Rain-glers
Weather as reflected in mood

Ok, so this one's gonna be a li'l more personal than most.

This morning, Los Angeles was hit by something ressembling a massive rainstorm. Not quite a tsunami, but enough to eff up an already well-effed up city. It's been the kind of day that you hope they'll cancel school...but you're just not that lucky.

What's funny is that it seems like this stuff is just following me around, and to be honest it just kinda feels like I feel lately.

A few years ago, I started what was going to be my first novel. For a long time it did hold the record for the longest thing I had written. Then I managed to start and finish a handful of screenplays, and more recently have started and am nearly finished with what probably will be my first novel. Though I can't really stand it the few times I've reread it, I still contemplate finishing it. (If that makes any sense...)

Anyhow, the point was that that's what it was all about: the connection between the weather and my main character. It's just that there was no way to keep the whole concept from coming off cartoony. I didn't want it to seem too much like a guy with a raincloud literally over his head.

That's...ummm, whatyacallit....stoopid.

Nevertheless, like so many things in life, sometimes that's just how it feels. Like when you're really annoyed or in a bad mood but you're trying not to be, and all these little annoyances keep cropping up all day all at once. Stuff like your pencil breaking, the heel falling off your shoe, a tire going flat, etc. I'm not talking about the times when you're in a bad or depressed mood and you're enjoying it (face it, we've all had those). I mean when your tired of being in a bad mood or you're really looking for a reason to be happy, and you just can't make it.

That's kind of where I am.

When I drove from LA to central Texas for X-mas, it began to snow on me just outside of Las Cruces, New Mexico. Snow. Southern New Mexico. Snow. The desert. Well, ok, it's not like all sand like-the-Sahara-desert desert, but it's close enough. It continued that way from Las Cruces through to the other side of El Paso, TX. I mean, it was beautiful. The contrast and all. But it was strange....though oddly fitting.

The whole time I was in Texas it was twenty degrees or below.

When I left, it got a whole lot warmer, but by the time I reached LA the rain was settling in. Yesterday, it sprinkled some. Last night came the gully washer. (Gully washer...that's from being in Texas. Frog Strangler is another favorite.) This morning, I guess the freeways and whatnot were all flooded out. LA is not known for having a good drainage system.

All of this somehow ties in to the heavy denim shirt I'm wearing today. It's a Wrangler shirt. Black. Has silver and black snap buttons. I wouldn't call it waterproof but it dried off pretty quick once I got to work. It's a real cowboy shirt.

What the hell am I doing wearing a black cowboy shirt?

I'm originally from Texas. Though I love the state (and I do), though I think it's responsible for my gentlemanly behavior and my can-do attitude, and though my family and my roots are there, I've sort of done everything in my power to run away from the cultural marks of it.

For instance, I've always shied away from country music. For the first eight years of my life, I heard almost nothing but country music. It took years before I could even really be in the same room with it, and then a few more before I could actually listen to it. Even now, the only stuff I can really take are the classics: Hank Sr., Patsy Cline, Willie, Johnny, and Merle to name a few. I absolutely can't do any of the hillbilly/redneck celebration music, and I sure can't listen to any of that modern country pop. About the only direct offshoot from country that I do like is rockabilly (or in some cases psychobilly).

In terms of fashion, I've always gone down a fairly conservatively casual line. Some people of course can pull off a southwestern or cowboy look and still be cool. Some people just look like hicks. Some people are hicks. I don't want to look like a hick, but something in this shirt called to me.

Now, already once today, I've been told that this is a cool shirt. Now, that's good.

I still can't reach in and figure out what pushed me to want it in the first place. With the bad mood I've been in nearly all year and all the bad weather that's accompanied it, I'm not sure why I'd make an out there choice like buying this Wrangler brand cowboy shirt. I guess it just makes some sort of sense. I've been wanting a change in order to improve my mood, and maybe this is a subconscious part of that change coming to fruition.

It's black. The shirt. And the sky is...well, dark.

It goes together.

I'm giving up before I get too far behind.

Cheers.