Love, Rain, Or Me

I woke up slowly this morning. The windows were thrown wide. The screen door was open. A breeze blew through my bedroom. And then I heard the rain.

The sky was growing light. The air was cool. The patter was soothing. The clock read 5:31. My alarm was set for 6:30. I decided to forgo my morning run and rest a while longer.

I finally stirred from sleep around 8:00. I jumped online, and spent an hour sorting through email. The MTV Movie Awards premiere tomorrow night. There was a lot of email.

I showered, gathered up my clothes and walked downstairs. I like to get dressed in front of the TV, catch up on the news. The Today Show is typically nauseating by 8:30, all beauty and style tips. So I flip between NY1 and CNN. I changed shirts three times (from a gray, green and blue dress shirt to a black checkered dress shirt to a blue dress shirt), pulled on my shoes (with an assist from a fork — the show horn was nowhere o be found), grabbed a three dollar umbrella and stepped out the door.

The patter of the drizzle yielded to engines and horns, then finally my iPod. The gentleman stepping into the subway before me attempted in vain to hoist his protection from the elements deep into the staircase. When it became clear to him that his umbrella was too wide, he paused mid-stairwell, shook it, wrestled it down and walked on absolutely oblivious to the fact that he a) stalled me in the downpour for a full ten seconds before b) shaking his umbrella out on my head.

At that point, instead of strangling him, or throwing him down the stairs, I reached back into my memory to that moment when I first woke up…

The sky was growing light. The air was cool. The patter was soothing. I decided rest a while longer.