i have spoken to someone at pepco.

I was very nice to her ("I'm calling to ask about my electricity. Like everyone else, I'm sure. How are you guys doing? You okay?"). In, I believe, return for which, she was very nice to me. Not that she could give me different answers, but she was nice about it.

She hopes they will have power restored to me and my immediate neighbors some time today. She thinks it is likely it will be some time tomorrow. She admits it is possible it will be as late as Friday.

I'ma head home soon and pick up some more stuff, and then move into wordplay's basement for the duration.

okay, i need to focus on perspective.

My power has been out since Saturday morning and may not be back until Friday night, and what with how we're about to get ANOTHER TEN TO TWENTY INCHES OF GODDAMN SNOW it might be even longer than that. I like snow, okay. I come from Cleveland. We have winter there. But where I grew up we knew how to do snow removal (hint: sometimes you have to pick it up and take it somewhere else instead of plowing it into great heaps behind the cars in the parking lot so instead of digging out from two feet of snow the owners now have to dig out from two feet of snow and also seven feet of compacted snow and ice and gravel), and on the rare occasions when we lost power, we didn't lose it for six days at a time.

I've hardly ever fled storm conditions before. There was one time in grad school when a hurricane was going to come and land right on my head, and I skipped town and went to my parents'. (By the time the hurricane got to central Virginia it'd have been extremely heavy wind and rain but not really the kind of thing that really hits the coastal hurricane areas - still, knocked power out for a bit. Back on by the time I returned two days later.) That's it! But today wordplay and I hiked back to my place - because her street has still not been plowed AND MAY NOT BE UNTIL THURSDAY - to fetch back more clothes so I can basically move into her basement for the week. I don't feel like there is any excuse for this, you guys.

So I need to focus on what is good about right now, because it's just not the case that I am actually a refugee from the blizzard. Right then.

My home is still standing. I can reach it safely. My belongings are intact and sheltered. I don't even think I've got anything in the refrigerator or freezer that can't survive a few days at a slightly-chilly room temperature before being re-chilled. I have friends close by with light and heat who are happy to take me in until I can go back again. I can work from home, or in this case from "home", and probably will, because my odds of getting to work while I am here in unplowed-street-land and my car is back in the land of the big blocks of ice (dug out, but still, back there) are pretty slim, especially if we get another TEN TO TWENTY INCHES tomorrow ... sorry. Positive. I can work from home and not have to spend vacation time doing it. I am not injured, beyond some aches from lots of shoveling out and hiking through hip-deep snow-piles, and a bruise on the heel of my hand also from the shoveling. And, right now, a splitting headache. I am not in danger. I am not sick. I am not starving or particularly dehydrated. I am not fretting about people I love who are in worse situations than I am in. (Of the people I love, I'm among those who have it the worst right now. Positive!) In fact, beyond a few days' peace of mind and freedom of movement, whatever does wind up being a loss in my kitchen, a pair of inexpensive gloves ruined in the shoveling, and (hey) probably fifteen or twenty bucks off my electric bill, when this is all over --

I will have lost nothing.