I'm so used to being semi-attached to a computer at most point during the day, every day, that today when a storm moving through the area caused my electricity to go out for about ninety minutes, I nearly went crazy. Due to the fact that it was also very cold and dark outside on account of the storm, all I could really do was to sit on my couch curled up with a blanket and attempt to read some material for my classes by candlelight. Reading by candlelight is no picnic either. I think I spent more time squinting and leaning towards the candle than I actually did reading. By the time that the power had been out for about sixty minutes, I really started to get irritated. I was trying to think about times in the past when I had been without power, but the best things that I could come up with was when hurricanes passed through the Florida panhandle...but then it was still nice and warm (if not too warm) and it stayed light out longer.

I kept thinking to myself that I could just turn on the television and check the weather channel or go to my room and pull up weather.com to see when the storm was going to pass. Of course, I quickly stopped those trains of thought since...hello...the power was out. It freaked me out a little bit considering that I apparently had so little control over the force of habit to consult some kind of electronic resource to find out what I needed. I decided to walk to the front of my apartment building and check out how things looked out towards our campus...but it was so rainy and slushy out that I really couldn't figure anything out, besides that I wanted it to be warmer and not storming.

I then remembered some game books that a friend of mine had brought to me when I was in the hospital in January getting my appendix out. I resigned myself to trying to do a couple of the logic problems and word games in the book but again became quickly frustrated at the fact that my little candle was just not doing the trick. Then it happened...the lights flickered and came back on. I had been in the middle of trying to get myself ready to cook dinner, so I quickly ran back to the kitchen to pick up where I had left off. No sooner had I put the olive oil in the sauté pan did the power go out again. Ever so slightly frustrated and worried that my dinner was going to be ruined, I plopped myself back on the couch and did another puzzle...all the while praying that the electricity would come on again.

When the power did actually come back on after that ninety minutes, I waited for a few minutes on the couch and just stayed at the clock on my DVD player. I didn't want to get myself up from under my warm blanket and head to the kitchen if the electricity was still in the process of playing tricks on me. After a few moments though, I realized that it was apparently back on for good, and so I got my dinner going.

The whole thing bothered me mainly because of that dependance I felt on the electricity and electrical things in general. As creatures of habit, it appears that we just have this automatic process that repeats itself. "well, i'm bored...i'll check my email"..."oh right, no power"....sit down for a few minutes...."well, i'm bored...i'll see what's on tv"..."oh right, no power"...it's a crazy cycle.