How 'bout this weather we're having?

I know, lame. I'm writing about the stereotypical I-have-nothing-to-say-but-I-feel-the-need-to-make-conversation topic. But look at it this way: it's a topic, and a concrete one at that, and I intend to stick to it. Which is more than I can say for my last handful of posts.

And besides, for me, the weather is not just an empty conversation topic. Really. As a child I first became obsessed with the weather during the Blizzard of '93. Norm and I were on a first-name basis. Up until I came to college, I saw meteorology as one of the principal career options for my future. I think I even wrote about it in one of my admissions essays to Cornell (which has one of the few strong programs in meteorology/atmospheric science). I can almost guarantee that it was anecdotal and cheesy. Sometimes that works.

Only recently did I come to a realization of my continuous obsession with the sky (hence the name). It was Naiad who pointed it out to me. And it's true. I always notice the color of the sky (did you see how blue it was yesterday? today I would say it's more the color of a dingy white sock. no gold toes in sight), the shape of the clouds (sometimes I try to compose verse about them, usually with little success), and any precipitation that happens to be falling from that great expanse over our heads (and I don't mean a leaky ceiling).

Which brings me to my point (yes, I actually have one). Today, the 6th of April, 2006, it is snowing. Snowing. In April. And sticking to the ground. I actually trudged through a half-inch of snow/slush on my way home from class this morning. And now my pants are wet. Pant cuffs, that is. On the way to class I was listening to the snow falling on my umbrella (as silly as umbrellas in the snow appear to me, I have been known to propagate absurdity from time to time). It was, I'll admit, a sort of pleasant, delicate percussive sound, rather more comforting for its constance than perturbing for its incessance. It was perhaps not ideally accompanied by Ben Folds' crooning in my ears, but I declined to do something to change that because my hands were occupied with the task of clutching Wheelock to my chest under my umbrella. Because, even though I sometimes find him abominable, I saw no reason to let him become a snowman.

So here I am, watching the snow fall outside my window, thinking about how just three days ago the weather was so gorgeous and so perfectly sunshiny spring that I sat outside in the giant pinball machine for three hours and got a really beautiful sunburn to prove it. I should have seen this coming (the snow, not the sunburn, although I really should have seen that coming too. but it was such a beautiful day and I had a 5-hour break between classes). I mean, I have lived here long enough to know that the weather is terribly fickle. Even though we have had several days of springlike weather this year, I was reluctant to put away my winter scarves because I just knew that winter wasn't really over. After Monday, I figured that spring just had to be here to stay. So I put them away.

I'm afraid the sky may be spiteful. This might be my fault. I am sorry.