This is it

The apocalypse, that is. In several steps:

The sky tonight was not quite a tornado sky but a butter yellow plus haze (butter smoldering in a pan, smoking but not burnt), along with pink and purple and navy blue. You are supposed to take pictures of these things to post and later to send to local news outlets who need footage, especially if it IS a tornado or pre-tornado and not just murky butter-sky. Instead I stood on the sidewalk and turned 360 degrees to take in the whole sky and wondered if the man driving by in the Jeep with tinted windows was someone I knew, wondering why I was spinning in a circle.

Today I was compelled to get a password reminder so I could log on to MYSPACE, which is a post-apocalyptic scene replete with desert and industrial smog. Some of you were there, un(re)touched since 2007, filterless, showing your eternal love of Death Cab for Cutie. I'm right there with you. I remembered when my profile photo was taken: we'd gone to the Purdue campus for a day trip to take our minds off of fertility treatments. We drank root beer floats at Triple XXX and walked through air so humid you could practically see the water droplets. We were about a week away from finding out those treatments didn't work, that I wasn't pregnant. The day the photo was taken was the same day Michael Jackson died. (Context clue to signal late June 2009, specific date I cannot recall and do not feel like researching, because that was not my particular apocalypse.) I still have the purple tank top I wore in the picture, but not the brown one layered underneath. I ought to delete the profile but it stands like a monument, and history exists whether we delete it or not.

Now we have two kids, almost 4 and almost 2. The things you think will sink you wind up not, sometimes. Now it is the day-to-day. The stress and hustle. The full moon behavior when there isn't a full moon at all. I could tell you stories, but I hesitate: these are their stories, not mine. My desire to protect is stronger than my desire to disclose. I will say that the oldest has taken to doing a very funny routine in which he imitates my husband and me telling a story in which we imitate the baby's speech and actions. We told this story several times recently to several people, and Big Brother is Watching. Hears all, sees all. Takeaway from the comedy routine: my husband and I say "like" a lot. Like, a lot. Now we can tell a story about our son imitating us imitating his brother. And then he can tell the story. Let the circle be unbroken. 

Minor apocalypse: a contractor's coming by tomorrow during a specific window. I've received a reminder message EVERY DAY for a week about this appointment, this window. Tonight the phone rang. I joked that it was the company, thinking, No. It is not really the company, not again. But yes. One last appointment reminder. Unless I get another one tomorrow morning. Unless the world ends before then, on account of the burning butter sky.

This is it: