The landlines have been out since mid-Sunday. The power was out for about 16 hours and flickered a bit. My cellphone sucks and barely gets texts unless I turn it toward the window just right in not-so-windy weather (which cuts off calls, too). The cable was gone for two days, the Internet for nearly three.

Pile all this crap up and you realize I spent all of Tuesday and Wednesday with nothing but my books, my dad, and my dog. Only one of those listed tend to speak more than grunts or sarcasm to me, so that got tiring.

I have to say, this made me wonder about internet addiction. I could handle being without the internet…for the most part. When we got the cable back, it was very limited and just had local news stations and The Weather Channel. I think that was done on purpose so us poor schmucks down here in Houston could at least be informed while they kept working on the service.

Nice of them to keep us in mind…of course, it also means they can keep charging us, I bet (hee hee).

Well, it worked, but I wanted/needed to see maps. When I could get a text, some were from my boss wondering if I could make it into work later this week. Well, without internet, and since the news wasn’t going to show maps of floodings and road closings, I was shit out of luck and so were they.

People didn’t seem to get it. I kept texting that our landlines were out and I couldn’t get their frantic calls. They got mad at me for texting, but every time they tried to call me and I picked up, it would kick them off the line.

That’s why we have landlines still–the cellphones aren’t very reliable out here in the sticks. I knew we’d have problems.

So I had to placate worriers all night. My dad’s phone’s better so after trying to do 4 conversations at once on the cell (I haven’t figured out how to switch between texters and not screw it up), I finally just told people to call him. That dinging noise was starting to mock me, and I wanted to throw the damn thing out in the yard to suffocate.

So, no biggie. I admit I smiled when I saw he had 10 missed calls. He (cleverly?) had his phone charging all the way across the house… but my aunt spent half an hour making him regret that, I can tell.

But yes, I did miss the internet. I missed reading blogs and getting information. Being without basic news was very startling.

I mean, we’re inundated with all kinds of crap, but when you have no chance of getting anything at all, even local stuff? Wow–it was mind-opening.

I don’t think I’ve ever felt so isolated as I have the past week. I was scared, not that we were going to drown or our vehicles would flood out, but scared that no matter what was going on, we couldn’t learn anything. And everybody around us was gone.

I found it scary because I didn’t want people worrying about me and dad and trying to make it out here to do something. We were in probably the best place possible in the area to stay dry in the house. The lousy part is the roads that actually lead to places I need to go are a mess. I knew they would be.

Just not for this long. I typed pages and pages of my thoughts when I first woke up in the past couple of mornings to try and get my feelings down right. Maybe later I’ll post ’em.

Harvey was a helluva surprise in some respects. I said in my first Harvey post how our coast usually is with storms and the cons and pros with the ones in my previous experience.

I’m surprised how surprising this storm turned out to be, and how right the predictions were! I can’t believe the meteorologists were so accurate as to what this storm would do. They even knew it would go back out to sea and return, the five days or so it would stick around…it was weird.

I used to joke that meteorologists, economists, and politicians were the only people who could be wrong more than 90% of the time and still have jobs. I think I can take meteorologists off the joke now…they’re doing pretty well.

Of course, day-to-day “normal” weather is a conundrum…but this is Houston after all. What the hell is “normal” weather in Houston, anyway?