Cue the Song for the Harbinger as a Swan

And what if it did start with a song? What if the Earthquakes, hurricanes, the incoming pandemonium portending an eventual apocalypse portending what, what, what exactly? What is it if it's not a feeling of comity through shared victimhood over the sacrosanct power of Nature over all? Or God's creatures and dangling shits, the skyscrapers as subtle re-envisionings of the Towers of Babel we line our fair fine fluid city with?

In shortform, those are the facts. And they bring us up to date for the litany of disasters here within.

* * *

When the earthquake hit, I was asleep. Tuesday at 1:51 p.m. EDT, somewhere outside of DC. My quirky schedule meant I had been out for the better course of four hours. Because of the Atlantic Plate's smooth-glass tectonics, the vibrations shot up the coast to Brooklyn -- where I live -- and the vibrations took like a Reidel resounding, the best man calling rally to make a toast. None of this actually woke me up.

My details: A good twenty years of my life in California, another thirteen in the DC/Baltimore vicinity; in other words, I had intimate knowledge of all the participants in this conversation. I had my jokes at the ready. Snide, snarky, completely dismissive and patronizing in tone and intent. They were lined up and just waiting for the conversation to turn. (Think along the lines of John Boehner crying when his old-fashioned was served shaken.)

The spires crumbled on the National Cathedral.

The Washington Monument cracked.

By Thursday, talk of hurricanes, specifically by name Irene, had overrun the media-thrum and the zeitgeist. It was a conversation change that probably saved me from myself.

* * *

We stocked up on cheese. Cheddar, specifically. Sopressata, kiwis and peaches, candles in case the power went out, wine and beer and bread and more beer and Indian food. We got cereal in the case that in the morning everything was closed. Everywhere was out of decaf and baked goods. The borough of Brooklyn stocked up on bourbon. It threw hurricane parties and mixed ironic drinks.

By 12 p.m. on Saturday, the MTA -- subways, buses, gondolas, ferries -- was shuttered away, dormant and out of use.

* * *

I remember standing outside MacArthur Middle School, waiting for the buses as the sky remained an inert, bulbous gray. It was 1989, Hurricane Hugo, and the potential path, the Cone of Destruction, had it riding up the Chesapeake Bay and parking there with its cocktail of rain and wind, and so as a precaution they vacated the school at noon. The storm missed us, hitting full force in North Carolina before moving further inland and to dwindle in parts inland and further north. The greatest terror that year would be when I singed my eyebrows while lighting a Bunsen burner. I got sent home then, too.

* * *

We tracked Irene's path, watching it wallop North Carolina (the whipping girl) and Newport News, Va. As the night grew darker we cruised Netflix and drank our beer and espressos, attempting not to fall asleep while the humidity rose inside. The wind and rain roared like a blizzard without snow. By Sunday morning we listened to the radio reports, anxious for the subway to be reactivated.

* * *

Branches were ripped off, planks barricading buildings as-yet-to-be-finished had been bent in. Of the stores that weren't closed, we found a coffee shop open until 5:30 p.m., a bar serving post-Irene bloody Marys. I found out a friend had lost a window.

In spite of all the destruction to the surrounding areas, the Metro-North shutdown and the power outages and the flooding and fires, from my vantage point in the largely protected fortress of Crown Heights, Brooklyn, the extent was largely underwhelming, and the biggest repercussions was the concern over when exactly the trains would come back online. I got a day off work. My friend, not so much.

What do I have to say about my first time en hurricane? It was a blip. I've seen worse tornadoes.

* * *

I angrily say this: Is this really the end of the world as we know it? I'm more likely to believe in an incremental apocalypse than one ex nihilo, but frankly I find it hard to react in any way other than the sort of disaffected ennui alluded to in the song.

We're humans: we eat, we shit, we get blown down and we shit and piss again. A healthy sense of humor about large natural and supernatural events, even when they actually do affect us, keeps things in check and under control. I cannot speak to the large swaths of New Jersey and Westchester County and Connecticut that lost power, but I've got the feeling that the largest response is to fire up a grill, light some candles and get a few more swigs on that bottle of Buffalo Trace. And then look at how to remove that tree branch from the driveway. From my vantage point, from my studio, surrounded by six-story brownstone castle walls, I can't fathom a disaster that would be so disastrous as to make clean the stench and groan of the natural world around. Maybe fire. Maybe another earthquake, this time centered around 125th street in the city. That might be it.

My friend whose window got blown out was looking to wash the sop towels, and he left. Today, the buses and subways are running at almost full strength, and the branches are being swept off the sidewalks.

What if this started with a song? My biggest concerns are a trip to MassMoCA, helping a friend move and repairing a friendship that has too many miles in between. And these seem like larger crises than a heaping of water dumped down from the skies.

I'm probably being too glib. The end will probably involve zombies. In other words, I should taking crib notes: