There's a new Blogger in town...

Hey kids,

I just wanted to take a moment to talk up(or in this case, write up)the newest writing endeavor of my good friend, Roy Petitfils, The Tropical Update. Roy is a columnist and writer, as well as a teacher at STM here in Lafayette. We worked on a book together over the last six months(damn Roy, can you believe it was that long?) and we share a love of writing and reading, among other things.

Such as hurricanes. More to the point, how they're hatched from hot plains a world away and then their brief but sometimes cataclysmic lives.

Some folks (among them my bride and my mother)are a little put-off when Roy and I say we're "hoping" a tropical storm or hurricane forms. They're certainly right on for having that reaction, since we're using the wrong words and thus feeding their misunderstanding.

We don't "hope" for hurricanes to form and cause damage and death. Not at all. We've both been victims of hurricanes in the past, in Roy's case physically, and in mine, psychologically. As I've shared here in past entries, I thought I was going to die as a result of Hurricanes Andrew, Katrina, and her bitch of a sister who decided to come on over a week or so later for a visit, Rita. In each of those storms, I didn't just "think I'd die," the way we often say we might when we take a chance on a yellow light or when we see a bug bigger than our own fist in our showers. I'm telling you that I had actually prepared myself for death. I felt that in each case, I could very well be killed by those storms.

And the truth is, I could have. We all could have been. For me and Roy and the others who are interested in these storms, it's not because we want to see misery, destruction, and death. It's simply fascination with a force beyond ourselves capable of doing such damage. We're awed by it, we're humbled by it, we're terrified by it. Yet like most people, we're also thrilled by that fear at the same time. Unlike most folks, though, we express our excitement and fear. Odd, maybe. But true nonetheless.

So we like to follow these systems as they form from a few rowdy barnstormers out in Africa or wherever else and become engines of terrible potency. I've had this fascination with deadly weather all my life. It started when I was a kid, sitting in the backseat of our family car on a Texas highway and wondering why the sky was black as night at two in the afternoon. I found out later that there were tornadoes touching down nearby. I've been "fascifraid," to coin my own word, ever since.

And dadgummit if you aren't, too. You just might not be as quick to admit. That's all fine and good, that's what we writer-types are for. We sketch with words what other people think, feel, and fear. In my case, generally the last.

So hop on over to Roy's The Tropical Update. Sit back and let us express your "fascifear" for you.

Chris