With Regard To The Last Post

OK, so I may love life, but it clearly does not love me. Stressors abound--I'm ridiculously broke thanks to a confluence of events, the end of the semester approaches WAY too quickly with its inevitable existential nightmare, and other matters too personal to mention--it's a perfect storm of all the things that on their own make me loopy, and for a poor little anxious-depressive soul like myself, well...I'm sighing a lot these days.

And tired a lot.

And I have little to no appetite. (Wait, that's a good thing--eating less is good.)

And...well, you all know. It's boring to talk about, and it's boring to read. It's the equivalent of a flare-up of arthritis, or a break-out of an unfortunate social disease. (I assume. Not that I'd know, personally. No, really! Ignore that rash!)

Anyway, I'm here, I'm gloomy, I mostly want to curl up and sleep for a sloth-like schedule of repose. But...thank you, Midwest...I continue to deal. And eat more fiber. I hear it's good for you.

Just Perfect

It snowed yesterday--just a dusting that melted as soon as it landed, but still, snow in April--not funny, Midwest. Not funny. Nevertheless, it's most decidedly spring here--but only just. The snow is off the ground and folks around here have clearly prepped their lawns for the new season, as green grass abounds. Also, small blue flowers of a type I'm not familiar with--lovely things, even if they are most likely some variant of weed.

Anyway--it's clear and cold--the sun is out, but it's not t-shirt season yet (good news for those of us who aren't...in the best shape for such things. I'm going to the gym, honest!) Squirrels are out in force, searching eagerly for...well, I assume for whatever they've buried over the winter; I refuse to believe that it's anything so prosaic as nuts.

But you never know.

Because today, I saw the first robin of the season. Just one. All alone. He (I'm going to chauvinistically masculinize him) swooped down on one of the newly sprung lawns right in front of me as I walked home from class today. The first robin of the season. The earliest. You can see where I'm going with this.

Because indeed, he did something I've never seen a bird do before. He plunged his beak repeatedly into the soil of the lawn, stabbing once, twice, a third time, and came up with--my God, do they really do such things?--a wriggling worm. Which he mulled over, then ate in a gulp.

In short--by an act of nature conspiring to render a cliche' comically literal--the early bird got the worm.

I love life. I really do.