January's theme:"So take a deep breath and count back from ten/And maybe you'll be alright" A Separate Lid Behind Closed Eyes

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Jason recommends the album, Girly-sound Tapes by Liz Phair

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August 15, 2002 // 6:02 p.m. // Where there's sparks, there's fire

The power is off. The power is on. Which is it? Both, actually.

You see, my dad decided once and for all to fix the motor in the swamp cooler, and for some reason to check it out, he had to turn off various fuses as they weren't marked. "Save whatever you need to save" he told me, and I temporarily halted the creation of my next compilation CD.

The first fuse is switched, and I see the televsion go off. The second one is the one, as I see my light and television go off. This means the left half of the house (my two rooms, mom's room, bathroom) has been stricken with power paralysis, while the other half (computers, kitchen, dining room) is running rampant with power.

This means no television, no DVD's no VCR no CD changer (I cannot complete the CD compilation sitting in front of me) and perhaps most importantly, no air of any kind. Even though my room is dark, I cannot even lie in there comfortably, as I have no fan. The indoor temperature: 92 degrees.

And there's more. While fixing the mass amount of swamp cooler wires growing out of the wall, he created more than a few scares. He touched two wires together, and they created quite a few sparks. Enough to make us think their landing on various things could create a small fire.

And then it progressively got worse with each pair of wires he touched together. First the red and green. Zap! It sounded like a lightbulb burning out as a light is turned on. The blue and the red. Zap! Louder sound, and a river of sparks. This prompted me to get up to check if he were okay, and ended with my sister telling me it was no big deal. She said this after literally being in a direct line of fire of the sparks earlier and witnessing some of them landing on her shirt.

By the third, fourth, and fifth time, we had learned better. Nobody stood in the hallway with him, and these came in rapid succession. All three within a minute, as he paired up even more hot wires, which in and of itself should have proved that the shutting off of fuses to the left side of the house did nothing to cut power to these wires.

But the third, fourth and fifth touching of wires. Scary. These weren't just sparks, these were streams of sparks that before today, I thought could only come from small fountain fireworks or a chainsaw making contact with metal. Streams of sparks came from these wires no bigger around than your average outlet plugs. How he wasn't shocked or burned by these streams is beyond me. Perhaps because he stood to the right as they shot to the left.

So after nearly electrocuting and setting his clothing on fire, he said very calmly and emotionless, "I think this means the motor is broken." All of that terribly scary and risky behavior only proved what we already knew. And with that, he covered the exposed wires, and left without turning on the fuse.

And that's where I am right now. Sans power, music light and more importantly air from my fan.

I've survived for 2 1/2 hours. I think I can do another thirty minutes. But for all of this, I'd better not have to miss my mystery show due to a power outage. That could cause some real fireworks.

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