Just a quick Editor’s Note:
This was the post I had mostly written up on Thursday before everything got sidetracked by my Grandmother.
Today I’ve spent just about all of my time working on homework. Considering rain has been the backdrop of a good portion of that time, I figured I would bring this back around with some minor editing.
It’s goofy and dumb, thus much less heavy than what I’ve been writing lately. So I thought it would be perfect!
Enjoy.
Now before you read on, I know what you must be thinking.
Writing a whole thing about the rainy weather in Southern California while huge patches of the East Coast and Midwest are frozen, to the point where railroads in Chicago are being set on fire to keep trains running, seems pretty self-centered and blind to the world.
Well now that I said it, you officially can’t levy that criticism at me.
So there.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m absolutely not trying to start some “woe is me” weather war with places that have it far worse right now.
There are plenty of other people far more deserving of your scorn.
It just so happens that my neck of the woods hasn’t seen heavy rain like we got this week in some time.
On Thursday I may have missed the thunder and lightning back home in Redondo, but my car got a hell of a wash out in Fullerton after I got it back from the mechanic.
That was only slightly more of an ordeal than I expected, and as soon as I got my car back I had to give away my keys for assisted parking. Ironic… But possibly a topic for another day.
The thing that drove me the most crazy about having to use assisted parking was that I was in early that day. Gave a pitch for our upcoming SPJ meetings around 11:00 a.m. in the basement of the College Park building, but I still couldn’t catch a break on finding a parking spot.
The sky was relatively calm when I went underground, but not ten minutes later I emerged to a torrential downpour. Especially fun considering I had to cross campus for my 1:00 p.m. class.
I’m somewhat ambivalent to the rain.
If you’re not doing anything, the rain makes for wonderful sit at home, drink hot chocolate and play video games / do homework weather. No denying that, given its what I did today.
But when you’re stuck out in the stuff, forced to navigate sopping wet hallways, packed in like sardines during campus rush hour while surrounded by fences due to construction…
It’s less great.
Plus rain sucks in Breath of the Wild. So like there’s a big strike.
There is one thing I do tend to adore about rainy days, even if it is innocuous.
I’m talking, of course, about standing under my umbrella.
… Ella, ella.
Hope you enjoy having that song stuck in your head now.
While I know it sounds ridiculous to tote “umbrella holding” as one of my favorite pluses to rainy weather, It’ll sound even more ridiculous when I elaborate that arguably the best thing about an umbrella is carrying it when it’s not raining.
Crazy, right?
Whenever the rain ceases, that’s when the umbrella becomes a perfect surrogate for imagination.
In my case, that means I’ll be swinging the damn thing around like a sword 99 percent of the time. So long as there aren’t people around to hit.
… Or judge me for being a crazy weirdo.
I’ve always been a fidgeter, handling things like my phone or video games idly. So a sword-like umbrella fulfills that inherent craving in a way I rarely get to play around.
However an umbrella still serves an imaginative purpose even when it is being used as a shield from inclement weather. I always enjoy spinning my umbrella as I stand out in the downpour, reminiscent of Super Princess Peach for the Nintendo DS.
She’s cute even when her magical anthropomorphic umbrella is eating her head.
I want to be that cute sometimes.
But hey, these are just the weird associations that are forged in a mind as complex and bizarre as mine.
So if you’re also weird and imagine bizarre things when you’re holding an umbrella, let me know! I’d love to find out once and for all if I truly am the only freak in the universe.
Jason's Blog - Work in Progress 