Dérive by Marie the Alliaphage
December 19th, 2009 10:14 PM / Location: 38.995204,-77.01694
The weather report says there will be a foot or more of snow, quite a lot for this area. I'm in an interesting position when it comes to analyzing this storm. I grew up in California, in a town that saw snow twice in my eighteen years there, but I've spent the past four years in Chicago, fighting off mountains of snow whose only goal is to sap as much human energy as possible. Now, scarcely more than a month into my time in Maryland, I'm facing something that is still a novelty to me, but doesn't faze me as much as the people making last-ditch grocery trips and swearing they won't leave their houses tomorrow. This little flurry would hardly raise an eyebrow in Chicago. It can't be that bad, right?
December 19, 2009: oh my goodness where did all of this snow come from
The following is an analysis of the effect of inclement weather on the psychogeographical characteristics of the area. Movement patterns slow and shift; swirling, faceless crowds are replaced by straggling clusters of no more than a few hardy souls; plans for the day are abruptly changed from the daily grind to spontaneous exploration and, perhaps, a search for normalcy; strangers become not-strangers through necessity and chance; everyone seems to wear a disoriented thousand-yard stare.
Also: sledding!
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The view out of my apartment window prior to la dérive. 
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Stepping out of the building and into the storm.
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During the short time I've lived here, I have previously been north, west, and south in my meanderings. East is the only sensible choice for this adventure.
I quickly discover that these streets are now impassable to cars, and that I won't be the only pedestrian on my pilgrimage.
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This was an intersection. It remains one, I guess, although repurposed.
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"Go this way, then stop." Well, okay.
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Approaching a park.
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Fresh, unblemished snow before...
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...and after!
It's like getting to be the first person to dig into a jar of peanut butter.
Snow gets under my poorly layered clothing during the creative process. It's a wonder I don't get myself a nice case of hypothermia.
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Framing a distant, idyllic scene.
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I suppose this is one way to get to know the neighbors.
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Rows and rows of impending frustration.
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Abandoned after a desperate supermarket run last night? The world may never know.
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I see a couple embrace, then dash up a hill to what looks like a vast open field. Naturally, I follow.
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I've been deceived by my own eyes!
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I do get to see a bit of a snowball fight, though.
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Where does this hill lead? To further disappointment, or... to NARNIA?
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I'm beginning to catch glimpses of the answer, and it is...
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...neither of those! It is a rather large park, complete with playground. It is also not the same park from a couple of blocks back. Recreation is serious business here, it would seem.
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Is this the droid you're looking for?
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Someone appears to have needed half a bench in a hurry. Not the whole bench; just enough for one, or maybe two.
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What on earth will I do with this swing?
Do you really need to ask?
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The park seems almost endless and entirely still, aside from some movement on the horizon.
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I'm not able to swing very high, perhaps due to the snow on the ground preventing me from getting proper momentum, or maybe because I'm wearing a small caravan's worth of clothing.
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Dead end.
Time to turn left and head up the road perpendicular to the park entrance.
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Intrepid canine explorers. Yes, their humans are with them. Apologies to the puppy in the lower right corner. I was trying to give you privacy to relieve yourself, I swear.
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WHARRGARBL
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Another view of the park from earlier. The first one, not the second one. That is to say, if the me from eighteen pictures ago were taking her picture at the same time I am taking this one, we would most likely catch each other in the distance.
I am almost as confused as you are.
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Unusually-painted house, meet more-traditionally-painted house.
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Aside from the sign, there is nothing familiar here to tell me I'm not mere steps from wandering into a vast forest.
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Finally, a traffic light off in the distance.
We have reclaimed the roads for ourselves, staggering around like stunned survivors of some unspeakable fate, as if it were a nuclear bomb or a plague facing us, and not just a foot or so of snow.
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Even the major roads are curiously empty.
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Finally some cars turn up, but the balance has shifted.
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I try to step up onto what was the sidewalk to avoid a very slowly oncoming car, and end up falling to my knees in a snowdrift. I have to practically turn a somersault into the street to get out.
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In come the big guns. (Not for me. I'm already out of my predicament at this point.)
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This was a parking lot.
Now it is a field.
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This is a major intersection. At 4 pm, it should be full of drivers of varying skill levels. Severe cognitive dissonance impending.
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Downtown or ghost town?
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A row of festive smiles without faces. It kind of creeps me out.
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Wrecked.
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All doors are closed. I hear a girl whining to her friends about how hungry she is. They've apparently been hunting for an open fast-food place with no luck.
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This corridor seems to have its own gravitational pull; it's usually spilling over with people on the sidewalks and up and down the street. Today is the same, though to a lesser degree. Those who have come aren't finding many reasons to be here, and pace around in equal parts amusement and anxiety.
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When Starbucks is closed, you know the infrastructure is crumbling.
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The little snowplow that could. Maybe? No?
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Something's breaking down.
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I decide to see if the shelves at Safeway have really been ransacked as I've been led to believe. Barely able to move my hands from the cold, I paw at the elevator button in the parking garage, but no elevator shows up. As I leave to try my luck at the main entrance, four more people who have just pulled up in their cars flock over to confirm for themselves that, yes, it's not working.
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Apparently the people who frantically stormed this store last night were right to do so. Today, they're closed. I hear people in the parking lot exchanging news of other supermarkets that have done the same.
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It's time to head home before I freeze solid. There is more of the same slow dissolution as far as the eye can see.
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Back home, the cavalry has arrived.
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It never snows on our island on the southcoast, or so we thought. But it did last week. A lot. Compared to what you guys had it was nothing, but it was enough to stop the transport networks and force people to have a few more days of holiday. M had to go driving into it. She said it was like driving through Zombieland, with all the abandoned cars, and nothing else on the roads. Nature showed this country just how weak a centralised economy, which relies on lugging stuff and workers from one corner of the country to another, is when faced with a bit of changing climate. Local business boomed and people got more exercise, having to walk instead of drive.
Cookie likes your derive!
This is perhaps the most enjoyable derive I have yet read.