block #7: the "but it's raining!" block

Ok, so if you're anything like me (and hopefully for your sake you're not), you love the rain.  Now I don't mean just normal, "oh, yes, why I rather enjoy the smell of rain post-rain time," love.  I mean full on, "I want to go jump in puddles in the middle of the rain until I'm sopping wet like a dog after a bath" type-love of the rain.  I freaking LOVE the rain; I'm not kidding.


Need more proof that I love the rain?  Check out the background for this blog.  Yeah, that's been there all along.  Subliminal, or something.  Crazy stuff.


My brother and I once pitched a tent using a tarp and a broom so that we could sit outside in the rain in our pajamas.  Then, we turned our makeshift tent into a makeshift snail sanctuary because we were afraid that the snails were going to drown if we left them out in the rain.


On an unrelated note, we had managed to lock ourselves out of the house while my mom drove my dad to the airport, so when she came back and couldn't find us in the house, she was really confused until she noticed the bright blue tent in the backyard.  Yeah, my childhood was a little weird.

What it looks like when it's gloomy out in LA

So, lovin' the rain.  Maybe it's because I'm from Los Angeles, so I kinda have a long-distance relationship with rain...as in I don't get to see it a lot.  Not as in I really enjoy texting it, penning long, heartfelt letters and making thoughtful mix cds for it.  Cause seriously, dating the weather would be weird.


Now, normally when it rains I'm doing a whole lot of stuff, so I don't have time to wish I could be in the rain.  When you've got to go to class and meetings and work, you don't have time to think about the longing that makes pangs in your chest as you wish you could be jumping around in the rain like a three year old in hot pink rain boots.  (Shout out to my mom for never dressing me in pink rain boots.)


(Seriously?  Rain boots is two words, not a compound word?  When I type "rainboots," I get a red set of dashes underlining the word that implies HEY, YOU, YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG.  Huh.  Learn something new everyday.)


Anyway, back to my earlier problem.


Today is Sunday.  While Sundays are generally glorious days of being allowed to sleep in until 9:30, decaffeinated semi-awake time, and fighting my way through a pile of homework with a chainsaw (metaphorically, of course), they don't usually call for actual schedules, and are flexible in terms of what I can do and when I need to do it.


Today, this was a problem.  Because: THERE WAS RAIN.  And all I wanted to do was go run around in the rain, and I needed to focus and do work.  I just kept staring out the window and trying to find reasons that I needed to walk outside (example: I really needed to go over to the other building so that I could get a soda) and be in the rain.

IS SO BEAUTIFUL...I LOVE IT!

On top of that, the people that I needed to talk to for an article I was writing weren't emailing me back, so I couldn't move forward with writing the article, which REALLY gave me nothing to do, because then not only was I stuck inside refreshing my email every five minutes, but I also couldn't actually be productive, and my roommate had banned me from going outside and running around in the rain.  "For my own good," supposedly.


So how did I solve my rain dilemma?  Ultimately, I had to sit inside and actually do my homework because almost all of it required a computer, and the parts that didn't require a computer were parts that I couldn't actually do yet because I have to print them off of the computer and that requires walking to the library.  I would have loved to walk to the library so I could have been in the rain, but I don't own many things that are waterproof and so getting the papers that I had printed out back up the mountain to my apartment could have been challenging.  Cause professors don't generally like when you hand them mushy, soggy pieces of paper with some ink smeared on them that you claim is your homework assignment.  That's not how you make friends.  Or good grades.


Anyway, so back to my rain problem.  The following were the ways that I was able to combat my lovesickness and inability to be happy in general:
-Make a rain playlist, and then listen to it on repeat.
-Open the window when it started raining harder so I could listen to the rain.
-Sit near the window so I could feel the general chill of the rain.
-Think about rain a lot, and go to write this post.
-Take a shower, to improvise what it would feel like to be in the rain while still doing something productive.


And so on and so forth.


Eventually, though, I'm going to have to accept the fact that I don't get to play in the rain today and go be a productive adult.  But someday, the rain and I shall be reunited.  And it shall be glorious.