity-required coffee pot for me on sale from T.J. Maxx. It's all glass, and has its own little glass-slitted filter for coffee grounds. Pour the water through it and it makes coffee, and a tealight candle underneath in a special holder heats it up and keeps it warm. I've never used it; it's sat in the box in the upper cabinet above my microwave since it was purchased, unopened, in case the need for it ever arises. I use tealights in my scented oil warmer, and have an unopened 50-pack of them next to my desk. I think it's safe to say that even without power, I'll still be able to make some hot coffee, and that's a small comfort at least.
If nothing else, I could whip out my notebook and start writing new poems by the dozens. Perhaps one or two of them would be worth salvaging for my thesis project.
Speaking of poems, I did have my first formal one-on-one sit-down meeting with the visiting writer today. She is incredibly intelligent and well-read; I'm highly impressed. Both of the other visiting writers I've had sessions with over the three years I've been in graduate school have been American males -- she's a middle-aged Swedish woman who not only works in translations of, but reads a lot of international poets. I showed her three of my poems -- one each from each year I've been in grad school, actually, though that was purely unintentional -- and she liked them all. She seemed to like my newest one the best, which is actually a bit encouraging because (while it may not be true) I'd like to think that I'm refining my craft and making my work a bit more on-target, or at least as "on-target" as my work gets in my own little mind. All of us who have worked and/or lived in the real world outside of academia know that the MFA experience is hollow and self-important, giving all of us a false sense of security that our work is actually meaningful and/or good. Very few of my poems I think are "good." I think some are decent, I think some are passable, and most of them -- even the ones I call finished -- I don't really like at all. Of course, this may be because most of my poems are very personal, and re-reading them again (or revising them long after the fact) brings up old, sometimes unpleasant memories, but it's a rarity that I produce a poem that I'm actually proud of. I've been told many times by many people that I'm a fantastic poet, but I don't believe it at all and probably never will -- I know too many friends and colleagues who are much better than I am. I know it's not a competition, but I know I'm simply ordinary, another face amongst many who tries to write his thoughts on a page. I refuse to be sucked into that false sense of security -- I've been down that path before.
I also silently realized throughout my discussion with the visiting writer this afternoon that, of all people, I've never written a poem about Daisy. Not once. It's not that I haven't been writing since we've been together (I have, though I've been writing considerably less as of late), but I've just never written one about her. I'm not sure why. I've quoted or made reference to her briefly in a poem or two, but I've not yet written a poem about her, or for her. That thought was troubling to me. I'm going to marry this woman -- have given her a ring, proposed, and everything -- and yet I've never done this. Yes, we met each other at a very strange time in both of our lives, and the first...well, half of our relationship (i.e., this past summer) was really strange, rocky, and on-again-off-again because of that, but to have not written a poem about her or for her is a serious lapse in my attentiveness and creative spirit as a writer in general, not just a poet.
I've had a lapse in my writing overall, really -- I haven't been inspired to write anything new in a long time. With the pressure of my looming comprehensive exams and upcoming graduation/job search, not to mention the first two weeks or so of this semester when I was worried and stressed about my financial issues, everything about life has just steamrolled me. I may have more downtime than I've ever had before as a graduate student, but even with that downtime there's always something that fills it -- whether that be taking care of my students' work, running errands, doing household stuff, or desperately trying to get some real sleep for once. My energy comes in ebbs and flows, and for the past two months or so it's been seriously drained from me by the end of any given week. I don't know why. Maybe I really am getting too old for this "academia" shit. Maybe I'm just getting too old in general, and my creative juices have dried up. Maybe there's a vampire sucking my life force from me while I sleep. Whatever the reason, I feel totally different about my writing now than I did when I was a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed first year MFA candidate. I'm more cynical and slightly more jaded and secretive about it. I'm also more realistic about how little it means outside of the academic environment. I've come to love the act of writing less, the act of reading less. In fact, graduate school has completely murdered my once quite strong love of reading for pleasure. The only writing or reading I actually enjoy anymore is, well, here. In this blog. And I think that's simply out of habit more than anything else.
