rain and little creatures

Rain like this is infinitely more frustrating than rain that pours. This stuff--this cold, light, whining drizzle--is miserable. But it is making me fantasize about breaking out all of my nearly-forgotten sweaters and thick socks and blankets. I may also be going to Catherine's for a night this weekend and, selfishly, I'm almost wishing for a weekend with weather like this, so we can just snuggle on her big couch and drink tea all day long.

I'm re-reading Annie Dillard's Pilgrim at Tinker Creek because part of me wants to return to the earth and I appreciate her voracious mind. This woman has read everything about every conceivable topic. Everything fascinates her. I admire a writer who can focus and successfully execute an entire book that is not about people. She just spent two pages talking exclusively about the spiders she lets take up residence in her house. She will just sit and watch them spin webs over her coffee mugs and she set up towel bridges in her bathtubs so they wouldn't get stuck in the slippery ceramic basins. I like the idea of being that kind of woman (like Susan in The Waves, I imagine), but I admit that I violently drowned all of the big, thick-limbed spiders I found every morning in the tub at my house in Denver.

I want to give gold stars to people who whistle when they walk down our street. Surely they have happy hearts. No sad people whistle.

I wonder if my orchid will bloom again. Mom brought it back to me when she and Dad came up last weekend and it's sitting in A Room of My Own (henceforth abbreviated ARMO), craning its long, slender body toward the window. Right now, it's just a thin stick with big, waxy green leaves. I'm not sure what I have to do to coax it to reopen, but I'm still watering it once a week, like I was told. I wonder if she is resigned to being a stick forever.