Archangelic Forecast.

Somehow crawling locally forecastward has of late been difficult, though not for lack of weather: Yesterday's scuttling ragged storm remnants made for quite the show out in 27244, where it seems I now nearly live. It is that time in the semester, though.

Today may well have been the last flannel-shirted day, but we're not quite ready to call it here at Official ANYLF Set-In Spring HQ. There's a feeling among the staff that there may be yet a post-azaleal low-clouded misty day out there in front of us wherein all is plenty green, but wherein one could drink more coffee and more, shuck on a flannel, huddle on the porch in the wet with a copy of some book you've been meaning and meaning to get at but haven't yet.

You think azaleal isn't a word? Today was the last day of Moby-Dick out there at J. Crew U., and I had the distinct pleasure of discussing the adjective archangelic. Those kids are plenty mad at me. The white whale doesn't turn up until give or take page 600. They'd been, I think, expecting something a little sooner.

Tomorrow: warmer. Weekend: warmer still. The plot of a story that came through workshop this week: NBA superstar has singer-songwriter heart of gold beneath gruff athletic exterior. Today's use of colons at ANYLF: excessive.

Maybe Overnight?

I guess the WeatherDeck actually got wet sometime late this afternoon, but I'm not sure that this counts as real rain, and I know it doesn't count as storms. There is a little something trailing back off to our west, but it's still by and large in Alabama, so: We'll say a rumble of thunder overnight might not be the single most surprising thing you've ever heard, but don't bet heavy on it, either. If you've got new plants in the ground, you may yet have to water this week. If you didn't water last week and damn near killed your potted pansies, well, that's OK, too: We're coming up on May, people. It may be time to change those things out.

Azaleas in full show all over here in 27401, and everywhere else in the nearby ANYLF metro area. We're right genteel up on the Piedmont these days. Birds everywhere, everywhere, and carpenter bees, too. Busy time of year. Late April. How lovely. Now if I could just get out from under the weight of the sacks of exams, of the hundreds of pages of Moby-Dick I've assigned. I am in all relevant weather-related ways right now a complete and utter fool. Other ways, too, I bet.

Eighties coming late week. Sixties before that. A little something for everyone. We here at the forecast aim to please.

Outside, Outside.

The weather stops for no man, but I owe the book by Monday, so let's have a gentleperson's agreement, shall we, Weatherheads? Today, when it is so cripplingly beautiful that even the runt of the finch litter, Matthew (we named them), has fledged, let's say that you should be outside, determining the forecast on your own. Foreseeable difficulties: you may get a sunburn; you may have to turn your chair into or away from the glare, depending; you may have to drink coffee and a cold beer, possibly in quicker succession than is advisable.

Tomorrow there will be storms. Probably. If there are, then we here at ANYLF will do our damned level best to speak about them, perhaps even before they arrive. For now, though, friends and fans of deadline, back to the grindstone.

Better Today.

Sun. One fledged finch. Three left in the nest. Sixties. Frost warning, but nobody believes that. Or: those that do know that it's better to take your chances with the blooming transplanted azalea rather than drape a Barbie blanket across all them blooms. Hard week, hard semester, but one has to look at spring and not complain. More another time, friends and fans of weather, OK? I think the good weather's coming. I do.

So Tired.

Of: Kids not respecting the game.

Something I've always liked about the sort of long-toothed baseball guys, frowning down at certain of the upstarts: They don't respect the game, they say. Meaning: Kids don't know what matters about the game, don't know how to put a knee down, don't know when or why to put a glove in the dirt. Meaning: Kids think they're bigger than the game.

There is the occasional child in my office mewling and keening on about how desperately s/he wants to go to grad school, about how badly s/he wants to be a poet. Not near enough hand-wringing about poetry itself, though, friends and fans of the game. What irks me, finally: kids want to be poets, don't give any damn at all about wanting to know poetry.

Most irksome: Remember well my own laziness at that age, know well the selfsame egomaniacal laziness lurking at the edges of my life right even now today.

Not everybody who stops by is keening and mewling in irksome ways. But enough are. Enough are.

Weather News: Cold and gray out there off and on all day. Hard to say what it'll be tomorrow. Right now, it's dark. We'll know more, I bet, when it isn't. Finch News: Finches front left look right about ready to fledge. Finches front right still actually eggs. Hard to reckon the finch calendar. Seems like there are at least two good answers.

Oscar Season.

Chilly. Gray. Blooming. Friday and Saturday look like the days you want. Hang on until then. It'll be worth it. It will, it will. Until Friday and Saturday: Coffee, with whatever you need in the bottom of it. Dogs. Hats. Those things don't go in the bottom of coffee, but you know where we're headed with this. Don't you? Maybe you don't. Wear the clothes you want to wear, and keep your shit together. For fuck's sake do not watch this new Robert Downey Jr./Jaime Foxx movie about blind cello playing. That thing can only be uplifting.

Sorry, kiddies, for all the potty-mouthing. Sometimes when mommies and daddies see the cello movie preview one too many times, and when spring's been holding out on us, we lose our tempers a wee wee bit.

April is the cruelest month.

Rain, Perhaps.

Looks like we can't quite decide what we want the weather to look like—we say rain, but then all we get all day is low cloud cover and that damp air that says it's raining somewhere, just not here. Late evening: decide to mow the lawn, and then it spits on you the whole time, even though none of that shows up on radar. Oh, spring. Long sleeves and a watchcap. Azaleas all up and down the block in full bloom. Here's what I can nearly promise: Sun and warmth by the end of the week. In the meantime: Best to keep all your boots by all the doors. No real way of telling what we might see next.

SPC teased the flu-ridden forecast, lamenting her inability this past week to log on and see what the weather had been like the day before. Here, then, for Mr. And Mrs. America and all the ships at sea: We were gray and chilly all day, with some late-day drizzle, and showers picking up in your evening and overnight hours. This is the Carolina spring. There are other versions, too, but this is one.

Easter Dress.

We've put on our Easter dress here at ANYLF, and we're running the hallways in our sock feet, even though our mom is yelling at us that if we're not careful we'll probably ruin it, that good girls don't run around in their new Easter dresses. And then she's also saying, when she thinks we're out of earshot, Harold, I told you this is what would happen if we let her have that entire chocolate bunny before church.


But there's precious little to do on a day like today except to run the hallways—or, better yet, to go run in the grass, even though we're bound to fall down and get grass stains on our knees. It's crisp out there, and cool, coffee weather for the grownups, a sure and certain springtime. Maybe if we leave them alone, if we don't ask them for much, if we sort of keep to ourselves off to the side over here, they'll let us play.