I had a tense day or two, waiting for east coast friends and family to check in after superstorm Sandy* last week. I even got mad and yelled at Facebook for making all those stupid fake storm photos viral. And for that, I got a lot of “right ons” and a few “get over yourself” comments — when I all I wanted was to find out what the hell was going on, as person after person posted “oops, power’s out, phone’s dying, storm is about to hit for real!”

Yikes.

[As you know that’s about as controversial as I want to get out here, so I’ll leave my new, raw election eve nerves unexplored in this space. But just know that if things go the way I do not want them to go, I am going to be destroyed.]

Anyway, back to Sandy! You know that I wield my considerable (lack of) influence to promote few things out here, too. However, supporting WFMU is one I do like to invoke, so I’ll invoke it now. The best radio station in the world, after been Sandy-slammed, really really needs your help:

The Storm took out power at our studios and BOTH our 91.1 and 90.1 FM transmitters, and thankfully electricity was recently restored to our Jersey City studio, where large amounts of electrical damage took place. We’re still trying to locate all of our staff members, some of whom suffered substantial damage and dislocation but all of whom are safe. We’re segueing into Disaster Marathon Mode as we uncover more and more damage at our studios and transmitter sites, combined with an enormous loss we’re taking due to the cancellation of the Record Fair.

So, please! Give give give to my favorite source of everything wonderful, WFMU.

If you want to feel better (especially if you want to distract yourself from the election horror horizon), check out one of my favorite sites, Humans of New York (also on FB). Photographer Brandon has been posting fantastic photos of everyday folk taking care of what needs to be taken care of, disaster relief-wise, in the hardest-hit parts of New York.

These two women came from the Netherlands to run in the marathon today. Instead of moping about the event being cancelled, they spent their time volunteering on Staten Island. Saw so many people in running gear today, helping New Yorkers remove debris from their houses. Makes sense— because nobody who signed up for a marathon is afraid of hard work.

Volunteers from the Staten Island Muslim-American Society, heading back to their car for more supplies.

Seeing all this, ALL this, makes me emotional for a variety of reasons. Life is terrible beauty. What have we wrought?  What will the future hold? Why can’t there be more selfless people? Etc?

[*Really? Superstorm Sandy? Must we cute-ify everything? Maybe we do that so we don’t all collectively throw ourselves under trains at the thought of how royally screwed up everything is.]