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Frantic, frantic, frantic. Frantic. If the airports had an air raid siren and I have good reason to believe they do, this is the moment they should have used it. The kind where the slow rise and the fall that makes your stomach drops The storm was coming and everyone knew it, not in a casual Oh wow. Snow way this could alter my weak, my plans, my sense of self way. I was traveling from Nashville to Austin, which erupt. We stopped feeling like a routine flight and started feeling like the last helicopter out of Vietnam. The gate was full and no one was relaxed. No one was sitting. Normally, people were standing very early and pacing too much and hovering near the desk. Like eye contact with the airline host might bring them mercy. Apparently these are pet peeves of mine. Phones were out, forecasts were being freshed. Everyone was an amateur meteorologist. My best friend, God bless him, informed me it was going to be sleet at best, which somehow felt worse than snow. Others insisted it would be 11 inches or even a foot saying it with a confidence that people who had never once been correct about weather. No see, no see, it's actually gonna shift east. And I think the storm heard them and thought, well, I'll show them. Giving me a bad recommendation. I'm gonna go west. Yeah, every announcement felt precarious. Even the harmless ones. We'll begin boarding shortly. Shortly, like when? Shortly, like in Delta time shortly, uh, to what the woman next to me side catatonically like. She had already written off her luggage as the first casualty of the storm. Somewhere a carry-on was being emotionally mourned. I meanwhile was, of course, deeply unprepared. No plan, no supplies waiting at home. No calm. Internal voicing. You've handled worse. Nope. Just vibes. Just hope. Just a jacket that I was hoping, no, I was praying to upgrade as soon as I got home. We did take off and land. Everything was fine. By the time I got to the car, the first drops of rain were sticking to the windshield. Then it came down in sheets. Visibility dropped instantly. Drivers moved quickly from rush to panicked. Horns, blared, brake screeched. People slid into intersections like it was a dance recital, and I had skipped the rehearsal. I gripped the wheel like I was playing Mario Kart wi with that little special controller. Every corner was a mini mission. Every other driver was aggressively disobeying the traffic laws, like they had unlocked new achievements with each passing minute. My GPS kept recalculating and I just knew I was never gonna make it to the grocery store. I have expected a helicopter to crash land in front of me or a pedestrian to sprint into the traffic just to raise the difficulty level. The storm was arriving and it was coming with a vengeance. I went straight to the grocery store, which looked like it had already been stripped for parts by people who knew how to do this thing called prepare. Bread was gone in a way that felt personal. Milk gone completely like it never existed. Eggs were spoken about in the past tense, like war veterans. I remember we could get them for$8. Now we can't get'em at all. Shelves weren't empty dramatically. No chaos, no overturned cards. Just this quiet acquisition. You probably should have been here earlier. All that remained were strange constellation prizes, quinoa, pasta, lentils, and a matte Italian organic package. Eight varieties, not seven, eight of horse radish, which felt a little less like an oversight and more of a threat. Very aggressive. I stood there holding an item that labeled Winter Berlin, unsure what season intended to defeat, unsure what that season even was, and whether it required water or not. As I moved through the aisle, a man made eye contact with my jacket, my dirty rat infested jacket, and he held contact a beat too long. His eyes flickered down and back up. I don't wanna say he tried to mug me. But there was a moment where I could kind of tell he was, uh, pricing it out. I tightened my grip on my jacket and sped up, escaped with my coat, and, uh, escaped with my coat and life narrative intact. I'd do it for the fans. I didn't even like my jacket, but at this point it was my best chance of survival. I made it home just ahead of the storm and immediately put on my survival cosplay costume. Every layer I owned went on socks. Doubled hood. I sat in the living room like a Victorian child whose doctor had grave concerns for their mental health. The fire was going, I was trying mainly mentally to stay warm, convincing myself this was cozy. It would not be the end of my story. At one point we, my roommates and I gathered to allocate our resources and suddenly the pre-storm tension termed deeply domestic. We were debating who gets to wear which jacket my roommate had. This extra super warm, hella stylish jacket, the kind that makes you feel like an armored vehicle. The kind that makes you feel like Ryan Gosling in any movie ever, A low key hope to you to let me