What a day for an ego trip. Up at five AM eating blueberry cheesecake and noticing heavy grey clouds hanging outside my window and this hell, yeah moment that translates into 0905 hours walking down Southern Avenue feeling like the Amazon just grew here, then in a bus full of shivering schoolchildren [(with bags) looking like hunchbacks] with raincoats on, it's almost like vindication except I'm not that dramatic or perverse. Oil puddles streaming out like rainbows from under autos, I'm still going hellyeah yeah yeah yeah. Plus frosted windows and empty roads and roaring and roaring and roaring, I can't remember a twenty-third that's been otherwise. As a young and depressed lass I could always be pushed to writing poetry about being a doomed stormchild. Besides there were birthday parties and things, no one came and rescheduling was the biggest embarrassment I could think of, I don't know why. As a sour old biddy, though, I can afford to go well to hell with that and sally forth in chappals and stringy hair. I shall jump in puddles. I shall walk through more rain, please let there be more rain. I shall write a story.

If my grandmother were Japanese I could write one about her telling me tales about cloud gods and cherry blossoms but I don't suppose it's necessary, no, it's raining for me today. In a moment I shall light candles in my room in broad daylight. In another I shall go and join the pigeons sitting rumpled in a row outside my window, only on this side of the glass.