Mr. Hallorann. What is in Room 237?

I was reading this book, The Ice Queen, by Alice Hoffman and I found my new natural disaster. By the way, it’s not such a hot book. Her earlier work was way better. Try Practical Magic and don’t think that stupid Nicole Kidman movie was even remotely like the book.

I was going to write all about the dangers of lightning, but my fish-like attention span has moved on. Don’t get me wrong; lightning IS this season’s tsunami. I mean, really, the chance of being hit by lightning in your lifetime is 1/3000 (if you live to be 80).

But as the skies are blue and lightning seems to be far away, I’ll wait until it rains to worry.

So Markus and I work in the same room in our house, the red room. We call it the red room because it’s red. And it’s also a play off The Shining(this freaks me out when I’m alone at night). We recently moved our desks together and now sit across from each other. This has good aspects and bad aspects. One the good side, I see his handsome sweet face all day. On the bad side I can smell his feet all day.

News Break:

We just had a lightning storm blow over as I sat here. See what I mean about jinxing things. I let down my guard and lo and behold, lightning. THERE WAS NO WARNING! I could have been fried at my desk. Eminem would have been the last thing I heard. Our house is right smack in the middle of a meadow, next to a river surrounded by forest. Our house is the largest object in a wide-open space. We’re doomed.

Lightning can literally hit out of the blue. It can strike up to ten miles away from any rain cloud. It can hit when you’re talking on the phone, washing dishes, doing laundry, and bathing. Anywhere. It IS the underrated killer.

It can hit you in your car. Convertibles are the worst kind of car to be in when there is a lightning storm. I drive a big ole convertible. It’s like a great big blue lightning rod. And tires do not save you in a car.

And my sister is going to college in upstate NY. I hear there are tons of lightning storms out there. So now I don’t have just serial killers and drunk drivers to worry about, she could be hit by lightning and that fabulous brain of hers would be all scrambled. Not to mention the twitches.

I have to go now. My hair is starting to static.