Anyway, I've gotten way off track.
She (the visiting writer) likes my stuff, which is a compliment to be sure, but I'm not sure she'd actually tell any of us if she honestly outright hated our works. I really want to tell her during next week's meeting something along the lines of "Look, it's okay if you hate this. Seriously, you can tell me. I won't take offense." I've said the same thing to my thesis director in the past, who (as you may recall) has outright told me before that most of my work really does nothing for him on a poetic level. I'm fine with that. That's honesty, and there are few things I respect more than complete honesty in a person. I don't want to be bullshitted; while I may simply be going through the motions at this point, I'm going through them for a reason: I would like to better my work as much as possible. Still, my meeting with her today went really well, and she gave me a long list of books, authors, and other poets to check out when I get the chance, as she thinks I'll really enjoy them (and I'm sure she's correct in that assessment).
In other news, a few more interesting things happened today. Daisy got her ring resized to make it a bit bigger (while it fit her, it was a bit snug/tight), and the jeweller ended up cracking it. As in, cracking the metal at the base of the ring.
"It's okay, babe," I told her. "I can get you another one if they rui--"
"NO," she told me firmly. "This is my ring, it's important, you proposed to me with it in your kitchen and it is my precious."
She even went as far to tell the jewellers that they couldn't keep it overnight because she would get, and I quote, "separation anxiety." Yep. I find this both incredibly super-endearing and hilarious.
Apparently, after doing some research, it's possible to crack a ring if it's heated too quickly/too slowly/something like that while it's being resized. Hopefully it can be fixed easily; she's taking it back tomorrow to see what they can do, as the snow isn't supposed to hit Omaha until at least tomorrow night, if not on Thursday. I have assured her still that if I need to replace the ring, I will more than happily do so, and that she shouldn't worry too much about it. I'll do whatever she'd like me to do, if necessary.
I also decided that I needed a bit of a change of fashion today, and ordered myself my first true sport coat from Amazon. I'm a thirty-year-old, engaged man now -- I can't wear Firefly or Justice League t-shirts to teach in every day, you know?
Note: I walked into my classes this morning wearing my leather biker jacket, aviator glasses, and a Justice League t-shirt. I asked my students if any of their other professors came to class in that sort of attire. When they responded that no, they didn't, I said "I thought not!" and continued with my lecture.
Again, I digress.
I've been wanting a sport coat for a long time. Technically, I have one already -- it's just a bit too small, and I rarely wear it. I can't button it around me, is what I'm saying, because I have really broad shoulders and an even broader swath of fat across my midsection.
Yeah, baby, picture that sexy image for a moment -- fat-rolls a-flutter.
Ahem. Anyway.
It's difficult to find a sport coat in my size that's not only multipurpose, but not $300. I wanted one in black or charcoal, because both colors would go with basically anything in my wardrobe, and I wanted a longer one -- mid-thigh or so. Those things are really hard to come by, honestly, in a decent price range. I found one this morning on Amazon in 2XL (which, I can only hope, will be big enough) in black with muted pinstriping, for $37. Screw it, I thought. If I don't like it or it doesn't fit right on me, I'll give it away. I can return it for free, but the returns process for Amazon can at times be a nightmare -- there's no reason to bother with it for something like a jacket. If nothing else, I'll give it to someone in the department who could wear it, like my boss or a colleague. It arrives on Thursday, barring any unforeseen hold-ups due to the snowstorm barrelling down upon us, and hopefully it'll look nice and fit well. Again, it's so rare that I actually purchase new, useful items of clothing for myself -- I'll get a t-shirt here and there, or some slippers or pajama pants, but I so very rarely buy actual clothing that's useful. Maybe this will be the slow start of a new trend.
On that note, folks, I'm going to bed. It's late, and I'm going to take one last longing look at the green grass outside in the yard before I won't be able to see it again for many days, as the ice/snow will more than likely start long before I awaken from my slumber.
Fare thee well, my friends, and for those of you who are local and will be out and about in the mess tomorrow -- stay safe. Be smart. Don't let some asshole run you off the road.
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