Thoughts During a Hurricane

New York City, along with a majority of the East Coast was hit by a hurricane this past week. A hurricane named Sandy (who no doubt was looking for a man, probably one by the name of Danny). And this innocuously named hurricane caused some damage. In fact, quite a bit of damage.

Last year, I sat through Hurricane Irene in my apartment in Washington Heights, while making a cake and wondering, "It's awfully quiet for a hurricane."

This year was a bit rougher and for a California-raised girl like me, definitely a wake-up call in terms of how powerful Mother Nature can be. Because while we had earthquake kits in California, we were never cooped up in our houses for days with water and bread we stocked up particularly for the occasion.

Here are a selection of my thoughts during the hurricane, in no particular order.

1. Working from home is not nearly as fun as "working" from home. For one thing, you need to actually try to be productive while in your pajamas, which is a mutually exclusive state of being. And in my case, I had to try and work with a server where I had to download every document in order to view it, and upload it back up into the server if I changed it. So more time waiting for documents to download and upload, and needing that piece of paper on my work desk that I didn't think to bring home. Though working and "working" are similar in that you can sneak in a quick nap during the day and no one will ever know.

2. Believe or not, when you wear nothing but pajamas for two days straight, you feel dirty and like a slob. The dirtiness feeling confuses me because technically, I have not been outside so I have not been getting dirty. I wonder if it's a withdrawal symptoms from productivity.

3. A New York City without power looks, scarily, like the New York City in almost every disaster movie ever made.

A photo of lower Manhattan completely darkened by Hurricane Sandy

A still of Manhattan getting hit by a tidal wave in "The Day After Tomorrow

4. Similarly, a New York City without a subway system looks like Los Angeles during rush hour. Except in the case of New York City, rush hour lasts all day. On Wednesday, when the subways were still down, I tried to get to work via the bus. It took my 45 minutes just to get to the street leading to the Queensboro Bridge. Normally, after 45 minutes, I would have already been at work and had coffee.

I took this freeway home every weekend when I went to UCLA. It sucked. Balls.

Traffic post-Sandy and pre-subway system restoration. Deja vu...

5. Drinking during the daytime during a natural disaster is the New Yorker thing to do. During my pre-Sandy, hunkering-down-on-munchies grocery run last Sunday, beer was the hot commodity, followed closely by bread. Indeed, I was prepared for Sandy with, not just ice cream and bread, but a bottle of red wine and a bottle of Makers Mark. And when did I usually start drinking? 2 p.m. Right after lunch.

6. Disasters bring out the most generous and beautiful part of humanity. And New Yorkers show their generosity and kindness in the most unexpected of ways. Observe the photo below.

Courtesy of Buzzfeed

7. Wondering how your friends were doing during and post-Sandy? Just check Facebook. Sunday came the "I bought beer, food and have Netflix, going to catch up on TV during Sandy." Monday and was "It sounds like a vacuum cleaner outside." Tuesday was "I'm okay! But pray for those who are without power." As for the people without power, well, they didn't update Facebook, which obviously meant something was wrong. Because if they were okay, they would have updated their statuses to say that they were okay, since that's what friends do for their Facebook stalkers.

8. I feel very close to New York City now. Like in any relationship, we have been through a large, potentially deal-breaker event. And yet I am still here, still willing to keep the flame alive. I guess that means the honeymoon stage is over. And I'm officially dedicated to this relationship. Next up: 40-degree weather!