wear it. I didn't ask directly. I hovered, I sighed strategically. I made comments like, wow, that one looks really warm. He was hesitant. Understandably, he was scared he might need it Later. We negotiated like adults pretending not to be scared. Each suggestion was met with a thoughtful pause and a careful shake of the head. The stakes felt absurd, but sincere. The right jacket could mean comfort, dignity, which I need, or at the very least, fewer regrets. I sat there, bundled up every lawyer I own, sitting in the living room. Like a Victorian child with a weak constitution. The fire was still going. I was still trying desperately to stay warm, repeating affirmations like people used to live like this. Then the storm actually hit and everything stopped. Not movie quiet, not wow. It's peaceful, quiet. Real quiet. A kind where sound feels uncomfortable. Snow felt so fell so gently it, it didn't seem to land. Just accumulated pi accumulated politely. The world outside, slowed to a crawl and then politely excused itself. This wasn't that bad. My roommate actually handed me his jacket, no speech, no ceremony, just an unspoken agreement that we were passed pretending. I pulled it on immediately and felt hope into the room, and then we went outside. The snow was soft in places, but the hill we found was mostly ice. We sled it anyways. Poor judgment always prevails. We crash into each other, wiped out, spectacularly laughed until the cold burned my lung, the jacket. Once a symbol of survival became a liability, I pulled it off and another layer than another. Eventually running around in my hoodie, sweating a snowstorm like an idiot. Adults, not myself. Behaving briefly as children, and we had plausible deniability. By morning, the panic had evaporated. The city woke up like it didn't have anywhere to be. People were outside playing fully playing adults rediscovered their legs, kids throwing snow without strategy. Dogs losing their minds. Next morning, my roommate woke up early 10:00 AM real early to make pancakes for us fluffy, absurdly fluffy, the kind that you don't need syrup, but accept it graciously. His dad had shipped him real maple syrup from Canada, so naturally I used it like it was mine. I don't know what he did differently. I just know they tasted better because he made'em for me because someone looked at the situation and thought, Hmm, let me make this a little more special. My other roommate, bless him, split his sandwich meat with me. He has less to offer. Just opened the fridge, made two sandwiches and handed me one. Don't look now, but I think we may be trauma bonding. We played in unreasonable number of games, card games, board games, games where the rules were explained badly and enforced worse. I couldn't tell you why I snorted laughing, but I kept snorting time stopped behaving incorrectly. Wait, maybe you finally behaved correctly. Winning didn't matter. Losing wasn't registering. The all metric was, I'm having a good time. We watched movies and every one of them landed harder because there was nowhere else to be. No checking the time, no guilt, no half watching while scrolling, just sitting, reacting together, letting scenes breathe. At one point we decided we needed another power cord for a guitar amp. This felt dangerous. Not illegal exactly, but close enough to be thrilling. We bundled up and drove to Guitar Center like we were on a covert mission. We were the only two idiots on the world. We were the home. We were the only two idiots on the road Wayne's World. Wayne's World Loki. The roads were fine. I think everyone just wanted to stay home and needed an excuse. Guitar Center was closed. Of course it was closed. The universe wasn't entertaining errands today, but we found another chord back home anyway, so we jammed loudly, poorly, as always, my enthusia, my enthusiasm made up for my lack of skill. It felt. Invigorating. There was something deeply satisfying about being trapped with nothing else to do. No goals, no productivity metrics, no sense that you should be maximizing something, just presence, just being where you were with who you were, told the state with who you were until the day decided to end, and then the snow started to thin and so did the magic water dripped. Pavement reappeared. Life began warming back up, stretching, checking his phone, waiting for the gun to signal a start. Emails crept in schedules. He resurfaced the future, knocked gently, and then didn't stop. This morning, my roommate walked out to his truck to leave for work and the engine turned over. Normal normalcy cleared its throat. I felt sad. Honestly, the storm was over. The pause had ended. Productivity was back on the calendar. Capitalism won and I already missed the quiet. Here's the deal. I got really strong opinions and, and I know I'm no expert at most things in life, but sometimes a strong opinion is, is all you need. Shoot me an email with one of your questions and I'll be sure to get right back to you, austin@ramblerlive.com. Thanks.