…wow, that’s as close to a kinky thread title as I’ve had yet.
So as much as I love lightning, I hate power outages. I’m in one right now, so I’m missing “Will and Grace.” Blast! Thank goodness phone lines have a separate power feed, and my laptop battery still has plenty of juice (although in about 90 minutes, I gotta power down). And thank goodness I set my own hours at work, so if I miss my alarm sleep in tomorrow, the boss won’t care.
So how the heck do you Dopers entertain yourselves when the lights go out?
hmmm, I’m definatly all for candel lit baths. Unless you have eletric water pumps. Then I usually make tea, and curl up in bed and go to sleep early. Long telphone conversation with someone you havn’t talked to in awhile. But if that all fails… you could always… DANCE NAKED!!! Just kidding… but hey no one around and it’s too dark see so it dosn’t matter anyways. I’ll keep thinking…
It’s a few years since we had a power cut, but I think the standard thing is to go outside and look at the stars. We get so few chances to see real darkness in our cities, try it.
Another great idea is to go outside and meet the neighbours. You have a great way of breaking the ice - just bitch about the power company, share a few beers. In no time, you will be friends forever or at least until the booze wears off.
Dancing naked is fine and I recommend it even without power cuts. Do it with a friend if possible - BUT DO IT INSIDE AND MAKE SURE THE CURTAINS ARE CLOSED. Remember - the lights will come on soon.
Back in the Blizzard of '93 (it had its own logo and everything), I read The Color Purple for the first time. After the sun went down, my sister and I played cards by moonlight. Let’s see, at that time, I was sixteen, and she was twenty. Ah, memories.
A few years ago, we had an ice-storm that resulted in the power being off for three days. There is nothing (including nekkid dancing) that can keep that from being anything but boring.
Of course there is: by having it go on longer. In the ice storm of '98, large sections around Montreal and Ottawa were without power. The cities were back up quickly. Being in one of the outlying towns was a different story, as we waited two weeks for the power to get back on. That sucked. We mostly passed the time reading, and listening to our little walkman which was hooked up to computer speakers. We went through a LOT of batteries and candles then.
We’ve had the power go out for a week two or three times. Usually in the winter from blizzards and ice storms, which sucks 'cause then you can freeze to death, but also you can keep your milk and other refrigerated goods fresh by putting them in piles of snow on your front porch. But once it was the middle of summer, thanks to a tornado or something, and all the food went bad and the air conditioning was off and it wasn’t fun.
We went to bed a lot earlier with the power off…
We’d light lots of candles and tell ghost stories, which probably isn’t as much fun if you’re alone; if we could get enough light we’d just sit there and read; other than that I can’t think of anything you can do in the dark by yourself that would be much fun, except masturbation…
Even when the power isn’t out, I like to regularly bathe and shower with all the lights off…with just candles to give a dim glow–sometimes a flashlight for a ‘spotlight’ effect…or sometimes just with no light at all.
I find it very relaxing–to be surrounded by dark, and embraced by the warmth…there’s nothing for the eyes to focus on. Everything just becomes calm.
