Rainy Day Women:

I’m a rainy day girl. I get excited when I hear rain on the roof, and I don’t understand why you can’t call in rainy to just lie around and take baths and read all day. There are pictures in my baby album of my dad taking me out on the front porch in a rainstorm, and I’m laughing so hard you can almost hear it. I’m a cold weather girl, too. I love scarves and coats, and it always pisses me off when the perky weathergirl just assumes that we all live for 65 degree sunny days, all year round. If it’s December, then I want it to be cold, yo. And as much as I love the summer, too many spent in the stifling Oklahoma humidity make me wish they ended right after July 4, giving way to an extended fall. I usually can’t wait for this time of year, because January and February are like the Tuesday nights of the year, where it’s quiet and cozy but secret cool things happen unexpectedly. When cool things happen on a Tuesday night, they’re so much better than on a Saturday.

That said, I’ve been going crazy for a good old April thunderstorm lately—the thunderstorm, and the hour before it. I don’t really long for sun on my skin or warm breezes or anything; I just want to sit on my back porch balcony while the sky turns pink and smell that air right before it pours, when it feels fresh but still a little crisp, and you can’t be barefoot after the sun goes down. I’d prefer to have a tall boy in an old cowboy-style shirt fetching two beers and joining me on the porch swing to watch, but right now, I’d settle for just the thunderstorm.