what do you do when your home is about to get barreled down by hurricane? you wait. and wait and wait and wait. however, i DO NOT recommend watching the news as the media only makes a spectacle of the worst case scenario, bringing you further down into an anxiety-riddled hell. i recommend tubing down the chattahoochee river in helen, georgia, smoking a blunt and watching kinniku banzuke (japanese sports entertainment variety show), and having taco night at a friend’s house in hot springs, north carolina. yes, this is my perfect evacuation getaway when getting chased out of town by a storm.

(photograph by Eric Gay/AP Photo)

to my relief, the levees in the industrial canal withstood hurricane gusts, high waters, and giant ships bouncing about the canal. my house is five blocks from that levee and i started picturing the upper ninth ward getting wiped out like the lower nine was exactly three years ago. but we were spared. and even though terrebonne parish has been a black hole for information after the storm–it seems impossible to find photos or stories from there because the roads have been blocked by downed trees and power lines–the reports have told us that the damage is minimal. we all expected the worst and got something fairly bad, but nothing compared to katrina and the devastation she caused in plaquemines and st. bernard parishes. we continue with our rebuilding with minor setbacks.