Meteor over the Atlantic, apparently.
The news opened with a flash report of it, unknown size and destination, made me flinch, still flinching, ready to accept the worst if necessary, it's been fun, oh well, etc. Hopefully, it's just a pebble. Reminds me of the time about 15 years ago when I got very, very baked at a co-worker's apartment in the afternoon. We turned the TV on, and CNN was in the middle of a story about worst-case-scenario asteroids. By "in the middle", I mean, they were at the part in the story where the scientific expert was speaking in the hypothetical present tense, and the screen showed a big picture of a monster asteroid with a frighteningly-numeric name. Meaning, for about a good solid minute, I was utterly convinced it was the surprise end of the world, and I was going to be experiencing it in a cutesy Beacon Hill apartment with a goofy acquaintance from work, and while at first my gut sank and my blood ran cold and my psychic aperture impossibly both squeezed tight and blew wide open simultaneously, within seconds I relaxed into a state of only moderate physical anxiety, I realized that, yeah, okay, this is it, so be it, I accept this, because, well, what choice is there, "es muss sein", "amor fati", "c'est la vie", and...then the story withdrew from the hypothetical and back into the actual present tense, and then there was a Cheetos commercial or something. Needless to say, I defy anyone to imagine a bigger buzzkill than that. Even on the morning of 9/11, after I had gone on one of my constitutional pre-work one-hitter walks throughout the back alleys of the Back Bay, when I was leaning back next to the building entrance and puffing on a Marlboro and reading the SCUM Manifesto, and then my girlfriend and my roommate who worked in the same building exited and delivered the news in a rather hysterical (anti-funny sense) way...my gut sank a little, blood froze a little, aperture went a little wild...and it was definitely a buzzkill of the highest order...but it was still out-classed as such by the time I thought CNN was reporting the world's end in real time. So, thank you, CNN, you accidentally anchored me emotionally to a worst-case-scenario that cannot possibly be exceeded, ever. CNN, the worldwide leader in the unintended cultivation of limitless stoicism, lol. Point is, I'm forever prepared for whatever, whenever, except I would prefer not to have to see the kind of mountainous tsunami I've had recurring nightmares about all my life, thx god.