Winter Reminiscence

My favorite thing about snow is the way you can watch it for hours and hours without blinking or looking away or getting bored. Um, if you're a semi-torpid blue-bellied lizard, that is.

My old college roommate was a blue-bellied lizard, you see. We used to go up to Lake Tahoe for winter break (at my school, we called it winter break instead of Christmas, as a way to make Australians feel hurt and excluded.) He loved the snow. He could just sit there, cold as snow, barely alive, staring blankly. All summer and fall he'd get excited about those trips. He found it so relaxing. It was like a vacation.

Exactly like a vacation, I guess.

And I'd try it, sitting and staring, but I'd just get bored and want to ski or make snow angels or something. Not the kind where you just flop on the snowy ground and wave your arms, mind you. The kind where it's a giant rotating wheel with seven eyes and seven wings. In the snow. Because I was bored from staring.

We didn't drink booze in college, me and my friends. Instead, we got semi-torpid and/or invoked Ophanim.

And that's why this is such a special time.

Merry my brother's birthday's eve, everyone!

Snails!

I spent this afternoon counting snails. Not, like, trudging around a garden looking under leaves. I'm way too lazy on Sundays for that, and besides I'd get all dirty. Instead, I lay in my hammock (spread out across two buildings ten stories above the sidewalk) and imagined as many distinct snails as I could.

The six hundred and third snail I was imagining turned to me, and said, "Hey, can we talk?"

( We discussed his troubles. )

Any help, folks?