Its Only 365 Days
178/365: THE LEFTOVERS
26 JUNE 14
I love stories about good v. evil, god v. the devil, humans v. angels...sort of all those existential questions out there about us and this idea of the religion behind us. I don't consider myself a religious person, have never gone to church and briefly had a falling out with my mother who tried to force me and my brother to go during her phase of, as she called it, "her quest to save her heathen children." It was totally out of the blue---we'd never gone to church before, she'd never 'made us' go as kids, just all of a sudden she started going to church again, and it was, I have to save everyone and everything. Yeah, that did not go over well. Not well at all, especially since I asked at the time, what about me made me a heathen? I was a straight A/B student in all honors classes, no drugs, no drinking, my bf was definitely not a rebel, and all my friends were like me---the good kids. I didn't understand how all that was just erased because I didn't go to church, something I'd never done. So thankful I have a very understanding dad. Love.
Anyway, I randomly picked this up from the books on tape pile at the library and for 6 weeks didn't get around to listening to it, so I had to return it, only to find out oh so randomly that it had just been made into an HBO show, one that I hope to watch the next time there is another free view, so I wanted to listen to it. There isn't anything incredibly remarkable about it yet. I've read the Left Behind series, so I feel like this so far is a tame version of that. I think LB was more big picture idea of what would happen if the rapture happened, and TL, is more the mundane personal stories of the everyman's reaction to people just up and disappearing. I'm oddly enough relating to it from a standpoint of Hurricane Ike. Having lived on the coast all my life essentially and gone through so many tropical storms, but never a big one, when Ike hit, actually hit Houston hard, it was such a shock. We'd barely escaped the clutches of Katrina, and now Ike took a whack at us. People just started leaving and exiting the city to the point where it was empty and silent. My friend posted a picture of him chilling in the middle of the bloody freeway! But after fleeing to my aunts, and then coming back, it was like you saw the damage, you saw the missing, you wondered how everyone else you knew was doing. Electricity was out in a good 75% of the city so night was extremely scary, and the day was like, what do you do. I remember that feeling of joy a week later at finally being able to go to an open grocery store--everyone was a zombie shuffling along in pajamas and bad hair grabbing at the last of everything, waiting on the first of something to be put on the shelves, but it wasn't quite right because your usual people weren't there. The neighbor you waved to wasn't there. It was crazy. It was probably one of THE craziest experiences of my life, so I'm thinking about that as I read this.
178/365: THE LEFTOVERS
26 JUNE 14
I love stories about good v. evil, god v. the devil, humans v. angels...sort of all those existential questions out there about us and this idea of the religion behind us. I don't consider myself a religious person, have never gone to church and briefly had a falling out with my mother who tried to force me and my brother to go during her phase of, as she called it, "her quest to save her heathen children." It was totally out of the blue---we'd never gone to church before, she'd never 'made us' go as kids, just all of a sudden she started going to church again, and it was, I have to save everyone and everything. Yeah, that did not go over well. Not well at all, especially since I asked at the time, what about me made me a heathen? I was a straight A/B student in all honors classes, no drugs, no drinking, my bf was definitely not a rebel, and all my friends were like me---the good kids. I didn't understand how all that was just erased because I didn't go to church, something I'd never done. So thankful I have a very understanding dad. Love.
Anyway, I randomly picked this up from the books on tape pile at the library and for 6 weeks didn't get around to listening to it, so I had to return it, only to find out oh so randomly that it had just been made into an HBO show, one that I hope to watch the next time there is another free view, so I wanted to listen to it. There isn't anything incredibly remarkable about it yet. I've read the Left Behind series, so I feel like this so far is a tame version of that. I think LB was more big picture idea of what would happen if the rapture happened, and TL, is more the mundane personal stories of the everyman's reaction to people just up and disappearing. I'm oddly enough relating to it from a standpoint of Hurricane Ike. Having lived on the coast all my life essentially and gone through so many tropical storms, but never a big one, when Ike hit, actually hit Houston hard, it was such a shock. We'd barely escaped the clutches of Katrina, and now Ike took a whack at us. People just started leaving and exiting the city to the point where it was empty and silent. My friend posted a picture of him chilling in the middle of the bloody freeway! But after fleeing to my aunts, and then coming back, it was like you saw the damage, you saw the missing, you wondered how everyone else you knew was doing. Electricity was out in a good 75% of the city so night was extremely scary, and the day was like, what do you do. I remember that feeling of joy a week later at finally being able to go to an open grocery store--everyone was a zombie shuffling along in pajamas and bad hair grabbing at the last of everything, waiting on the first of something to be put on the shelves, but it wasn't quite right because your usual people weren't there. The neighbor you waved to wasn't there. It was crazy. It was probably one of THE craziest experiences of my life, so I'm thinking about that as I read this.