Thursday, June 16, 2005

Tell me, would I be a compromising whore if I told you one day of perfect weather, namely today, nearly made up for four months of wintry mix? I suppose the idea is to establish a set of meteorological guidelines and hold fast to it, raining judgment from on high and showering goodwill when appropriate. That plan, however, pulled into a rest area and never returned, the instant I took a walk and sold out faster than a starving artist.

All this talk about weather may lead you to believe I’m a real nature fanatic, in which case I need to clear the record. Stop besmirching my honor, please. I understand some of you may actually love camping, love it rotten, so to you woodland warriors I impart the cardinal rule of the great outdoors: eat all the red berries you can find. Other maxims call for hugging every bear you meet and licking every goddamn stoat you see, but I can’t be bothered with explaining them right now.

Have I ever gone camping? In a sense, yes. At this precise moment I’m looking at a starlit sky along with a bright, inconstant moon, only I’m doing it through a modern conceit known as “glass windows.” My private Eden doesn’t have mosquitoes and is regulated by Honeywell, thank you very much. I can already hear some of you open-minded, granola-eating types protesting, “But how can you hate camping if you’ve never tried it?” I hate it primarily because I can pull three random quotes out of the air and they could probably happen. Tell me I’m wrong.

“Look at the bear, mommy! Look at the bear mauling daddy.”

“OH HELL NOW HONEY I THINK A CHIPMUNK GOT INTO YOUR SANDWICH.”

“So, this compass. How do you make the little thingy stop spinning?”

Neighborhood walks? I can handle those. The breeze, the reassuring rhythm of my footsteps, the colors–it’s very relaxing, so much so I would’ve happily tooled around town for hours on end, darkening every doorstep like a Jehovah’s witness in heat. I usually bank on the fallibility of the weather forecast, but for the next nine days? Beat the odds, weatherman, beat the odds.