Baby, when the lights go out

What SD looks like with no power

The words of the song from some boy band that I don't remember the name of make a perfect theme song for September 8, 2011: The Great Power Outage of Southern California. Too bad I couldn't listen to the song since the power was out and the Internet was not up.

Around 3:30 yesterday afternoon, I was washing my hands in the bathroom and all of a sudden the ligths began to slowly dim. I knew we had never been late on our SDG&E bill, so that couldn't have been the issue.

My guess was that because it was so hot for the last few days there was a brown out due to the overuse of air conditioning. This thought was annoying to girls who had been dying of heat in a 100-year-old house with no air conditioning thinking we had to suffer from the fat cats all cozy while worshiping freon.

Since the fans shut off, I took my computer outside–-it had some battery life left––and wrote the article I was working on outside where it was a bit cooler. I couldn't finish my work though because the Internet was down. So, I went back inside to read my 9/11 10th anniversary commemorative issue of TIME Magazine.

Before I could get to far in the tear-jerking stories my roommate texted to say she was stuck on a bus and that the power had gone out in Arizona and New Mexico, though I would find out later she meant Mexico. I, however, hadn't even realized that the power had gone out anywhere other than my street.

I figured if it had gone out that far I would call my dad to see if it was on in South Orange County. It was off everywhere in the county just two major streets south of his apartment, where he was sitting pretty with the air on and watching the news. Even with the news on, though he didn't have the information of what had happened. He did know that they had reported that power could be out until the next day and that I should get off my cell phone to conserve the battery.

Since it had started cooling down outside, but not in the house, I went for a walk down the hill to Little Italy, where people leisurely sat outside together talking and eating whatever the restaurants were still offering. Many of the shop owners sat outside with one another and drank beer.

Still not knowing what was going on I saw a white convertible at a stop sign blasting KPBS public radio, so I ran up to it to try to hear what they were saying, the the driver sped off as soon as I got up close enough.

What I have always known, but finally realized enough to articulate, is that I love power outages because the world stops.

One common reaction made by San Diegans is that they enjoyed the outage because they sat outside and talked to their neighbors, some of whom, they didn't know they even lived next to. The ironic part of this though is that I have discovered this shared notion via what people have said on online media, so clearly, everyone went right back to their computers to share what they did last night, when they didn't have a computer. Now everyone is of course bad mouthing technology addiction, on Facebook for that matter. I can't say anything though; I'm currently blogging about it.

My roommates and I watched  Friends on the computer until it died and then went out for a walk. We headed South, towards Downtown and realized that several of the high rises has generators. But we on the other hand could for the first time in Bankers Hill history, see the stars, lots of them, and the almost full moon lit up everything else. It was so quiet you could hear the crickets, and the few idiots driving by yelling stupid things at us.

Around 7:00 this morning, I woke up, went to the bathroom and turned on the light, but my heart sank a little when the room became illuminated. Oh well, I will just have to wait until next time.

Next time could be sooner than later as we have learned, all it takes is one person and one routine fix of a monitor, in Arizona, to leave 5 million people without power.

I still remember my first power outage; I was almost seven. I also made out for the first time during a power outage. When the boy and I came home from the beach his dad was down stairs lighting candles in the living room, but then went up stairs. It was very romantic. I also remember the massive power outage on Loma's campus on my 22nd birthday, yeah, Happy Birthday to me. At least none of my memories involve being trapped in an elevator. If that happens it could easily tarnish all of my good memories.