I got this stupid e-mail questionaire today and the 80 million people on the e-mail kept answering all of the questions and hitting reply to all. Situations like this drive me crazy, so I decided to teach everyone a lesson and answer that moronic thing and send it right back to them. Tooling my way through the answers like the bitch that I am.

One of the questions on the e-mails was "Storms: cool or scary." I had a few answers for this. Such as..."I am a storm blowing in and out of your pathetic lives and I am both cool and scary," or "Only cool if it's scary."

The question popped back in my head tonight as I stared out at the Nor'easter ripping through Manhattan. Damn, she's pissed. And she's beautiful. And she's scaring a hell of a lot of people and damn, if I don't think that cool.

Storms make me feel alive. I feel like I channel their electricity. Like the current runs through the air and connects with my cosmic reality. I feel like the Bride of Frankenstein...sitting up on that table..."She's ALIVE!"

There's nothing I love more than walking out unprotected into a summer storm. Lightening and thunder crashing around me, heat lighting up the sky and the knowledge on my brain that at any minute it could connect with me and end my life.

It drives my mother crazy when I do that. She's deathly afraid of storms. Turn-off-the-TV-and-unplug-the-phone scared. I don't care. I feel more alive than ever when I walk barefeet into the maelstrom and let the rain pelt me and the winds blow me and my teeth chatter and the lightening reflects in the irises of my eyes and the thunder resonates through my eardrums and it hits closer and closer to where I am, the baby hairs on the back of my neck stand at attention.

It's arousing. It charges me. I feel invincible.

I've always loved what scares me the most. When I come home, I walk into the dark apartment and I don't turn on the lights right away. I walk through the still, dark apartment, silently daring an invisible attacker. I roam the streets of seedy New York late at night, almost seeking trouble. Antagonizing it. Baiting..."here...trouble, trouble, trouble."

My father owns this building that used to be a speakeasy back during Prohibition. It's magnificent. Stained glass windows, set in old, heavy wood from German forests. Incredible sculpting along the ceiling...moldings that could make a skilled craftsman cry. Ceramic tiles made and imported from Bavaria. It is, exquisite.

When I was younger, maybe 10, I used to entertain myself in this basement of his building. Running my hands along the intricate moldings. Sticking my fingers into the bullet holes in the walls, where the police shot into the air to clear the place during a raid. I imagined myself, grown and beautiful, a 20's flapper with a sexy cigarette holder and fishnets held tightly in place by garters, circulating through the room and making conversation with dangerous men. Always, dangerous men. Being groped as I walked through and putting these dangerous men in their place like Mae West.

There was a secret escape tunnel. Hidden behind one of the huge oak panels. You moved the panel and behind it was a hole they had blown into the cement structure with dynamite. It was jagged and dusty, but I would climb in there, still wearing my Catholic School uniform and find my way through the tunnel to the wine cellar, which had a back exit for quick escapes back in the day. Capone style.

There was a hat with a mining light to use, but I never did. I can remember, the feeling I would get when I would push back the panel and prepare to crawl into the still, musty darkness. Excited, like a storm. And when I was on all fours, crawling through the dingy, tight space - I could feel the baby hairs on my arms and legs and back of my neck standing on end. Electric.

And isn't that what's so exciting about life? The impending danger we feel, moving forward and not knowing what's ahead? Each new chapter, bringing a new revelation. Each relationship, uncharted. Aren't we most unhappy, when we get into ruts? When we wake up and know what lies ahead of us each day.

I think I must spend an extraordinary amount of time, mixing up my life. Just for the element of surprise. So nothing runs smoothly.

But don't we all seek the element of danger, of the unknown? Don't we all want to be scared sometimes? Isn't that why men and women leave their partners? Isn't that why we change jobs and professions? Isn't that why we love scary movies? Why we drive fast? Why we create our own dramas and why our society is engrossed with soap operas?

We seek the danger. If not in our own lives, then we look to displace that emotion and invest it in performers. We get swept up in their lives as if it's our own. It's the emotional rollercoaster without the repercussions. Genius! So Marylou in Minnesota can relish in the secret that she knows Jack is cheating on Jill without having to assume any responsibility. She can just turn the channel and go back to making hamburger helper for her honey. Love that.

Personally, I'd rather take my danger firsthand. Can'tcha tell that yet? I play with fire in everything I do. I smoke...will it kill me? I've done bad things. I go to bad places. I know bad people. Oooh.....I'm so bad.

And then I come here and moan about my life. Why don't I have a boyfriend? What will become of me? moan, moan...

It's really a scream, isn't it? The whole lousy charade. We run like rats seeking answers to our problems and our questions, but do we really want them? If we have them, are we happy? When will we be satisfied?

What, will make me happy? Who? What?

I don't know if I will ever be happy. But right now, I am enjoying the not-knowing of it all.

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