Just kicking back

If yesterday was the bright, sunny, cheerful child of this week…today is its cold evil twin. The clouds rolled in late last night, and rain fell from about 11pm on through the early morning. Even now, the sky is thick and gray, and the ivy covering my back fence is slick with raindrops.

Regardless, I am loving the day, and the weather. My bedroom window has been open since yesterday morning and the different scents of nature have wafted through, taking my brain on tiny little journies while I clean my room or veg out with an episode of Northern Exposure. Some things smell so wonderful in the rain. I love the way rain smells no matter where I am. The smell of rain on freshly-cut grass…rain on warm pavement…rain on dry dirt. My favorite rain smell though is the scent of rain on the redwoods of our illustrious coast. You haven’t lived until you’ve inhaled the deep, sensual, almost chewy aroma of wet ferns and redwood “leaves.” The redwood groves are so thick and dense, and you can stand in a redwood forest through even the heaviest of rainstorms and never find yourself hit by a single drop of water. But the trees give off their wet scent nonetheless. If someone could capture that as a perfume, I’d be most amazingly satisfied for the rest of my days.

Right now Big Fish is playing on my TiVo, though I’m hardly paying it any attention except to pause here or there and marvel at how well Danny Elfman’s music always seems to complement Tim Burton’s visions. I think I shall always enjoy everything these men do, even if the critics don’t. Fuck the critics. They thought Titanic was a great film.

I feel like I should be doing something today. Right now even. And there are a dozen tasks I can name off the top of my head that I should really get working on. But I am instead sitting here in front of the computer, clicking away at the keys, occasionally taking deep breaths of fresh air to invigorate me. I’d love to curl up on my bed and finish off the last couple of chapters of The Honk and Holler Opening Soon, but I know that would only encourage me to nap, and I don’t want to waste minutes of my day fast asleep. I’ve napped enough for fifty men this past week. No more napping!

I have e-mails to reply to, PMs to clear out on the Gazette, thank you notes to write. Maybe today should be a day of writing. I haven’t written enough in the last few years, even abandoning my poor hardbound diary with the tiny purple flowers embroidered on the cover. It seems like such a waste to let paper and words sit unused when I find that I really do have so much to say. I think I’ve let too many bad habits get in the way of the stuff I truly love to do. Maybe now is the time to change all that.

But first I should really finish enjoying the breeze. I smell more rain coming on. It’s going to be a good rest of the day.